The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.
Even I Don't Know Where This is Going
I just know that beginning last Saturday, I thought of the first two, established powerhouses, and two days ago, "The Science Times" reminded me of the potentially therapeutic power of virtual-world-based avatars. Maybe I'll make a connection among the three before this blog-entry is done. Suddenly, I have an image of the avatar versions of Shakespeare, Juliet and Joseph & his dreamcoat....
Last Saturday night, Dr. Eleanor Ehrenkranz got me thinking about shared themes in the Torah and Shakespeare's plays. Dr. Ehrenkranz was a featured teacher at a lecture series, which my mom invited my sisters and our families to attend with her on her birthday. The series had many lecture-topics to choose from, including, "E.T. Torah: What Does Judaism Say about Life on Other Planets? Do We Care?" but we could participate only in two of them, since they were concurrent, so we went to the ones my mom attended, namely the one on Shakespeare and a second one, "500 Years of Hiding: The Lives of the Secret Jews" by Dr. Andrée Aelion Brooks.
During Dr. Ehrenkranz's interactive lecture, if I remember correctly, she spoke of envy/jealousy as the world's most destructive emotion. Earlier in my M.A. pursuit, I blogged about envy, essentially agreeing with Dr. Ehrenkranz, especially in the written-comments-exchange I had with my classmate Zdravko, the object of my envy, following the blog-entry.
The morning after the lecture -- I got home after midnight -- I heard from my partner Pat, who had to miss the whole day, since she lay in bed with a crippling cold; she said, "Envy might be the most destructive outward emotion, but shame is the most destructive inward one." In other words, envy is the most destructive, and shame, the most self-destructive.
Here's where therapeutic avatars might come in:
If, for example, I could go through 3D simulations, where I could experience vivid envy or shame in the safety of a therapist's office while interacting with some 3D automated character, maybe I could experience less of both emotions in the real-world, or be better equipped to handle those emotions.
Here's another possibility that seems more remote at this stage, but I'm prompted to explore it due to a hallway conversation I had with one of the people I met at the lecture series: trying out being an adoptive parent by caring for an adopted baby automated character. Talking with Pat at breakfast this morning in Green Bay, where we have visited her family every Thanksgiving for the past 19 years, I mentioned the idea of a parenting simulation, saying, "If people got to try it out ahead of time, nobody would have children."
"I think some people would like it; some people really want to have babies, whether adopted or organically," Pat answered.
Just when I am feeling some peace around our having chosen not to adopt, since I was unable to conceive by natural means after 18 months of trying, and since Pat, being 15 years older than I was too old to conceive a child by the time we agreed to try to have children, I have the following exchange and get a bit stirred up again:
I'm talking to a new acquaintance about how our 17-year-old nephew enjoyed the lecture on Shakespeare and the Torah and about how one of our 12-year-old nephews enjoyed learning to bake challah in one of the sessions.
"What about your family?" she asks.
"Oh, I don't have any children. My partner is female and I tried for awhile [via anonymous donor], but it didn't work and we didn't want to adopt. I wanted a 'little me.'"
"[Can't recall precisely what she said to encourage me to re-consider adopting, but then simply,] You're a beautiful woman," she said as she turned and walked away and I touched her shoulder gratefully as she departed.
Here's where Shakespeare and shame and envy and the Torah come back in:
I'm left, standing there, feeling positively recognized among this huge sample of humanity -- the whole parking lot was packed for this event -- while also wondering later, the usual chip on my shoulder returning, Did she mean, "You're a beautiful woman; it's a shame you are a lesbian and didn't have children?" or am I projecting? And I'm also standing there, feeling envious of my mother and of her, for having daughters to kvell over while I simply have nephews and a niece for whom I can take nearly zero credit.
Oh, well, it's time for the dessert reception, following the lectures. I enter the busy room and see one of our 12-year-old nephews, Sam, sitting at the "Young Jewish Professionals" table with his plate piled high with cheesecake and cookies. He is a skateboarder and drummer, and likely will burn off the calories of this plateful soon enough -- not that that's on his mind as a 12-year-old boy.
"Are you a young, Jewish professional?" I ask, crouching by his chair, not wanting to take another seat from the earnest, mostly appealing people seated across from us.
"I did a rap at my concert," he answers.
"Oh, great. I thought you were just playing the drums. Take me over to a corner of this room and do it for me."
Sam gets up instantly, abandoning the heaping plateful, and leads me to the quietest pocket of the room he can find. He begins. It's an onslaught of crazy-rhyming and I'm impressed at his memory-retention.
Kids used to memorize Shakespeare and recite patches of his plays; in fact, my mom's dad, who did not get to go to school beyond the 6th grade (a year behind the grade Sam and his twin-brother Max are in now) had sent my mom and her sister to Shakespeare lessons when they were girls.
Who knows? Maybe I'll be like Sarah in the Torah and have a child years from now. I wonder what kids will be reciting by then.
Showing posts with label envy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label envy. Show all posts
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Ode to a Cat
The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.
Phoebe-bo-bee-bee
Phoebe is a kneading lump in my lap
Tail, swinging, keeping time
Built-in, furry drum-stick, beating on
Wooden desk drawers to the right of my
Cat-pants-clothed knee
In Phoebe, I see envy, loneliness, anxiety
Competitiveness with her sister for our affections,
But her sense of competition doesn't seem self-defeating.
Fickle Phoebe, you nibbled just one love-bite on my wrist yesterday
It felt like a cat-kiss. Was it? Pat thinks so.
Phoebe needs to teach me to be more like her.
Phoebe-bo-bee-bee
Phoebe is a kneading lump in my lap
Tail, swinging, keeping time
Built-in, furry drum-stick, beating on
Wooden desk drawers to the right of my
Cat-pants-clothed knee
In Phoebe, I see envy, loneliness, anxiety
Competitiveness with her sister for our affections,
But her sense of competition doesn't seem self-defeating.
Fickle Phoebe, you nibbled just one love-bite on my wrist yesterday
It felt like a cat-kiss. Was it? Pat thinks so.
Phoebe needs to teach me to be more like her.
Suffering's Payoff
The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.
Safety Against Unexpected Disappointment
When did my fetish for suffering begin? Up until recently, I wanted to rid myself of self-defeating competitiveness, which is perfectionism's conjoined twin and jealousy's breath...until I figured out the umbrella-/macro-problem: suffering...from an unhealthy sense of competition, from anxiety, from loneliness; all of these maladies have my suffering from them in common.
Loneliness? Yes. I've written here before that I'm a lonely soul -- probably, that's like calling oneself a klutz, i.e., a self-fulfilling prophecy, and yet I do feel lonely routinely, no matter how beloved I am by Pat and the rest of my family and friends. And my loneliness fuels my art.
Anxiety? I find it the most comfortable, most natural state. The moment I lose it, I fear something really terrible will happen.
Being overly-competitive/-comparative, and then envious? Routinely. For example, on Grove and Watchung in Montclair, coming in either direction, I like to be the first car in the line of however many of us are waiting for the light to change, sometimes by practically any means necessary.
Reading these descriptions of the associated challenges of my suffering, I see the payoff: I'm not necessarily suffering from them...except when it comes to envy....
How can I channel envy? What can I do about it in the present? How can envy be an agent for good instead of disappointment? By being absent. More prayers.
Safety Against Unexpected Disappointment
When did my fetish for suffering begin? Up until recently, I wanted to rid myself of self-defeating competitiveness, which is perfectionism's conjoined twin and jealousy's breath...until I figured out the umbrella-/macro-problem: suffering...from an unhealthy sense of competition, from anxiety, from loneliness; all of these maladies have my suffering from them in common.
Loneliness? Yes. I've written here before that I'm a lonely soul -- probably, that's like calling oneself a klutz, i.e., a self-fulfilling prophecy, and yet I do feel lonely routinely, no matter how beloved I am by Pat and the rest of my family and friends. And my loneliness fuels my art.
Anxiety? I find it the most comfortable, most natural state. The moment I lose it, I fear something really terrible will happen.
Being overly-competitive/-comparative, and then envious? Routinely. For example, on Grove and Watchung in Montclair, coming in either direction, I like to be the first car in the line of however many of us are waiting for the light to change, sometimes by practically any means necessary.
Reading these descriptions of the associated challenges of my suffering, I see the payoff: I'm not necessarily suffering from them...except when it comes to envy....
How can I channel envy? What can I do about it in the present? How can envy be an agent for good instead of disappointment? By being absent. More prayers.
Marveling at Human Talent
The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.
Mostly Others'
Rolling past the Bakery counter at ShopRite tonight, the intricate designs that topped a number of the cakes and pastries impressed me; a human being or more than one did that, I registered, gazing at the glass case. Who knew that the frosting-incarnations of Sesame Street muppets could look so realistic, bursting from cupcake-tops?
Two nights ago, I was talking with a local friend who's mom is dying, telling her about the fun time I was having with my mom during my mom's weekend visit -- how we went to shul together on Friday night; met some friends of mine, including her, on Saturday morning; went to NYC for the afternoon, to a memorable art exhibit of the Bruke group of German Expressionists and saw some Klimts on another floor for good measure; how my mom found the best book in the museum giftshop, *Klimt's Cat;* how we came home and read it, and pieces of other books; and then watched a British mystery on PBS; and then on Sunday, how we went to the three generations of Wyeths show at the Montclair Art Museum prior to driving to Sarah Lawrence College to hear a high school friend read an excerpt of her memoir at the associated literary-journal-debut party.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Don't be jealous," I said tactlessly to my friend whose mother can hardly talk anymore and is bed-ridden.
"I'm not. I'm happy for you," she said.
Writing this, I'm reminded of a prior blog entry because if the roles had been reversed, I'd have been happy for my friend and in parallel wildly wistful, and giantly jealous of her. I was so envious of my friend who did the reading, since both of her parents attended and looked healthy and were visibly many years younger than my mom.
Envy is creativity-poison. Jealousy is the hallway to madness.
Why focus on it, rather than relishing and retelling all of the fun my mother and I had? What's the payoff? I think I'll spend a different blog-entry on that. Meanwhile, more purely and painlessly, I want to be able to marvel at other people's talent for writing and living. That's my prayer, God.
Mostly Others'
Rolling past the Bakery counter at ShopRite tonight, the intricate designs that topped a number of the cakes and pastries impressed me; a human being or more than one did that, I registered, gazing at the glass case. Who knew that the frosting-incarnations of Sesame Street muppets could look so realistic, bursting from cupcake-tops?
Two nights ago, I was talking with a local friend who's mom is dying, telling her about the fun time I was having with my mom during my mom's weekend visit -- how we went to shul together on Friday night; met some friends of mine, including her, on Saturday morning; went to NYC for the afternoon, to a memorable art exhibit of the Bruke group of German Expressionists and saw some Klimts on another floor for good measure; how my mom found the best book in the museum giftshop, *Klimt's Cat;* how we came home and read it, and pieces of other books; and then watched a British mystery on PBS; and then on Sunday, how we went to the three generations of Wyeths show at the Montclair Art Museum prior to driving to Sarah Lawrence College to hear a high school friend read an excerpt of her memoir at the associated literary-journal-debut party.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Don't be jealous," I said tactlessly to my friend whose mother can hardly talk anymore and is bed-ridden.
"I'm not. I'm happy for you," she said.
Writing this, I'm reminded of a prior blog entry because if the roles had been reversed, I'd have been happy for my friend and in parallel wildly wistful, and giantly jealous of her. I was so envious of my friend who did the reading, since both of her parents attended and looked healthy and were visibly many years younger than my mom.
Envy is creativity-poison. Jealousy is the hallway to madness.
Why focus on it, rather than relishing and retelling all of the fun my mother and I had? What's the payoff? I think I'll spend a different blog-entry on that. Meanwhile, more purely and painlessly, I want to be able to marvel at other people's talent for writing and living. That's my prayer, God.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Olympic-proportion Blues
The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.
Wish I Were Less Self-Absorbed
Pat taped the opening ceremonies, which we were watching just now and the artfulness and discipline was breathtaking and a bit disheartening. And then I really got depressed, watching the hopeful athletes stream into the bird's-nest stadium. Why not just be excited? Because seeing the performances and visual art upfront made me feel un-original and seeing the athletes made me feel physically unfit, and lazy. I am not unfit, lazy or unoriginal...but compared to what I witnessed tonight, I feel that way.
Watching them made me want to eat too much and so I had to walk away after I fed the cats. Seafood Surprise, or whatever it was called, smelled less disgusting, and so perhaps I'm becoming more accustomed to it, and the peppermint lip balm continues to help.
Why not be more self-accepting and less self-preoccupied?
A Day of Culture
We spent the morning and afternoon in New York City and I was stimulated by a ton of art, but instead of delighting in human capability, I felt jealous of the artists. The Olympics coverage was no different for me. I wrote about this months ago; wish I had made progress....
Tara Donovan wasn't even an artist I knew to look for at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but we passed through her installation on the way to the design exhibit; it was so original and I wished to be so original myself. And then the design show and the superheroes fashion exhibit did not help because I wished I could have thought of the objects and outfits I saw.
Where's the hope? The hope is that Pat and I had a beautiful walk across Central Park in the morning and we made some art together with our friends David and Gerard in the afternoon at E Y E B E A M, where we moved artfully in front of a green-screen, which recorded our every move and made it look like a human kaleidoscope sort of. And the digital puppetry exhibit enabled us to try on various, on-screen props and disguises.
Almost Did Not Admit My Envy
This sadness around not being Olympic-caliber has hit me for as long as I can remember, but it's the first Olympics, where I'm a blogger, and so I need to write about it. How can I stop comparing myself to impossible competition? How can I just accept that I am as God wants me to be and I'm good enough?
Wish I Were Less Self-Absorbed
Pat taped the opening ceremonies, which we were watching just now and the artfulness and discipline was breathtaking and a bit disheartening. And then I really got depressed, watching the hopeful athletes stream into the bird's-nest stadium. Why not just be excited? Because seeing the performances and visual art upfront made me feel un-original and seeing the athletes made me feel physically unfit, and lazy. I am not unfit, lazy or unoriginal...but compared to what I witnessed tonight, I feel that way.
Watching them made me want to eat too much and so I had to walk away after I fed the cats. Seafood Surprise, or whatever it was called, smelled less disgusting, and so perhaps I'm becoming more accustomed to it, and the peppermint lip balm continues to help.
Why not be more self-accepting and less self-preoccupied?
A Day of Culture
We spent the morning and afternoon in New York City and I was stimulated by a ton of art, but instead of delighting in human capability, I felt jealous of the artists. The Olympics coverage was no different for me. I wrote about this months ago; wish I had made progress....
Tara Donovan wasn't even an artist I knew to look for at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but we passed through her installation on the way to the design exhibit; it was so original and I wished to be so original myself. And then the design show and the superheroes fashion exhibit did not help because I wished I could have thought of the objects and outfits I saw.
Where's the hope? The hope is that Pat and I had a beautiful walk across Central Park in the morning and we made some art together with our friends David and Gerard in the afternoon at E Y E B E A M, where we moved artfully in front of a green-screen, which recorded our every move and made it look like a human kaleidoscope sort of. And the digital puppetry exhibit enabled us to try on various, on-screen props and disguises.
Almost Did Not Admit My Envy
This sadness around not being Olympic-caliber has hit me for as long as I can remember, but it's the first Olympics, where I'm a blogger, and so I need to write about it. How can I stop comparing myself to impossible competition? How can I just accept that I am as God wants me to be and I'm good enough?
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
What Happens to Envy in the Future?
The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
Tonight in class, I was inspired by my classmate Zdravko's presentation on "Shift Happens: A Brief History of the Future." He was influenced by The Power of Identity by Manuel Castells and the scholars Jane Mansbridge and Michel Bauwens and Yochai Benkler and James Surowiecki among others.
Zdravko told us, "If I give you this bottle, I no longer have it. If I give you information, we both have it." Information is not a finite product to be given away or sold, or shouldn't be, was what he meant, I think.
McKenzie Wark, author of The Hacker Manifesto, Zdravko said, writes of the class struggle now between hackers, e.g., creators of software, knowledge and music, and the "vectoralists," who create a sense of artificial scarcity, and who try to control the vectors in which the product is realized, and who try to charge for the products of the creative hackers.
In the terrific Peer-to-Peer (P2P) future, Zdravko explained, all of us will participate. We'll have a panarchy, or government by all, along with sousveillance, where all of us will be recording what is said and done in the midst of our own participation.
We will be more open. We will be more generous. We will have a decentralized, even distributed, network and we will succeed together. OK. Zdravko didn't say the messages in this particular paragraph explicitly, but that's what I walked away hoping, until I had to acknowledge: I was jealous of Zdravko's presentation tonight.
In Zdravko's and all of those scholars' future, what happens when someone is clearly head and shoulders above the rest? How can I evolve to where I'm purely admiring and no longer feeling envy?
Envy produces in me a scarcity mentality, when what I need, always, is an abundance mentality. Zdravko's brilliance can inspire me in the creation of my presentation, which I need to deliver in two weeks.
God, if only I were as passionate about war's and trade's influence on the shaping of American politics as Zdravko is about P2P's potential! No excuses. I need to help the rest of the class care about the new direction of the field of American Political Development (APD), since that was the topic I was assigned based on my having told Professor Youngblood after the first class that I have faith in great corporations (like IBM) that they can affect positive social change faster than governments sometimes.
"I have just the book for you!" she responded.
Tonight, I went to Professor Youngblood's office hours before class and we had a spirited discussion about my impressions of the book, and then I saw Zdravko on fire and felt anxious, competitive and jealous. Stop. Be inspired by his messages, not paralyzed.
In fact, stop blogging and come back to 3-D life, where your suitcase is still waiting to be filled. I hope I'm able to blog while in my Coaching class on Wednesday and Thursday.
Will humans evolve to envylessness in the future? Will we stop being competitive? Will I? Can I? Will you? Can you?
Tonight in class, I was inspired by my classmate Zdravko's presentation on "Shift Happens: A Brief History of the Future." He was influenced by The Power of Identity by Manuel Castells and the scholars Jane Mansbridge and Michel Bauwens and Yochai Benkler and James Surowiecki among others.
Zdravko told us, "If I give you this bottle, I no longer have it. If I give you information, we both have it." Information is not a finite product to be given away or sold, or shouldn't be, was what he meant, I think.
McKenzie Wark, author of The Hacker Manifesto, Zdravko said, writes of the class struggle now between hackers, e.g., creators of software, knowledge and music, and the "vectoralists," who create a sense of artificial scarcity, and who try to control the vectors in which the product is realized, and who try to charge for the products of the creative hackers.
In the terrific Peer-to-Peer (P2P) future, Zdravko explained, all of us will participate. We'll have a panarchy, or government by all, along with sousveillance, where all of us will be recording what is said and done in the midst of our own participation.
We will be more open. We will be more generous. We will have a decentralized, even distributed, network and we will succeed together. OK. Zdravko didn't say the messages in this particular paragraph explicitly, but that's what I walked away hoping, until I had to acknowledge: I was jealous of Zdravko's presentation tonight.
In Zdravko's and all of those scholars' future, what happens when someone is clearly head and shoulders above the rest? How can I evolve to where I'm purely admiring and no longer feeling envy?
Envy produces in me a scarcity mentality, when what I need, always, is an abundance mentality. Zdravko's brilliance can inspire me in the creation of my presentation, which I need to deliver in two weeks.
God, if only I were as passionate about war's and trade's influence on the shaping of American politics as Zdravko is about P2P's potential! No excuses. I need to help the rest of the class care about the new direction of the field of American Political Development (APD), since that was the topic I was assigned based on my having told Professor Youngblood after the first class that I have faith in great corporations (like IBM) that they can affect positive social change faster than governments sometimes.
"I have just the book for you!" she responded.
Tonight, I went to Professor Youngblood's office hours before class and we had a spirited discussion about my impressions of the book, and then I saw Zdravko on fire and felt anxious, competitive and jealous. Stop. Be inspired by his messages, not paralyzed.
In fact, stop blogging and come back to 3-D life, where your suitcase is still waiting to be filled. I hope I'm able to blog while in my Coaching class on Wednesday and Thursday.
Will humans evolve to envylessness in the future? Will we stop being competitive? Will I? Can I? Will you? Can you?
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