Grand Delusions

Being human comes with enough problems—many of our own making—without allowing hubris to extend the range of those problems to include assumed/implied responsibility for things over which we have absolutely not the remotest influence or control. This hubris is, in fact, a form of delusional theism. I, alas, tend to be prone to it. 

Toddlers and very young children naturally assume they are omnipotent and the center of the universe, since for the first few years of their lives, they don't really have any reason to think otherwise. All that really matters is themselves and what they want. Most are soon dissuaded from this notion by the harshness of reality, but some few manage to cling to them and survive. Again, I am one, and the jury is still out as to whether this is a curse or a blessing.

As one for whom large areas of emotional development more or less ground to a halt at around age five, I have always sincerely felt, down somewhere in the core of my being, that I am indeed the center of the universe. But with grand delusions comes grand responsibilities. Therefore, when something—anything—goes wrong, I can't escape the feeling that I must somehow be responsible for it. And as I became more and more aware of the world around me, this assumption has extended far beyond what directly effects my daily life. My theistic delusions have expanded to encompass just about everything that happens, anywhere, any time.

I've frequently addressed, in these blogs, the universal—and exponentially increasing—frustration caused by the sense—the knowledge—of lack of control over our own lives and destiny. That control has been usurped by the very technology and bureaucracies we humans created to serve us and make our lives easier. Unfortunately, as we became more and more dependent on these technologies, they, like Frankenstein’s monster, have gotten totally out of control. Things we designed to embrace us have tightened their hold to the point where we cannot breath, and we cannot escape. 

Oddly, I do not feel responsible for either technology or bureaucracy; only for their effects, over which I, like everyone else, am maddeningly powerless. Surely someone who is the center of the universe should be able to do something.

Conversely and perversely, while I'm happy to feel responsible for all that's wrong in the world, I am incapable of taking credit for all that goes well...for all the acts of love and kindness and self sacrifice and nobility that occur every day. And why is that, you may ask—as I have? Simple: because (and again here we have strong echoes of arrested emotional development) love and kindness and self sacrifice and nobility are the way the world should be, with no intervention from anyone. Always. That it is not, when I so want and expect it to be, must somehow be my fault.

I guess it all boils down to this: considering all the trouble and unhappiness and problems there are in the world—and not counting those which we create for ourselves as individuals—surely someone must be responsible. As center of the universe, why not me?

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This blog is from Dorien's collection of blogs written after his book, “Short Circuits,” available from UntreedReads.com and Amazon.com, was published. That book is also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com.  We are looking at the possibility of publishing a second volume of blogs. The blogs now being posted are from that tentative collection. You can find information about all of Dorien's books at his web site:  www.doriengrey.com. 

The Spider's Belch

Okay, I admit it: I have what even I consider to be an unnatural obsession with internet spam, and though I had been fighting with considerable success of late to resist, the temptations are just too great. Internet spam is, metaphorically, an intricately woven spider's web, at the center of which a deadly predator awaits. My fascination with it stems from the fact that while I can understand a fly or insect getting caught in a spider’s web, I simply cannot comprehend how human beings can become ensnared by spam. Those who do so because of their own greed deserve to get caught, and I have no pity for them. But far too many innocent people…the decent though incredibly naive and gullible…are also ensnared, and this infuriates me.

While spiders and their webs are a part of the balance of nature—the the predator takes the victim’s life in order to survive itself—internet spammers have no such logical reason to exist. Their only motive is greed, and like the spider stalking the fly, they do so without conscience, morals, or compassion.

The creators of spam are, all evidence to the contrary, not totally stupid. But they don't have to be smart. They are predators. They may have about the same I.Q. as a black widow spider, but they spin their webs with the same determination and for the same purpose. And they know if they make their webs large enough (something the vast size of the internet makes relatively easy to do) they’re bound to catch something. 

Let us take one single, all-too-typical spam message/web and lay it out upon the examining table to dissect it, piece by piece. First, here is the message in its entirety:

Order Request

Thanks for your continous response to our email and your diligent work in getting our order supplied, we have three other suppliers and at  we have to select only one. Register your company profile on our supplier Portal and fill  the datasheet after logging in.           

 Click to download

Thanks for your cooperation

  Hussein Safwan

Purchase Manager

The first thing we observe is a “Second Coming”-size boldface “Order Request,” a much smaller font used here, implying that what follows is of vital importance. That it not only not important but makes absolutely no sense is irrelevant. (Does “order request” mean they asking you to place an order, or are they referring to an order that has, supposedly, already been placed? No matter.)  

“Company profile”? What company? Do you have a company? They hope the fact that they apparently assume you do will let you make one up. “Supplier Portal”? “Log in”?

How the recipient…any recipient…can so totally set aside everything they have ever known or felt about logic and the fact that not one single thing in the entire message makes even an iota of sense is totally beyond my comprehension. 

“Thanks for your continous  [sic.] response to our email…” One might wonder, if one were the wondering kind, which the spammer counts on the recipient’s not being, how one can “continuously” respond to a single email which the recipient knows full well was  never sent in the first place? They either feel safe in assuming the recipient is not smart enough to remember that he/she has never in fact heard from these people before, or that they will find the dangled carrot irresistible.

Of course the spammer depends heavily on the recipient’s duplicity in blatantly obvious illegal schemes…spiriting large sums of money out of the spammer’s supposed country, for example, or claiming to be related to someone the recipient has never heard of in order to “claim the deceased’s inheritance,” etc. It is the (intended) impression that the recipient is somehow getting away with something even the slightest degree of conscience would declare unethical that makes the prospect exciting.

All leading you to the spider in the center of the web. “Click to download data sheet” in big, bold letters. Click and they have you. You are doomed.

The note is signed by “Hussein Safwan,” an exotic-sounding name that is sure to instill confidence. And we learn that Mr. Safwan is a “Purchase Manager.” Did it occur to the recipient—you—to wonder what he purchases, or for whom he works? Who cares? You...and you can be sure your money...are toast. 

Now all you have to do is to sit back and wait for the spider to belch. But you won’t be around to hear it.

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This blog is from Dorien's collection of blogs written after his book, “Short Circuits,” available from UntreedReads.com and Amazon.com, was published. That book is also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com.  We are looking at the possibility of publishing a second volume of blogs. The blogs now being posted are from that tentative collection. You can find information about all of Dorien's books at his web site:  www.doriengrey.com. 

Penguins

One of my favorite stories, often repeated, is about the to-the-point book report a little girl submitted after reading a book on penguins: "This book tells me more about penguins than I need to know."  I'm afraid my blogs may occasionally elicit the same reaction.

I have always had a tendency to reveal—-well, not only reveal, but revel in—things about myself which other people logically and probably justifiably prefer to keep to themselves. That some of these things are embarrassing to talk about and may even make others a little nervous doesn't seem to slow me down.  While drawing the line at detailed accounts of the more intimate of bodily functions, almost everything else is fair game. It is not coincidental, I think, that I have divided myself into Roger and Dorien, since I've always had the ability to stand apart from myself and observe my reactions with a fascination I have no real reason to believe anyone else could share. 

I am, as I'm sure you have noticed, massively self-absorbed. You may well wonder, as I do, why and to what end? I think it's because there are so many things we all share but for some reason feel we must keep to ourselves; things we are uncomfortable talking about for one reason or another...usually because we're afraid there is something wrong with us for having such thoughts, and we don't want anyone else to know we have them. The effect of this is that, when everyone else also remains silent, it reinforces our believe that those feelings and thoughts we do not express are unique to ourselves, when in fact they are not.  I strongly suspect that many if not most of those things of which we are  unreasonably embarrassed or ashamed and consider to be ours alone are in fact far more common than we realize. We are each unique, but not as unique as we assume.

The fact is that these are largely within-ourselves things, and we must spend the vast bulk of our time and energy in an outside-ourselves world. There simply isn't time to do too much introspection.

And then there is the basic human resistance to making waves. We all want to fit in, to be accepted. And as a result we learn to keep things to ourselves. So perhaps I flatter myself by thinking that by airing out my closet, as it were, you might recognize in it similar items you have in your own, and might be a bit freer in not only acknowledging them but not feeling quite so alone in having them.

Because each human is an individual, every society, culture, race, and ethnic group establishes its own set of standards and generally-agreed-upon perimeters within which its members are expected to stay. These standards are, at their base, pretty similar, and nearly every one stems from the prime imperative: survival of the species. One of the problems is, however, that times and challenges change while the standards, once established, do not. What were very logical rules when the standards were set up—many of them spelled out, for Christians and Jews, in the Old Testament of the Bible—have long ago lost their reason for being. The Jewish proscription against eating pork, for example, was a logical response to the real dangers of trichinosis in a time of no refrigeration. The dangers guarded against have almost ceased to exist, but the traditions remain long after the need for them has vanished. 

Cultural/social standards and rules tend to be based more on our psyche than on physical dictates, and a great many rules are imposed by religion and ethnicity. To this day, Americans are saddled with a puritanical past, which is probably most strongly evident in our puzzling and contradictory attitudes toward sexuality. The oft-quoted definition of puritanism as "the deep, abiding fear that somewhere, someone might be having fun" is deeply ingrained. We are both titillated and, depending on our degree of self-repression, repelled by any sex act not engaged in exclusively for the purpose of procreation. It is not "proper" to talk of such things.

So we find ourselves in an imaginary box wherein arbitrary limits are placed on what is "proper" to be mentioned to others and what should be repressed. I just enjoy reminding people that it's okay to step beyond the box every now and then, just for the fun of doing it.

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This blog is from Dorien's collection of blogs written after his book, “Short Circuits,” available from UntreedReads.com and Amazon.com, was published. That book is also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com.  We are looking at the possibility of publishing a second volume of blogs. The blogs now being posted are from that tentative collection. You can find information about all of Dorien's books at his web site:  www.doriengrey.com. 

Waste Not, Want Not

My apartment is in the rear of my building, overlooking a service area adjacent to the alley. There is a huge open-topped dumpster almost directly below my bedroom window, and whenever I look into it, as I did just now, my frustration level soars. 

They are renovating several units in the building, which necessitated the outsized dumpster to handle the debris. But when they began stripping the apartments—they completely gut each one—I was dismayed to see perfectly good kitchen cabinets and countertops, sinks, doors, and even gleaming white toilets just pitched into the dumpster. 

This is what is euphemistically known as a “senior citizens” complex. When a resident dies (and no, dear friend, they do not “pass away”: they die) everything...everything...not claimed by relatives is thrown out. If there are no relatives, the entire contents of the apartment is pitched with absolutely no regard of its potential use or value to others—and we won’t go near the subject of the loss of the deceased’s personality, memories, and dreams accumulated over a lifetime. Chairs, tables, desks, couches, books, bookshelves, televisions, clocks, pictures. Pitched. Just pitched. The waste is staggering, especially considering how many desperately poor people there are out there who have so very little and would be happy to have made use of them.

There are scavengers who roam Chicago's alleys in battered pick-up trucks, gathering whatever they can salvage and sell, but the dumpsters used here have 10-12-foot-high sides, making them next to impossible to see what is inside from street level, let alone get into without a ladder. Thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of reusable items utterly wasted. And the dumpster I observe with such dread is only one in a city of nearly 4 million people!

And yet when I asked the manager of my building how they could possibly so cavalierly dispose of so much reusable material I got excuses involving the possibility—no matter how remote—of bedbugs and the claim that the removed cabinets and doors not meeting standards, etc. 

What good does all this talk of recycling for the good of the planet do when things which so clearly can and should be recycled are not? I'm not talking cardboard boxes and aluminum cans, here, but furniture, utensils, appliances, decorative items—the things which give individuality to one's life—-which could be put to good use by so many people who have so little.

Yet even when I was clearing out my late friend Norm's condo, I ended up having to pay someone to come and haul away thousands of dollars worth of furnishings and decorative pieces, and I realized that there are logical, logistical obstacles between altruism and reality/practicality. (I even approached one of the alley scavengers and told them they could have anything of Norm's I was otherwise going to have to, in effect, throw away. I envisioned them selling it all to people who would be grateful to have it for pennies on the dollar, plus the scavengers would make money for their effort. I arranged to meet them at the condo at a certain time. They never showed up.)

I have never been able to just throw away anything I think might have value to someone else. I never order a full meal in a restaurant because I know I will not eat more than six bites of whatever it is I order. So on those rare occasions where I order more than an appetizer, I take the rest home and put it in the freezer, where it sits until I throw it away. And when I do, I feel guilty

I am constantly embarrassing my friends by leaning over to pick a penny off the sidewalk. I vastly prefer potted plants over cut flowers, which are beautiful for a very short time, then are thrown away. As with so very many other things, I honestly feel the world would be a better place if everyone followed my example, and sincerely cannot comprehend why they don't.

We are surely the most shamefully wasteful people in the history of the world. We're constantly being told that our profligate ways will one day come up and bite us in the ass. Well, don't look now, but....

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This blog is from Dorien's collection of blogs written after his book, “Short Circuits,” available from UntreedReads.com and Amazon.com, was published. That book is also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com.  We are looking at the possibility of publishing a second volume of blogs. The blogs now being posted are from that tentative collection. You can find information about all of Dorien's books at his web site:  www.doriengrey.com. 

The Tale of a Book

When I was a kid, Saturday was movie day, usually at the State Theater because there’d be a double feature, a newsreel, a couple short subjects, a cartoon, and a serial. I loved the serials…except the westerns. I never cared for westerns for some reason. (Though, I must admit, I had a huge crush on Roy Rogers.)

Years later, when I grew up and moved out into the world, I started working for a publishing house which was for some reason desperate at the moment for western novels. The company’s senior editor asked me if I would like to write one. While I could never stand westerns I was even then very fond of money, so I took it as a challenge. I thought back to my college days, when I’d taken a course in writing commercials, which I so hated I rather hoped to be kicked out of the class. For one commercial-writing assignment, I decided to go totally over the top and wrote a commercial in which a young boy pleads with his mother to allow him to keep the elephant which had followed him home. To my amazement, the instructor loved it.

So, when it came time to venture into writing the western, I decided to jam it full of just about every western cliche I could think of: stampedes and buck wagons and bar fights and ambushes and rattlesnakes and range fires. Oh, and to make it extra challenging, it had to be squeaky-clean heterosexual. (I mean, cowboys and homosexuality? Sacrilege!) However, since it was not uncommon in westerns for the hero to end up with his horse rather than the girl, I figured I could do it.

The story revolved around a cowboy named “Calico” for the fact of his having heterochromia—one blue eye and one brown (besides, I love the name of the condition)—who is charged with delivering a pair of city-raised twins, a boy and a girl, to their aunt’s isolated ranch in far-off Colorado. All by the book, as it were. But since my mind does not work along heterosexual lines, it wouldn’t be difficult for anyone looking for homoerotic undertones to read between the lines and see that there was obviously something going on between Calico and Josh, the male twin.

But it surprised me that as I wrote the book, it became far more about the characters than the cliches. I began to see them as real people, and wanted them to end up together. I remembered how important it would have been for me, in my State Theater years, to have had any sort of positive gay role model. It bothered me that I was not allowed to explore the fact that there simply had to have been gay cowboys just as there have always been gay adolescents.

The chief editor, for reasons known only to herself, rejected my original title, Calico, and renamed it Stagecoach to Nowhere, despite the fact that there are only two mentions of stagecoaches in the entire book, and neither of them have any bearing whatsoever on the plot. Plus, the back-cover blurb stated, “He cursed the law and rode for justice,” which I found fascinating, since there was no law cursing, and the need for justice was more understood than stated. Despite all this, however, it sold surprisingly well.

So, when the copyright on Stagecoach to Nowhere expired—the publishing company for which it was written having gone out of existence—I decided to rewrite it the way I’d wanted to write it in the first place. I returned its original title, Calico, and brought the homoeroticism out from between the lines, though without any explicit sex. I was careful to make it clear the twins would be the age of consent by the time the book ended, so that Calico and Josh could ride off into the sunset together without fear of accusations of pedophilia. And by making Josh very confident in his gayness, I hoped to make both him and Calico role models for young gays and lesbians who are still hungry for them.

And thus we have the somewhat abridged tale of a book. Anyone interested in reading the entire first chapter of Calico can do so on my website, www.doriengrey.com or watch the video trailer on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWT0vxVqSIM (and remember the book cover has been changed since the video was made). 

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This blog is from Dorien's collection of blogs written after his book, “Short Circuits,” available from UntreedReads.com and Amazon.com, was published. That book is also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com.  We are looking at the possibility of publishing a second volume of blogs. The blogs now being posted are from that tentative collection. You can find information about all of Dorien's books at his web site:  www.doriengrey.com. 

Cats and Dogs

I try to avoid talking about my cat for fear of being lumped in with those dear ladies who think if having 16 cats is good, having 27 is better. Rightly or wrongly, people seem to identify themselves as being "a cat person" or "a dog person" and it seems women, overall, prefer cats whereas men prefer dogs. I love them both, though I must admit leaning to the "dog" side of the equation. Though living in an apartment, as I do now, the balance of logic is in favor of the cat, which is far less high-maintenance than a dog. When there's no back yard for the dog to roam around in, the physical confines of an apartment are often difficult for a dog, and unlike cats, dogs must be walked a very minimum of twice a day. You can't go off and leave a dog in an apartment for two or three days. Cats take it in stride, and when you return are apparently unaware you'd been gone.

Dogs give their affection freely and without encouragement. Any attention paid them is clearly and often wildly appreciated. Cats tend to ration their attention, and it can almost never be solicited. Dogs always come when called, tails wagging, eager to share time with you. Calling a cat is like hailing a cab at rush hour. The best you'll get is a cursory and totally unconcerned glance. But when they decide they want attention, they expect you to drop everything and give it to them.

I have one cat, Spirit, whom I got six or eight months ago after swearing, following the death of Crickett, whom I'd had for about 15 years, that I would never get another one. I got him at a shelter, and took him because 1) I have always been partial to black cats and he is almost totally black (I didn't discover the white patch on his belly until later) and his already-given name was Spirit. As the writer of a paranormal mystery series, I took that latter fact as an omen.

Spirit is selectively smart. If he sees some advantage in indicating anyone is home behind those slanted eyes, he will let me know someone's there. If not, forget it. He will sit at my feet staring up at me and I will pat my lap. "Come on, Sprit! Come on." He stares at me without moving a muscle. (I recently read that cats simply do not understand the patting of a lap and "Come on! Come on!" to indicate they're supposed to do something.)

Each cat is completely different from every other cat in existence, and Spirit and Crickett are poles apart using any kind of measurement. Cricket hated getting her paws wet. Spirit cannot wait for me to open the shower door to reach for a towel before he is inside the stall with me, watching the rivulets of water run down the walls, and lapping water from around the drain. 

When someone he does not know comes into my apartment, he runs and hides in a cupboard beneath the kitchen sink. He likes it so well that he has learned to open the door, though exactly how he does it I have yet to discover. The door is flush with the frame on all sides. Still, he manages.

Every single time I open the door to my bedroom closet, he rushes in as though it is a marvelous new world opened to him for the very first time. Unless I’m able to stop him first, he jumps up on storage boxes on the closet floor and disappears behind the hanging clothes, refusing to come out. I could just leave him there, I suppose, but it seems he loves chewing on cardboard and scattering bits of it everywhere. So unless I get down on my hands and knees, fumble around between the boxes and clothes trying to find him and haul him out. Despite his tendency to chew on the boxes, I have on occasion, after a few minutes of  ignored cajoling, simply closed the closet door and walked away. I generally get as far as the bedroom door when he will begin a piteous wailing. I go back and open the door. He races out, I suspect eager to get to the phone and call the A.S.P.C.A. to report me for extreme mental cruelty. But five minutes later, I will open the closet door to get something else, and he will dash in, refusing to come out. I close the closet door and walk away. ("One. Two. Three. Four." Meeeeeeaowwwww! Meeeeeeaowwwww!)

I am convinced that it is not that cats cannot learn. They just don't see any particular reason why they should.

I do love Spirit but there are times I really, really wish I had a dog.

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This blog is from Dorien's collection of blogs written after his book, “Short Circuits,” available from UntreedReads.com and Amazon.com, was published. That book is also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com.  We are looking at the possibility of publishing a second volume of blogs. The blogs now being posted are from that tentative collection. You can find information about all of Dorien's books at his web site:  www.doriengrey.com. 

Pretty

I know, I know…our attraction to physically pretty people is somehow encoded in our DNA as an imperative. Survival of the fittest and all that. But our humanity should raise us above our genes, and it far too seldom does.

One of the least followed of biblical teachings is "Judge not, lest you be judged." We are continually judging other people...and ourselves…using arbitrary standards imposed upon us. By whom, exactly? No one seems to know. And, if we have an iota of concern for how we compare to other people, or of our relationships to the rest of humanity, we inevitably suffer from them.

Surely there are people who are sufficiently self confident that how they see themselves when compared to others is a non-issue. I truly envy them, but unfortunately have never been one of them…and I fear they are a tiny minority. 

There are scientific studies proving an almost mathematical equation for determining attractiveness—the more “balanced” one’s facial features, the more closely a mirror image of one side of the face matches the other, the more attractive the person is judged to be. And being “pretty” is an incalculable advantage on almost every level of human interaction. “Pretty” people tend to be the first hired, the first to be promoted. They tend to marry other pretty people. While this may have a certain general, utterly unemotional logic rooted in genetic imperatives, the fact is that our preoccupation with beauty causes incalculable pain and suffering for millions and millions of people who are made aware that they are not pretty.

The prejudice toward attractiveness and appeal is perhaps even more blatantly obvious when it comes to our pets. Go to any animal shelter where pets are offered for adoption. Which ones get adopted first? The cute little puppies and kittens, the handsome older animals, of course. But what of that runt in the litter, or that sad-eyed, scraggly mutt with his tail between his legs? Are they any less deserving of a good home? Though I have no figures on which to base this statement, I will be willing to bet that far more "ugly" animals are killed by "humane societies" than are handsome ones.

Are ugly creatures, human and animal, less worthy of love? It breaks my heart to see the fuss made over the cute little human darlings while the heavy-set kid with thick lips or a big nose or a receding chin is all but totally ignored.

And our society goes to great lengths to perpetrate this injustice. Turn on any commercially produced television program. Count the number of pretty people, then count the number of average-looking or less-than-average. Odds are the proportion of pretty people is many, many times larger than the ratio of attractive to not-so-attractive in society in general. And how many unattractive actors, proportionately, ever reach the status of stars? It is the beautiful people, in movies and in life, who are the “stars.” The rest are “character actors.”

Fortunately, there is hope for everyone. We all can recall certain incidents, certain encounters, certain seemingly insignificant moments which somehow permeate deeply into our souls and remain with us throughout our lives. On the subject of being “pretty”—a very sensitive one for me, who has never been pretty—one such moment still fills me with wonder and heartbreaking joy. Many years ago, I was in a restaurant seated directly across a table with a man and a woman both of whom were, by any scientific or general measure of beauty or physical attractiveness, singularly unattractive; by most people’s standards they would be thought of as ugly. The man was grossly overweight with a rough, pockmarked face, which was totally lacking in scientific "balance." The woman looked like a cruel caricature of the Wicked Witch of the West. (And even as I write this I am truly ashamed of myself for perpetrating the cruelty by describing them in this way.) 

But the thing that matters, the thing has stayed with me all these years, is that as they looked at each other and held hands across the table, they radiated such a powerful sense of love that it, for me, completely redefined the word "beauty." They had each other. They loved each other. The "rules of physical attractiveness" didn't matter. What I thought or you thought or the world thought didn't matter. What possibly could?

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This blog is from Dorien's collection of blogs written after his book, “Short Circuits,” available from UntreedReads.com and Amazon.com, was published. That book is also available as an audio book from Amazon/Audible.com.  We are looking at the possibility of publishing a second volume of blogs. The blogs now being posted are from that tentative collection. You can find information about all of Dorien's books at his web site:  www.doriengrey.com.