Helping!

One of my Facebook friends posted this picture recently, with a bit of vague affirmative text as a caption. It struck me immediately in a visceral kind of way, neither negative nor positive. Mostly because of how I had a million other things on my plate at the time.

So I grabbed it, confident that I had something to say about the message: "People you help may harm you in the process. Don't ever help anyone."

That's what I got from it, anyway.

Today I'm back at my mindless job, one which takes up all of a third of one compute cycle in its most trying moments. Currently I'm stuck waiting on other people to do their mindless jobs while my work piles up- I can't do a thing until they've finished.

So my mind wandered, and in wandering, it settled on that image. Instead of funny cat videos. Or sports stats. Or girls in bikinis. Or a million other things it could've settled on.

The message "don't help because you might get hurt" is a pretty disgusting one, I think. It implies that you're helping for your sake, not theirs. And THAT implies that you're helping because you think someone is watching. Because you're hoping for some kind of reward. Or because you're afraid of being punished for not helping.

If you want to help, just do it. Don't expect "karma" to win the lottery for you in exchange for your deed, and don't go looking for a ticker-tape parade. Sure, you'll get a few pats on the head. Maybe even an occasional cookie.

The sad fact is this: most times, helping will bite you in the ass.

Preface/disclaimer time, and then an anecdote.

I'm not comfortable around people, individually or in groups, and I prefer my own company whenever I can manage it. While this sounds antisocial, it really isn't. You wouldn't be able to tell from my attitude most of the time, but the pool of people whom I genuinely dislike is very small- I'd not even have to remove my shoes and socks to count them.

That's not to say that I'm some kind of Gandhi figure - not even a little bit! I'm quick to judge and quicker to anger, I can be mean and uncharitable, and I have a lot of trouble putting myself in others' shoes. At the same time, I'm quick to forget and don't hold much truck with grudges. I like most of the people I meet, and even with the ones I don't really so much, I can find some kind of redeeming feature of them. I wish them well, one and all. We're all in it together.

A little less than a year ago, I gave up my second job after my wife graduated from college and started work. I'd been cashiering in a gas station on my days off for about 14 months, and as you might expect, I met a lot of people during that time. All kinds of them: locals, long-distance travelers, drunks, addicts, harried parents, irritated commuters, regular people, people who think gas station cashiers are beneath their notice, talkers, crazies of all stripes... All manner of humanity came through the doors.

I had a lot of small-talk practice during that time being around the regulars whom I got to know fairly well, as well as all the single-serve folk. This is something I'd been without for a long time: plain old, garden-variety contact. I'm not a shut-in, I'm not agoraphobic. Generally I don't go out if I don't need to, but there's nothing physical or mental preventing me from doing so. I simply like my own place, and I REALLY like people best when they're somewhere else.

It wasn't this year's Easter Sunday - because I no longer had the job - but in 2014. I was working a shift at the gas station as I was off from my full-time job, and a woman dressed for Easter (think church, not bunnies) came in after pumping gas. She used the restroom, wandered the store, and picked out a few other items for her travels, but it was when she tried to pay for everything with a money order that things went wrong. The store I worked for didn't and doesn't accept them as payment, and that was all the woman had.

No cash. No cards. No checks. Nothing.

I was working with the assistant manager at the time, who was irritated and ready to call the cops on the woman for having a tank full of gas for which she couldn't pay. Thinking of how I'd feel in her place, with it being Easter on top of everything, I paid for her gas. And for the extra stuff she got to go along with it, because even though I'd have to work all of that shift and part of another to cover the cost, it's just money.

Right?

I wish I could say that I paid her bill with no expectations, but that would be a lie. Even though she looked the part of saintly grandmother, when I wrote my name and phone number on her receipt, I did it fully expecting never to hear from her again. A year-and-a-half hardly qualifies as "never", but so far my expectation has been met. I'd be less surprised to be abducted by aliens, or to learn that my cats speak english, or to discover that I'm Canadian royalty, than I would be to hear from her again.

That being said, I'd do it again, if the circumstances were right. Not because "the boss is watching and will be impressed". She wasn't - she thought it was a dumb thing to do, and judged solely on the matter of $50 +/- and whether I'd have it to spend on myself, she was completely right.

Not because "karma will even things out". It won't, because that's not a thing.

Not because "I won't be able to sleep tonight otherwise" or because "I get the warm fuzzies from helping" or because "It's the right thing to do". "Wouldn't be an issue", "I don't", and "Depends on the situation", respectively.

I'd do it - and try once again to leave my expectations at the door - simply because I'm trying to get better at putting myself in others' shoes. That, and while I have a tendency to judge and scorn people for being self-centered, for seemingly working to make the world a more difficult place to be for everyone else, I don't often follow my own advice.

So I guess my own drive to help - such as it is - is self-serving. I'll go back to funny cat videos now.

a comment i made on a facebook thread about vaccine-phobes

i'm all for people being anti-establishment, for them being critical and not simply believing everything that's told to them by "authorities". there's value in the mindset, and i believe it's incumbent upon people to weigh their options, to make an informed decision, and to act. responsibly.

most of us don't need to be told what that means.

for example, i could take a real shine to lions after seeing a super-awesome video of a lion... i dunno, maybe roaring loudly or rolling around in the dirt. i could get it in my mind to buy a pride of lions to keep in my back yard.

you know, on account of how they're super-awesome.

assuming i didn't know anything about lions from the get-go, i might want some information about them - what do they eat, how much room do you need for them to be able to roar loudly and roll around in the dirt, can they be housebroken, that sort of thing. i might fire up my friend google for a search. "lions", i'd type into the search field, then sift through the results that weren't about football or community-service organizations.

well, shit. i didn't know they got that big.

and "apex predator" means they'll eat me. or my kids. or my neighbors. or my neighbors' kids. or all of us.

"but i *really* want a lion!" i might whimper. "they're, like, super-awesome!"

so, one more google search, this time "lions as pets". almost 17 million hits. i think i can discard most of the anecdotal evidence, good AND bad - i want the skinny from people who know about lions. lion experts.

the majority of the information coming from lion experts is, in simple terms, "you're better off with a house cat. they're nearly as troublesome, but mostly are unable to kill you/terrorize your neighborhood".

for me, that would be the end of my research, and i might go on to develop a semi-healthy obsession with lions.

the divergence from the *other* crowd would have started some time ago, maybe right after "i could take a real shine to lions....". and you know the *other* crowd i mean - they get it into their heads that they have it right, period. no amount of naysaying from Reasonable People or Contradictory Information From Experts can sway them.

the ones who found two "experts" who say owning lions is great, and the right of every free citizen.

the ones who KNOW that Big-[Profiting-Wildly-From-Lying-To-The-Sheeple-To-Prevent-Lion-Ownership] is engaged in an intricate, global coverup of the medicinal, physiological, and psychological benefits of owning multiple lions.

the ones with their fingers jammed in their ears, shrieking "lalalalalalala - i can't HEAR you!!!!" over and over.

i'd sadly give up my dreams of lion ownership, not only for my safety and that of my family, but also for the same of the community in which i live. pretty easy decision, that.

but for the *other* crowd, well... "none of your lies will change my mind! your so-called 'experts' are SHILLS, and i REFUSE TO BE ONE OF THE SHEEPLE! i'm getting those fucking lions, because IT'S MY RIGHT AND NOTHING ELSE MATTERS!"

all right, fine. you're one of *those* people. tell you what, though: if you and i both survive the events "Your Lion 'Unexpectedly' Breaking Free From Your 'Control' And Mauling Someone I Care About" and "Public Safety Officials Bringing An Escaped Lion To Heel", you'd better be ready for the back of your skull to meet my louisville slugger.

your dogma ran out in front of my karma

A friend of mine from facebook and from the real world shared this image with me the other day, I think because we often jibber and jabber about how the world could be a much better place than it is. The "infographic" above is pretty much a perfect encapsulation of the utopian starry-eyed nonsense that's becoming more and more commonplace these days, and I'm pretty sure a little piece of me dies every time I see a new poster appear.

The premise is flawed from the outset: "Doing nothing but COMPLAINING about the system or demanding that our "LEADERS" CHANGE THE WORLD FOR US is no different than going at a theatre and throwing tomatoes at the stage." Bullshit.

Bull. Shit.

In the real world, I've never been forced to go to any theater, to see any show. If I want to see it, I see it. If not, I don't. The real world isn't like that, though. The day-to-day that we all experience is a part of the framework in which we exist, not a diversion put on for our entertainment. You can't just "walk away" and "create a world of your choosing", and with nebulous terms and undefined goals, all I see in the above is this:

I don't have any problem with anyone who wants the world to be a better place - quite the opposite! Our world is a pretty neat place, but at the same time, it can be a festering shitehole. Improvement is always possible.

What I DO have a problem with is anyone who's peddling a "Phase 3" of create a world of our choosing UNDER NO AUTHORITY BUT OUR OWN as a follow-up to a "Phase 1" of WALK AWAY AND UNITE followed by the standard "Phase 2", ?. If I thought this particular "Phase 3" was a realistic goal, I might ask a proponent of it to suggest ways in which we could achieve it. Because it's not a realistic goal, though, I have to wonder what "Phase 1" entails. If you're not interested in running afoul of the law, probably it's "going to Starbuck's to have lattes and talk about how great it's going to be to live under our own authority in a world of our choosing, with other people who no longer vote".

If you're slightly more determined, you might stop paying taxes on everything you buy - "take THAT,  The System!" - and for a time, feel like you're really making progress. Until they catch up with you and punish you for not paying the taxes. And compel you to pay fines. AND taxes.

If you're as determined as you can be, if this is a do-or-die, all-or-nothing situation, you quit your job and go guerilla. What then? Even if you were sufficiently funded to take on your government and its military - and para-military - the numbers aren't going to work out in your favor. You'd be better off buying yourself some "democracy".  

So, in this example of "create a world of our choosing UNDER NO AUTHORITY BUT OUR OWN", you can 

1. act minimally and legally, become discouraged, and give up
2. get illegal enough to cost yourself some money, get a record, and maybe wind up in jail. then give up
3. go full outlaw, get an asterisk next to your name, and become an example for others

Wouldn't it be better to establish a realistic "Phase 3"? Something small and achievable, but meaningful? Something that, once you've done it, you can think to yourself, "I helped make that happen!"?

message to a friend and former co-worker

Well, there are nice people around The Fortress, but still I don't think there can be any valid comparison between the Empire and the FOS. Stormtroopers all come from the sociopathic DNA of Jango Fett, so I can't really believe it's in their nature to be "nice". I wouldn't imagine the nurture of the Kaminoans - who took the cash and built/bred/geneticfully engineered to specs without worrying over ethics - or the pervasive atmosphere of "relatively-low-ranking-soldier-in-the-Galactic-Empire" could lead to much possibility of "nice", either. There wasn't any "nice" I could discern within the Empire's command structure, and the top end of that food chain - Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine - was not only *not nice*, it was SILLY with evil.

Now, *that* being said, there isn't any obvious benefit to niceness within a military organization bent on maintaining the control it's established. To all appearances that control is largely unquestioned and nearly complete, so their drive to expand is implied. An organization with near-unlimited resources, mad for power, would continue to reach until they exceeded their grasp.

There *is* a benefit to niceness within a private organization bent on getting all the cash it can. Whether the nice is actual or apparent, it becomes important because the private organization can't simply demand unquestioning obedience of all of the rank-and-file - pesky labor laws and regulations and "worker's rights" nonsense. Nice comes into play at the top end of the organization where there's an image to project, and pervades the bulk of the remainder of the personnel structure as a means of social and professional advancement. Political maneuvering, for the most part, though genuine niceness *does* exist there. Genuine niceness doesn't seem to serve any practical function within the system, though. So probably it can be ignored.

I could speculate about the top end of the food chain at the Fortress of Stoopid. I don't suppose you make it to executive-level by being nice, though the executive-level people I know from the Fortress seem nice enough. On the other hand, I don't suppose that - operating within the confines of the present system - you can *remain* in an executive-level position by advertising your evil. Good in a military dictatorship, sure. Direct-mail advertising business? Maybe not so much.

So I guess the parallel between the two has to be the single-mindedness. The Galactic Empire had their thirst for power and control. Money might also be an issue, but that can be left for another time because money is the thing for the Fortress of Stoopid. The Empire fell because of their arrogance.

The Fortress? Incompetence might not bring it down, but they certainly suffer for it.

the world as i see it

so, saturday night as i was watching game five of the first-round stanley cup playoff series between the minnesota wild and the colorado avalanche, something happened.

fans of the minnesota wild - and hockey fans, for that matter - probably know by now that the game was little more than a string of calls by on-ice officials favoring the avalanche, calls that ultimately cost the wild the game. i was outraged - or as outraged as i could become about professional athletes being "victimized" as they went about their business - over the outcome, and where i don't normally bother listening to what the assorted commentators have to say regarding their take on the game, or what coaching staff has to say regarding their take on the game, this time i was.

so i watched. between the 3rd period and the overtime, commentators had harsh words for one call in particular that had allowed the avalanche to tie the game. wes walz, former wild forward, was the most vocal in his criticism. other analysts at least mentioned the call, and just before the overtime began, replay footage appeared that showed the avalanche entering the offensive zone offside - a further outrage!

anyway, colorado went on win the game. no one except for the color commentary and play-by-play announcers, apparently having missed the memo from the brass to drop it, had anything to say about the bad calls. wild players who were interviewed downplayed the "missed calls" when asked, saying that they can't dwell on that. they need to focus on the next game. take it one game at a time. the in-studio people back in minnesota didn't mention the incidents, instead lamenting the colorado comeback and looking ahead to the sixth game of the series. wild head coach mike yeo echoed the sentiments of his recently-interviewed players in the post-game press conference, basically refusing to comment on the call that had cost his team the game.

i wasn't surprised at that point, and the outrage i'd experienced earlier was gone, saved for something outrage-worthy. which this was not.

what happened saturday night as i was watching game five of the first-round stanley cup playoff series between the minnesota wild and the colorado avalanche was *not* that the wild lost to the avalanche because of unfair officiating- ok, that *did* happen, but what happened for me is that i can now see the game as it is: intangible goods produced by a corporation for consumption at point-of-sale. available to consumers on 41 occasions from october to april in the 30 markets across the us and canada selected by the nhl corporation to be the best income generators. the outcome of each and every "contest" decided in advance by nhl corporation revenue forecasters, carefully considering where consumers are most likely to spend the most money on their product. and the merchandise associated with the 30 different varieties. and the broadcast rights to include those without access to the point-of-sale. and advertising revenue associated with broadcast.

how can i be outraged over that? a multinational corporation trying to earn all the money they can year in and year out - that's what corporations do. they aren't saving the world, no. they *are* employing people, they benefit local economies where point-of-sale exists, and athletes in the nhl appear to be much better-behaved than those in the nfl or the nba, for the most part.

unfortunately, i can't un-see what i've envisioned - whether or not it's a reflection of how that system actually works - and what i enjoyed as a diversion is now another product for which i have no use. none of which affects the nhl one bit - i was a minor consumer of the product all along and my absence will make no difference to their bottom line.

similarly, this should affect anyone who takes the time to read it not one bit. i'm spitballing on a rainy monday.

I Got A New Hat!

I was at a birthday party Saturday night after work with some friends from the Renaissance Festival, and while it wasn't my birthday, I received a present! My great good friend Ryan (whom I adore!) made me this hat with his own two hands and his remarkable knitting skills, toiling away for... Minutes on end? Days? Weeks? I don't know how to knit, nor do I know much about the activity knitting, so I imagine that he labored day and night for weeks between the beginning of October and last Saturday night to create this wonderful hat! Or possibly he knocked it out in one afternoon and he's been holding on to it. I couldn't say.

What I can say is that Saturday night's birthday party marked the first opportunity for him to present the present, and to do so he had to lure me from the house into a chilly, windy night. He brought it from his car as I stood, shivering. When I saw what he had, my discomfort was forgotten and I squee'd a little, ditching my winter hat to try it on.

"Does it fit?" he asked.

"As a matter of fact, it does. This is great!" I replied. "It's feckin' cold out here - let's go back in!"

He wouldn't let me wear it because he hadn't brought a gift to the party and it's probably... Tacky? Yes, tacky to bring a gift to a birthday party when the gift is for someone else. So I left it in my car and in the epilogue I've got a nifty new hat, which is awesome on all sorts of levels. Not the least of which is how I loves me some hats!

You might be wondering why Ryan made me a hat. That's a legitimate thing to wonder, and here's a story of what happened.

I've been working at the festival for quite a while, and over the years I've accumulated some costume parts. Ryan has been going to the festival for quite a while - his wife works there - but he doesn't have any costume bits. He made plans to be there on Festival Friday, a "field trip" day that was added to the last weekend of the run a few years ago. Some other "shop slaves" and I have made Festival Friday the annual date for a drunken site stumble, which is exactly what it sounds like. Festival Friday tends to be somewhat sparsely-attended, and the drunken tradition started when fellow shop slave Lewis and I were sent on an information-collecting mission. In the rain. With drinks.

This year it became "Strunken Dumble", and Ryan wanted to attend. In costume. So I let him borrow a kilt and a shirt, and when everything was done, he wanted to buy the shirt. Instead, I gave it to him.

So I suppose the hat would be more of a "barter" item than a gift.

The Best Meal I Ever Had

Today, a post, and my first since September. I wrote what follows a number of years ago. With a pen. In a notebook. Kicking it old-school, I think you call that.

-----------

The Best Meal I Ever Had
Including attempted vivid descriptive recall which
hopefully can demonstrate at least one
"why?", which was a portion of
the requested assignment which was
assigned to me by my much-loved
sister-in-every-way-but-biological, Deena.

The city of Duluth, MN is built on a hillside that slopes toward the western end of Lake Superior. It's the largest city in the northern half of Minnesota & is home to the College of St. Scholastica and the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

The city is a major shipping hub, with miles of railroad situated near the harbor. Duluth is connected by the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, and by the Atlantic Ocean to the rest of the world.

Because of Lake Superior, Duluth doesn't get particularly warm in the summer. It can be beastly cold in the winter, as well as snowy, and because of this, travel from downtown - on the lake - to anywhere-other-than-downtown can be treacherous.

Myself, I've never been much of a fan of Duluth. More to the point: I despise that city. For no reason that I've ever been able to pin down, I've always had a deep and abiding dislike for Duluth. There are others who share my opinion, and I'm sure this affects Duluth not one bit.

There are others, though - many others - who cherish & worship the city.

That I can't understand it doesn't change it.

Maybe it's because of The Depot, a rail museum & history center. Maybe it's because of the lift bridge & the lake itself - it is a beautiful place. Maybe it's because of the nightlife. Or the educational opportunities. Maybe it's a combination. Probably no one could point at one single thing and say, "this is why I love Duluth!". Or, "This is why I hate Duluth!"

Life just doesn't work that way.

There are good things about the city.

One of them, dining-wise, is Grandma's restaurant. Or perhaps it's a bar-and-grill. I don't remember exactly. Grandma's is the kind of place that does burgers & fries, and does them well. I wouldn't say that it's world-famous - I don't know if a person from Dublin or Moscow would know what it was, or even someone from Akron, for that matter - but it's certainly well-known in Minnesota. Grandma's also sponsors an annual marathon, and while they're not a national chain, they do have at least one other restaurant ...

Forget Duluth. Assuming it's not snowing & you can drive up the hill, leave it in your rear-view mirror. Drive up Central Entrance & take Highway 53 north, past the Miller Hill Mall, past the airport, past everything. Keep driving north through Twig, past the entrance from Cloquet, and twelve miles from there, take a right on Kauppi Lake Road. Kauppi Lake Road is a gravel track, barely two lanes wide. You shouldn't worry about that, though, because once you've turned right on to Kauppi Lake Road, you should stop, get out of your car, and find a way to be able to have a good look at The Sign. Posted by the land owner so as to be visible from the highway, The Sign is well worth the stop, should you ever find yourself driving north on Highway 53, about 10 minutes north from the Highway 53 entrance from Cloquet. Anyway ....

It's still a bit of a drive from here, so take one last look at The Sign, get back in your car, get turned around, and get back on the highway.

Next town is Cotton, home of the annual fiddle contest.

Ten minutes north of that, you'll see a small, tiny little shack on the right, set back from the highway about a hundred yards. If it's summer, the grass is always neatly-trimmed. Winter, the driveway is plowed free of snow. Yet there never seems to be any other sign of life ....

Ten minutes after that, also on the right, you'll pass Half-Moon Lake. Just past it is the exit for Highway 37, which will take you east to Hibbing. That drive takes about 25 minutes, if that's where you're going. But you're not. Stay on the highway.

As you continue to drive north, you'll pass Porky's Building Center - this time on the left - a rest stop (right), the Paul Wellstone Memorial (right), the Eveleth Golf Course (right), the Iron Range Resources & Rehabilitation Board building (left), you'll drive through the town of Eveleth, through Midway, then through an underpass & to the left ... And a vista will open up in front of you.

Highway 53 winds through the city of Virginia, curving gradually to the west, then back north again. Down in to a minor valley then back out again & across the Laurentian Divide, to continue north through Britt, through Cook, through Orr, through a hundred little towns on the way to International Falls, a hundred miles father north.

Once you're through that underpass & you've rounded the corner, though, the view is pretty spectacular. To your right rises a mountain of dusty, rust-red rock & dirt, what was excavated from the iron mine pit just to its north, and at the top is parked a retired mine truck, a dump truck bigger than a modest-size house & painted bright yellow. There are observation decks & informational plaques as well, and the view from the top is wonderful. In the valley below you, straddling Highway 53, is Virginia. symmetrical streets criss-crossing the landscape, with some of the bigger buildings in town rising from the grids as landmarks: the Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency's building, public works building, the high school, the town's water tower, the steam plant ....

Beyond the town, other mountains of iron ore are visible, as well as mine buildings, steam issuing from them to tower high in the air. Between the mines, pine forest - dark green & lush - stretching in all directions toward the ends of the valley.

Drive down into the valley, about a mile father north, and you'll come to a stop light. The cross street is 12th Avenue South. Turn right here, with a Holiday gas station to your right, followed by a McDonald's, with Target set behind both. To the left is the Thunderbird Mall. At the end of the block on the right, just before the stop sign, is Grandma's.

Years ago, when I lived in the area as a kid, it was a Mr. Steak. Directly inside the door is a cash register & hostess' station, a partition behind that running most of the length of the rectangular building, separating booths set on either side. At the end of this, an area for busing, and for waiters & waitresses to wait. On the left side, tables are set against the wall. Windows on that wall face 12th Avenue South and the mall & houses beyond. On the right-side wall, more booths are placed leading up to the kitchen. Beyond the kitchen, the employees' area, and end of the tables on the left wall is an open area bordered with booths, and filled with tables.

In the Mr. Steak days, this was the smoking section of the restaurant. As Mr. Steak vanished, so eventually did the smoking section of any Minnesota restaurant. Or bar.

I'd been to the restaurant a million times with family, both when it was Mr. Steak and as its Grandma's incarnation. The dark wood, dark carpet, and dark walls didn't change with the name - the only thing to change significantly was the menu. Oh, and posters and pictures and signs went up on the walls. If you think of the decor in any Applebee's, you've just about got it. That's the restaurant. It turned from a place that did steaks and dinners fairly well, to a place that does burgers and sandwiches fairly well. Nothing spectacular. Nothing out-of-the-ordinary. But still, good.

I have to imagine that the time was nearly fifteen years ago now, probably early July of 1994. There was a time - and it doesn't seem like it was all that long ago - that I couldn't remember anything really significant from fifteen years ago! Time flies, I guess. Whether or not you're having fun.

We'd gone north to visit family, and a stop that we'd always make was to see my mom & brother & step-dad. This time we'd arranged to meet my mom for lunch - I don't remember why, as we'd normally just visit the lake house - just the four of us. Kat hadn't been born yet, and Adam would have been not much more than two years old. It was one of the rare times that we got to have her all to ourselves - there was always a hustle & bustle at the house, with family & company coming & going - and because of that, it was special. She'd brought a present for Adam, a stuffed Simba (from the Lion King) that he dragged with him everywhere he went for the longest time. She loved him so very much, and she was one of his very favorite people. I'm sad for him, sometimes - he doesn't remember her much - and for Kat, too. She never met her namesake.

I don't remember what I had to eat, or whether I enjoyed it. I do remember sitting next to her, enjoying a quiet lunch before we parted, all of us back to rushing here and there, back in the thick of the rat race. I can remember that it was a beautiful, sunny day, and that for a time on that long-ago July afternoon, we were happy just to be, as the world outside rushed by.

It's sad to think of how easy it is to take those sorts of moments for granted.