Natural and Just

In The Sight Of God

[natural-and-just]

Spaciotemporal Rabbit Slices

I was listening to a lecture by Professor Darren Staloff, discussing language in the context of Quine’s Ontological Relativism. Via Professor Staloff, Quine asks us to imagine a linguist discovering a new people on a secluded island. They speak a new language, with no ancestral link whatsoever to any of those spoken elsewhere.

Our linguist observes a member of this new tribe pointing to a rabbit bounding across their cove. “Gavaji!” he cries.

The linguist wants to determine the meaning of this utterance, unsure whether it means “Rabbit!” or “There it goes!” or some iteration which hasn’t come to mind.

But what if the natives have a different ontology? In English, we think of bodies, full objects, as the basic entity. Perhaps to the natives of this language, bodies aren’t the base unit. Perhaps, when they point and say “Gavaji,” they mean “There goes an un-detached rabbit part,” or “There is a rabbit foot over there that hasn’t been cut off yet.”

Worse still, perhaps their first great scientist was a Heraclitean, and to them all is flux and time slices. So, when they say, “Gavaji,” they don’t mean rabbit — they don’t have rabbits in their language. They mean something closer to, “Hey, it’s rabbiting over there,” or “There is a spacio-temporal rabbit slice,” or my personal favorite: “‘Lo, it rabbiteth!”

The end point of this monologue is that it is impossible to get into the head of the native speaker and determine definitively whether he looks at a rabbit and sees a body, or a ripple in space-time.

The sensation of discovering “Lo, it rabbiteth!” was an option we couldn’t rule out was not dissimilar to the feeling of discovering other people think wanting to fuck someone goes part in parcel with ‘being in love.’

…

I like looking at him in motion. I like his countenance. I like how he talks, his expressions, his opinions. I like that he holds his tongue and looks down with a soft, small smile. I am warmed and laid to rest by the fire that is the tilt of his head. To me, being in love means feeling that a person other than yourself really exists.

Where ever there are two characters going about the business of falling in love, the public decides that they must hold sex as the inevitable, indispensable end result. The first cause, even. If it ever were to be extracted by authorial power, you would blink and find the characters occupied at opposite corners of the room, indifferent.

How can I tell you that I traced with reverence the ink used to print the words of conversation between Jane and Rochester, thinking it lucky, and get it through your savage head? When Rochester speaks to Jane, I say that must be the sweetest compliment. To have his attention must be a heady, gentle ambrosia. He drank from her in conversation, and she of him. How can you not see how intimate that is, more intimate than sex? How do you not see that sex doesn’t deserve to be the competition?

The cruelest thing is that I am prevented from describing what I felt reading that book in true terms. I must use metaphor, but they’ve all been corrupted. “He drank from her” can only sound to anyone reading as something sexual — it is not.

How do I describe it? The blank disorientation. The loneliness. The disdain in finding other people aren’t capable of looking at another person like God looks at man, and at the same time how man looks at God. I am a jealous God, and I am hungry for a jealous God.

[natural-and-just]

In Defense of "The Appeal to Nature Fallacy"

There is an unfortunately christened subreddit, r/nopoo (short for ‘no shampoo’), which is dedicated to alternative hair washing techniques. These include but are not limited to washing the scalp with conditioner, baking soda and apple cider vinegar, rye flour, apple sauce, raw egg, lemon juice, fenugreek seed mucous, or just water. The truest hippies use nothing at all except a boar bristle brush — they don’t even get their hair wet. I employed or attempted a few of these techniques for the better part of three years, beginning in my sophomore year of college.

The appeal for me was largely dependent on an enduring psychological state of a particular flavor which I want to defend and, in so doing, defend its expression.

You’ve heard of it before: ‘The Appeal to Nature Fallacy.’ ‘Natural’ materials are better/healthier by virtue of being natural. Immediately, you think: ‘What does natural mean?’ and ‘have you heard of lead poisoning?’ The substances represented by the alphabet soup you see printed on the back of your shampoo bottle can make contact with your skin to no ill effect (for most); you could list the ingredients of a banana in alphabet-soup language and you’d be a hell of a lot more accurate and precise than if you listed things like ‘fiber’ or ‘sugar.’ . Meanwhile, apple seeds are poisonous.

I am perfectly able to see the reasonableness of this criticism — there would be no point in attempting to rebut it on a scientific level. And yet, I feel a certain protectiveness. Even if my distaste for six-syllable compounds is completely irrational in a strict sense, I do not think I am wholly unjustified in being drawn to it. It may even be the warped expression of a useful, self-protective instinct which is pointing to something true.

To get us started, what follows is an off-the-cuff sampling of facts which stir up the passions for homemade jam, melt-and-pour soap, hand-crocheted tops, and fenugreek seed hair gel:

Approximately 60% of an average American grocery store is made up of chips and sodas and snack foods that do not bear the faintest chemical resemblance to the diet my species grew up with; I am merging psychologically with a device that gives my brain more mental stimulation in 30 minutes than a remote tribesman would experience during a week-long orgy; I am never again obliged to live in boredom and silence; there is no longer any need to exercise so many of my baser faculties; I can travel as far as I require without exhaustion, and without worry over my food supply; I can arrange to have all my sustenance delivered to me, if I like; I can have my thoughts and opinions and tastes delivered to me too; I don’t even have to decide the sort of entertainment I feel like consuming — just let the feed deliver whatever the feed delivers, which will consist mostly of advertisements. My world is noisy and easy, and feels like a swarthy coating on my soul.

I am detached from nature and from my own creative faculties — and I have been gaslit into thinking the detachment is deserved. I now have to earn the right to its access, when at another distant point in time, I couldn’t have escaped it if I tried. Waking up to the sun on the water is millions of dollars more. A home on a plot of land is a pipe-dream (Here is your singular shrub. Enjoy). Having a working relationship with the animals in our lives, whether with a hunting dog, or a horse, goes hand in hand with money in my imagination. Making your own clothes is more expensive than buying off the rack. I see beautiful landscapes more often in advertisements for vacations I can’t afford than in real life.

I don’t want to be so far removed from the origins of my own nourishment. If those long, long chains of production between me and my planet were ever severed, I would be an alien, completely unfamiliar with and incapable of drawing sustenance from the home I left behind hundreds of years ago.

Maybe my interest in making my own shampoo is my subconscious’ way of demanding to be returned home — one made of Grass, and Wind, and Rain, and Ocean, and the Sunrise. That’s mine, goddamnit. Stop distracting me from it. Stop putting a fucking paywall between me and my soul.

[natural-and-just]

Variety Pathologized

I have an abnormal...view, I suppose, of sex. I can hardly say 'relationship,' as I've never had it.

During my freshman year of college, I was a little too sweet and accommodating to a boy. He imprinted on me, and chronic claustrophobia set in. My day wasn't my own, because he could text at any time and I didn't have the spine to ignore him. I became exhausted with emotional labor, expressed an enthusiasm for our connection which I didn't feel, and never put my foot down firmly enough to get it into his head that this dynamic was unacceptable to me. I gave it a few light taps once or twice, but my courage soon buckled.

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During the alive portions of the relationship, and well into the dead, I felt a revulsion toward the one genre I read religiously: Romance. The forms of affection we exchanged felt like a curdled version of what romance novels are full of, and it made me nauseous to read them. These forms of affection notwithstanding, we were never together romantically (despite, I think, his wishes); but as I somehow got roped into sending him text-kisses, and responding to dreaded 'Good morning' messages, I'd say I got a little too close to the edge.

It’s almost five years later, and for some time stretching a vague distance into the past, my interest in the concept of romance has been going limp. I don't know if the boy in question was the catalyst--the timeline is too fuzzy--but he feels like a significant event. He brought certain truths about my interest in romantic relationships into sharp relief for the first time, for all that his example of what an intimate relationship could be was intolerable. I discovered, for instance, that I don't feel remotely envious of other peoples' romantic lives. I never wish I have someone's hand to hold, or someone's thoughts to explore, or the chance to share my own. I don't develop romantic feelings for men, and I don't desire to. I'm not craving intimate connection --- I don't need it. Nor, crucially, do I feel any desire for sex.

The only exceptions to any of these feelings --- if they can be called exceptions --- are for [spiritual teacher] and [amateur philosopher]. I watch and listen to them, and feel a subtle reaction which might be a shadow of what other people experience as attraction. It certainly is attraction of a kind, but it would be misleading to use the word. The sensation is largely sexless. Yet, if they were women, I wouldn't look twice. But I'm getting distracted. That subject is for another post, and we have other things to discuss.

Right, so, I'm not interested in a sexual relationship with anybody, nor can I ever remember being interested. My disinterest, moreover (and this is vital), does not equal neutrality. If, say, I were in a romantic relationship with a male, chances are that male would want to have sex regularly. Since I have zero desire to have sex with anybody, if I were to engage with him sexually, it would be for his sake alone --- and that thought is abhorrent to me. My disinterest does not translate to: 'I could take it or leave it.' My disinterest means, 'I don't feel like having sex; if I have sex when I don't feel like it, or force myself to become aroused, I will feel disgusting, used, and like I have no agency.'

If I said all this to a therapist, no doubt he would hear fire alarms blaring and wee-oo wee-oo wee-oo sound effects. It would be something he'd think needs fixing. And perhaps, in a technical sense, it is something to fix. Perhaps this aversion I have is unnatural, not only when held up to the human race, but in me individually. One of my factory settings got jostled somehow, and therapy would serve the purpose of getting it righted.

What I want—what I don’t want— is ultimately abnormal, and maybe I could make myself want what's normal.

The catch? The very process of adjusting that dial back to its default would itself be yet another entry in a sickeningly long list of concessions I’ve made since I was a child to people who wanted something I didn’t want to give—but gave anyway. It would be for the sake of a standard. Fuck that. And I mean fuck that.

God, I want to be left alone.

Why are we not allowed to let ourselves be altered by experience, and permanently? Why do we think our factory settings are our 'true' settings --- who we really are --- and that if we get knocked askew, it's somehow our duty to get knocked straight again?

[natural-and-just]

Scene

“You’re a spitting, hissing cat, Anne, and I keep—” his voice caught, “—and I keep holding out my hand, palm up, hoping you might settle for just a moment and come to inspect it. Come let me stroke you,” he finished, barely a whisper.

Anne stared at him, feeling faint. She felt blindly for the footstool and sank down, the rustle of her skirts sounding like a thunderstorm to her ears.

I shouldn’t have sat on the footstool.

He overwhelmed her from down there, and she couldn’t bare him gazing at her in that way—Anne felt naked under Kelsey’s personal sun, her most private needs displayed for him while he looked, and looked, and looked some more, savoring them tenderly, mercilessly.

Bowing her head and pressing the heals of her palms to her eyes, Anne made an involuntary, gasping sort of noise. Kelsey knelt down, crowding her, bracketing Anne’s ankles with his thighs, gripping her soft upper arms, ducking his face to try to see hers as she shuddered and sobbed.

“Anne,” He said urgently, but she only shook her head, shoulders bunching up to her ears.

“Anne, I want— please, trust me. I’m unarmed.” Near pleading, he tugged with some of his old petulance gently at her wrists, pressed his forehead to her temple, breathing her in desperately and moving to grasp fistfuls of her skirts in both hands.

“If you won’t look at me then listen to these words,” he said, and now there was that hint of iron in his voice that made Anne feel as though something in her stomach were unraveling. Brushing his lips to the shell of her ear, he said,

“I will keep you, Anne. And I think you know in what manner I aim to keep you. We understand each other well enough for that. You’re a smart girl—a girl with needs I want to fulfill, if you’ll let me,”

A pause, during which the only things in Anne’s world were the warm cotton smell of him, the scent of the rain married lovingly with the scent of his skin, so indecently precious to her. He stroked the hair at her nape with his fingertips,

“Or does it even make sense for a girl like you to let a man like me do anything, hmm?”

Anne twisted the front of his shirt in her small fists, weeping silently into his shoulder while he took her apart.

“A bit like a lamb laying down the law for the lion. That prideful animal might humor it, let her play between his paws, swat at his ears. But they both know, don’t they, Anne? They both know who’s in charge.”

She shuddered.

“And it’s perfectly natural, that the lamb should lay down at his feet.”

At that, she felt that feeling of just having stepped off a swing, her legs feeling like a newborn foal’s and the ground refusing to stay put. She clung to Kelsey’s lapel like a lifeline.

Kelsey gripped her arms suddenly and lifted her, turning them both, and settled down once more, with him now sitting on the footstool and Anne kneeling, nestled in between his thighs and gazing up at him dazedly, tears clumping her eyelashes. The instinctive longing to nestle her face into his raised crotch was almost overwhelming.

[natural-and-just]

Late at night

You know, I don't. I'm in limbo. Given up. Drifting in a sort of listless fog. I'd like to be done with school now. I'd like to be in London, or Ireland, or even Portland. I want change. I want to be discharged from duty, honorably or not. I want to fall in love, but at the same time that sounds profoundly exhausting. I want to go back in time to The Road Trip TM. I want to discover JE for the first time. I want sit next to Matthew while we get extra help from Ms. Gendron.

I'm tired of the story. That's something I can be grateful for. The fact that this experience has made me so tired of the non-stop stories that go on for as long as I'm awake. There is something for me, beyond the story. I can sense that.

It's funny. Take a tennis ball, and picture it bouncing off the floor and ceiling (this one is particularly bouncy). Now gradually lower the ceiling. The ball bounces more frequently, until the ceiling gets to no more than five inches off the ground and the ball is a blur. It stops when it's clamped completely.

That's the process of enlightenment through hardship. When the ceiling is up high, I'm bouncing along contentedly, only coming up against difficult thoughts once in a while, and there's plenty of space to move that isn't the floor or ceiling. The thoughts come more often as more difficulty arises, but I bounce off them and put my thoughts on another track. The lower the ceiling becomes, the more frequently I'm bouncing off scary thoughts, beginning to feel like those are the only kind to exist, becoming restless, frantic. Only when the problems are so intense, so immediate, when they have my mind clamped so that there is no where to turn, do I stop bouncing and become peaceful. I have been mated. I tip my king.

[natural-and-just]

[natural-and-just]

[natural-and-just]

I met a person in the kitchenette.

Ha. Rhyming.

I'm attempting to make my situation in dorms a bit more livable. So far, I'm given back my old blue laundry basket and purchased a sturdy, tall, white basket which doesn't hurt to carry up and down the stairs with a shit ton of laundry in it. The other one kept cutting into my hands and wasn't quite big enough. (Not entirely sure if this white one has more volume, but if it's filled to the top, the surface area of laundry open to the skies and therefore likely to fall out will be lessened.

I've also purchased myself a mug from the UW bookstore with the intent to make tea. I have made tea. Mission successful. I also met a person in the kitchenette. A boy I shall name M. M said Hi, noted that he'd seen me around, and introduced himself. He's cute. I liked his voice. I feel like I embarrassed myself. Not with anything in particular, I just felt that I was awkward and he was very much not awkward, and that maybe he was thinking I was awkward not consciously but just a subconscious murmur. Like, maybe he extended the conversation beyond Hello because he thought you were attractive but then skeddadled because you were awkward. Jesussss I'm overthinking. Anyway, he's cute, and he's "seen me around." It's good that I exist for other people.

Turns out I love taking pictures with the intent to put them on my blog, so I think I'll keep that up.

That microwave is weak. I feel like a minute, thirty would be more than enough to heat up my water enough to reach fresh-cup-of-tea-standards for warmth/heat. I shall do two minutes next time.

I just came back from heating up my tea and it's now back to acceptable levels of scalding.

Although I have now just noticed that there are a couple small fissures in the glaze near where the handle meets the cup, and I'm nervous that the handle is going to break off. I hope it doesn't. I'm now done thinking about whether or not the handle will break off.

I'm slowly but surely working through all the questions I had regarding my philosophy midterm and I've turned in the weekly phil quiz. 97%. I may or may not take it again. Depends on my energy level. It's not a priority right now, since I've got other things on my mind.

I'm still a little lonely, and I'm still a little sad, but my instinct is telling me to not write about those things because ruminating will only make them worse. Maybe at a later date.

I think the next picture I will take it of that colorful tree I posted earlier. It's all bare branches now, and not nearly so cheerful. I think it will be a neat contrast. I don't want to repost/reblog any aesthetically pleasing posts to this blog because I want it to be all mine, even if that means excluding things I think are pretty because they weren't created by me. Oh, that reminds me. JBP was saying how "everyone is creative" is actually not true, and that the actual distribution of people who are actively creative follows the Pareto distribution. A very few of the people are creating most of the populations creations. In other words, when I feel like I don't actually do much, that I don't really stretch any creative muscles, or when I even feel like I wasn't born with creative muscles to stretch, that I'm not alone. That in fact most of the population isn't that creative. That it's not an unnatural thing to not be creative. He said that it actually takes an extraordinary amount of intelligence to do that sort of thing, and that people aren't that smart on average. Now, I'm not sure if I'm straying from what he actually said, but that was the general vibe I got from what he was saying.

Thank God. I'm not gimp.

Actually, from what he's been saying, I'm learning to adopt other labels. I'm conscientious. And that's a good trait even if it's not highly lauded by society. I'm kind, and I'm earnest. I'm a good student. That's what my mom said. I'm a good student of life. I want to know and understand. Those are admirable.

I feel a bit fake right now. Maybe it's the topic.

I want to get back into memorizing poems. I like memorizing poems.

I'm nervous for my ASL quiz.

-Dot

[natural-and-just]

Another photo I took a few weeks ago.

[natural-and-just]

11/11/21

Was my last dated post on 10/10/21? Coz that's kinda funny.

I was just reading a post on r/journaling, and here I am. I'm listening to one of my preferred youtube "soothing sounds" -- a darker version of Merry Go 'Round of Life, with a rain sounds backdrop.

I'm a bit overwhelmed lately. It's midterm season again (when is it not?) and I've got a bunch of major items on consecutive days. Yesterday was my ASL group chat recording, tomorrow is my ASL midterm, Saturday is the due date for my weekly philosophy quiz + lab as well as the philosophy midterm + labs. Sunday I take this weeks psych quiz and Monday is my psych midterm. 10/16 I register for classes. Dad wanted me to call up the math department and show my face a little -- ask what classes to take to make me an appealing candidate for being accepted into the math major. But I haven't managed it yet and right now I really don't want to. I'm tired, and I don't know what I would say, and I don't really feel comfortable going to the advising zoom hours just to say "can I speak to the manager" basically. I mean, their the people who host "advising." It's not like they're fucking mcdonald's front men.

I bought a snap-back today at the UW bookstore an I fucking love it. I'm going to wear it always. It's like another superhero cape. I like to think about myself in the cap and a hoodie with the hood pulled up and baggie pants like those creepy dudes you avoid late at night. Like, why the fuck are you just wandering around, my dude? You dealing drugs? That's the vibe I'm going for. Make me feel protected. I can slump in my seat and pull the bill down low over my face like when hot dudes come into some group meeting with a hangover. Anyway, I love my snap-back. Except I can't take it off in public because then everyone will see the red line going across my forehead. And I don't want people to see that. I'm tired. I bought a mug as well and it's a pretty shape. I have teabags and now I'm going to be all cozy with my tea in my mug with my snap-back and hoodie and notebook and nails. yeaaa.

I want to find true love, but at the same time I'm like ewwww no that's too tiring.

Okay Merry Go Round of Life is really irritating me now.

[natural-and-just]

Photo I took my first few days on campus.

[natural-and-just]

She doesn’t get it right every time. I don’t like several of her books, and have DNFed a couple more, but when she writes one that I like I always reread it. Even if the characterization was perfect, if the dialogue was snappy and quick and the plot was engaging, I still might come away feeling a bit flat. I could still just give it three stars. With Penny’s books it feels like she's riffled through my heart and detected some bruised spot, inspected it, gazed at it, gently probed and pressed at it, and then concocts her antidote in the form of some one or other of her books.

In Kissing Galileo she discusses body issues, body-related imposter syndrome, and the paradox inherent in a refusal to conform to society's expectations. The whole books is a balm, but there is one of several wonderful moments that were particularly satisfying, which I would like to mention: Victor is working with his mate and catching him up on his feelings for Emily. He expresses some reluctance to fully indulge these feelings because Emily is very beautiful in a classical way. He rants about how people shouldn't be choosing their partners based on their looks, how physical beauty is utterly unimportant, etc, etc. He goes so far as to say that physically unattractive people, on average, have more going for them, and here his friend calls him on his bullshit. You can just tell he’s gone over this argument a hundred times in his head, you can feel the endless struggle to rationalize his way into what he feels is objectively on morally steadier ground. You can see that he's trying so hard to reach that higher ground because that's what's been protecting him from the more deeply cutting remarks his father dished out to him his whole childhood and early adulthood.

It felt like he was speaking for me in those moments, and I felt so fucking naked. God, I fucking adore him. Then his friend starts interrogating him, asking about his feelings for Emily, and generally trying to knock some sense into Victor. At one point Victor sort of gives up and (I always picture him closing his eyes and slumping *ever so slightly*) says on a long exhale, “She’s so fucking hot.”

Now, there is nothing remotely novel about that sentence or the sentiment. I’ve read countless, *countless* iterations that range from flowery and sentimental to way-fucking debased. And yet, those words coming from Victor Hanover’s mouth do something new to my insides. He’s so resistant to his feelings because they’re “superficial”, “shallow”, so utterly irrelevant he feels ashamed that they could exert this much power over him. On top of that, in acknowledging his baser feelings, he’s contradicting his own self defense mechanism--a lifetime of convincing himself that looks don't matter so he could protect himself from his abusive father. He can't help it though, and the fact that he finds her so attractive inside, but also (and, in this case I think more importantly) outside, that has to give up the game in his head, give up the battle to be so pure and Mother Teresa-esque, give up the preferred beliefs which have buoyed him his whole life, just to admit he finds her incredibly physically attractive is just sooo.....ugh.

Part of the... the tang, the kick which makes his ordinary words so effective stems from the contrast between that moment and Victor's general prior demeanor. I hesitate to describe him as prudish, and yet for a substantial portion of the book he does seem sexless. He’s such an innocent. (God, I need to write about his being a virgin, because holy fucking shit it's hot, but I need to stay on topic for a minute more.) He is mostly uncaring for his outward appearance, wears his old clothes from when he was really overweight and which hang off him now. He’s got a fucking pocket protector! Protect this man at all fucking cost. I would willingly throw myself into a burning building for him I swear to God, Amen.

-Dot

[natural-and-just]

"I'm never quite sure if I'm doing anything right until I'm completely done doing it wrong."

- Danny Concannon, West Wing

[natural-and-just]

10/10/21

Whenever I am left alone without any kind of external stimulation, I always become anxious and/or angry.

It's Sunday, October 10th. I moved into my dorm at the [REDACTED] on the 24th of September. The second week (first full week) has just passed. I'm in college. I know I was in college last year, too, but that felt more like weird regular school. Now I'm away from home and I constantly feel like I'm in the twilight zone or something. Especially in the evening. Like I've just gotten off a swing and my calf legs are all wobbly. My stomach feels sort of floaty, but that could just be the BBQ wrap and diet coke I had for supper. I've seen J twice now. I feel so weird.

I don't have specific things to talk about, it just felt like I should let my blog know that I've moved out, now.

[natural-and-just]

It feels good to attend to myself.

[natural-and-just]

You please me and you master me.

[natural-and-just]

I've been reading Anthony Lane reviews and am now suffering from Extreme Inferiority Complex Cubed