jayhat

Archive for 2009|Yearly archive page

A Lesson on Grammar

In English, Language, nature, What people are on December 18, 2009 at 4:22 am

In English, an obviative form of a verb is used to differentiate two otherwise ambiguous third-person pronouns.  For instance, the sentence “Melanie borrowed Linda’s car” can be expressed as “She borrowed her car,” or even more ambiguous, “Melanie likes what Linda likes” can be expressed as “She likes what she likes.”  So, an obviative form would likely be a marker—some sort of affix—used to differentiate “she” from “her” or “she” from “she.”

Of course, in English we don’t have an obviative form.  We allow for the ambiguity, relying on the speaker—or writer—to avoid using pronouns in ambiguous situations.  So, for the cost of a single, extra rule of grammar, we pay by having a limitation imposed on the language.

The reason I bring this up—other than to show that English has its limitations—is to point out that we have words in English that exist only as a means to express things we don’t do.

“Obviative” is an English word that describes something we don’t do in English.

I use this to illustrate the fact that, while there are plenty of things that we do that don’t make sense, there, too, are plenty of things we don’t do that do make sense.  But we still don’t do them.

In both cases, change comes with rationality.  Or reality.

Or a gentle prod from someone who cares.

Seven Days

In Dreams, Imagination, nature, What people are on December 11, 2009 at 9:07 pm

On the first day of July, a baby was born, beautiful blue eyes blinking before he’d even breached.  The only sound he ever made was a faint grunt, as if coming to a conclusion after ruling out a number of less likely possibilities.

On the second day of July, a toddler taught himself to walk by mimicking the sky’s clouds that galloped passed his nursery window.  His bounding gait taught others how to dance and proved to birds that it was possible to fly.

On the third day of July, a frumpish little boy walked along a black sand beach along the north fork of the Isle of Man, staring over the water at the water color, rainbow sunset.  The gentle breeze whispered sweetly a song of praise, a psalm, an anecdote, advice on how to grow up, how to be a father an uncle and a brother.  The frumpish little boy grinned and spit into the sea.

On the fourth day of July, an awkward teen fumbled through his clothes, looking for a lock or a clasp or a hinge or a knot.  Although he had never seen it with his own eyes, he knew it was there, which is why he stumbled, stammered, paused, or blushed.

On the fifth day of July, a young adult made his bed.  He folded the corners and tucked the sheets, he fluffed the pillows and replaced the comforter.  He stood back, looking upon that which had created and realized that, in reality, he had not actually made anything; rather, he had simply reorganized what had already been.

On the sixth day of July, a man sat on his couch, reflective of his life thus far.  He remembered the good times, yes, but he also considered all of the wasted hours and how fast it all seemed.  He wondered if there was something that he was missing or if this was really it.

On the seventh day of July, an octogenarian stubbed his toe, yelled a curse, and was struck down, dead by the god he swore he never believed in.

I attempt to prove the existence of reality

In Dreams, English, Imagination, Language, nature, What people are on October 8, 2009 at 5:03 pm

I think, therefore I am.

I am, therefore I do.

I do, therefore I act.

I act, therefore things happen.

Things happen, therefore things change.

Things change, therefore there exists something outside myself.

There exists something outside myself, therefore I am not alone.

How Time Is

In non-fantastical, physics-nature-etc. on October 1, 2009 at 10:31 pm

Time is a funny dimension:

Length, width, and height, though often relative—certainly, at least, to each other—are somewhat constant. Though a solid might be taller or longer or wider, its dimensions generally remain stagnant. If one place is further from another, it’s unlikely to ever be closer—at least in our lifetime. If one lake is bigger or deeper than another, it’s unlikely to ever be smaller or shallower—again, at least in our lifetime. Of course, man can alter these dimensions. Something, by subtraction, can become shorter, smaller, or thinner.

Time, on the other hand, is completely unaffected—at least, intentionally—by man. By its nature—which is to say, it moves only in a single direction—something can be older, but if it is, it can never be younger.

But time is also fluid.

Sometimes it moves fast. Sometimes it moves slow. One minute might feel like five, another ten might feel like two. The only constant with time is that it is perfectly measurable and always—in a practical sense—relative only to itself.

A mile might not seem that far if you’ve already traveled a hundred and ten stories might not seem tall next to a skyscraper, but ten stories from a mile is shorter than the first knuckle of your middle finger.

An hour will always be an hour—independent of space.

It just might not seem that way.

Shades of Gray

In non-fantastical, Sports, What people are on September 21, 2009 at 10:46 pm

My friend,

This is not a world of extremes. Surely, extremes do, in fact, exist, but they are rare. Really rare. As rare as a perfect circle or a certain snowflake. As rare as you are exactly–exactly–the same.

Extremes are defined by what they aren’t. They aren’t what everything else is. In shades, black is extreme because it is [not white]. White is extreme because it is [not black].

Every other shade is some variation of gray because it has at least a little black and a little white.

In the shade spectrum, there are a single two extremes for infinite grays.

This, extrapolated, is how life is. Given something–anything–there are two extremes that provide counterexamples rest of the mass of humanity.

Think of this in sports terms, if you will–if we can agree that there exists someone, at sometime, who was the best at a given sport or event or position–then he or she or it is one extreme–or [not bad]. The other extreme, then, is the individual who was the worst–or [not good].

–And just as surely as someone–at his or her or its peak–was the best, someone must have been the worst–

Everyone else, since they weren’t [not bad] or [not good] are a shade of gray, some combination of bad and good, no matter how close he or she or it is to a given extreme.

–Or, the second best putter ever–ever–to touch a golf club is/was/will be slightly more bad than the best putter in the history of humanity, who is, by our definition [not bad]–

The reason I bring this up is because the ratio of anything to infinity is zero. Despite the fact that the world speaks in extremes–in labels and genre and hyperbole and shortcut–extremes are statistically insignificant. We speak of conservative and liberal, of smart and stupid, qualified and unqualified. We speak of amateurs and experts, of best and worst, quickest, tallest, and shortest. Of exceptional. Of insubstantial. Of gay and straight.

If, statistically, no one is any one thing, then everyone must be composites of everything. Yet, no one ever acknowledges this fact.

The Fall

In Ancillarious, novelish, Writing on September 17, 2009 at 7:54 pm

Something happened and then the midnight sky bled with the embers of a burning city.

Below, a stale crimson fog lavished and hung. The sewers flooded through broken pipes, a viscous water that stank of dog and rot and sweat, an earthy dew that salted the seas of crumbled grain.

Within minutes, they grey remains of death covered the streets, inches deep in a mid-summer blizzard, each unique flake a piece of something that used to be. Leaves, stone, people, birds, glass, metal, wood, rubber, plastic, tile, bugs and worms and grubs. All soot and ash. Crosses, apses, domes, pillars and pews and pulpits. All soot and ash.

Within hours, waves washed the streets. Mildew corpses moldered in fish stew, a fecund boil that begat a fine green salt that dried in clumps and lined the rubble with undulating stencils that parodied the tide…

Writing (as it pertains to Darwin)

In Language, novelish, Writing on September 13, 2009 at 10:57 am

It’s a landmark moment in every writer’s life when he receives his first rejection letter, and it can affect him in a number of ways.

Possibly,

If he is foolish enough to believe that his work was actually as good as he felt it was—to chew the very truffles he dug up—the letter comes with humility. It is the recognition that it is not a perfect work, that he is not infallible. That some people just don’t jive with everything he writes, lean on every word, enunciate the last phoneme of every sentence. That nothing is ever finished as long as there is someone who disagrees with it. That if everyone agrees with something, it must not really say anything.

This man—he, who had been foolish and ignorant—can either learn his lesson or he can become a brick wall, believing the rejection is no fault of his own; the publisher simply has bad taste and it is to his detriment that he rejects such a fine piece of literature.

Or,

If this man lacks the confidence to withstand criticism, a rejection might mean the end. Some people take resistance as a challenge; others shy from it, choosing instead to live safely within their limitations. Why risk failure when the alternative is so comfortable? There’s regret, sure, but regret is for the feeble. Regret only irks those motivated enough to do something about it. And if one is willing to do something about regret, a challenge should have been of no consequence in the first place. In which case, we are talking of cowards and misers.

To whom criticism is of no consequence.

For it is their nature.

But,

If this man is realistic enough to realize that even the smoothest roads need to be repaved from time to time—that achievement is relative to what one is capable of—he will see rejection is a rite of passage, something every author experiences, a yardstick for measuring miles.

* * * *

Which is interesting, because:

An author will go back on his previous works and read, utterly embarrassed.

The work is alien. Commas are not where they should be. Too many superlatives. What awful, contrived dialogue.

The embarrassment is not that it is poorly written; rather, the embarrassment is that, at one point—maybe not even that long ago—the author had been convinced that the writing was very nearly flawless.

Writing evolves.

Like anything worth doing, it gets better the more it’s practiced.

But the feeling upon completion never changes.

Check it.

In Getting Close, Post Script, What people are on September 10, 2009 at 11:51 am

Check it.  Uncomfort: the feeling when I don’t know what/why/how I’m doing.  Comfort: the feeling that I know what/why/how I’m doing.

The problem is this–Comfort: familiarity.  Familiarity: easy.  Easy: boredom.

Boredom leads to transition, which leads to not knowing what/why/how I’m doing: uncomfort.

Uncomfort and boredom.  To do away with one is to invariably lead to the other.

****

Check it.  A girl is good enough for me only when I decide she’s too good for me.  If I decide she’s too good for me–and I get her regardless–she’s decided that I’m good enough for her, which means she’s not too good for me, which means she’s not good enough for me.

How fucked up is that?

Rejected Blog Idea #5

In Rejected Blog Themes on September 10, 2009 at 11:36 am

A blog in 140 character bursts that inundates those who follow me with the inanities of my interaction with the world that exists within the six inches in front of my face.

On Regret:

In novelish, What people are on September 7, 2009 at 5:46 pm

It does no good to regret things, if you like who you are.

To regret something is to wish change upon yourself. If you learn from your mistakes, anything you would regret has only made you stronger. If nothing else, you learned never to do that something ever again—which you would have no way of knowing if it had never happened.

To wish something undone is to open yourself up to repeating the mistakes of your past.

And the next time, you might not get anything out of it.

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