Originally posted on www.thecandycoating.com, though still written by ME. Check it out!
It’s what we want to hear, what we love to say. What we want to think. But is the way we think about love the same as everyone else? Culturally, aren’t there vast differences between what “love” means? What love are we even talking about? Oh, so many questions.
Enter the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The Sapir-Whorf hypothes is a linguistic axiom, or self-evident truth, that our friend Wikipedia defines as: “a systematic relationship between the grammatical categories of the language a person speaks and how that person both understands the world and behaves in it.”
In other words: The way we talk affects how we think and behave. Quick example to remove any confusion: anthropologists found an island culture that did not have a single word for “war” or “weapon,” and from this could conclusively say that this culture was entirely peaceful. If they don’t have a word for it, how could they do it?
Along these lines, I want to point out something that my Anthropology professor pointed out to me: English only has one word for love. This may not seem strange in itself, until one factors in the Sapir-whorf hypothesis. What does it say about how we think and behave with love that we only have one word for it?
Even more poignantly, what does it mean that our primary conception of this one word is romantic love? The Greeks had three words for love: Agope – which is basically altruism, Filial – which is brotherly love, and Eros – which is what we would call romantic love.
These observations are significant insofar as they indicate our lack of descriptive language when it comes to love. When I say, “I love you,” it is purely context and interpretation that we must rely on. Or even worse, it is just assumed that I mean love in the romantic sense.
Now, I’m not saying coming up with new words for love will solve everything. But I am saying that coming up with new concepts for love would be a good start. Elevating and recognizing other forms of love as equally valid to and just as important as Eros or romantic love would, I think, go a long way in helping us, as a culture, develop a more mature sense of LOVE. And if you don’t believe such a thing is necessary, perhaps you are unaware of the state of things. This is forgivable, but only to an extent! With a 50% plus divorce rate and a penchant towards separation that is so strong it has led psychologists to label Americans as practitioners of “serial monogamy,” it seems clear to me that we don’t actually know what the crap we are doing here in America.
Romantic love is certainly a form of love. It is even a good form of love. Me and romantic love - we tight. However, it is only one facet on the much larger diamond of love. Expecting relationships, marriages, and our love lives to last on only romantic love is like expecting a tripod to stand with only one leg. There is more to it; there has to be, because, as any who have had even the most cursory experience with romantic love can testify, romantic love is unreliable and generally short-lived. A spark may create the flame, but it cannot sustain a flame once lit. A flame untended is a flame doomed to die out. And a flame doomed to die out is hardly a flame worth having at all.
But hey, I’m just the guy writing these things – what do I know? I’m curious what YOU think. So, what do you think?
Friday, September 14, 2007
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Are there any who object to this union?
Mawaige! Lacey, frilly, bell-tolling - oh, yes, mawaige. Immaculately cleaned males dressed in oak-solid suites; Gloriously adorned females wearing dresses directly imported from some magical flower realm. Weddings are nothing if not replete with eye-candy.
This past weekend I went to Minnesota to bear witness and testify to the union of Anisa Smith and Stanfano Ascari. It was a lovely ceremony. Austere in it's simplicity yet dynamic in it's depth and meaning. Then it was done, they was mawwied, and we danced the night away.
In the Baha'i Faith marriage is described as the "fortress of well-being." It is cited as the very bedrock on which a stable and successful society is founded. It is as elementally necessary to our continued progress as fire was to cavemen.
Weddings are a different beast, however. While I appreciate as much as the next man a good rite of passage, and while I love as all do friends and family being near at significant life moments, I can't help but think of the classic anglo-saxon wedding as two parts opulent, one part silly, and one part fun. It's a monstrous machine, functioning now like some terrifying AI of the future, functioning outside of human control and fueled by it's own longevity and weight. It has attained cultural inertia, and the best we poor mortals can do is try to dive out the way without being entirely crushed.
The wedding this weekend made me think of this specifically because it wasn't a denizen of this terrifying beast. It was a breath of fresh air; something of a trend with Bahai weddings that i've attended. Sitting there, listening to the simple collection of readings, read by a diverse number of people each of whom meant something to the couple being wed, I felt a glimpse of hope for this bloated institution. It turns out you don't need a solemn man in a large hat to conduct a lengthy and established ceremony (although solemn men in large hats are not strictly unfavorable either). You don't need pillars of gold leaf and angels performing fly-bys in tight flight formations. You just need two people, their love for each other, and some simple method of connecting with an essence beyond the ordinary world. Song, ceremony, men in large hats - all are aimed at this last goal, and all are acceptable in their own way. But in my experience, God, spirituality, Allah, our emotional selves - whatever you wish to say - is more responsive to sincerity than to lavish displays.
The required vow in the Baha'i Faith is simple: "We will all verily abide by the will of God." And whether or not you believe in God per se, it strikes me as a good idea to base such an ambitious vow of commitment in something beyond humans. Humans fail. Humans falter. Humans are limited. But a concept of the Divine can transcend all these things and last eternally - just as we want, on the most basic level, for the proposed union of two souls to last. Thus, to me at least, weddings are not just a ceremony. They are a pledge to strive, for as long as we live, to seek our nobility over our depravity. Our solidarity over our fractured selves. For surely we have the capacity for both, and at some point we will have chosen by our actions which direction we favor. How much better, then, to choose conciously and wisely, and to do so with someone there to help us when we (as we must) falter.
This past weekend I went to Minnesota to bear witness and testify to the union of Anisa Smith and Stanfano Ascari. It was a lovely ceremony. Austere in it's simplicity yet dynamic in it's depth and meaning. Then it was done, they was mawwied, and we danced the night away.
In the Baha'i Faith marriage is described as the "fortress of well-being." It is cited as the very bedrock on which a stable and successful society is founded. It is as elementally necessary to our continued progress as fire was to cavemen.
Weddings are a different beast, however. While I appreciate as much as the next man a good rite of passage, and while I love as all do friends and family being near at significant life moments, I can't help but think of the classic anglo-saxon wedding as two parts opulent, one part silly, and one part fun. It's a monstrous machine, functioning now like some terrifying AI of the future, functioning outside of human control and fueled by it's own longevity and weight. It has attained cultural inertia, and the best we poor mortals can do is try to dive out the way without being entirely crushed.
The wedding this weekend made me think of this specifically because it wasn't a denizen of this terrifying beast. It was a breath of fresh air; something of a trend with Bahai weddings that i've attended. Sitting there, listening to the simple collection of readings, read by a diverse number of people each of whom meant something to the couple being wed, I felt a glimpse of hope for this bloated institution. It turns out you don't need a solemn man in a large hat to conduct a lengthy and established ceremony (although solemn men in large hats are not strictly unfavorable either). You don't need pillars of gold leaf and angels performing fly-bys in tight flight formations. You just need two people, their love for each other, and some simple method of connecting with an essence beyond the ordinary world. Song, ceremony, men in large hats - all are aimed at this last goal, and all are acceptable in their own way. But in my experience, God, spirituality, Allah, our emotional selves - whatever you wish to say - is more responsive to sincerity than to lavish displays.
The required vow in the Baha'i Faith is simple: "We will all verily abide by the will of God." And whether or not you believe in God per se, it strikes me as a good idea to base such an ambitious vow of commitment in something beyond humans. Humans fail. Humans falter. Humans are limited. But a concept of the Divine can transcend all these things and last eternally - just as we want, on the most basic level, for the proposed union of two souls to last. Thus, to me at least, weddings are not just a ceremony. They are a pledge to strive, for as long as we live, to seek our nobility over our depravity. Our solidarity over our fractured selves. For surely we have the capacity for both, and at some point we will have chosen by our actions which direction we favor. How much better, then, to choose conciously and wisely, and to do so with someone there to help us when we (as we must) falter.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Re: Harry Potter
NO-SPOILER WARNING: This post contains no spoilers
That having been established, let me begin by saying that Dumbledore is not dead and turns out to be a parrot trained by Voldemort, Harry is a figment of a House-elf's imagination, Hermine is a brussel sprout, and Ron is really a pimple on a fourteen year old boy. Shocking revelations, all.
I do not wish to post about the actual story - no, that is silly. If you care about the story go buys yous the books and read them. I wish to comment on the phenomena that is Harry Potter.
You see, I do not regard these books as books. Not even as stories. A story, traditionally, is something one reads at one's leisure. It is something one visits occasionally, like a distant relative calling for Christmas. It is NOT something one painfully slaves over, both seeking and dreading the ending, as is the case with Harry Potter. Instead of remaining content with visits like most stories, an unfinished Harry Potter book practically demands you move in, next to the cat and please won't you remove you shoes. An unfinished Harry Potter book takes on a life of it's own - it activates it's own gravitational field and, until summarily defeated, cackles maniacally as your ordinary activities circle around it's slightest whim.
It is almost a spiritual experience. Ancient tribes use to beat their drums for hours on end while inhaling hallucinogens, the Orient meditated while on Opium, and now America adds it's own chapter to the epic-ways-humans-have-tried-to-transcend life by READING. Oh America, you always DID have the dorkiest hobbies.
Record times are put up. People who read nothing besides the occasional issue of People finish a book in two days. I personally finished the most recent and final book in something like 10 hours, pausing only to use the bathroom and sacrifice to the gods of fictional writing (sometimes doing both at once to speed things up.)
I don't really want to identify WHAT causes this madness. Was Europe really that relieved when people found out it was rats that carried the Bubonic plague? Actually yes, yes they were. Bad analogy. But the point is that the phenomena defies identification. On the simplest level, they are just really, really good books. Yet, human history is fraught with really, really good books, and next to none have transcended cultural, generational, and personal taste-tional boundaries like Harry Potter has.
Sad thought: It is the Iliad of our day, and J.K. Rowling our homer.
Well, one thing is clear: J.K. Rowling has one hell of a task ahead of her in trying to create any other fictional work. It's like if Prometheaus, not content with gifting humans with fire and the ability to heal, decided to try his hand at inventing the plow. Gee thanks Big P, but I think you peaked a little too early.
That having been established, let me begin by saying that Dumbledore is not dead and turns out to be a parrot trained by Voldemort, Harry is a figment of a House-elf's imagination, Hermine is a brussel sprout, and Ron is really a pimple on a fourteen year old boy. Shocking revelations, all.
I do not wish to post about the actual story - no, that is silly. If you care about the story go buys yous the books and read them. I wish to comment on the phenomena that is Harry Potter.
You see, I do not regard these books as books. Not even as stories. A story, traditionally, is something one reads at one's leisure. It is something one visits occasionally, like a distant relative calling for Christmas. It is NOT something one painfully slaves over, both seeking and dreading the ending, as is the case with Harry Potter. Instead of remaining content with visits like most stories, an unfinished Harry Potter book practically demands you move in, next to the cat and please won't you remove you shoes. An unfinished Harry Potter book takes on a life of it's own - it activates it's own gravitational field and, until summarily defeated, cackles maniacally as your ordinary activities circle around it's slightest whim.
It is almost a spiritual experience. Ancient tribes use to beat their drums for hours on end while inhaling hallucinogens, the Orient meditated while on Opium, and now America adds it's own chapter to the epic-ways-humans-have-tried-to-transcend life by READING. Oh America, you always DID have the dorkiest hobbies.
Record times are put up. People who read nothing besides the occasional issue of People finish a book in two days. I personally finished the most recent and final book in something like 10 hours, pausing only to use the bathroom and sacrifice to the gods of fictional writing (sometimes doing both at once to speed things up.)
I don't really want to identify WHAT causes this madness. Was Europe really that relieved when people found out it was rats that carried the Bubonic plague? Actually yes, yes they were. Bad analogy. But the point is that the phenomena defies identification. On the simplest level, they are just really, really good books. Yet, human history is fraught with really, really good books, and next to none have transcended cultural, generational, and personal taste-tional boundaries like Harry Potter has.
Sad thought: It is the Iliad of our day, and J.K. Rowling our homer.
Well, one thing is clear: J.K. Rowling has one hell of a task ahead of her in trying to create any other fictional work. It's like if Prometheaus, not content with gifting humans with fire and the ability to heal, decided to try his hand at inventing the plow. Gee thanks Big P, but I think you peaked a little too early.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Picture this!
Armed with flip-flops, cruising along the montrous eight-lane road aptly named broadstreet that bisects Malls and restaurants alike, rocking out to Michael Jackson's "Bad" and other classics, and cruising in my mother's German-engineered Audi station wagon.
Ah, yes...I must be home.
Next stop: CALIFORNIA
Ah, yes...I must be home.
Next stop: CALIFORNIA
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Ground Control to Major Tom
I am once again in the ancestral homeland. Actually, that is a lie. The many unfounded assumptions I have about who my ancestors were (i.e. Ghangas Kong AND Attila the Hun) would certainly be shaken by the revelation that they actually wanted to live in Richmond Virginia.
I am, however, once again in the childhood homeland. After two years of low-rez, fuzzy apartment living; with slim cuisine, slimy counters, and other alliterative adjectives, this place seems like a wonderland. First off, it's a house. Second off, they have a yard, which is something of a myth in the greater chicago area. Thirdly, there is, like, beverage here. All the time. We're talking high quality juice people. Juice!
In this new world I find myself, a world viewed through the hardened lens of apartment living, a place that can afford continual supplies of juice is a place of significant wealth and grandeur. First thing I do when I go to a person's residence now is surreptitiously check their refrigerator. If I see juice, I give my companions significant looks and move my eyebrows around, as if to say: "We've struck gold. These people are LOADED."
Really, I've just come to appreciate the inherent stability of a family. Whenever I enter a house in which a family lives, I feel the difference as a palpable thing. It's like I just passed through a curtain. Outside is instability and dog-eat-dog craziness, inside is order, well being, and juice.
In conclusion, my title has made me think of a new pickup line*: "Hey baby, you be major tom, and ill be ground control. Together we can explore."
*All pickup lines read on Falcomatic.blogspot.com are NEVER to be used. Ever.
I am, however, once again in the childhood homeland. After two years of low-rez, fuzzy apartment living; with slim cuisine, slimy counters, and other alliterative adjectives, this place seems like a wonderland. First off, it's a house. Second off, they have a yard, which is something of a myth in the greater chicago area. Thirdly, there is, like, beverage here. All the time. We're talking high quality juice people. Juice!
In this new world I find myself, a world viewed through the hardened lens of apartment living, a place that can afford continual supplies of juice is a place of significant wealth and grandeur. First thing I do when I go to a person's residence now is surreptitiously check their refrigerator. If I see juice, I give my companions significant looks and move my eyebrows around, as if to say: "We've struck gold. These people are LOADED."
Really, I've just come to appreciate the inherent stability of a family. Whenever I enter a house in which a family lives, I feel the difference as a palpable thing. It's like I just passed through a curtain. Outside is instability and dog-eat-dog craziness, inside is order, well being, and juice.
In conclusion, my title has made me think of a new pickup line*: "Hey baby, you be major tom, and ill be ground control. Together we can explore."
*All pickup lines read on Falcomatic.blogspot.com are NEVER to be used. Ever.
Monday, June 25, 2007
The Dream
For anyone who has seen me over the past two weeks, you may have observed one of two things:
1) I'm awesome
2) I'm awesome-er because I've been borrowing my brother-in-law's scooter.
This is the NEW age people. And it is an age of scooters. An age of scooting. Of the scoot, if you will. The old age, where scooters were strictly used by economically savey dweebs who coveted their vespa as if it could fill the void created by their lack of female contact, has been annulled. And it is clear and manifest that in this day, the scooter is the new motorcycle.
Seriously, you don't even KNOW how many chicks I had on the back of that thing (five, actually, and all Baha'i girls that rode in a totally platonic and un-braggable way, with me just being helpful when they happened to need a ride. So, now you DO know how many chicks I had on the back of that thing.) Five is not bad for two weeks of work though!
Don't believe me? Fine, I'll let the pictures do the talking:
In the profound words of my good friend T.I: What you know about that?
Ignoring the obvious fact that the person on back is not actually a chick as I just boasted, can you imagine a cooler, more enviable robbie? I certainly can't.
Oh, and why post about "the dream"? I'll tell you why. With a link. One, simple, LINK.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
The Big Fat Golden One
Preface: It's my birthday today, June 20th.
Post-preface: June 20th has also been named by congress "Bald Eagle Restoration Day" or some such, because the Bald eagle is about to become un-endangered. Now, an eagle may not be a falcon, but I would point out that BOTH are birds of prey. Therefore, I am going to go ahead and thank congress for honoring my birthday with a celebration that has a vague connection to my last name. Really the United States Government, you shouldn't have.
Main post: I guess this is my "Golden birthday." You know, where the day of the month matches the age of the birthee. In my case that number is 20 - a solemn occasion indeed. In this past I have been accused of not taking these things seriously enough, but this year I have already layed out my holocaust cloak and plan to remain beneath it's dark, voluminous layers for the remainder of the day. Thus, when people ask me why I am walking down the street in a giant black cloak in the middle of summer, I will peer out from beneath my hood - my face half covered in shadows - and answer in a deathly whisper: "It is my GOLDEN birthday and I am treating it with all due solemnity."
I have the urge to climb a mountain, ride a wave, tame a sea urchin and use it to brush my hair in the mornings - but such is my nature. Often enough I just like to have ME time on such days of birth, which is just a nice way of saying that I do crazy and mildly dangerous things on my own. This time, I am settling on having a massive evening dinner. We are eating sushi, and the 1% chance that someone could die from raw fish poisoning at any point during the meal will have to satisfy my lust for danger. And yes, that is the official name: "Raw Fish Poisoning." It's all quite scientific.
What I love most about birthdays is how every single daily act seems to fall meekly in line behind this title. For instance, my friend just bought me some birthday tea. Tonight I will go and have a birthday dinner. I like to take it to the next level, however, and talk about how this morning I birthday woke up, did some birthday choirs, and then took a birthday nap. Perhaps later I will birthday change-my-clothes.
Really, people, I just popped out of the womb! We all did it (great idea for a bumper sticker: "Pro-life peer pressure: Pop out of the womb - every one's doing it.") Still, I am grateful for the confirmations of love and fellowship, and for the natural period of self-reflection. We humans loves our rites of passage, and it's clear why. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a holocaust cloak to put on.
Post-preface: June 20th has also been named by congress "Bald Eagle Restoration Day" or some such, because the Bald eagle is about to become un-endangered. Now, an eagle may not be a falcon, but I would point out that BOTH are birds of prey. Therefore, I am going to go ahead and thank congress for honoring my birthday with a celebration that has a vague connection to my last name. Really the United States Government, you shouldn't have.
Main post: I guess this is my "Golden birthday." You know, where the day of the month matches the age of the birthee. In my case that number is 20 - a solemn occasion indeed. In this past I have been accused of not taking these things seriously enough, but this year I have already layed out my holocaust cloak and plan to remain beneath it's dark, voluminous layers for the remainder of the day. Thus, when people ask me why I am walking down the street in a giant black cloak in the middle of summer, I will peer out from beneath my hood - my face half covered in shadows - and answer in a deathly whisper: "It is my GOLDEN birthday and I am treating it with all due solemnity."
I have the urge to climb a mountain, ride a wave, tame a sea urchin and use it to brush my hair in the mornings - but such is my nature. Often enough I just like to have ME time on such days of birth, which is just a nice way of saying that I do crazy and mildly dangerous things on my own. This time, I am settling on having a massive evening dinner. We are eating sushi, and the 1% chance that someone could die from raw fish poisoning at any point during the meal will have to satisfy my lust for danger. And yes, that is the official name: "Raw Fish Poisoning." It's all quite scientific.
What I love most about birthdays is how every single daily act seems to fall meekly in line behind this title. For instance, my friend just bought me some birthday tea. Tonight I will go and have a birthday dinner. I like to take it to the next level, however, and talk about how this morning I birthday woke up, did some birthday choirs, and then took a birthday nap. Perhaps later I will birthday change-my-clothes.
Really, people, I just popped out of the womb! We all did it (great idea for a bumper sticker: "Pro-life peer pressure: Pop out of the womb - every one's doing it.") Still, I am grateful for the confirmations of love and fellowship, and for the natural period of self-reflection. We humans loves our rites of passage, and it's clear why. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a holocaust cloak to put on.
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