Dorien Grey and Me

Monday, March 02, 2015

The Fine Line

Odd how one picks up small bits and pieces of poetry, songs, sayings, etc. from God knows where and carries them throughout life.

One of my favorites, probably from my grade school days when I was becoming aware of profundaties (and yes, "profundaties" is a word--it has to be: didn't I just use it?), is "He who knows not, and knows not he knows not, he is a fool: shun him. He who knows not and knows he knows not, he is ignorant: teach him. But he who knows and knows he knows, he is wise: follow him." Too bad more people don't adhere to this very helpful guideline. Which brought me to the subject for today's blog.

The gap between stupidity and wisdom is awesomely wide, whereas only the very thinest of lines separates stupidity from ignorance--a line so thin the two are often and easily confused. Ignorance is, by definition, simply a lack of knowledge, and can be overcome (and I can't help but observe that the core of the word "ignorance" is "ignore"). The true test of who is stupid and who is ignorant lies in their awareness that the line exists and in the willingness to cross it. Both stupidity and ignorance are, in effect, prison cells with unlocked doors. The ignorant may be unaware that they are free to leave; the stupid have no desire to. A fool operates on the principle of the old cliche "Don't bother me with facts; my mind's made up."

As a general rule of thumb, stupidity is defined not only by the absolute refusal to even consider any opinion that differs from their own, but by the frequently zealous denial of the right to have them. Ignorance is lethargy; stupidity is too often unapologetically evil.

In a recent exchange on Facebook, I quoted Polonius' advice to his son, Laertes, in Hamlet: "This above all: to thine own self be true. And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not be false to any man." It evoked the following comment: "Why don't u use English?" I responded with a modern-English interpretation of the quote, to which the same person replied: "U mean be true to urself!" Yes, that's what I mean.

I did not automatically assume the questioner was stupid, but I was both mildly shocked and saddened by her ignorance. Ignorance can be cured; stupidity is terminal. And to me, the most terrifying thing is that while the line cannot be crossed from stupidity to ignorance, there is a great danger of crossing the line in the other direction. Ignorance can too easily become stupidity.

We are a nation of ignorance seemingly sinking deeper and deeper into the quagmire with each succeeding generation. Studies and reports show how terrifyingly ignorant our general public is becoming. Ignorant parents tend to raise ignorant children. When a shocking number of teenagers read far below their grade level, when they do not comprehend basic math and science, when they cannot find China on a map, it is time for grave concern.

Alarm bells have been rung so loudly and so long that we are becoming deaf to them. The ignorant aren't quite sure what they mean, and the stupid neither know nor care.

The fact that stupidity has taken such a firm foothold is in large part due to its vociferous proponents, who confuse volume and intensity for validity. Listen, if you have the stomach and tolerance for it, to religious zealots and talk-show "pundits" and see if you can find even the hint of anything positive anywhere in their ranting. That there is nothing positive in stupidity is painfully self-evident.

Is there a lesson here? I'd hope it might be this: never, never confuse those who claim to know for those who do know. How can you tell them apart? Your mind may not always know, but your heart does.

Dorien's blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday and Thursday. Please take a moment to visit his website (http://www.doriengrey.com) and, if you enjoy these blogs, you might want to check out Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs (http://bit.ly/m8CSO1), which is also available as an audiobook (http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B00DJAJYCS&qid=1372629062&sr=1-1).

Thursday, February 26, 2015

"This, too...."

One of the wonders of being human is that while we, among all living creatures on earth, are aware of the concepts of future and past, stretching out endlessly before and behind us, we must walk between the two on the infinitely thin tightrope of "now"...the present.

Impatience is also ingrained in our species, and we too frequently ignore our past in our hurry to get to the future. To speed up that which cannot be hurried, we have created technology, which we intended to serve us but which increasingly controls us. And as technology encroaches upon our humanity, we become more and more frustrated―and from frustration comes anger, both personal and societal.

Societal frustration shows itself in infinite ways, both broadly as in wars and acts of terrorism, and so subtle that few are aware of them. “Popular” music is a prime example; up into the latter half of the 20th century, song lyrics told stories. Some were sad, of course, but very, very few of them could be said to be angry: fewer still espoused hatred or literally seethed with anger.

This anger increasingly permeates our entire society, like water permeates a sponge. What has happened? What has changed us? Why is everyone so angry? Why am I so angry so much of the time?

The answer is as simple as it is depressing: the less control we see as having over our own lives, the more helpless we feel, the more frustrated we become, and frustration shows itself most clearly through anger. Every time we pick up the phone to try to talk to a human being who might actually give a damn about us or our problem at some behemoth, faceless corporation we are reminded in no uncertain terms just how little power we really have over even something so simple as a phone call. And who, after sitting there holding the receiver listening to 10,000 blatant and insultingly condescending repetitions ("Your call is very important to us"/"Due to unexpectedly heavy traffic"/"Please stay on the line and your call will be answered by the next available representative" ) does not get the clear message, "We don't know who you are, we don't care who you are, we don't care about your pathetic little problems. All we want from you is your money."

It's difficult―nearly impossible, at times―not to despair. Our government is at a standstill. Those whose job it supposedly is to govern our democracy instead devote their energies to throwing roadblocks in front of any idea, no matter how logical and potentially beneficial, proposed by the opposition. It is nearly impossible to know what those running for election or re-election will do if elected, or how they will go about doing it. Their primary aim is to viciously attack their opponents.

Standing apart from ourselves―not easy to do―can provide a unique insight into the relativity of things. What do so many of the things we become frustrated about really mean, at base, to our lives? In retrospect, being put on hold for 45 minutes is infuriatingly frustrating, but, really, what difference does it make in the larger picture of our day to day life? Well, the answer to that is, again, that we pass through time from one nanosecond to the other, and while we're enduring those infuriating on-hold waits or struggling through the myriads of individual problems which beset us all, there is no way to escape or avoid them.

Ten years in the past is as close as yesterday afternoon. Ten years in the future might as well be eternity.

Unhappiness with our current situation is just part of life. Gloom and doom are common themes throughout history. All evidence to the contrary, I'd like to think that this is just another segment of the history-long “phase” we're going through. Despite all the our ranting and raving and despair for the future, perhaps the single most fascinating and positive thing about human existence is that we persevere. We still hope. We still, somewhere under all that frustration and anger and discouragement, cling to the belief that things will get better. There is, somewhere in the depths of our soul, the awareness that no matter how bad things may be at any given minute, "this, too, shall pass." It is our salvation.

Monday, February 23, 2015

Idiots

I know full well that I frequently think of myself, and present myself to others, as an idiot. But I can do it; it’s my right. I don’t like it, but I can live with it. What I cannot tolerate is other people―total strangers who have never even heard of me and have no interest in doing so except as the signatory of a check or a credit card number―automatically making that assumption. Their numbers are, unfortunately, legion. The assumption that everyone is an idiot seems, in fact, to be a fundamental tenet of nearly everyone with a product to sell or a cause to promote.

Probably 95 percent of all advertisers and 99.6 percent of all politicians consider the American public to be severely mentally retarded. Either they treat us with infuriating condescension (“See the pretty new car? Wouldn’t you like to have it? It’s got a horn and it goes really, really fast, and everything!....No, no, don’t bother looking at the price tag or reading the teensy-weensy print at the bottom of the screen/page. It’s nothing important.”), or believe that figuratively grabbing us by the shoulders, screaming at the top of their lungs and speaking as fast as they possibly can we will be convinced and become a bobble-head doll ("Oh, yeah! Sounds wonderful! A limited time offer, you say? Wow! I don't want to lose out on such a great opportunity. I'll take it!"). And, sadly, it works far more often than it fails.

I love glancing quickly through the subject lines in my Spam folder before I hit “Delete.” My current favorite is “Update your Penis.” I assume this involved downloading an attachment. But sometimes I merely stare at the subject lines in total awe. “Film Extras Wanted!” “Make $20,000 a month!” “Cure all Diseases”! Please! How can anyone…anyone…possibly, possibly be so stupid or gullible to fall for these scams? What do people use for brains? Have they never heard of logic? Have they never asked a question?

But the tragic, infinitely sad fact is that people DO believe this crap. Sweet little old ladies sign their life savings away eagerly at the promise of getting something for nothing, then look tearfully into the camera of the newscast telling their story and say: “How could they have done this to me?” Well, dear, sweet lady, they did it to you because, sweet and good and kind as you are, you let them do it to you. You are, sad to say, an idiot. Harsh, I know, but true.

If people stopped falling for these scams, the scammers would eventually go away. But I’m not holding my breath.

I have a few friends and acquaintances who frequently send me political and religious diatribes, usually filled with such odoriferously unbelievable garbage I grow ill from the stench. But it is a proven fact that Barack Obama, who hates America, is Osama ben Ladin’s third cousin twice removed, and that he plans to strap dynamite to his wife and small daughters and detonate them during his next speech to congress, thus destroying our entire government. Either that or he is secretly planning to impose Sharia law (just how he or anyone else may do this is not made clear) and make Islam the official and only religion of the country. Who… who …in their right mind or with one scintilla of intelligence could conceivably in a million million years believe that crap? And I have but to look at or listen to the latest pronouncement from political hate mongers to realize how very many people do believe it. It is, truly and sincerely, to weep.

And I fall back yet again on one of my mantras: “If 50 million people believe a stupid thing, it is still a stupid thing.”

Which brings me back to my sense of anger, frustration and impending doom in expecting people to be what they so obviously are not—or, worse, who do not lift a finger to slow or reverse the out-of-control negativism inundating every aspect of our society. Please, feel free to prove me wrong. Please.

Dorien's blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday and Thursday. Please take a moment to visit his website (http://www.doriengrey.com) and, if you enjoy these blogs, you might want to check out Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs (http://bit.ly/m8CSO1), which is also available as an audiobook (http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B00DJAJYCS&qid=1372629062&sr=1-1).

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Weather or Not

Remember that old kids' rhyme, "Whether it's cold or whether it's hot, we will have weather, whether or not"? It was one of my first encounters with wordplay, and I've always remembered it.

I love weather's unpredictability and delight in the largely futile attempts of weather forecasters to get it right. Whenever they predict heavy rain...which I love...I know I can pretty well leave my umbrella at home. I often wonder why they bother.

Living as I did so long in northern Wisconsin, in the heart of Lake Superior's snow belt, I delighted in the heavy snow most winters would bring. I didn't particularly like digging out my car--especially when, as happened not all that infrequently, the snow would be even with the top of the hood--but to sit inside and watch it fall...or, with blizzard conditions, listening to the wind shake the house while whipping the snow horizontally past the windows...was always a delight.

But I do not like excessive cold. One winter, when I was living up north, we had one entire week when the temperature never got above -26! By comparison, Chicago weather, and particularly the winters, are normally fairly tame. The city comes to a standstill on those very rare occasions when we get more than six inches of snow. Bunch o' wusses! But this winter seems to be something of an exception. Perhaps because I’m getting older. Perhaps because I’m just getting tired of the cold.

In Spring, Summer, and Fall, I enjoy looking out the window in the morning to see the clouds from the previous night's storms breaking up and patches of blue sky appearing. I love waking to rain, wind, and a world saturated in deep, pensive grey. When I first returned to Chicago and was staying with my now-dead but still dear friend Norm in his 35th floor condo, I would be mesmerized whenever fog or low clouds would totally wrap around the building and obscure the view of the towers of the Loop in the distance.

Perhaps because I am so given to melodrama, I have always loved thunderstorms; the more violent the better. I've told the story many times of scaring the bejeesus out of my poor mother when I was a teenager. I'd gotten out of bed during a severe storm in the middle of the night to stand at my bedroom window to watch it. I stood between the drapes and the partially open window, and my mom came in to close the window she didn't see me standing there until she pushed the drapes aside.

For some reason, we generally are incapable of remembering weather from one year to the next. People always seem to claim the current year's weather to be the most severe—the hottest, the coldest, the driest, the wettest—in memory, though it almost never is.

I've often said that one of the main reasons I left Los Angeles after eighteen years was because I grew tired of every day being June 25th, and of being able to confidently plan a picnic six weeks in advance. Even when it did rain, Mother Nature didn't really seem to put her heart into it. Far more drizzle than drama.

I always delight in days other people consider gloomy or unpleasant. I find them restful and soothing. They're like putting on a thick down jacket on a cold day, completely enveloping and isolating me from the cares of the world. I put them on a par with the serenity of walking through a cemetery reading tombstones. (No, I am not weird, thank you. A bit strange, perhaps, but….)

So if I have my choice of not-sunny, not-stormy days, I think I’d choose grey, overcast days with slow, steady or intermittent rain. Somber days are conducive to contemplation, reflection, and thought (synonyms, I know, but each with it's own subtle differences), and weather and life have strong parallels. I suspect the proportions of sunny to stormy to grey of weather are about the same as happiness, sorrow, trauma, and joy are to human life. Perhaps to emphasize this parallel that I often paraphrase the old saying "into each life a little rain must fall" to "into each rain a little life must fall." Works for me.

Monday, February 16, 2015

Envy

envy (noun): a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else's possessions, qualities, or luck

jealous (adjective): feeling or showing envy of someone or their achievements and advantages

Envy, like its not-quite-synonym jealousy, is one of the less noble of human qualities. The difference between envy and jealousy is that envy is a bit broader in scope, whereas jealousy is usually concentrated on one individual.

Unfortunately, for me envy has been a chronic and severe condition as far back as I can remember, undoubtedly stemming from a deep-rooted sense of inadequacy…of not being who and what I so desperately have wanted to be; of not living up to my own expectations; of constantly being exposed to others who possess qualities (though, interestingly, seldom “things”) I wish I had. (I long ago adopted being self-deprecatory as a perverse form of defense mechanism: I’ll tell you how inferior I am before you can tell me. Not healthy, I know.)

I envy those younger, more attractive, more intelligent, more thoughtful, more talented than I. And often it goes far beyond just a casual sense of wishing to a soul-deep, chest-ache longing. I’m not sure how one can experience a sense of loss over something one has never had, but I do.

I envy those more intelligent than I. As I’ve often said, my knowledge is broad but extremely shallow. To quote the old song, “I know a little bit about a lot of things, but…” I have read a great deal, but never enough to feel qualified to have a truly meaningful discussion on the classics.

I envy those who are seemingly (though realizing “seemingly” may be the operative word) at ease in social situations involving people they do not know; who can express their enthusiasm in crowds with shouts and cheers; who can dance without thinking or caring how they look to others.

I envy those who have the time to read voraciously. I don’t read nearly as much as I used to, or as I should, partly because when I read the words of others I often feel intimidated. I have no doubt that I’m a good writer…just not good enough.

The vast bulk of the things I envy are based on the fact that I am a homosexual in a predominantly straight world that I have never understood, and am therefore always afraid of embarrassing myself. I suspect one of the reasons…if there are reasons…I am homosexual is because I so long to be so many things I find in other men. From childhood, I’ve always been attracted to males I wish I were like. And, in the days when I was still an active part of the gay community, to be able to actually go home with someone to whom I was attracted provided an almost euphoric sense of validation. (“See, you’re not as ugly as you think you are.”)

And having said all the above, having made a case for the emotional hazards of negative thinking, I must point out that all these unhealthy things, which could easily create serious depression, are offset by the one characteristic of which I am most proud: I never, even under the worst circumstances, allow myself to take myself too seriously.

Thursday, February 12, 2015

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.

Dorien's blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday and Thursday. Please take a moment to visit his website (http://www.doriengrey.com) and, if you enjoy these blogs, you might want to check out Short Circuits: a Life in Blogs (http://bit.ly/m8CSO1), which is also available as an audiobook (http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B00DJAJYCS&qid=1372629062&sr=1-1).

Monday, February 09, 2015

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?

Thursday, February 05, 2015

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....

Monday, February 02, 2015

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 under “Dorien Grey’s Calico.”

Thursday, January 29, 2015

"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?

Monday, January 26, 2015

Observing

We're all so busy living our lives that we seldom take the time to step back and really look at things. Not the big stuff upon which our existence depends, but on those millions and millions of trivialities that surround us every minute and yet go ignored. It is these little things which fascinate me.

"Such as," you ask? Well, such as the following:

I enjoy picking out left-handed people at a play or concert: left handers clap their left hands into their right; right handers clap their right hands into their left.

Tap the lip of a cup lightly with a spoon as you fill the cup with hot water and listen to the change in pitch as the cup fills. (It doesn't work quite as well using cold water, interestingly.)

Lay two sheets of paper in front of you on a desk. Take a pencil in each hand and without concentrating or looking at what you're doing, write your name simultaneously with both. Your dominant hand will, of course, write your name correctly. The other hand will write it backwards.

Runway models always cross one foot slightly in front of the other as they walk.

Female celebrities have the annoying habit of posing one hand on hip far, far more often than would naturally occur, apparently assuming this to be somehow seductive. It is not.

Notice, the next time you are in a government office, how many of the employees charged with dealing with the public seem completely certain they are the government.

If you've followed my blogs for any length of time, you know of my ongoing ranting about the very real demand that actors in commercials prominently display a wedding ring to subliminally show the viewer that he is a "family man" and therefore can be trusted. Unmarried actors or those who do not normally wear a wedding ring are often actually required to put one on for the commercial. And, again, you will never see an adult male alone in a commercial with a young child unless the man is wearing a wedding ring, lest the viewer think the man is a pedophile.

New York subway cars are almost half again as long as Chicago subway cars and have three sets of doors as opposed to the two sets on Chicago cars. Some modern European subway trains are articulated and have no divisions at all between cars.

The next time you are at a museum featuring classical ancient Egyptian paintings or sculptures, note that statues of standing figures all have their arms rigidly against their sides, their hands clasped into a fist around what appears to be a short stick but which, I realized, is only something to fill the gap between the thumb and clenched fingers. And all standing figures have their left foot extended beyond their right.

In Egyptian wall paintings, eyes and torsos are always painted as if being viewed head-on, despite the position of the rest of the body. It is very rare to see a body portrayed from the side, or in any other position.

Classical Greek statues have no bridge to the nose...the ridge of the nose is a straight line from forehead to tip.

Etruscan sarcophagi often feature sculptures of the dead propped up on one arm, but always turned to the right, and the right knee often bent and raised slightly.

How can I...or you...become bored when just opening our eyes and looking at things as though they are being seen for the first time presents such a wealth of things to wonder about and be in awe of? Try it and see.

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Lip Service

We are a lip-service people. Both as individuals and as a society, we solemnly proclaim belief in and adherence to one thing while doing the exact opposite. There is, far too often, only the most flimsy connection between our words and our actions. Generally, lip service is basically harmless; it's something everyone does. But it covers a very broad spectrum from the generally harmless—almost a natural reaction—to calculatedly cynical and hypocritical.

Paying lip service to something is, for the most part, a form of taking the path of least resistance. We claim to believe things simply because, whether we honestly believe them to be true or not, we acknowledge that everyone else seems to believe them, and we don't want to rock the boat or risk calling attention to ourselves by standing out too far from the crowd. Standing out from the crowd makes one vulnerable and a potential target, like a wildebeest who strays too far from the herd. Few people want to be targets.

Lip service also provides protective coloration, offering a large tree behind which we can hide our true thoughts and feelings. And there are those who can delude themselves into confusing lip service with truth. Bigots, for example, almost always vehemently deny they are bigots. Religious zealots loudly and piously proclaim their fealty to the written tenets of their faith while totally ignoring and violating them. Muslim extremists have done perhaps irreparable harm to the religion they slavishly defend, often to the death of themselves and others. Christian extremists are somewhat less dismissive of their own lives, but still only slightly less reprehensible. Those who most strongly avow their allegiance to the Bible are often the very ones who do the most undermine it. They seem to have the astonishing ability to overlook such insignificant-to-them little precepts as "Love thy neighbor," "Do unto others as you would have done unto you," "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone," and "Judge not lest ye be judged."

Corporations, which differ from religious zealots only in that the deity they worship is Mammon rather than God or Allah, have made an art out of saying one thing and doing another. ("Your call is very important to us," and "...where you, the customer, are our primary concern" spring to mind. Few if any of them even bother, anymore, to pay lip service to "the customer is always right." I suspect when they try to say that, they burst into uproarious laughter.)

Lip service is the cornerstone of politics. Politicians regularly and unctuously pay lip service to any widely held belief they think might win them votes while, while subverting it for their own ends. Tea Partiers want to "take back our country" to its constitutional roots, but want to rid the Constitution of those parts they find bothersome.

On a personal, individual level, lip service is sometimes the only logical way of dealing with matters one is truly unable to comprehend. I pay lip service to—that is, I can accept, albeit with great reluctance—the belief that one is only as old as one feels, and that age doesn't matter. I can even say my age aloud, but though I say it in English, it might as well be Swahili. The words strike my ear, but not my mind. Try as I might, I simply cannot believe it because it can't be true. And you'll notice I'm not saying it here. It's not a matter of being coy, it's simply a matter of sincere incomprehensibility.

So, lip service, universally used and universally ignored, is simply yet another little device we humans use to try to make some sense and order out of what is too often a senseless and chaotic existence. It is one thin thread in the rope we have spun as a race to tether ourselves to reality. I just wish the rope were stronger, and that it didn’t so easily become a noose.

Monday, January 19, 2015

Seriously?

Margaret Hamilton, as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz hit it on the head: “What a world! What a world!”

I have spent more than 3/4 of a century bumbling through life avoiding reality whenever possible, thinking I was unique in doing so. But I slowly became aware that my aversion to reality is shared by the vast majority of the American public, if not the world’s population. Our entire culture seems to be largely based on it. We have carefully created a world of euphemisms and smoke and mirrors, applying layers of powder and rouge and eyeshadow to the harshness of reality. If we don’t want to think about something, we do our best to find a way to divert ourselves. It is simply easier to evade and avoid.

Are you old enough to have ever bought a used car? There are no such things anymore. You don’t buy a used car…you buy a “pre-owned vehicle.” Oh, well, a “pre-owned vehicle” is obviously infinitely better than a “used car.”

Governmental agencies at all levels have developed their own language to convey their authority in pomposities intended to cow the public. Police reports never say someone got out of the car. No, the person “exited the vehicle.” (I don’t think I’ll ever understand the logic behind that one.)

Items are never sold for rounded-off amounts—$2.00 or $20.00, say—but for $1.99 or $19.99—because reducing the cost by a whopping one cent sounds so much cheaper and sells infinitely more. There is a world of difference between the sound of reality and the sound of evasion.

Perhaps my “favorite” example of reality-evasion is that in our society, people do not die; they “pass away.” Seriously? And, upon burying the container that the person came in, we murmur, “Rest in Peace.” Rest? The individual is as beyond resting as he/she is beyond every other problem, care, or concern. Why do people find the concept of simply returning to the eternity from which he/she came so disturbing/frightening?

TV infomercials excel at putting lipstick on a pig. They first do everything in their power to convince us that whatever is being sold is the greatest invention since the wheel; that there has never, ever, been anything like it in the history of the world. And then they offer to double or triple the order to encourage you to buy. Seriously? If it’s 1/1,000th as good as they say it is, why should they need to give away more than they have to? And then, as if it were some wonderful added benefit, we are told it is “not sold in stores.” They obviously hope no one wonders why.

The asking of questions is anathema to the anti-reality World of Mammon in which we all live. Large, pricey items are sold on apparently special credit terms to “well-qualified buyers,” though what those terms might be are never explained. And just what, pray tell is a “well-qualified” buyer? I have asked this question a thousand times and never received an answer.

We buy something and are told there will be “No Interest Until 2025” as an incentive. Not one person in 100 stops to think that the reality behind that statement is we’ll be paying for it until at least that date.

The evasion of reality is never-ending. Words and phrases like “piled high,” “big money,” “no reasonable offer refused,” “strict limit of,” are all blatantly false come-ons we have become so accustomed to that we never, ever question. We should. Seriously.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

You, Me, and Snowflakes

Glancing out the window during our most recent light snowfall, I got to thinking about snowflakes and our metaphysical resemblance to them. (Nice segue, Dorien!)

Each of us, be we human or snowflake, is unique, though when viewed in large numbers both are all but indistinguishable from one another. The closer one gets to either an individual snowflake or an individual human, the more distinct its differences become. The various components which go into each human's physical and emotional makeup--and their relative proportions--vary widely, though in most people these components are for the most party fairly well balanced. However, in others, the various elements--primarily our emotional composition--combine to produce some very strange results.

I definitely fall into the latter category. For example, whereas most people are an easily manageable blend of self confidence and doubt, I find myself both irrationally insecure and unjustifiably egocentric, often at the same time. I am a glutton for attention and praise, yet am excruciatingly embarrassed to be singled out from a crowd. While others at a large public event effortlessly and openly display their enthusiasm, shouting and jumping up and down and waving their arms and dancing to the music, I stand like Lot's wife, an unmoving block of salt. My soul dances, but my body will not even try. And as a result I, who so fear standing out in a crowd, stand out by not being a part of it.

Like snowflakes, people vary widely in the symmetry of their physical appearance and, as a result, in their attractiveness. The laws of average dictate that there will be far, far more nondescript snowflakes as there are the nearly-perfect. And so there are infinitely more Roger Margasons than there are Tom Cruises. Perfection, in both snowflakes and the human concept of physical beauty, invariable comes down to symmetry. The "perfect" snowflake is one which is perfectly symmetrical, and studies have shown that the more symmetrical/balanced a person's facial features, the more beautiful he/she is considered to be. The perception of this symmetry in human faces is all but subliminal. Just to look at someone's face, unless the lack of symmetry is striking--which is seldom is--we don't notice that one eye is just a fraction of an inch lower on the face than the other, or that one nostril is very subtly larger than the other. But our mind subconsciously recognizes the differences.

Just as all snowflakes, no matter how they may vary from one another in appearance, share the commonality of water vapor formed around a minute speck of dust, we humans all share a common DNA, which is the core of our physical being. Though myriads of other subtle factors influence each of us, because we are biological creatures, the genetic makeup of our race influences and accounts for, either directly or subtly, the fact that the vast bulk of us have similar goals, needs, and desires. Most of us marry, or want to marry, and our need to reproduce to assure the survival of the species is a genetic imperative.

There is a certain irony in the fact that the "be fruitful and multiply" imperative has proven so successful that we are dangerously close to imperiling our survival through uncontrolled overpopulation. With more than seven billion of us now taking up space and resources, the question is, might reproduction for preservation of the species basically been achieved? We're not in danger of running out of people. A nice, steady snowfall can be lovely: a force-10 blizzard with 20-foot snowdrifts can be devastating.

The single greatest advantage humans have over snowflakes is that, even among the billions of other humans, one single individual can have an effect over, if not all, large numbers of other humans. Snowflakes do not have leaders. And not all humans go down in the history books for influencing our fellow humans for good or for ill. But we have the ability and the power to make not only our own lives better, but to make a positive difference in at least a few others. We should use this ability far more than we do.

Monday, January 12, 2015

Boogeyman

There is a boogeyman who lives beneath my bed, and in my closet, and who stalks me every hour of every day, no matter where I go. I never see him, of course...boogeymen never show themselves...but I know he is there, and he knows I know. He saturates my mind like water saturates a sponge, and his name is Time.

He's been with me all my life, and has always been frightening. But he grows more so with each passing year.

I read a science fiction story many years ago that has stayed with me all this time. It was about a society in which murder was very rare, and the murderer was always detected. The punishment for murder was death, but it was administered in a very different way. The murderer was not put in prison. He could go about his life freely. But he was always accompanied by a machine which would, at some unknown point and totally without warning, kill him, as one swats a fly. He had to go through every day never knowing which moment would be his last, but knowing it was coming, and each passing minute brought it closer. Until....

And I still, strange as it may seem, identify with that story. Though I have not committed any crime, I am like that murderer, and the machine that follows me everywhere, and which I know will one day take my life, is Time.

I know this obsession is downright unhealthy. I know there is no boogeyman under my bed or in my closet, or deliberately, calculatedly, consciously following me around, just as I know a train speeding down the tracks has no evil intent and has no awareness of anyone in its path. But if someone stands on the tracks in front of a moving train, the outcome is inevitable. Each of us is, in fact, standing on the track at different intervals, and each of us, in turn, will be run over. We can stand there, watching the train barreling down on us, and wave our arms frantically and shout for it to stop, but it won't even slow down. It's probably a blessing that most people stand with their backs turned to the train of Time, and are so preoccupied with the sounds of their own lives they cannot hear it coming. I can, and the sound grows louder every minute.

I am fully aware, too, that in my preoccupation with how quickly the future becomes the past, I am unable to fully appreciate the present. Delight and joy are tempered by the knowledge that the particular moment must end. I wish with all my heart and soul that it were different, and am convinced that my life would be infinitely less stressful if I could somehow get over it. But as with so much of life, wanting something to be different does not, even with great effort, make it so.

On reading this over, it once again seems that I come across as a bitter, disagreeable curmudgeon; really a totally wet blanket, never happy, always bitching and moaning about one thing or another. I too, wish it were not so. Oscar Wilde observed that "A cynic is a frustrated romantic," and I fear he pretty much summed it up. I've often said that romantics are those whose hearts have never let go of the dreams of childhood and youth--of a world of kindness and beauty, without harshness or hatred or bigotry. Like all romantics, I want so very much for things to always go smoothly, and simply cannot understand why common courtesy and basic logic are almost universally ignored if not scorned. And disillusion creates a inevitable state of sadness and frustration. Perhaps, were it not for the boogeyman, all this wouldn't matter as much. But I feel cheated when so much of the terribly short time each of us has on this earth has to be spent countering the negatives. Let's add that one to my list of things I truly wish weren't so.

I blame it on my boogeyman.

Thursday, January 08, 2015

"You're Nothing!"

The human need to feel a sense of belonging is a subject seldom discussed openly, but is an important factor in each of our lives. While we may not think much about it, you can be absolutely certain that advertisers and those out to champion some cause or other do. They are firmly...and rightly...convinced that the best way to get you to join them is to imply, or simply come right out and declare, that there is something basically wrong with you if you do not agree with them.

Several of these blogs have, over the years, discussed the fact that because each of us goes through life as one individual in a vast sea humanity, the assumption too often is that we are different and apart from everyone else...that life is a huge club to which we don't really belong.

One of my favorite cartoons shows five men seated around a table, talking. One says: "So here we are, four intelligent men...five, if you count Frank, here...." And each of us is a Frank.

A couple of decades ago, there was a lot of talk about "subliminal messages" inserted into all forms of communications to influence you to think one way or another. I haven't heard subliminal messages mentioned of late, but it's certainly not that they have gone away. It's just that they no longer even make any pretense of being subliminal. We are bombarded with them every single day, and they have transmogrified from being subtle whispers to sledgehammers.

Consider for a moment.

"The movie/book/show everyone is talking about!" Well, I'm certainly not talking about it. I most likely had never even heard about it before, which isn't really surprising considering that it may not even have been released yet. However, that I haven't heard anyone else even mention it, either, is beside the point. The point is that since I'm not talking about it, clearly I am an outsider.

Politicians...and, in today's astoundingly mean-spirited times, especially Republicans...routinely use disenfranchisement as a weapon. How many times do they claim, unequivocally, that "The American people do not want" or "The American people will not stand for" some program they oppose--usually a program approved by the majority of voters. Since I've always assumed--apparently wrongly--that my birth certificate qualifies me as an American, where does this statement leave me? Usually they are talking about a program that I indeed do want, and that, since I probably voted for it in the first place, I certainly will stand for. But the message is clear: if I don't toe the line they have drawn, I am outside the circle and utterly worthless.

I am constantly amazed by the fact that anyone casting themselves in the role of the bull in the china shop has tens of thousands of people following them avidly, hanging on every utterly illogical word they utter, and believing without question every hateful, dehumanizing, self-serving statement they make. They take their power largely from convincing others that they have power, and a tragically large number of people, increasingly feeling they themselves are powerless, follow those who assume it, usually by playing on their fear and ignorance. It is a virulent case of the Emperor's New Clothes gone mad.

There is an old saying which, sadly, is becoming more and more true, and more and more accurate: "Those who cannot create, destroy."

And you? Well, if you don't agree with every single word those-who-would-be-king utter, it doesn't matter. Obviously your opinion doesn't matter. You are worth nothing at all.

Monday, January 05, 2015

Egotism vs Egoism

There is a very fine but very sharp divide between egotism and egoism, both of which are centered on the self. But it is the assumption of superiority that divides the two. Egotists have the luxury of automatically assuming they are aways right; egoists are never really sure. The egotist looks outward to feed his sense of superiority; the egoist realizes that, while he might assume what others are thinking or feeling, he can never really know for sure, and therefore looks within himself for answers.

Overt self confidence is a mark of an egotist; the lack of it is the mark of an egoist. The egotist, like an exploding supernova, projects his sense of superiority outward; the egoist, like a black hole, draws everything into himself, and can never truly be sure that what he finds there is correct.

While I have a certain grudging admiration for what I consider to be the gall of egotists, I am definitely an egoist. And because I cannot be sure of anyone else, I can seldom be totally sure of even myself. The result is, of course, utter confusion, and it is a state in which I have existed my entire life.

I am far too often conflicted as to whether I really believe what I think I believe. There are few things in life which are all black or all white. Every argument does, indeed, have two sides—and occasionally more. I seldom encounter a statement that I cannot, with however faulty logic, refute in some way.

I’m enough of an armchair psychologist to be fairly confident, given the human tendency to self-delusion, that egotism undoubtedly often masks a deep sense of insecurity, and is used to shore up a fragile ego. I tend to equate egotism to agnosticism: both boil down to the statement, “I don’t know!”

There is very little in life that is absolute; few things either pure white or totally black. The more questions one asks, the more complicated life seems to get, partly because questions beget questions. The point could be made that the fewer questions—especially philosophical ones—one asks of life, the better. The vast majority of the world’s population manages to get through life by asking a minimum of questions not related to their day-to-day functioning. The tendency to just going along with whatever hand life deals them and not think more than a year or two ahead is undoubtedly also helpful.

Because there are so very many things we do not and cannot know about the world in which we live, let alone about ourselves and our true motivations, we tend to bumble through life making choices and personal decisions based on personal feelings, experiences, and preferences. And the amazing thing is that we do all this without giving any of it a single conscious thought.

I feel fairly confident (never, as a typical egoist, being able to be absolutely sure of anything) that there are a great many people among my 7.2 billion fellow humans who share my beliefs.

But I can’t be sure.