seretogis

I came across an interesting read from the SF Gate about the major political candidates and where they stand on relevant-yet-largely-ignored issues.

Note how many times Ron Paul’s name is mentioned — he is the only candidate that had a consistent platform that valued freedom above all else. The others are all practically the same, and the difference between them as a slow-moving unthinking mass and Paul as a political revolutionary is striking.

An understandable motivation for any human behavior is the reasonable expected outcome. If you put a piece of fruit in your mouth, you will be rewarded with the reasonable expected outcome of a sweet tasting bit of food-deliciousness. We have no motivation to put a rock in our mouth because we have no reason to expect a positive outcome. However, someone had to have been the first person to do so and determine that, “hey, rocks aren’t very tasty.” Also, occasionally someone needs to test the socially accepted norm of rock-non-tastiness in order to ensure that it still is accurate.

Who are these people, the testers of social norms? While any great thinker clearly falls under that category, so do a wide variety of the mentally ill. What may appear to an outsider as a pattern of masochistic behavior could be a genius straining the boundaries of right and wrong as defined by thousands of years of human existence. It could instead be someone pounding their head against the table because they are unable to bear living a partially enjoyable existence. It could be a sign of a serious neurological/psychiatric disorder.

Outcome is key when it comes to self-destruction. To what end do you immolate yourself? Buddhist monks which set themselves aflame in protest gain nothing and sacrifice everything. Perhaps others may benefit eventually from it, but they themselves are simply ending their lives. However, occasionally we must — as a species, and as individuals — risk self-destruction in order to improve ourselves and our lot in life. Just as it is insane to set oneself aflame once we know the power it has, it is insane to never touch the flickering fire to begin with.

Yesterday I celebrated my first year-anniversary of moving to Seattle, and was convinced (after a couple of glasses of wine) to accept a free tarot reading.

Now, first off, I don’t believe one bit in psychic nonsense. I consider it simply another form of therapy or counseling, albeit with someone who doesn’t have any sort of “serious” book-learning. Granted, there likely are a fair amount of counselors and therapists who also have no serious qualifications.

Anyways.

The first card, which was supposed to represent me, was The Hermit, which described me fairly well. The second, to represent where I want to be, was the Princess of Cups. Also fairly accurate. The third, to represent my movement from my current situation towards where I want to be, was the Prince of Wands. The fourth, to represent the method by which I proceed towards my goal, was the Eight of Cups (Indolence). The explanation for this was fairly redundant with that of the Prince of Wands.

Finally, the “outcome card” was The Chariot which has a nice little description:

The Chariot alerts us to the fact that a conflict is arising. However, it also gives us confidence in our ability to meet it and defeat it. Energy, will power, and resolution are available. If all resources are focused on the job at hand the potential for success is high.

In the card a knight stands ready to fight. He has many shields behind him, representing the many battles he has won. Two watches stand on either side of him representing conflicting emotions or planes of thought. The promise of success is within his grasp, as portrayed by the rich green palm fronds in front of him.

Essentially, the summary version of his interpretation is that I am in a difficult situation and must remain emotionally strong to work my way through it to eventual success. Pretty good advice for just about any situation, really, and it has served me well this last year.

All in all, it was an amusing / entertaining little ritual to be involved in and I recommend you try it out if given the opportunity. I could certainly see how people who are less grounded than I may be taken in by it. The question I asked will remain triple-x top secret, but the fellow doing the reading did a good job of interpreting my reactions to various things and all in all told me what I wanted to hear. I am pleased.

One thing I’ve come to learn these past two years is how many unexpected things can occur when you allow them to, and how disappointing the expected is if you cling to it out of a desire for safety and security.

A few years ago the idea of moving across the country with nothing but a suitcase would have seemed impossible. I couldn’t imagine how to proceed or how I would survive. Clinging to the expected and the risk-free were things I did to avoid introspection. I knew what I was capable of because it was all things I had done already. A lack of challenge leads to a lack of ability to see any distance ahead. It was only when I set my sights on moving to Seattle that I was able to once again begin challenging myself in unexpected ways.

My primary motivation was thus: anything but here. I had hit the bottom and anything at all in Seattle would be at least a half-step above where I was before. Being in a place where I essentially knew no one would give me a chance to redefine myself by the challenges I faced and overcame. I had done what I had never expected of myself, and was free to continue on that path, exploring what I had as of yet not acknowledged the existence of. Each day I find myself waking up happier to be alive than I ever had felt in Minnesota, and excited about what lays ahead for me here.

All has not been champagne and roses, though. There has been drama borne of miscommunication and my own occasional boneheadedness. There has been heartbreak. All in all, though, the calculated risks have been well worth the cuts and bruises I’ve endured so far. I’d make some sort of mountain-climbing analogy but it wouldn’t be adequate, as you can’t really stay on top of a mountain and so it is an empty accomplishment. I’d say my move to Seattle is more akin to having been lost in the desert and finding a beautiful and lush oasis. That is really what Seattle is — an oasis for those of us who are tired of who or what we were and wish to become what we had thought impossible.

Each day I silently thank those who have helped me along the way. You should know who you are if you’re reading this, and now it’s on paper sotospeak. Thank you for putting up with me as I improve upon my former self, little by little. Thank you for introducing me to worlds of experiences that I otherwise would have avoided like the plague. Thank you for pushing me to succeed, and to enjoy that success.

And to cap this post, a poem from Robert Frost, appropriately titled “Happiness Makes Up in Height for What It Lacks in Length”

Oh, stormy stormy world,
The days you were not swirled
Around with mist and cloud,
Or wrapped as in a shroud,
And the sun’s brilliant ball
Was not in part or all
Obscured from mortal view–
Were days so very few
I can but wonder whence
I get the lasting sense
Of so much warmth and light.
If my mistrust is right
It may be altogether
From one day’s perfect weather,
When starting clear at dawn,
The day swept clearly on
To finish clear at eve.
I verily believe
My fair impression may
Be all from that one day
No shadow crossed but ours
As through its blazing flowers
We went from house to wood
For change of solitude.

Recognizably from the screenwriter of American Beauty, Alan Ball, Towelhead was a fantastic film for me to end my SIFF experience with.

Towelhead manages to tackle the difficult issues of racism, sexualization of teens, and molestation in a non-judgmental way. As charming as Aaron Eckhart is, I don’t want to sympathize with his 13-year-old-molesting character. He knew what he was doing, and did it not once but twice. He wholly deserves what is coming to him and while the film doesn’t reinforce that, thankfully it doesn’t actively attempt to paint him as a victim.

The casting, overall, was fantastic. The actress who played Jasira was great and the whole film rests on her shoulders. The actor that played the role of Jasira’s father, however, seemed a bit out of place. He provided a lot of comedic value, but in more of an uncomfortable and unintentional way. The character itself was someone I wouldn’t trust, even at the end of the film — he was two-faced to the core. Even so, my primary complaint is that even after having forty minutes cut from it, it felt like it ran a bit long. For a drama that is supposed to keep you hooked, that’s not a good thing.

A drama in a similar vein of American Beauty, you will definitely see this on DVD in the states and should pick it up or catch it on Netflix.

I rate Towelhead 4 out of 5 golden space needles. Happy end-of-SIFF.

Visioneers is a bit of a 1984ish black comedy which takes place in some unspecified bleak future. It was alright, but as David pointed out, tries a little too hard to be funny. The pacing was a bit slow and before long the impact of the initial film-wide jokes wore off.

I rate Visioneers 3 out of 5 minutes of productivity before the weekend.

I wish I could forget this huge waste of time. The first fifteen minutes is of this old guy walking around his apartment in the nude pouring and drinking coffee. The rest is various scenes of him doing ridiculous shit like talking to a gigolo who was someone else’s gigolo who was also a gigolo for another gigolo, etc. What a steaming pile of pretentious shit. The only siff film so far that we have walked out of.

Fucking awful.

So, tonight eight of us saw Island of Lost Souls, a movie that speaks heavily of wizards and necromancers in the summary. It is actually about a lot of little wisps from Warcraft III that fly around possessing people. Oh, and there’s a necromancer who summons more wisps and has a single scarecrow minion. Not really the hordes of undead overtaking the town as I expected, and the magical battles are fairly limited to one at the beginning and one at the end. The rest of the film involves a lot of nonsense like finding secret black-magic infoz from books published by HarperCollins.

The film is clearly geared towards the PG-13 crowd — teens whose parents perhaps played D&D at one point, or who liked the Harry Potter books but couldn’t stand the incredible special effects of the movies. There are several good humorous points — some subtle, some not-so-much — and as far as adolescent fantasy movies go, this was up there. Unfortunately, I am in my mid-to-late 20s.

I rate Island of Lost Souls 3 out of 5 Nimbus 2000s.

Dan Savage has a great post entitled What Straight People Can Learn About Marriage From Gay People which tackles statistics about reported relationship-happiness of straight vs. gay couples.

The part I am more interested in, is the last bit:

But there’s something I’d like to see these researchers address, and it’s an issue that’s sure to drive both fundies and some in the gay rights movements up the wall: monogamy.

Male same-sex couples in long-term relationships report higher levels of satisfaction, are better at resolving conflict, have less destructive argument styles, share house work more equitably, etc. We’re also a hell of lot less likely to be strictly monogamous. Many gay male couples have negotiated “agreements” about outside sexual contact (scope, frequency, safety, etc). Reading these reports I can’t help but wonder what impact, if any, the lesser emphasis gay men place on monogamy has on relationships. Does talking about and defusing one of the chief sources of marital strife—attraction to others; the desire, acknowledged or not, for a sexual variety over the life of a multi-decade partnership—contribute to higher rates of relationship satisfaction? Do gay male couples report less conflict than straight couples because fewer gay couples are conflict—or denial—about outside sexual contacts?

I would say that monogamy itself likely doesn’t have a direct impact on relationship satisfaction — cheating on your wife isn’t going to make you any happier if you are in an unhappy monogamous relationship — but that the idea of monogamy is in itself not something which a majority of people are capable of living up to. In my (admittedly limited) experience, monogamy is simply a given in heterosexual relationships — an assumed benefit of staking ones claim on another.

Why is monogamy seen as beneficial?

Hundreds of years ago, it was important to establish and secure lineage. Today, perhaps to avoid child support payments (but that’s what we have Maury Povich for.)

Perhaps to avoid transmission of disease, though one could easily limit non-monogamous sexual activity with clean and healthy individuals. Driving those who feel trapped by a monogamous relationship to fulfilling their sexual needs in secret with potentially unsavory characters clearly is not more beneficial than having an open relationship in which those needs can be understood and safely fulfilled.

A serious issue I have with the assumption of monogamy is the implied ownership of one by another. The traditional marriage vows are blatant in their implications of ownership, and a wedding ring had might as well be a collar with an “if lost, please return to spouse” tag on it. Jealousy is a good indicator of whether or not you are being trapped by a traditional ownership viewpoint. If you are jealous of someone for attracting the attention of your spouse or romantic-interest, you are upset that their attention (which you claim as your own) is being taken by someone else. That your property is in their hands. If you feel jealous and aren’t horrified / ashamed of that jealousy, you need to take a serious look at exactly what your significant-other means to you. Are they your property, or a free and whole human with their own interests, desires, and needs?

Granted, that certain individuals and couples understand themselves, each other, and their relationship together well enough to be able to enjoy a committed monogamous (and EQUAL) relationship, but I would wager that they are the exception and not the rule. See the 50% divorce rate. If you count yourself amongst the exceptions, I congratulate you.

Or, it could simply be as a commenter on Dan Savage’s post suggested:

No. It’s because gay means happy.

I have a new favorite film of SIFF.

XXY is a film about a fifteen year-old “girl” named Alex who is a hermaphrodite. Brought up by her family as a girl, she stops taking her testosterone inhibitors around the same time that her mother invites the family of a cosmetic surgeon to visit for several days. The mother, having always wanted multiple daughters, is blatantly (yet quietly) pushing for a snip-job. The father isn’t so sure, and knows only that he loves his child unconditionally.

I hope you aren’t expecting a paragraph about the film’s flaws, because they escaped me. The characters are complex and most display some form of emotional evolution — even minor characters like Alex’s best friend Vando learn from the events over the course of the film.

While “controversial” Hollywood garbage like Transamerica claim to ask the question “What is gender?” It fails miserably by examining only whether or not the gender-attribute of a person can be switched, not whether or not the gender-attribute is important at all. XXY asks these questions — not just “What is gender?” but “Why is gender?” Why is it so important? Alex is smart enough to answer this question, and even some which remain unasked.

I rate XXY 5 out of 5 shades of grey.