Deeply Bohring

Niels Bohr once said that the opposite of a profound truth is also a profound truth.  He was talking about quantum mechanics or some similarly impenetrable topic, but I, like many laymen, have decided to appropriate his comment to talk about something decidedly less scholarly.  Here's a set of four profound-ish truths and their opposites; I'm going to use them to anchor the following discussion.

1.  I needed to write this post.
Opposite: I've been dreading writing this post.  

2.  I've moved recently.
Opposite: I've stayed in the same place.

3.  Location doesn't matter to me.
Opposite: Location is central to me.

4.  I'm a solitary person.
Opposite: I'm a social person.

All right; the first two are fairly easy, or at least comparatively easy.  Whenever something big happens me, I feel a need to blog about it, but at the same time, I often avoid blogging about it, because so much has happened that sorting through everything I've felt and experienced leaves me kind of drained.  That's what usually happens in the "trip" related posts--I see so much during the trip that sorting through it all and processing it becomes a task in itself, almost apart from actually living through it the first time.  Actually, the trip comparison is pretty apt; remember that when we get to discussing point 3.  The other factor is that I've grown a lot more self-conscious about doing personal stuff on the blog since I realized just how many people I know and interact with regularly read it.  At the same time, I've always felt that it's an important part of what this blog means to me.  I don't want to wade into what's authentic in autobiography and what's not, but this has never been just an academic blog to me; I've chosen not to compartmentalize my life, and I try to reflect that here.  (Okay, yes, there are some boundaries, but they're flexible, okay?)

So that brings us to point 2: I've moved recently.  I may have mentioned here that my former roommates, the ones I have lived with for two years, and I have gone our separate ways.  In fact, we did so last Tuesday, and I've been living in a new place ever since, with two entirely new, yet unknown roommates.  In a way, I feel like I haven't moved--I'm still in the same city, in the same program (I'll finish someday, Mr. Supervisor, honest I will), still with the same group of friends.  I hung out with them tonight, in fact, and it felt like a very familiar thing; there were the people that I get along with great and admire; the people who I hang out with who, um, aren't very fond of me, but we can still hang out in a crowd, and I still admire them (really--there are very few people I actively dislike; most of them I haven't seen in a decade.  Have I been out of high school for a decade?  My, what a shocking coincidence.  Also, I should probably add that when I was out with said friends, I was drinking.  But you've probably figured that out by now.); and there are people I have hung out with for years, but still don't really know that well.  (And that's unfortunate.  Something should be done to change that.) Anyway, digressions aside, I'm in a new situation, while simultaneously being immersed in my old situation.  There's a comfort in that, but it's the kind of comfort that can hold you in place, if you let it.

Speaking of place, that's a segue of sorts into point 3.  When I say location doesn't matter to me, I mean that.  I'll willing spend hours in my narrow, tiny office.  Two or three years ago, when I went to visit Toronto, I spent most of my time deliberately cooped in a variety of libraries, and enjoying myself immensely.  And the aesthetics of a space don't really matter to me; I could live very happily out of my boxes for the next year, or I could put everything away.  I have whole reams of posters my parents have got me that are still in the original bag they came in.  I take them out every now and then and look at them, because they're pretty, but I've never bothered to put them on my walls.  I mean, what's the point?  I'd just have to take them down again eventually.  The aesthetics of my location aren't really a big issue to me.  And of course, that's true, while also being an utter lie.  If on no other level, changing location means changing routine, it means changing mental space.  It's situations such as this in which I resort to Stiegler and his technics.  Change a person's tool set, and you change the person, and tool set includes the space and place you're familiar with.  It's pretty common for people on a trip to allow themselves indulgences they wouldn't do otherwise, and act in a manner contrary to their common behavior--it's why we say "When in Rome" and "It stays in Vegas."  And when you go on a trip, it's all temporary, so you have the comfort (however false it may be) that whatever you do, you can return to the tool set you left behind when it's over.  Moving means a whole new set of tools.  Maybe you're trading in a hammer for a wrench.  Maybe you're adding a spanner to the belt.  Maybe this metaphor has been stretched to its limit.  The point is, I've noticed a big difference in my mental space.  It's in the little things--I have to remind myself which corridors to turn down to get to my room.  I need to recalculate my jogging routes so that the 5k and 10k reach just the right sweet spots.  I need to mentally think exactly where I live, since I spent three years knowing that exact location, but forgetting it every time since someone always drove me there.  (Long story.)  Space is important.  You have to center yourself literally before you can do it figuratively.

Point 4.  I've lived on my own, and I've lived with other people.  When I'm alone, it's always something of a relief.  To be able to do what you want without worrying overmuch about the context of others--it's freeing.  But it's also restrictive.  Here's a TMI case in point: when I came to the bar tonight, there was one person I recognized, and three or four friends of hers just joining the program that I didn't.  And I could have joined them.  But... it was a very loud, very noisy bar, and the thought of trying to do the whole "getting to know you" smalltalk while bellowing at full volume was exceptionally unappealing to me.  So I waited for some other people to show up.  Am I proud of this?  No.  But I'm not ashamed either, and that's an important point that took me a long time to get to.  Under other circumstances, I would have been happy to do smalltalk with any one of them, or even in a group, but my solitary inclinations made the bar scene intro uncomfortable.  But at the same time, I felt some urge to socialize, so I stuck around.  The ideal conclusion to this story would be that I did get around to talking to the "strangers" and we're all well acquainted.  That didn't happen.  But at least I got some time with the friends I have known for years, and still open to making new friends somewhere along the road.  Anyway, the point of that probably ill-advised anecdote  is that as much as I think I shun company, I also want it, and need it.  And for a long time, my two former roommates have contributed significantly to that.  I could resort to technics to explain it, that the people you are surrounded with are a part of the mental tools as well, but why do that when I can make an emotionally uncomfortable statement instead: I'll miss them.  I miss them.  It's nice to have people around who accept you for who you are.  Not to say that my current roommates don't, or won't; I'm just trying to introduce them to the "who I am" part slowly.  It's like the early stages of dating; on the first date, you mention that you have a goldfish, and then after a few months, you reveal that when you say "you'll be sleeping with fishes," what you actually mean is--it's a Troy McClure reference.  Don't worry about it.  Yesterday, I left my first season of Battlestar Galactica out on the bookshelf; tomorrow, I'll add a few comic books.  And then, when it seems like they've grasped what they're in for, I'll leave a few videogame theory books lying around.

The gamebooks will stay in my room, I think.  Some things are just better left private.

Later Days.

Moving Objects

About a year and a half ago now, (I can't believe it's been that long) I took a class on spatial theory. At the course's beginning, I remember being smugly confident that it would remain theory, for me, at least. I had a deep seated belief that I was not at all rooted in whatever location I was at, that I remained somewhat aloft from my surroundings. While the course itself belied that... um, belief... to a certain extent, it was fully blown out of the water this weekend, when my roommates and I moved from a house/apartment to a full-blown two-storey + basement townhouse.

Example: the showerhead. At the old apartment, we had a shower that was somewhat... eccentric. To turn off, you needed to twist the handle until it was exactly level. In direct defiance to North American custom, the water got cold if you turned it to the left, and warm if you turned it to the right. But the added twist was that a slight deviation from the level position (off) either towards the left or right got you the extreme version of that temperature, with moderation coming as the angle increased. In other words, if I turned it a little right, the water was scalding, but if I turned it as far as it could go, I got the closest approximation we could muster to a proper warm shower.

After the move, we were perplexed at the state of our shower. No matter what we did, the hot water wouldn't come. Repeated testing eventually led us to the answer: we had been turning the faucet clock wise, and expecting hot water. To put it in the terms of Donald Norman (author of The Design of Everyday Things), our mental perceptions of the faucet's affordance had been transformed by our previous history. To put in my terms, our old environment had programmed us.

Other examples: it's amazing how freeing it feels to actually have storage space. Being able to put your boxes in a spare closet rather than piling up in your room allows you to feel a lot better about owning things. Counterwise, you never realize just how much tupperware you have until you try to jam it into a kitchen with limited cupboard space. But for me, the biggest change is that we now have a basement. I don't know why I'm so attached to the spot. Maybe it's a Freudian yearning for the womb. (No.) Maybe it's an ancestral memory towards caves. (No.) Maybe it's because of childhood, where basement bedrooms signified a separation from my parents and a move towards personal freedom. (...Maybe?) Or maybe because the average temperature over the last two months has been in the thirties, our old place wasn't air conditioned, and this is the first time in ages I haven't lived in a human furnace.

YES.

You are where you live. Horrible basement trolls included.

Later Days.

Moving Day--Coming Soon to a Blog Near You

Or, alternate title: Hey, I Found My Camera!

I don't think I've said so, but I'm moving out of my apartment into a house with two other gentlemen from the English program. The final move is set for May 29th. So for those keeping track of my schedule, that means I write my written comprehensive exam on the 28th, move the next day, and leave for a conference in Montreal on the 31st. Then I get back on the 5th, just in time to take my oral defense. Why did I schedule so many stress-inducing events in one period? Simple: I'm thinking ahead. Looong term ahead. Whatever life's future hurdles--dissertation, marriage, birth of children--I can look back, and think, well, at least this isn't that bad as that last week of May in 2010.

Yep. Totally planned.

Anyway, for me, the most stressful part of moving has been getting Rid of My Stuff. The place I'm moving is fully furnished, which means that a large portion of my furniture needs to be disposed of. This step would probably have to occur sooner or later; wherever I go post-degree, I probably won't be in a financial state to bring it all with me. So I guess I'm just going with "sooner." I sold the coach and loveseat a few days ago--which means that I've been watching TV from the oh-so-comfy position of a mattress I grabbed and pulled into the living room. And I'm getting getting rid of the spare bed on Saturday. The kitchen table and chairs are hopefully going later today. The only piece of furniture I'm having trouble getting rid of, in fact, is this one:

Not the TV, mind you. Goodness no; I need something to play video games on. I mean, conduct research with. No, I mean the thing the TV sits on. The... shelving unit? Leveled coffee table? Horizontal bookcase? Maybe my difficulty in naming the piece reflects the potential buyers' problem: it's not an easy piece to classify. On the other hand, if there's any piece of furniture that I need to take with me, I'd rather it was this one; it's fairly collapsible(compared to a couch, anyway)and out of all my furniture, it's pretty much the only thing that's got some family value to it. My grandparents kept it in their basement for years, and looking at it now, I can still remember playing alongside my cousins and siblings with little barnyard animals, while the "grown-ups" conducted themselves upstairs. I've used it as a bookshelf/TV stand for the past half decade now--there's some sentimental value there.

And that sentimental value can be yours for $15. Or best offer. Between you and me, I'm kind of desperate here.

Anyway, the other big thing I'm getting rid of is the old bike, the one I've been posting about/complaining about for the last year. Here's a photo:


Oh, how the mighty have fallen/been dismantled. Again, my sentimentality--or perhaps Protestant thriftiness--has prevented me from merely throwing away the object in question. Rather, I've arranged for it be donated to a local program that teaches kids about bike repair. (And if I had only taken the course myself, the bike might have lasted a bit longer...) The catch is that I need to bring it in, which means finding someone with a van. I've arranged for that to happen tomorrow, but for today, that meant preparing the bike for transport. In particular, I had to saw off the bike lock that I'd lost the key for. That was a fun 20 minutes. For the record, here's what the inside of a bike lock looks like:


Six photos, and that was the best one. Anyway, if for some reason you can't make out fine details in fuzzy-view, there's an outer plastic shell that's kind of gray, an inner silver metal layer, and, at the center, a set of yellow, rope-like strands. I was expecting the metal, but not the strands. I don't know if this is standard for bike lock cables, or whether I've been suckered by the cyclist equivalent of painting bars of lead gold. At any rate, it's certainly secure enough; given the amount of noise and energy it took to hack through the damn thing, I don't know how today's modern bike thief does it.

Final note before I return to studying. A few months ago, I had the following conversation with my father:
"So I was looking through my things, and I see you guys left me a hacksaw. A HACKSAW. What on earth would I ever need a hacksaw for?"
"Oh, you never know. Might come in handy."

Touche, father. Touche.

Later Days.