The other day, a friend of mine was complaining about a religion class she had just left. They had begun discussing the doctrine of predestination, and she was a bit upset over the way her classmates insisted on overreacting to the issue instead of waiting to see what the professor had to say about it. The issue is one that I thought over a fair bit before I was comfortable coming here, so for those of you who aren't familiar, the basic gist most people use to describe predestination is as follows:
Whether you're going to heaven or not is essentially "determined" (poor semantic choice, in my opinion, but we'll get to that) before you ever have a chance to live.
Those people who are bound for heaven are generally referred to as the "Elect"; and back in the day (and even to a degree now) it was generally believed that the Elect could be identified while they were alive, frequently by material prosperity. The strongly traditional Calvinist views of many of the founding fathers are where we get a lot of the idea of America being the new Jerusalem (after all, God must have been with us if we beat the British!). As popular as this notion has been (and is), it's clearly un-Biblical and not supported within any official doctrine I've seen or been quoted (which is, admittedly, very little).
Many people also just like to assume that all people who claim themselves to be Christian are among the Elect, but this also has no support. Fundamentally, only God determines who the Elect are, and we have no way of knowing. Once I realized that neither of these two things were part of the doctrine of predestination, I decided to let the Heaven and Hell part of the issue out of the equation. I decided at the time that, minus the whole "pre" part, it was suitably vague in terms of who gets what at the end of time that I could deal.
Unfortunately for my friend, her classmates weren't nearly so cool, so they derailed a large part of their education complaining and asking how come God couldn't give these people a chance. This type of thought is, in my mind, really the poor kids being upset about the doctrine of Hell (and maybe a little bit of Limited Atonement) but being far too afraid to express their distaste for such a fundamental part of Christian theology.
The real complication, in my mind, has little to do with the final destination nearly so much as the journey, and what predestination can be interpreted to say about how that journey (I'm talking about life here) works. If we are predestined for Hell, then, obviously, we are predestined to live a life fit for Hell, as God us fundamentally just (also, if you don't understand how Hell can be just, which is a tricky issue in its own right, let me know, and I'll see what I can do there). So, what does this say about our free will? People who believe intently in predestination will tell you it's an illusion. THIS, I have difficulty with. However, over the last few years, I've been formulating a model of predestination that I'm relatively comfortable with. As you've probably guessed, I'm going to spend the next while explaining it to you. Also, if any of you happen to have Theologian parents *COUGH*, I'd actually be interested in hearing what type of heathen they think I am...
So, first thing's first. We need to remember that predestination is something that occurs and exists outside of the foreknowledge of God. Of course, God, existing outside of our concept of time, knows everything we will do and where we will end up in what could be called an experiential manner. Predestination goes beyond this, so any theory of predestination must take this into account. So, I ask you this, think about a person you know incredibly well: a parent or sibling, a close friend, a boy/girlfriend, or something of the like. Now, you've probably got a pretty good idea of how they will respond to most basic events, right? If you do something, knowing how they will respond, you didn't make them do that thing, did you? Obviously, abusing this knowledge for your own benefit (and/or their detriment) would be undesirable, but that's another issue.
Now, think about God, who knows you better than you know yourself; who has a fundamental understanding of every aspect of your character, every working of your heart and mind. Wouldn't such a God be able to know exactly the sort of life you would live without you needing to live it? Wouldn't, then, the outcome of your life be written in stone and known to such a God before it ever occurred?
Dilemma solved...except not really. This raises serious questions about the nature of our souls and our characters. If God created us as individuals who would actively lead lives deserving of damnation, isn't that just as bad as making us do these very things? Perhaps, but this assumes that our souls are temporal; that they have only existed within time. Obviously this is treading incredibly towards notions of Cartesian dualism (ironic, seeing as the other complication I'm about to get to delves closer into materialism than I tend to enjoy), but if the soul, as originally created, exists outside of the complications of The Fall, then such a thing could not be said; as it is only the fallen nature of creation that puts our souls in jeopardy (oh no! potential gnosticism!).
The other complication is the question of whether or not we could actually determine a person's behavior entirely from some aspects of their character. Such a proposition implies that materialist ideas that human behavior, and indeed, consciousness is merely the result of some sort of incredibly complicated function being applied over a set of inputs. I really don't know how I feel about this, as I've always wanted to err more towards the side of dualism than materialism (probably, in part, to justify the shitty care I take of myself =P), but as I think about it, the more I'm inclined to worry less. Think again for a moment about this: the results events generally accepted as random (coin tosses, die rolls, etc.), can be computed precisely given enough environmental information, but it's simply not worth the effort.
Now think of something as complicated as human consciousness; even if there is some sort of magical formula unique to each person determining exactly how they will respond to an event, it would be impossible for any living person to comprehend everything that a person takes into account, much less how it weighs, for a single individual, much less the entire human population that ever has lived, is living, or will live...if my behavior is the result of some complicated set of rules that can only be perceived by God, I think I'm okay with that.
And, I'm spent.
Of the, like, four of you who occasionally mention having read this, I doubt most of you care too much about higher theology...But I've been thinking about this for quite awhile, and the situation just seemed right. I'd welcome any critiques of my thoughts, corrections of my likely errant supporting theology, or guidance towards stronger resources for hashing these sorts of things out.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Ask and it shall be given:
This will need some editing, I'm sure (I think I randomly switch tenses at a couple of points), but I do so love the Littlest Hobo. Here we get an idea of what started him on his life of adventure, and where he gets his giant hat! Enjoy, I guess.
*********
On this fine, sunny day we find the Littlest Hobo was walking down a dusty road, as we so often seem to do. It's a wonderful day for walking, the sky is clear, the air is warm, but not too much, and with just the perfect breeze to keep you cool as you go. Despite this, the Littlest Hobo, having been walking for quite some time, found himself sweating to quite some degree. It had, in fact, been a number of days since he'd given his feet rest, and what little water was left in his dehydrated body was dripping in small beads directly into his already sore, stinging eyes.
There wasn't much he could do about this difficulty; being so small, it took all of the strength of his feeble arms to keep the giant stick (not so large to you or me, but simply gargantuan to our diminutive mutual friend) from which his rucksack hung firmly rooted to the cavity his shoulder had long since created for it. Beyond this, his extreme weariness cautioned him from merely blinking the fluid away, for he knew that upon closing his eyes, he was likely to fall asleep in his exhaustion, and we all know quite well by now what that means for poor L.H.
And yet through all of these difficulties, the Littlest Hobo manages to keep his spirits high. He has noticed quite some time ago that his awkward, hobbling pace just happens to provide the exact rhythm to hum along one of his favorite songs. It is a melody his sweet mother had sung for him in the days before that ever so finely clad pimp showed up at their door to take her away. The memory was as clear as always: He first recalls the question he had asked this dashingly tailored whoremonger, "Kind sir, why are you making an orphan of me?"
Upon discovering that the inquiry had come from somewhere near the vicinity of his knees, the pimp responded in plain "Quite simply, boy, your father has wracked up quite the debt in his infidelity; and your sweet mum is the only collateral he could offer." As he peered downwards to say this, his beautifully plumaged hat tipped from his head, wafting onto the meager dome of our friend, the soon-to-be vagabond. Overwhelmed by the apparent generosity of this spectacular gift, the Littlest Hobo (as he is now known, though he of course wasn't then) started to tear up. Misunderstanding the significance of what was welling up in our picayune playmate's eyes, the princely purveyor of prostitutes exited with great expediency, not even waiting to hear the strained words of heart-felt thanks the followed after him.
The vultures, eternally circling, cut off their accompaniment, bringing the Littlest Hobo back to the present, where the fluid building in his eyes was of another, much more agitating sort. After checking to make sure they weren't preparing for another swoop, the Littlest Hobo allows himself a wheezing chuckle. "How ironic it is that a trader of tramps should make a tramp of a completely different sort of me!" He rejoices in the bittersweetness of it. What a fond thing it is when you only need to remember one day to recall receiving both your proudest possession and the commissioning of your life's work!
With this small bit of refreshment, the Littlest Hobo picks up his pace once more and continues his journey, anxiously waiting to see what sorts of adventures lay down the road he's been thrown upon.
*********
On this fine, sunny day we find the Littlest Hobo was walking down a dusty road, as we so often seem to do. It's a wonderful day for walking, the sky is clear, the air is warm, but not too much, and with just the perfect breeze to keep you cool as you go. Despite this, the Littlest Hobo, having been walking for quite some time, found himself sweating to quite some degree. It had, in fact, been a number of days since he'd given his feet rest, and what little water was left in his dehydrated body was dripping in small beads directly into his already sore, stinging eyes.
There wasn't much he could do about this difficulty; being so small, it took all of the strength of his feeble arms to keep the giant stick (not so large to you or me, but simply gargantuan to our diminutive mutual friend) from which his rucksack hung firmly rooted to the cavity his shoulder had long since created for it. Beyond this, his extreme weariness cautioned him from merely blinking the fluid away, for he knew that upon closing his eyes, he was likely to fall asleep in his exhaustion, and we all know quite well by now what that means for poor L.H.
And yet through all of these difficulties, the Littlest Hobo manages to keep his spirits high. He has noticed quite some time ago that his awkward, hobbling pace just happens to provide the exact rhythm to hum along one of his favorite songs. It is a melody his sweet mother had sung for him in the days before that ever so finely clad pimp showed up at their door to take her away. The memory was as clear as always: He first recalls the question he had asked this dashingly tailored whoremonger, "Kind sir, why are you making an orphan of me?"
Upon discovering that the inquiry had come from somewhere near the vicinity of his knees, the pimp responded in plain "Quite simply, boy, your father has wracked up quite the debt in his infidelity; and your sweet mum is the only collateral he could offer." As he peered downwards to say this, his beautifully plumaged hat tipped from his head, wafting onto the meager dome of our friend, the soon-to-be vagabond. Overwhelmed by the apparent generosity of this spectacular gift, the Littlest Hobo (as he is now known, though he of course wasn't then) started to tear up. Misunderstanding the significance of what was welling up in our picayune playmate's eyes, the princely purveyor of prostitutes exited with great expediency, not even waiting to hear the strained words of heart-felt thanks the followed after him.
The vultures, eternally circling, cut off their accompaniment, bringing the Littlest Hobo back to the present, where the fluid building in his eyes was of another, much more agitating sort. After checking to make sure they weren't preparing for another swoop, the Littlest Hobo allows himself a wheezing chuckle. "How ironic it is that a trader of tramps should make a tramp of a completely different sort of me!" He rejoices in the bittersweetness of it. What a fond thing it is when you only need to remember one day to recall receiving both your proudest possession and the commissioning of your life's work!
With this small bit of refreshment, the Littlest Hobo picks up his pace once more and continues his journey, anxiously waiting to see what sorts of adventures lay down the road he's been thrown upon.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Beats me...
I want to write about something...but I can't think of anything that I really can.
Seeing Parpika the other day reinvigorated my frequent desire to rant for awhile about the way that people dismiss whole genres and mediums of expression off hand based on limited experience; how people insist on assuming that the prevailing examples of a genre in the popular psyche defines it and not the unique aspects of the art form itself; how this off hand rejection limits the ability of the medium to expand beyond the current proponents and thus the prevailing styles that are so despised...but there's not much more to say than that. Every time I try and say more, it loses focus and becomes impossible to read.
I don't feel like taking up my soap box about any of the societal issues that have been nagging me for the last few years until I'm feeling collected enough to do so more clearly than I have the last couple of times (wow, I'm sorry about how jumbled and undirected some of the stuff on here comes out). I've already touched on most of them anyway - even if quite poorly - and seeing as nobody has tried to start any dialog with me on them, I'll assume that people don't care too much about my thoughts on them as it is. =P
Blogging about current events on the larger scale isn't something I ever intended to do, and so I intend to continue not doing it. As for my real life, the people I'm writing this all for know that I'm a fairly private person; and, as such, am not really comfortable talking specifics in such a potentially exposed place. Besides that, writing about whatever actual difficulties I may have in my life in a place where those involved could easily run across them instead of actually taking up the issue with them just strikes me as incredibly passive-aggressive, and I hate passive-aggression, and hate myself more when I start to go down that road without realizing it...
That said, here's a call to arms:
The few people who occasionally mention to me in real life that they read something on here tend to know me pretty damn well, but that doesn't mean you know everything. Any particular issues you want to know my opinions on? A movie or TV series you want me to spend way too much time collecting my thoughts on? Want me to write some incredibly absurd story just for you fine few?*
I won't make any promises, but I started this for the sake of hopefully getting some conversations started. Let me know if there's any part of my thought process you're curious about, and I'll try and find some time to elucidate you. I promise to be completely honest in anything I answer to. The invitation extends to real life conversations as well (or, you know, IM for most of you back home), but listening to me rant at you for 20 minutes while I mostly try and develop my thoughts into something concise and understandable isn't nearly as convenient for the most part.
*Note that I'm a relatively terrible narrative writer and make no assurances as to the quality of my stories, which are more like fictionalized anecdotes at best. All I can guarantee is a high degree of absurdity, and a strong likelihood of morbidity. Sorry.
Seeing Parpika the other day reinvigorated my frequent desire to rant for awhile about the way that people dismiss whole genres and mediums of expression off hand based on limited experience; how people insist on assuming that the prevailing examples of a genre in the popular psyche defines it and not the unique aspects of the art form itself; how this off hand rejection limits the ability of the medium to expand beyond the current proponents and thus the prevailing styles that are so despised...but there's not much more to say than that. Every time I try and say more, it loses focus and becomes impossible to read.
I don't feel like taking up my soap box about any of the societal issues that have been nagging me for the last few years until I'm feeling collected enough to do so more clearly than I have the last couple of times (wow, I'm sorry about how jumbled and undirected some of the stuff on here comes out). I've already touched on most of them anyway - even if quite poorly - and seeing as nobody has tried to start any dialog with me on them, I'll assume that people don't care too much about my thoughts on them as it is. =P
Blogging about current events on the larger scale isn't something I ever intended to do, and so I intend to continue not doing it. As for my real life, the people I'm writing this all for know that I'm a fairly private person; and, as such, am not really comfortable talking specifics in such a potentially exposed place. Besides that, writing about whatever actual difficulties I may have in my life in a place where those involved could easily run across them instead of actually taking up the issue with them just strikes me as incredibly passive-aggressive, and I hate passive-aggression, and hate myself more when I start to go down that road without realizing it...
That said, here's a call to arms:
The few people who occasionally mention to me in real life that they read something on here tend to know me pretty damn well, but that doesn't mean you know everything. Any particular issues you want to know my opinions on? A movie or TV series you want me to spend way too much time collecting my thoughts on? Want me to write some incredibly absurd story just for you fine few?*
I won't make any promises, but I started this for the sake of hopefully getting some conversations started. Let me know if there's any part of my thought process you're curious about, and I'll try and find some time to elucidate you. I promise to be completely honest in anything I answer to. The invitation extends to real life conversations as well (or, you know, IM for most of you back home), but listening to me rant at you for 20 minutes while I mostly try and develop my thoughts into something concise and understandable isn't nearly as convenient for the most part.
*Note that I'm a relatively terrible narrative writer and make no assurances as to the quality of my stories, which are more like fictionalized anecdotes at best. All I can guarantee is a high degree of absurdity, and a strong likelihood of morbidity. Sorry.
Monday, January 28, 2008
...I've seen a lot of movies lately
So, I lied. I'm going to talk about movies without going in-depth about thematic elements or issues that got under my skin. I'll do this in the order in which I've seen them this last month:
Sweeney Todd:
Went with a bunch of friends to see this when we intended to see Juno (none of them had seen it, and it's definitely worth a second viewing, in my opinion). The show was sold out, so we made the same decision as probably 80% of the people in our theater and went to see Sweeney Todd half an hour later.
I'll start by saying, my friends by and large loved Sweeney Todd. It certainly cracks my top five Burton flicks, but I'd be loathe to put it in my top three. From a technical standpoint, the movie is excellent; Burton is at the top of his game visually here, as well. The performances were quite good, as well. Ultimately, I had two issues with it:
I expect more out of the vocal performances in musicals. Johnny Depp snings a lot like a 16-year-old boy with a couple of years of high school choir under his belt. Mostly talking to a tune, with a very boy-band, kind of nasaly falsetto coming in for the high notes. Helena Bonham Carter comes out a bit better, but not always by much. Some might say that this is part of the charm of the film...but when I'm watching a film adaptation of a Broadway musical less than a week after seeing Avenue Q live...I'm not so forgiving.
Other than this, I've decided that I just don't like quite so many cheesy blood effects in my slasher musicals. I understand that the first rounds of killings are meant to be over the top in a very Evil Dead way...but at the end, when the movie goes into morality play mode, it's distracting and the mood change suddenly makes it hard to watch.
In any case, it was certainly a well constructed film; especially if you're more forgiving of vocal performers than I am. 8/10
There Will Be Blood:
This movie most certainly deserves all of the award season buzz it's been getting. Not my personal favorite out of the Best Picture Oscar nominees that I've seen (all but Michael Clayton, which I should see before award time), but quite possibly the most deserving of the award. Be warned, though, it can be a strangely difficult film to watch at times...this is probably due to a combination of things, but, in my opinion, owes chiefly to the brilliant performance of Daniel Day-Lewis, who consistently brings you to the brink of adoring Daniel Plainfield before reminding you of just what a terrible human being he is. 9.5/10
Atonement
Another best picture nom here, and for good reason. Atonement was a brilliant film with an ending that actually surprises. The beginning act is probably the best theater experience of the year, and the ending is sobering in a very Of Mice and Men style. The second half of the film loses a bit compared to the beginning, but is essential and operates in exactly the way it needed to. Also, I loved the soundtrack. Anybody who has listened to a practiced typist working on an old, mechanical typewriter can tell you there's almost a melodic quality to the sound, and I loved the use of that sound in a couple of the recurring themes really tickled me. 10/10
The Host
I'd just like to remind people that I tend to really like weird movies, and The Host is a weird movie. A Korean monster movie comedy about a dysfunctional adult and his equally dysfunctional siblings and father trying to rescue his daughter from some crazy mutant free in the Han river is certainly a unique premise for a film, and the premise delivers. Laughs are consistent, and I found myself worrying about the fate of each member as things got bleak. Not the best comedy of the year, but certainly something different, and a fun way to take a constantly stagnating genre and make it thoroughly watchable. If you're bored and looking for something to watch with your friends, I definitely recommend it. 8.5/10
Sweeney Todd:
Went with a bunch of friends to see this when we intended to see Juno (none of them had seen it, and it's definitely worth a second viewing, in my opinion). The show was sold out, so we made the same decision as probably 80% of the people in our theater and went to see Sweeney Todd half an hour later.
I'll start by saying, my friends by and large loved Sweeney Todd. It certainly cracks my top five Burton flicks, but I'd be loathe to put it in my top three. From a technical standpoint, the movie is excellent; Burton is at the top of his game visually here, as well. The performances were quite good, as well. Ultimately, I had two issues with it:
I expect more out of the vocal performances in musicals. Johnny Depp snings a lot like a 16-year-old boy with a couple of years of high school choir under his belt. Mostly talking to a tune, with a very boy-band, kind of nasaly falsetto coming in for the high notes. Helena Bonham Carter comes out a bit better, but not always by much. Some might say that this is part of the charm of the film...but when I'm watching a film adaptation of a Broadway musical less than a week after seeing Avenue Q live...I'm not so forgiving.
Other than this, I've decided that I just don't like quite so many cheesy blood effects in my slasher musicals. I understand that the first rounds of killings are meant to be over the top in a very Evil Dead way...but at the end, when the movie goes into morality play mode, it's distracting and the mood change suddenly makes it hard to watch.
In any case, it was certainly a well constructed film; especially if you're more forgiving of vocal performers than I am. 8/10
There Will Be Blood:
This movie most certainly deserves all of the award season buzz it's been getting. Not my personal favorite out of the Best Picture Oscar nominees that I've seen (all but Michael Clayton, which I should see before award time), but quite possibly the most deserving of the award. Be warned, though, it can be a strangely difficult film to watch at times...this is probably due to a combination of things, but, in my opinion, owes chiefly to the brilliant performance of Daniel Day-Lewis, who consistently brings you to the brink of adoring Daniel Plainfield before reminding you of just what a terrible human being he is. 9.5/10
Atonement
Another best picture nom here, and for good reason. Atonement was a brilliant film with an ending that actually surprises. The beginning act is probably the best theater experience of the year, and the ending is sobering in a very Of Mice and Men style. The second half of the film loses a bit compared to the beginning, but is essential and operates in exactly the way it needed to. Also, I loved the soundtrack. Anybody who has listened to a practiced typist working on an old, mechanical typewriter can tell you there's almost a melodic quality to the sound, and I loved the use of that sound in a couple of the recurring themes really tickled me. 10/10
The Host
I'd just like to remind people that I tend to really like weird movies, and The Host is a weird movie. A Korean monster movie comedy about a dysfunctional adult and his equally dysfunctional siblings and father trying to rescue his daughter from some crazy mutant free in the Han river is certainly a unique premise for a film, and the premise delivers. Laughs are consistent, and I found myself worrying about the fate of each member as things got bleak. Not the best comedy of the year, but certainly something different, and a fun way to take a constantly stagnating genre and make it thoroughly watchable. If you're bored and looking for something to watch with your friends, I definitely recommend it. 8.5/10
Monday, December 31, 2007
Blame This on Juno
So, I've done this with a few of my movie commentaries before, but it's going to be standard now, so I'm gonna give you a heads up. I'm pretty much done "reviewing" movies. When I talk about movies from this point on, I'll give you a quick summary of what I thought and then I'm going to proceed to delve into whatever issues it got me thinking about and how they are pertinent. So, here goes this one:
Simple introduction: Juno rocks. I'm glad I saw it today so that I can legitimately put it on my top 5 for the year. It's sharply written and features stellar performances by a few of my favorite actors (Michael Cera, Jason Bateman, J.K. Simmons, and Allison Janney). People seem to like comparing it to Little Miss Sunshine, but that's just because people like making comparisons. The two have little in common beyond being incredibly well written independent comedies that like to ignore most of the standard formulas. Juno is more accessible in style...but Little Miss Sunshine was very dark and more than a bit absurd, and as such, certainly not everybody's cup of tea. I'd say I like Little Miss Sunshine more (I don't think Juno will quite make its way onto my Top 10), but that's because I the subtext of Little Miss Sunshine (the frailty of humanity; the hollowness of being a "winner" and leading a self-seeking life; and the necessity and healing power of love) is a little bit more important to me.
That said, the subtext of Juno deals with another issue that has become incredibly important and intriguing to me in recent months: relationships. What we build them on; what we expect from them; what they mean to us...we live in a backwards society in a lot of ways, not the least of these is the way we look at relationships of all sorts. We're so obsessed with this idea of "falling in love" that we forget what love really is. We get so caught up in the ideas of romance and passion that we don't remember that the cliché of your spouse being your best friend is supposed to be true.
Relationships in any sense, whether it's a normal friendship or a marriage/dating relationship, should be rooted in the same basic principle: love. Caring for the needs, desires, and dreams of another individual as much as for our own is what creates the sense of security and comfort that allows us to feel close to one another. As such, common sense says that the chief difference between close friends and a spouse, fiancé, or committed boy/girlfriend shouldn't be the physical relationship or the observance of other societal norms so much as the devotion and openness of the love between the participants. A truly devoted couple can't just hope for the dreams of their partner to come true; they need to incorporate their partner's dream into their own.
The problem is that it's so easy to let the social/physical aspect - the "romantic" aspect - of an intimate relationship become its defining portion that forgetting the depth of the love that a successful relationship requires is easy. Not to mention that the popular semantics of "falling" or "being in love" has so much more to do with physical arousal and passion than with actual love that we, as humans, constantly attempt to enter into relationships with people with whom we have no basis for a normal friendship, and you've got a recipe for the cultural disaster we live in.
I'm going to try and relate this back to Juno now as I finish. Spoiler warning and all that.
Vanessa and Mark's relationship failed for one simple reason. They were committed to the idea of a relationship and not to each other. Vanessa was ready to be a mother, not a wife; but in order to be a mother, she felt that being a wife was necessary. She didn't appreciate her husband's dreams and did her best to try and replace them with her hopes for a picture perfect family. Mark was resentful of his wife's treatment of his goals and couldn't bring himself to appreciate hers as completion of her dreams would do nothing to restore his. Neither was willing to embrace and commit themselves to the dreams of the other; they were unwilling to love each other for who they were, so they failed.
Juno and Bleeker will succeed because they understand the truth behind the opening lyric of the song they sing right before the credits roll. "You're a part-time lover and a full time friend". It worries me a lot that so many people I know tend to forget the order of importance of those things...but there are a few of you in my life who seem to have it right, which is a cause of regular celebration for me, so thank you.
Simple introduction: Juno rocks. I'm glad I saw it today so that I can legitimately put it on my top 5 for the year. It's sharply written and features stellar performances by a few of my favorite actors (Michael Cera, Jason Bateman, J.K. Simmons, and Allison Janney). People seem to like comparing it to Little Miss Sunshine, but that's just because people like making comparisons. The two have little in common beyond being incredibly well written independent comedies that like to ignore most of the standard formulas. Juno is more accessible in style...but Little Miss Sunshine was very dark and more than a bit absurd, and as such, certainly not everybody's cup of tea. I'd say I like Little Miss Sunshine more (I don't think Juno will quite make its way onto my Top 10), but that's because I the subtext of Little Miss Sunshine (the frailty of humanity; the hollowness of being a "winner" and leading a self-seeking life; and the necessity and healing power of love) is a little bit more important to me.
That said, the subtext of Juno deals with another issue that has become incredibly important and intriguing to me in recent months: relationships. What we build them on; what we expect from them; what they mean to us...we live in a backwards society in a lot of ways, not the least of these is the way we look at relationships of all sorts. We're so obsessed with this idea of "falling in love" that we forget what love really is. We get so caught up in the ideas of romance and passion that we don't remember that the cliché of your spouse being your best friend is supposed to be true.
Relationships in any sense, whether it's a normal friendship or a marriage/dating relationship, should be rooted in the same basic principle: love. Caring for the needs, desires, and dreams of another individual as much as for our own is what creates the sense of security and comfort that allows us to feel close to one another. As such, common sense says that the chief difference between close friends and a spouse, fiancé, or committed boy/girlfriend shouldn't be the physical relationship or the observance of other societal norms so much as the devotion and openness of the love between the participants. A truly devoted couple can't just hope for the dreams of their partner to come true; they need to incorporate their partner's dream into their own.
The problem is that it's so easy to let the social/physical aspect - the "romantic" aspect - of an intimate relationship become its defining portion that forgetting the depth of the love that a successful relationship requires is easy. Not to mention that the popular semantics of "falling" or "being in love" has so much more to do with physical arousal and passion than with actual love that we, as humans, constantly attempt to enter into relationships with people with whom we have no basis for a normal friendship, and you've got a recipe for the cultural disaster we live in.
I'm going to try and relate this back to Juno now as I finish. Spoiler warning and all that.
Vanessa and Mark's relationship failed for one simple reason. They were committed to the idea of a relationship and not to each other. Vanessa was ready to be a mother, not a wife; but in order to be a mother, she felt that being a wife was necessary. She didn't appreciate her husband's dreams and did her best to try and replace them with her hopes for a picture perfect family. Mark was resentful of his wife's treatment of his goals and couldn't bring himself to appreciate hers as completion of her dreams would do nothing to restore his. Neither was willing to embrace and commit themselves to the dreams of the other; they were unwilling to love each other for who they were, so they failed.
Juno and Bleeker will succeed because they understand the truth behind the opening lyric of the song they sing right before the credits roll. "You're a part-time lover and a full time friend". It worries me a lot that so many people I know tend to forget the order of importance of those things...but there are a few of you in my life who seem to have it right, which is a cause of regular celebration for me, so thank you.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Something new.
I'm in Winona, which is unexpected and awesome, but it's 2:30 and I'm not quite what could be called tired. There are issues running through my head that I've been wanting to try to explain to somebody for the last God-knows-how-long, and I feel like I should start to get them out. I don't know if I'll actually post this, but if I do, those few people who I know occasionally read this tend to be among the group I trust to know me this well, as well as to think and talk with me about these things. Also, I generally trust you to not think I'm crazy.
First thing first:
What's up with the traditional view of heroism in our society? With a few exceptions from actual history, it seems like the notion of heroism (at least of the more adventurous variety) is inexorably linked with violence. Call me crazy, but this strikes me as a bad thing for a few reasons.
For one, when you spend so much time being told that problems can be solved through direct confrontation, improper expectations are built; expectations in which helping people becomes less important than solving their problems. I don't think I've fallen completely into that trap (or, at least, I like to think I recognize it when I do), but it's there, and I know I'm not the only one.
The second worry is more personal. Maybe it's just the fact that so much of my worldview is wrapped so strongly in the escapist media that's been such an important part of my upbringing...but every time I think of adventure - which, due to said overexposure, I occasionally look at as a necessity for happiness as opposed to contentment - it always winds up being linked with physical conflict. Even though my own experience shows elation in mere exploration and great sorrow in causing pain; there's this part of me in which longs for some sense of physical confrontation; that longs for a palpable, tangible source of evil that can actually be stopped by humanities oldest and least effective method of problem solving. The sheer number of people I know who "joke" about anxiously awaiting a zombie apocalypse makes me feel like I'm not alone here, either.
I think that this is the real allure, and the real danger, here. The path of Cain comes so naturally to us that we'd all love to think that, ultimately, it will at some point be the right one, even though we all know that deep down it never will be. History shows us time and time again that the only way to really bring about change is by adherence to the great commandments given us by Christ: to love God with all our heart, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourself. It's a damnable shame that it's such a hard calling to adhere to (pseudo-pun pseudo-intended).
Second mini-rant picks up near where that left off:
The Golden Rule seriously needs to be rephrased. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is meant to embody the basic tenets of "Love your neighbor as yourself"...but it seems to me that it fails miserably. I started having this conversation with a couple of my roommates the other day, but one of them wouldn't hear it, simply because he was so used to relating the first as being equivalent to the second. I think the linguists and semantic nuts among you will agree with me that it's not.
The Golden Rule is, by its very phrasing, self centered. It asks you to think of how you feel, or believe you would feel given a certain circumstance. Well, guess what, that other person isn't you, and at least 50 percent of the time, what makes you feel better probably isn't gonna do the trick for another person. The great commandment is, by its nature, focused on the other person. We are to love them to the same extent we love ourselves. It says nothing of the manner, just the amount because Christ, being, you know, omniscient, understands that the manner must vary. By its nature, Love has to be expressed differently between different people; certainly there are universal acts that can be used to express it, but if I'm truly trying to show my love to my mother and my father, I can't treat them identically. That would be not only inconsiderate, but it would be dehumanizing them by ignoring their individuality. How then, in choosing to treat everybody as we would like to be treated, can we follow the Golden Rule as traditionally told, and retain a respect for the humanity and individuality of all? We can't.
My initial response is to say that the Golden Rule should read "Treat others as they would have you treat them"...but that leaves elephant-sized gaps for people who are disturbed or depressed to justify or encourage mistreatment. So, I don't know what we can really use as an entirely secular rephrasing of the Golden Rule, but we seriously need one, or else we'll never advance beyond this cultural overemphasis on "how I feel". Any ideas, fellow postmodern linguists in the audience?
I had one more thing to rant on, but I seem to have forgotten it, so I'll leave it at this for now. If this generates some discussion, either just with me or through comments, or whatever, maybe I'll make writing out these sorts of rants and ramblings a greater priority.
First thing first:
What's up with the traditional view of heroism in our society? With a few exceptions from actual history, it seems like the notion of heroism (at least of the more adventurous variety) is inexorably linked with violence. Call me crazy, but this strikes me as a bad thing for a few reasons.
For one, when you spend so much time being told that problems can be solved through direct confrontation, improper expectations are built; expectations in which helping people becomes less important than solving their problems. I don't think I've fallen completely into that trap (or, at least, I like to think I recognize it when I do), but it's there, and I know I'm not the only one.
The second worry is more personal. Maybe it's just the fact that so much of my worldview is wrapped so strongly in the escapist media that's been such an important part of my upbringing...but every time I think of adventure - which, due to said overexposure, I occasionally look at as a necessity for happiness as opposed to contentment - it always winds up being linked with physical conflict. Even though my own experience shows elation in mere exploration and great sorrow in causing pain; there's this part of me in which longs for some sense of physical confrontation; that longs for a palpable, tangible source of evil that can actually be stopped by humanities oldest and least effective method of problem solving. The sheer number of people I know who "joke" about anxiously awaiting a zombie apocalypse makes me feel like I'm not alone here, either.
I think that this is the real allure, and the real danger, here. The path of Cain comes so naturally to us that we'd all love to think that, ultimately, it will at some point be the right one, even though we all know that deep down it never will be. History shows us time and time again that the only way to really bring about change is by adherence to the great commandments given us by Christ: to love God with all our heart, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourself. It's a damnable shame that it's such a hard calling to adhere to (pseudo-pun pseudo-intended).
Second mini-rant picks up near where that left off:
The Golden Rule seriously needs to be rephrased. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is meant to embody the basic tenets of "Love your neighbor as yourself"...but it seems to me that it fails miserably. I started having this conversation with a couple of my roommates the other day, but one of them wouldn't hear it, simply because he was so used to relating the first as being equivalent to the second. I think the linguists and semantic nuts among you will agree with me that it's not.
The Golden Rule is, by its very phrasing, self centered. It asks you to think of how you feel, or believe you would feel given a certain circumstance. Well, guess what, that other person isn't you, and at least 50 percent of the time, what makes you feel better probably isn't gonna do the trick for another person. The great commandment is, by its nature, focused on the other person. We are to love them to the same extent we love ourselves. It says nothing of the manner, just the amount because Christ, being, you know, omniscient, understands that the manner must vary. By its nature, Love has to be expressed differently between different people; certainly there are universal acts that can be used to express it, but if I'm truly trying to show my love to my mother and my father, I can't treat them identically. That would be not only inconsiderate, but it would be dehumanizing them by ignoring their individuality. How then, in choosing to treat everybody as we would like to be treated, can we follow the Golden Rule as traditionally told, and retain a respect for the humanity and individuality of all? We can't.
My initial response is to say that the Golden Rule should read "Treat others as they would have you treat them"...but that leaves elephant-sized gaps for people who are disturbed or depressed to justify or encourage mistreatment. So, I don't know what we can really use as an entirely secular rephrasing of the Golden Rule, but we seriously need one, or else we'll never advance beyond this cultural overemphasis on "how I feel". Any ideas, fellow postmodern linguists in the audience?
I had one more thing to rant on, but I seem to have forgotten it, so I'll leave it at this for now. If this generates some discussion, either just with me or through comments, or whatever, maybe I'll make writing out these sorts of rants and ramblings a greater priority.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Just Because
So, I feel like I should write something. I don't know why, but I do. There isn't a lot going on these days for me to write about...I saw American Gangster and No Country for Old Men. Both were good movies. American Gangster makes me sad mostly because Ridley Scott just seems like he's trying to win an award these days instead of making quality cinema. No Country for Old Men was brilliant. Saying more about either would be doing you all a disservice, either because I'd be spoiling Old Country for you or because I'd be wasting your time telling you things you could have guessed about American Gangster with only minimal knowledge.
Seeing as I'm starting to get a vague idea of who reads this thing, I'm even more torn as to what to write, as there isn't a whole lot of interest overlap. This being the case, I'm going to ramble a bit about something that's been running through my mind since about 2 a.m. this morning that only a couple of you will understand: Concurrency in Object Oriented Design.
This is one of those entries that's going to be edited, heavily, when I come back and read it in a few days and realize how incomprehensible it all is. Keep with me for now if you care...
So, first of all, thank God that my High Performance Computing class is over. Starting to understand how to write procedural code in parallel was well worth the time and effort, but I think that bigger things are on the horizon. Primarily, I don't think that parallelization is going to be the primary route taken in writing applications to take advantage of multi-core processors.
Why do I think this? Well, mostly because I don't see anybody giving up their objects anytime soon. As much as I'm starting to appreciate functional programming, I still love Object Oriented design. It's just so much easier to perceive interactions between elements of a software system when you're dividing them up logically from the get go, that the time penalty is well worth it. The problem here is that it's difficult to parallelize an Object Oriented system because you've got such a strongly heterogeneous mixture of operations going on in any given interaction between objects. Certainly, if you're performing simulations where you have large aggregate groups of similar objects interacting with each other over either several iterations or under slightly different circumstances, you can break up this problem...but if you've got several dozen different types of Objects, all having their interaction being controlled by some central, generally procedural method, you're going to have to combine flat parallelism over looping constructs all over the place with functional decomposition of different object-set interactions with god knows what other types of algorithmic tomfoolery to "optimize" your problem.
This just doesn't seem worth it.
I've recently been doing a bit of reading on a language called Erlang. Erlang is rooted in the concept of "concurrency oriented design". Now, when most people think of concurrent operations, they think of multi-threading. When most people think of multi-threading, they think of shared memory accesses, critical sections, and notoriously instable and unreliable performance. Erlang sheds all of this.
Instead, Erlang structures programs around "processes". Not OS processes, light-weight processes managed by the Erlang RTE, each with its own unique memory and variables, all communicating with each other through asynchronous message passing. Having not done any actual programming in Erlang (a deficiency that will be rectified soon), I don't honestly understand yet how programs are structured around these processes, but I see a LOT of potential in this.
Imagine, a combination of Objects and Erlang style processes. You build an Object, and gets scheduled to run as its own process on one of the cores or nodes of your system. Each object exists as a unique process in this way, waking up and doing work on its core when requested, and sending that data back to whatever other Object requested its services, and going back to sleep. It doesn't sound a lot different from Object Oriented design as we know it, it just scales objects and their computations across a system. Obviously, we would need to write interactions between objects in a less traditionally procedural manner. "Controllers" in the traditional sense would certainly see a massive overhaul. Right now, it seems to me that Object Oriented programs are essentially procedural programs with a lot of the mess filtered out into objects and the remaining mess existing in the controller, managing their serial interaction, but any step towards truly efficient parallelization would require as much.
I've lost my train of thought for now. Maybe when I come back to make sure the above statements are actually understandable, I'll be able to remember what I wanted to say. For now, though, I'll just ask, would this concept of Objects existing and communicating concurrently, largely independent of a serialized controller be the fastest way of spreading code across multiple processing elements? No, probably not. But, if you're really looking for speed, why are you looking at O-O in the first place? I honestly can't think of anything right now that has the potential to be as easy to understand in design terms, easy to extend across and arbitrary number of processing elements (distributed or symmetric), and as potentially robust as this solution. It's something to think about and hope for in the future.
Seeing as I'm starting to get a vague idea of who reads this thing, I'm even more torn as to what to write, as there isn't a whole lot of interest overlap. This being the case, I'm going to ramble a bit about something that's been running through my mind since about 2 a.m. this morning that only a couple of you will understand: Concurrency in Object Oriented Design.
This is one of those entries that's going to be edited, heavily, when I come back and read it in a few days and realize how incomprehensible it all is. Keep with me for now if you care...
So, first of all, thank God that my High Performance Computing class is over. Starting to understand how to write procedural code in parallel was well worth the time and effort, but I think that bigger things are on the horizon. Primarily, I don't think that parallelization is going to be the primary route taken in writing applications to take advantage of multi-core processors.
Why do I think this? Well, mostly because I don't see anybody giving up their objects anytime soon. As much as I'm starting to appreciate functional programming, I still love Object Oriented design. It's just so much easier to perceive interactions between elements of a software system when you're dividing them up logically from the get go, that the time penalty is well worth it. The problem here is that it's difficult to parallelize an Object Oriented system because you've got such a strongly heterogeneous mixture of operations going on in any given interaction between objects. Certainly, if you're performing simulations where you have large aggregate groups of similar objects interacting with each other over either several iterations or under slightly different circumstances, you can break up this problem...but if you've got several dozen different types of Objects, all having their interaction being controlled by some central, generally procedural method, you're going to have to combine flat parallelism over looping constructs all over the place with functional decomposition of different object-set interactions with god knows what other types of algorithmic tomfoolery to "optimize" your problem.
This just doesn't seem worth it.
I've recently been doing a bit of reading on a language called Erlang. Erlang is rooted in the concept of "concurrency oriented design". Now, when most people think of concurrent operations, they think of multi-threading. When most people think of multi-threading, they think of shared memory accesses, critical sections, and notoriously instable and unreliable performance. Erlang sheds all of this.
Instead, Erlang structures programs around "processes". Not OS processes, light-weight processes managed by the Erlang RTE, each with its own unique memory and variables, all communicating with each other through asynchronous message passing. Having not done any actual programming in Erlang (a deficiency that will be rectified soon), I don't honestly understand yet how programs are structured around these processes, but I see a LOT of potential in this.
Imagine, a combination of Objects and Erlang style processes. You build an Object, and gets scheduled to run as its own process on one of the cores or nodes of your system. Each object exists as a unique process in this way, waking up and doing work on its core when requested, and sending that data back to whatever other Object requested its services, and going back to sleep. It doesn't sound a lot different from Object Oriented design as we know it, it just scales objects and their computations across a system. Obviously, we would need to write interactions between objects in a less traditionally procedural manner. "Controllers" in the traditional sense would certainly see a massive overhaul. Right now, it seems to me that Object Oriented programs are essentially procedural programs with a lot of the mess filtered out into objects and the remaining mess existing in the controller, managing their serial interaction, but any step towards truly efficient parallelization would require as much.
I've lost my train of thought for now. Maybe when I come back to make sure the above statements are actually understandable, I'll be able to remember what I wanted to say. For now, though, I'll just ask, would this concept of Objects existing and communicating concurrently, largely independent of a serialized controller be the fastest way of spreading code across multiple processing elements? No, probably not. But, if you're really looking for speed, why are you looking at O-O in the first place? I honestly can't think of anything right now that has the potential to be as easy to understand in design terms, easy to extend across and arbitrary number of processing elements (distributed or symmetric), and as potentially robust as this solution. It's something to think about and hope for in the future.
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