New Year Wisdom 2014

Jan 1, 2014 //
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In honour of this new year that is upon us, I’m going to share two of the greatest pieces of advice I have ever received. This isn’t life altering stuff that will make you all zen or whatever, but it’s still good advice. So listen up.

The first bit was given to me by my late grandfather. For unnecessary context, my grandfather founded his own business, and was married to my grandmother for like a billion years or however long. A while, anyway. I lived with them while I was going to a school near-ish to their home. One time, when I was going out one night, my grandfather said to me, “Dan,” he said, “don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, were I capable of doing it.” He was 80-something at the time, so if he hadn’t added in that final caveat, he would have limited me considerably. But I think that was the point of the advice he was trying to give, which was do things, any things, while you’re still young enough and capable enough to do them. You might get old, you might get sick, or injured, or dead, and then all the opportunities for doing will be gone. So I think the “don’t” part of his little maxim there was facetious, and he was trying to get me to live my life.

The next bit of advice that has stuck with me was given to me by a wise old prostitute. This is a woman who has experienced life in ways unfathomable to most people. To those wondering, no, I didn’t pay for this advice nor any pre or post-advice delights. Anyway, this wise old prostitute said to me, “Dan,” she said, “always bring two condoms.” Now this might just seem like basic, practical advice, but I believe it can be generalized to apply to other, non-sexual life events. Don’t let trivial things get in the way of having an amazing time. I mean bringing two condoms is showing a little forethought, which is always smart too, but I prefer to think of this advice in terms of if something has gone wrong, and there is a simple thing like not having a condom stopping you from an otherwise orgasmic time, then don’t get hung up on it. The first condom malfunctioned, so what? Persevere. There are always 24 hour drug stores.

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Categories Fun, Philosophy

Don’t gender adjectives. And don’t verb nouns, either.

Dec 29, 2013 //
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It’s considered fairly common knowledge the ideals that make up masculinity. Manhood. Being a man. To name a few you’ve got strong, independent, assertive, chivalrous, rugged, etc. Put all these things together and you’ve got your James Deans, your Robert Redfords, your John Waynes, your… who the hell is relevant these days? Jude Law? Whatever. Unimportant. Anyway, a lot of people look to the past for examples of manliness because they don’t agree with the aggression and violence that is associated with masculinity today. Yes, being a man also apparently means being tough, crude, and a womanizer. There are loads of definitions. But those bad ones can’t be right, because we’re all sensible individuals here. That list with the nice adjectives has to be the proper definition.

What about if a woman exudes those qualities? They’re fine qualities, we’ve already established that. But we’ve limited them to half the population. If a woman wants to be those things, does she have to give up her gender in order to do so? If you’re male and want to “Be A Man” and have it mean something, ask yourself to define what it means to “Be A Woman.” Is it meekness? Daintiness? A penchant for getting a case of the vapours? No, like I said, we’re sensible individuals here. We look to the past for manliness, but we look to the future for qualities that define women. So let’s make a new list: strong, independent, assertive… It’s starting to look exactly like that first list of what it means to be a man. Basically get rid of ruggedness and you’ve got what most parents are trying to teach their daughters.

Maybe being a man isn’t as traditional as I’ve made it out to be. Maybe Real Men are actually compassionate, stylish, generous, and love to cuddle after sex. It’s a brand new day, and people are coming up with lists upon lists of new ways to define what it means to have a penis. Here are a couple of examples:

http://jamesmsama.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/10-ways-to-know-youre-dating-a-real-man/
http://fiercegentleman.com/10-qualities-fierce-gentleman/

Again, very nice qualities. Leaning a bit on the traditionally feminine side, which is a nice touch. But the answer isn’t to feminize masculine attributes and to masculinize feminine attributes. For one thing, it is too easy for someone to dismiss these softer attributes as being “for fags” and go back to their rough and tumble definitions of beating up those smaller and lording it over them. When the definitions of “what makes a man” are so overbearingly numerous, people can pick and choose what they like and find plenty of evidence to back up their assertions, and then dismiss the ones they don’t like.

So why is this a problem? It’s mostly just an argument over semantics, and those are the funnest arguments to have. And it’s not that hard to adapt society to believe that girls doing boyish things and boys doing girly things is okay. That’s relatively close to where we’re at right now. However, what about the little boy that wants so badly to Be A Man? He’s got his heroes that he looks up to, but for the life of him, he can’t be strong, he can’t be assertive, he lives at home with mom and dad, he’s overweight… He’s teased by the other kids at school, and he feels less than. He knows that he should be able to be all those things, because the evidence is there each time he takes a piss. That kid has so much telling him what it means to have that penis, and that it’s a “good” thing to Be A Man, but this boy can’t measure up. He feels as though he’s betraying himself, that he’s incompetent because he can’t do the things his penis is supposed to allow him to do. This child’s problems are exacerbated, simply because he has a dink and that is apparently supposed to mean something.

So what makes a man? Let’s ask the Dude:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq1i8O9dgPU

A pair of testicles. That’s what makes a man, and even that is debatable. So if you like an attribute, just say that it’s a good attribute. There’s no need to attach it to your junk.

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Categories Gender and Sexuality

The Relativity of Misery

Dec 17, 2013 //
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We seem to allow happiness to be relative. If someone told you that they went out and had a grand ol’ time for ten whole dollars, and someone else came and told you that they had an equally great time for an exorbitant one hundred dollars, you would be able to accept that quite easily. You of course stayed at home that night because neither of those jerks invited you out.

So the little African child who everyone uses as the go-to scale for everything is playing with his little wooden sculpted block, and the fat North American child playing with his Xbox are both equally happy. Sure. But as soon as that fat little child’s Xbox breaks, and he bursts into fat little tears, we would feel less sorry for him than if our little African child were to start crying poverty-stricken tears.

The happiness can be equally valid, but the sadness can not. Why not?

Because the fat kid has more, and the starved child will likely die soon. But then wouldn’t that mean that the fat kid should have more value for his happiness? But, but, but material wealth doesn’t affect happiness!! We learned this when we were young, and Sesame Street was pushing its radical left-wing ideals down our impressionable throats. And I agree, due to my radical left-wing ideals (thanks Sesame Street!)

Being sad carries with it a harsh stigma. Sadness is the “wrong” emotion to feel (because it sucks) so it is scrutinized more strongly than any of the other emotions. And since empathy is hard, most of the time people just write off sadness as the person dwelling too much on their issue, or not being strong enough, or whatever the reason. Being sad means being weak, and therefore you’d better have a damn good reason for why you feel like shit. Being dumped, losing a loved one, losing your job, being a starving African child… All of these are socially acceptable reasons to be sad. But remember, not for too long. Here’s a video that delves further into the stigma of sadness compared to the harmful proliferation of “thinking positive” which is worth a watch if you have ten minutes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo

Labeling problems held by fortunate people as “First World Problems” do more harm than just perpetuating the myth that being miserable is a “bad” thing. It also leads to this:

Image

Poverty becomes looked upon in absolute scales. Remember the African-child-scale that the world wants to apply everything to? Well, that child doesn’t have a refrigerator, so therefore all the poverty-stricken in North America should just buck up. Life isn’t so bad for them, so they’re not allowed to be miserable about it. But as I’ve hopefully explained clearly, emotions are all the same, regardless of which scale you’re using. Just because we don’t live in a crippled nation, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to fix the problems we *do* have.

So when someone tells you to cheer up because at least you’re not living in a mud hut with only dried shoots of grass to eat, remember that emotions don’t scale. But problems do. So tell them to fuck off. Politely, if  the two of you are close.

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