Welcome Back, Me

So after an almost year-long hiatus, I decided to write something. I don't know why I chose this particular timing, given that I'm already behind on my schoolwork and my multiple research projects. Who are we kidding? It's exactly for that reason that I renewed my acquaintance with the personal-expression-forum-turned-procrastination-tool. That having been said, I did miss it. I missed non-academic writing almost as much as I missed reading fiction instead of articles on power-sharing or analysis of intergroup behavior. So, despite having negative time on my hands, I'm hoping to start writing about my routine observations on a regular basis.

It kind of worries me that I have reached such a high level of ennui in projects - graded or otherwise - related to my MA, given that I haven't even begun working on my masters' thesis yet. I'm hoping that the lethargy is simply a result of feeling overwhelmed and that if I force myself to attack one assignment at a time, I will eventually sense the light at the end of the tunnel and feel a boost of interest once again.

Clearly, I'm not following through on this hope just yet, given that I am currently blogging instead of slogging through research on justice in negotiations or grading papers for Intro to IR. But perhaps venting a little bit to myself in written form, by getting those create juices flowing, will also generate some motivation to be productive. At the very least, I'm sure it will allow me to justify my procrastination to myself since blogging is certainly more productive than reading fmylife.com.

Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Orangutan

I watched Animal Planet at the dentist today (yes, our dentist friend in Seattle has a ceiling television to distract patients having cavities filled) and Orangutan Island was on. This is a show that tracks a group of orphan orangutans in Borneo. What's interesting is that orangutans are generally solitary and nomadic, but because of logging, these orphans have been forced to become more rooted and more group-like in order to survive in the limited space available to them. Also, because they are orphans, they have to teach themselves survival skills that would normally be taught by their mothers. The researchers in charge of the show are tracking their group interactions, including group learning.

This really got me thinking about the nature vs. nurture debate. I think that we have a predisposition to think that animal behavior is predominantly instinctive and that nurture, to a large degree, is merely a catalyzed version of necessary invention. On one hand, watching the orangutans discover the use of sticks as tools to eat ants would seem to support the latter assumption; the use of tools for this purpose is something normally taught by orangutan parents but is, clearly, easily self-taught. On the other hand, the innovator orangutan taught the other orangutans the trick, begging the question: Is teaching considered nurturing because of the skills it provides to its students or because of the process of social cohesion that it facilitates?

More importantly, on this topic of social cohesion, the 'unnatural' make-up of the orangutans on the island suggests that group dynamics, even at a more primordial level, might be completely normative. Is the occasional infighting due to previously learned behavior by some of the older orphans or is orangutan solitude genetically coded? It will be interesting to see how long the group manages to stick together.

Solitaire

“He’s flirting with you,” my father said decisively, hearing only my side in a telephone conversation in the car. Later that night, the other party to the conversation writes me a sort of online monologue, saying that he felt that he was bothering me, hoped not, didn’t mean to. “I merely have good intentions and free time,” I read, and once again, as in basically every other conversation I’d had with him, my mind calls up a picture of him sitting alone, in his apartment, feeling the holes in the empty space that open up when a two-person residence becomes a one-person residence. These thoughts of him always evoke the paradoxical feeling that I experience each time my parents leave the country: a cheerful smile kept plastered on for my grandmothers’ sake, accompanied by a temporary default mode of mild depression manifested as the desire to watch television and speak to no one for two or three days. I know how it feels, to drown in the suddenly increased air of an apartment. So, unlike my father, I read the conversation like an onion. Perhaps there is a veiled flirtation underneath the casual, friendly cajolement to make time to see a movie. But this strikes me as irrelevant because, at a deeper level, I perceive an emotional shout for someone to provide him with an excuse to leave the house, to join the outside world, to forget just how much more space he now has to himself. The glimmers of loneliness that peak through ordinary strings of words seem to compel me, despite troublesome over-layers. Maybe it’s a preemptive strike; after all, my parents are leaving, once again, in a few weeks. On the other hand, maybe it’s a corollary of a truism: if misery loves company, then misery just might have the duty to provide company.

Warm fuzzies

I spoke to my adoptive mother today, from Kibbutz Degania. She’s quite different from me, personality-wise: The epitome of a bleeding heart liberal, she is a firm believer in the power of love to fight terrorists, reiki as the best way to promote physical and spiritual well-being, and similar concepts not frequently espoused in my household. She herself is a numerologist.

New-age shenanigans notwithstanding, she’s very good about giving emotional advice, so during the course of our conversation, I consulted with her on how to address a friend whose boyfriend, I’m fairly certain based on the evidence, intends to break up with her instead of proposing. After relaying some of the details, she agreed that the situation did not sound promising. And then, naturally, she asked for my friend’s date of birth. Upon receiving it, she pronounced with certainty that our joint impressions were correct and that my friend should move on. Since I’d already been pretty sure of this myself and her original, logical response to my tale had supported my interpretation, I didn’t feel the need for a numerical confirmation of the fact that Steve* had been less-than-respectful to Susan*and commitment-phobic for at least two months. At best, the new-age projection was the cherry atop an already very substantial sundae (if I can be forgiven for using such a tasty metaphor in such a sad situation).

Strangely enough, it should be noted that when, a few months back, she informed me that my "time" for a productive relationship would not be ripe until the end of 2008, I felt strangely lightened and reassured. If her prediction turns out to be correct, I have no doubt that I will attribute it to coincidence or some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, as opposed to some star force resulting from my birth on December 15. After all, one of my most vivid memories relating to my adoptive mom was a "reading of my numbers" in 2003, at which time she determined that the number 9 featured very heavily in my personality and said this indicated I had “a lot of internal rage.” To which my sister responded later, “She needed the number 9 to figure that out? Really?” In this context, I started pondering why her numerical pronouncement to me was so comforting. I think it’s because it’s one more, and in this case particularly amusing, way that someone has found to say to me: “Don’t worry. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. And it’s probably not a train.”

I think the bottom line is that I am easily comforted by things of a warm and fuzzy nature, in whatever form they manifest themselves, and however unsubstantial they may be in content. And there is definitely a reassuring aspect to that, even (or perhaps especially) in the event that my adoptive mother's positive predictions don’t come true.

*Names have been changed

Least favorite

Yesterday, for the first time this semester, I used a light headache as an excuse to skip class. Following an exhausting discussion with my mother last night regarding my decision (which, naturally, veered off-course to the tangential subject of how I'm not eating enough), I thought I would post my scribblings from last week’s lesson to justify to myself the deliberate absence from this week's lesson:

I’m sitting in my most boring class right now – research methods. When telling my father about my course load, he mentioned that it was my most important class. If this were true, it would be super, given that now, having switched to a double masters program, I am required to take three additional courses on the topic. Sadly, I'm pretty sure it's false. Learning about research methods is important; classes on research methods are much less so. A concise, Cliffs Notes-esque summary enumerating various types of research methods, with their pros and cons, would absolutely be helpful. I just don't see why such enumeration needs to be institutionalized into a weekly lecture. And I certainly don’t see why I need to take a course whose entire syllabus consists of not talking about research methods, a course that is, instead, comprised of guest lectures dealing with peripheral issues related to a professor’s worldview, political agenda and/or decision to address a particular obscure topic. Let's tell it like it is: This is weekly, public forum of ego masturbation by an interdisciplinary group of lecturers.

Do I really have to drive to Jerusalem just for that? It seems excessive.

Public Disservice

Apropos my previous post on living one’s dreams, today I began wondering about red lines between fantasy and reality. It’s all well and good to imagine the impossible and go for it when the impossible is the skeleton of a novel hidden in your bottom drawer. But what if your fantasy comes into active contact with the wider world? When does someone else’s fantasy encroach upon my perception of acceptable reality? I believe this may occur when my pleasantly plump, 40+ bank teller decides that she is a lithe 15-year-old and nonchalantly dons a pair of shiny, black leggings, inarguably at least one size too small for her. It was upon viewing them, first thing in the morning, that I recognized an important element in the fantasy vs. reality debate: It is one thing to deviate from your age in spirit. It is quite another thing to deviate from your age in spandex.

My dislike of the eighties clothing comeback notwithstanding, I was surprised by the strength of my reaction to her outfit. After all, I've recently found myself becoming desensitized to the daily viewings of women who religiously uphold the three tenets of Israeli ‘fashion’. (For those not blessed to live in the Holy Land’s trendiest metropolis, these are: 1) Tighter and shorter is always sexier; 2) Anything is attractive on you, regardless of body type, if it happened to have made an appearance in the [stick in your brand of choice] display window; 3) Leave nothing to the imagination, aka cleavage, cleavage, cleavage.) Yet, in this case, I was flung back in time, dismayed at a nostalgic level of 2003 innocence, caught in a hypnotic trance.

It is unclear whether my intensity of feeling was due to my unavoidably lengthy interaction with the woman or merely due to the fact that, frankly, she looked like badly packaged bratwurst with a head. In either case, I was definitely not alone in my morbid fascination. The middle-aged man behind me in line, himself no connoisseur of high fashion judging by the paisley shirt and acid-washed jeans, was equally riveted, unable to tear his eyes away from clearly visible underwear lines jutting out beneath a waistband that had to be cutting off circulation.

It took a great deal of self-control, and the nearly two decades of subliminal politeness training undergone in the Midwest, to make me avert my eyes tactfully and mind my own business. My fantasy was to approach her and say, kindly, quietly: "Ma’am. Please. NO." I, unlike the bank teller, chose reality this morning. Have a nice day.

First 'real' post: Groggers in the Air

Purim is fast approaching and I love Purim. I love the story of Esther and Mordechai, with its emphasis on taking your destiny into your own hands, the moral of the smart outmastering the powerful, the concept of fighting against enemies with brains as well as prayer. The holiday is the perfect, noisemaker-accompanied, centuries-old pep talk (not to mention a completely faith-sanctioned boozefest) . Purim is awesome. But, today, it wasn’t the traditional verbal and/or bacchanalian cheer that made my day. It was a different kind of Purim-related upper, courtesy of the preschool next door.

Today I realized that I love children in costume. Not in that cheesier-than-should-be-legal, Anne Geddes sort of way. Rather, in an appreciation of small children’s unmitigated belief in the possibility of their dreams.

“Hello. What a beautiful princess you are,” I remark to a diminutive brunette child in a blindingly hot pink nylon dress with faux-fur, lavender trim. She is neither. But it’s lovely that, for at least one day, other people will acknowledge her fantasy as a sort of reality or, at the very least, treat it with respect. Why do I find this so moving? Perhaps because I hope that it carries over, somehow, into the adult world. Purim reminds me that perhaps there are moments when one can put aside considerations of what is practical and pick up a dusty old dream instead. And, maybe, finding just one day in which to believe in it can help us move to a happier place for more than one day. I hope so.