Short Circuits Read online

  I really want to know how many grains of sand are in all the deserts of the earth…how many pebbles line the shores of all the lakes and oceans? The mind’s capacity for fascination is endless.

  Some of the classic questions which have been posed throughout history and are seemingly unanswerable are, in fact, quite simple. “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”, for example. The answer is “As many as want to.” As to “How high is up?”, the answer is “any distance above the top of one’s head.” “How far can a dog run into the woods?” Halfway…then he’s running out. “How long is a piece of string?” Exactly twice the distance from either end to the center. Fun to ponder, though not exactly deeply significant to the human condition.

  So many questions are nothing more than word games. We’ve all seen those lists of trick questions about the location of a house whose windows on all sides face south, or where they would bury the survivors of a plane crash in which all were killed? Most take advantage of our mind’s habit of automatically being drawn to what we assume to be the obvious, and it is, in fact, the wording of the question itself or how it is asked which creates the problem.

  And there are those questions to which there can be no acceptable answer, such as the classic: “Have you stopped beating your wife?” No matter which way you answer, you’re in trouble.

  It’s human nature to expect answers (the more simple the better) to questions which are either unanswerable or too detailed for anyone to be able to answer. “What’s the meaning of life?” is a perennial crowd-pleaser, when the fact is that life doesn’t have one meaning, it has many. “Is there life after death?” The only way to know is to die, and the fact that there is so little hard evidence in support of a “yes,” the question is more one of wishful thinking than anything else.

  But I’ve always been absorbed by simpler questions to which there quite probably are scientific answers which I simply do not know: do ladybugs dream? What is the mental capacity of a cockroach? Exactly what do cats think? Why can’t we communicate with animals better than we do? What is the meaning of the slit at the base of a cat’s ears?

  Oh, so very many questions! Silly questions, profound questions, questions the answers to which affect our humanity. Why so few people seem to question anything at all? (I guess the answer to that one is that it is far easier to simply accept what one is told without question. Thus we have politicians and organized religion.)

  I really would love to live long enough to find answers for 1/1000th of the questions to which I’d really like answers. That I won’t frustrates me no end. Why can’t I?

  Well, we’ve reached the last stop on this particular train of thought…though they’re laying new tracks even as we speak. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

  * * *

  ON BEING NAIVE

  There is a certain charm to naivety. It is part and parcel of being a child, for whom absolutely anything is possible and everything he or she is told is automatically assumed to be true. There is an element of naivety in any source of wonder, and the ratio of wonder to realization gradually slides from nearly 100 percent on the child’s end of the scale, rapidly diminishing as we age, to almost none for the totally jaded.

  The naivety of belief in Santa and fairies and elves and magical things is a precious gift, looked back upon fondly and with longing once it is proven untrue. It simply does not occur to children that something they are told is true is in fact not. Worse, they have no idea of the dangers that lie in their belief.

  When I was around four, my parents took me to a carnival several blocks from our home. It was probably my first carnival, and I was enthralled. Less than half an hour after we returned home, my parents looked for me, and I was gone. Guess where? They found me just getting ready to cross a busy intersection across the street from the carnival, having already crossed others on the way. That I might easily have been killed simply never entered my head. Why would it? I had no concept of death or danger.

  Naivety and innocence are strongly interrelated. One generally enters life with both, and too often leaves without either. Reality tends to rob us of innocence and sour our naivety. We feel cheated to realize that those things we were told were not true, but the more important those things were to us, the more integral they were to forming who we are, the more cheated we feel, and the more bitter we tend to become. We turn from being plump, shiny red apples to dried-apple-core people. And while cynicism is the subject of a future blog, its contrast to innocence can be summed up in a quote whose source I cannot remember: “a cynic is one who, when smelling a flower, looks for a casket.”

  I want to believe in things. I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt, and I generally manage to do so even when I have rather serious doubts. When I meet someone who tells me something that sounds untrue, I quickly examine it for signs of hatred or bigotry and, if I see no harm to me or anyone else in accepting it, I just let it slide. If it is important for the teller that I believe it, and it makes him/her feel better, I don’t see much point in confronting it.

  Naivety leaves us in a couple of ways…either replaced by reality in a slow process of osmosis, or stomped out of us, too often by those who have no morals, scruples, conscience, or dignity, but can smell naivety like a shark can smell blood.

  And for some reason I’m not able to understand, as we grow older, a mutated and dangerous form of naivety seems to return, and the sharks circle. How can the elderly suddenly seemingly simply abandon every caution they have learned throughout life and fall victim to astoundingly egregious scams promising something wonderful for nothing?

  Those who somehow manage to retain some form of the charms of naivety and innocence in the face of the harshness of reality have a very real gift, for those two qualities are fundamental ingredients of hope, without which we are all lost.

  * * *

  CONFESSIONS

  I never liked me very much. I still don’t, at times, to the point that I occasionally become so furious with myself over my perceived shortcomings—like my inability to comprehend the workings of cyberspace—that I quite literally am beside myself with rage. Like many people, I suspect, I’m a study in contradictions. On the one hand, I’m often embarrassingly needy: a sponge for any drop of reassurance or praise (probably one of the underlying reasons I write). Yet on those occasions when someone is kind enough to offer praise, I truly don’t know how to react, and I feel guilty for so readily accepting it while too seldom giving it. For someone with insecurities deeper than most coal mines, I am astonishingly egocentric…although I’ve only recently come to realize that egocentrism is quite different from egotism.

  I started out, not surprisingly, as a pretty insecure kid, which was probably nobody’s fault but my own. I can’t blame my parents…they all but worshiped me, though the messages they—especially my dad—were trying to send me were not necessarily the messages I was receiving. Children simply do not realize that their parents are individual human beings with insecurities and problems of their own. So when my dad, who had spent some time in an orphanage when his own parents divorced, once, out of his own frustrations when I had been particularly incorrigible, threatened to send me to an orphanage to see how I liked it, I was sure he meant it. Of course he didn’t, but what do kids know?

  I was skinny, and almost painfully shy…though when playing with the neighborhood kids, I always had to be the boss. I don’t know how much a factor my awareness of being very different from other boys had to do with it. I was far too young to know what “gay” meant, but I knew from the moment I had what I consider to be my first sexual experimentation with another boy when I was five, that whatever that feeling represented, it would be with me for the rest of my life. And that belief was cemented, a year or two later during a game of “you show me yours and I’ll show you mine” with a girl classmate, I was totally revolted to realize just how different boys and girls were. I vastly preferred boys, thank you.

 
Things weren’t materially improved by the fact that I was also what is known as a “motor moron.” I had absolutely no eye-hand coordination when it came to catching a ball or swinging a bat. My poor, dear dad so wanted me to share his love of sports, and since I did not, I always thought…wrongly…that I was a great disappointment to him. Though I love to watch people…okay, mostly men…dance, I was much too self-conscious to ever do it myself. It was, in fact, kindly suggested by the instructor, after two or three lessons in an Arthur Murray Dance Studio class to which I had turned in desperation, that I was wasting my parents’ money. Years later, in dance bars in Los Angeles, friends would do their best to pry me away from the bar and get out on the floor. “Nobody’s going to notice you!” they’d say. And I would always reply: “I’ll notice me,” and refuse to go, though I ached to watch others move so beautifully, smoothly, and effortlessly.

  And therein lies probably the most basic problem of my life: I expect myself to be perfect in everything and refuse to accept the fact that I am not. The fact that everyone else falls short of perfection matters not in the least. They’re allowed to have faults. I am not.

  Physically, I always thought of myself as plain at best and downright unattractive at worst; it is only now, as I look back on old photos, that I realize that I in fact was not a runner-up in a Mr. Quasimodo contest, and wish I could go back in time to tell myself so. But it is far too late to do anything about it now.

  * * *

  IN PRAISE OF ME

  You may have noticed that I have a tendency to be just a tad egocentric. It would appear my favorite word is “I.” This may stem partly from the fact that I work very hard to protect that part of me which still remains a child, and children are the center of their own universes.

  It isn’t easy balancing the two…the adult and the child…especially since I definitely prefer the child. This of course, leads to a number of inner conflicts and contradictions, because children are equal parts ego and insecurity. And since I identify more strongly with the child than the adult, I desperately seek and soak up every drop of praise and attention I can possibly get, though on those occasions when someone is kind enough to indulge me, I am totally at a loss as to how to react to it, other than with varying degrees of awkwardness and embarrassment. My “child” is, on the one hand, extremely shy, yet has no compunction whatever about running around in all directions waving my little triumphs and accomplishments for all to see and hopefully respond to with admiring “ooohs” and “aaaaahs.”

  This need for praise is undoubtedly one of the reasons I write, running to you with these blog entries, hoping you’ll like them.

  I am reminded of the story of a young minister, after his first sermon, greeting his parishioners at the door. One little lady, taking his hand, said: “Reverend, has anyone ever told you that you are absolutely wonderful?” The young minister, deeply flattered, said: “Why no, ma’am, they haven’t.” She patted his hand and said gently: “Then wherever did you get the idea?”

  My “adult” does think that I have been blessed with some small ability to express myself in words (written words only…in actual conversations I tend to stumble all over myself), but since it comes naturally to me, like having brown eyes, I can’t really take much credit for it. So how and why I have any logical reason to assume that anyone might be more than politely interested in me, I have no idea.

  Some people, it is said, wear their heart on their sleeve. If this is true, I also wear my heart, lungs, lower intestines, and soul on mine. I have no secrets. None. You want to know something about me, just ask, and I’m more than willing to blabber on endlessly until you run the risk of ending up feeling like the little girl whose book report on penguins said, “This book tells me more about penguins than I care to know.”

  Much of it, of course, stems from my highly distorted senses of ego and inadequacy, both of which I have blown far out of proportion. I have always believed that I was somehow very special (I saw God in a cloud as a child, after all, and if that doesn’t make me superior I don’t know what might) while at the same time holding myself to totally unattainable expectations. (If I cannot live up to what I expect of myself, how can I possibly live up to what others may expect of me?) So for whatever reason, it is very important that people…that you…like me. My “adult” finds some comfort in the fact that I have finally reached the point where, if someone doesn’t particularly care for me, I see it as their problem rather than mine.

  But because I so strongly believe that all human beings are basically alike, both my “child” and my “adult” hope that you might recognize, in my ramblings, certain elements in yourself. In short, I’m more than willing to be the pickled frog in biology class if it might help you recognize some part of you you had put aside or buried under the weight of years. If my memories and feelings strike memories and feelings within you, it only underscores the fact of our common humanity.

  The Oracle of Delphi had a favorite bit of advice for those who came seeking guidance: “Know thyself” and if my putting myself under the microscope might be of benefit to even one other person, it’s well worth making an occasional fool of myself.

  And if you ever think I’m coming across a bit too pontificatorily (you’re right: there isn’t any such word…but I like it anyway), please take a cue from the little lady at the church and let me know…gently, of course.

  * * *

  FRETTING

  Of all the wasteful, unproductive, and frustrating pastimes we humans absolutely insist on wasting our time on, fretting surely has to be right there at the top of the list. I’ve come to the conclusion that fretting provides the same perverse form of pain/pleasure as picking a scab, and despite our protestations to the contrary, it must be, or we wouldn’t do it.

  I’m quite good at fretting but, as with most things, not really a pro. Were college degrees offered in Fretting, I’d probably qualify for an associate’s degree at best. My friend Gary, however, would have a double PhD with honors. I have no idea where he possibly finds all the things to fret about, but if they are there, he will seek them out. He’s my best friend, and it’s unfair of me to single him out, since he is far from alone. He is in fact only one of a vast number of people for whom the making of an appointment for a routine dental checkup three weeks in advance provides three rich weeks of fretting, though not even they are sure exactly what it is they’re fretting about. Being a closet Obsessive-Compulsive probably helps. Full-time fretters never have housekeepers—they would fret so much about fearing to be thought untidy that they would clean the place from top to bottom (probably twice) before the housekeeper arrived.

  I think I register so low on the Fret scale because I don’t really give a damn about some of the richest veins of ore for fretting.

  Of course, fretting seems to be a part of the human condition, and there are times when it is both inevitable and understandable, as in the anticipation of physical, relationship, or financial crises. But even then fretting is less than worthless; it’s counterproductive. Fretting is Worry Lite, it’s Worry on a caffeine buzz, and while worry can sometimes lead to conclusions and solutions, fretting almost never results in anything positive.

  One of the worst things about fretting is its insidiousness; it’s like inviting a vampire through the open window of your mind: once it enters, you’re doomed, and applying logic and rationality have absolutely no effect. Even knowing full well that the anticipation is far worse than the event, and that once the cause of the fret…that dentist’s appointment, say…is over, it simply goes away, like passing a kidney stone, and has no effect. We simply erase it from our minds and immediately move on to the next fret.

  My total inability to control fretting once it has snuck into my mind is what I find most disturbing. I know it’s pointless; I know perfectly well that whatever I’m fretting about will not only pass, but that once it’s over I will wonder yet again why I’d ever wasted my time on it in the first place.

>   Animals don’t fret. Whatever happens happens when it happens and that seems to be just fine with them. They might put up something of a fuss if they want to be fed, but I wouldn’t call that fretting, necessarily…it’s more a physical reaction to being hungry. I doubt they spend much time fretting about what time they’ll have dinner and what might be on the menu. Even when animals have good reason to fret, they don’t. I have yet to open a closet door without my cat immediately darting in as though he’d never seen it before, though he’d just been in there half an hour earlier. Once inside, he refuses to respond to my calls to come out, and I’m not about to get down on my hands and knees and go feeling around behind the laundry basket to try to find him. So eventually and inevitably I will simply close the door and walk away. Does he fret and worry that I will forget about him and that he may be in there forever? He may not fret about it but I inevitably do, wondering how long it will be before he begins a plaintive mewling to be released. The fretting mounts until I stop what I’m doing, go to the closet, and let him out until the next time.

  Fretting certainly does not respond to logic. We know it’s pointless. We know that whatever we’re fretting about will resolve itself one way or the other without the fretting. But still we do it.

  A case of “simple pleasures,” I guess.

  * * *

  NEVERENDING

  “Johnny, Billy has three apples. He gives Ted two. How many apples does he have left?”

  “One, Mrs. Jones.”

  “Right, Johnny. Very good. Sally, Jane has three apples. She gives Milly two. How many apples does she have left?”

  “One, Mrs. Jones.”

  “Right! Excellent, Sally. Roger, Dorien has three apples. He gives Peter two. How many apples does he have left?”