My friend and former Accounting Professor, Scott Eriksen, once told me “Eric, you can’t un-ring the bell.”
Once the bell has rung, no matter how hard you try, how much time you let pass, there really is nothing you can do to unring it.
Category Archives: Digressions
Darwin and the Survival of the Ugly
Last night as I was walking home, I crossed paths with a couple kissing on the street corner. Two things struck me about their act of affection. First, they were both very unattractive, noticeably unattractive as it were. Next, although they both seemed to be making their best efforts, the kiss seemed really bad. I was then immediately reminded of one of the more confusing points of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. If only the fittest of the fittest survive, shouldn’t the population be getting more and more attractive? Why then so many ugly people? And in particular, why so many ugly couples? The easy answer is that the drive for procreation, love, affection, and belonging outweighs pride and selectivity.
Filed under Digressions
Part II, Poetry from when I was 17: To be God
“When I was 17, it was a very good year . . .”
Here is another of the poems from when I was 17. I had just studied “lucid dreams” in a psychology class. My basic idea was that if you could really have lucid dreams, meaning dreams where you were conscious of what was happening and could actually control and manuipulate these dreams, then sleeping became a creative and god-like experience. What I find most interesting about my poetry at the age of 17 is not how bad it was, but how, like today, I was very obsessed with getting more sleep.
Filed under Digressions
Part I, Poetry from when I was 17: Nausea
“When I was 17, it was a very good year . . .”
My mother just sent me a package from home. Inside I found two interesting documents (plus a beautiful photo of a daffodil from her garden). One was a book of Haiku poetry that I wrote when I was 6 years old and in first grade (apparently, I really liked the words “a lot” a lot). The other one was my high school literary magazine where, of course at 17, I thought I was pretty intellectual, and wrote a few poems. Here is one of the poems which I happened to write after reading Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea. Continue reading
Filed under Digressions
Food
Everyone loves a good meal. People think of food with nostalgia for home or for better times. But, sometimes I wish we could live witout food. It often just gets in the way. Especially on a day like today when my stomach hurts, I feel no homesickness for food, just a desire to avoid eating and to roll myself into my bed like a Mexican fajita.
A few weeks back, my friend Laura (who has a degree in Physical Education and Physiotherapy, is very borde, and who I generally refer to as primer plato) was educating me on the relationship between stress and the digestive system. While it is generally accepted that stress creates stomach discomfort and alignments, the reverse is just as prevelant. Stomach pains cause stress. What’s more stressful than having nausea on a crowded public bus or stuffy metro? Worse of all, it’s lunch time. What am I going to eat?
Filed under Digressions
I know nothing about clouds, I don’t speak French, and I can’t play the piano.
About six months ago, I was running on the treadmill listening to Thelonious Monk, and I was suddenly overcome by one of the profoundest revelations of my lifetime to date. It wasn’t about the existence of God, the meaning of life and death, or about love. It was much simpler yet just as significant. Here it is:
I should have been a pianist. Continue reading
Filed under Digressions, Friends / Family, Jazz
Bill Clinton, Elvis, Milan Kundera, Billie Holiday, Chet Baker, and my Grandmother
Bill Clinton was probably the US’ most charismatic president. Of course, people either loved or hated him. What I could never understand is why, even at moments when I thought I had lost respect for the man or even when I knew he was just b.s.ing, he could still move me with one of his speeches. I mean, think about it. Here’s a guy from Georgetown University and from Yale with a redneck twang in his voice.
Then one day it hit me. Bill Clinton sounds a lot like Elvis Presley when he talks. That is what essentially makes him so listen-to-able. Bill is from Little Rock and Elvis was from Memphis. They are pretty close, both geographically and culturally. Listen carefully next time you hear Bill speak, close your eyes, imagine it is the King. Actually, there was a book written about Bill being the Rock and Roll President.
So, what does Bill Clinton sounding like Elvis Presley have to do with Milan Kundera, Billie Holiday, Chet Baker and my Grandmother?
Filed under Digressions, Friends / Family, Jazz, Literature
The Agony of Humanity
Miguel de Unamuno writes in “La Agonía del Cristianismo” about the inherent conflict that the Gospel requires of its followers. One is told to be fruitful and multiply, and yet at the same time, one is obliged to leave everything behind (family, friends, the world).
In my world, I live what I call the Agony of Humanity. I love people. I love being around people, talking to them, learning about and from them. I value above all else generosity and kindness. At the same time, I also cherish my solitude. Ironically, I consider myself sociable yet anti-social. Sometimes I just want to be left alone.
Filed under Digressions
Haruki Murakami
So that’s how we live our lives. No matter how deep and fatal the loss, no matter how important the thing that’s stolen from us – that’s snatched right out of our hands – even if we are left completely changed people with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to play out our lives this way, in silence. We draw ever nearer to our allotted span of time, bidding farewell as it trails off behind. Repeating, often adroitly, the endless deeds of the everyday. Leaving behind a feeling of immeasurable emptiness.
– Haruki Murakami, “Sputnik Sweetheart”. Continue reading
Filed under Digressions, Literature
Coming Soon!
Right now I have absolutely no time to post, to say the least. Nevertheless, I do not want to disappoint the thousands and thousands of daily Grave Error readers. So please find a list of upcoming posts that will hopefully be available soon for your reading pleasure:
Sleep as a Final Request; On Food; Public Transportation; A Debilitating Weakness for Beauty; My Top 5 SMSs to Laura and Laura’s 5 Most Insulting Responses; Mayte and her 4 Personalities; A Quantitative Analysis of Sustainable Dating; Teo y los Ateos No Practicantes; In Search of a Nickname for Iurgi; Alberto the Snake Charmer; Jazzya: 4 Women and a Baby; Martha the Router Derby Queen; Bergazudo: The Perfect Combination; and I Know Nothing about Clouds.
Filed under Digressions
Grave Error 