Logic dictates

It's roughly 5:30 here in Houston, where I just finished my next-to-last problem set until Spring Break. Logic dictates that I should probably jump headlong into a few restful hours of sleep. But I'm American and you know how we Americans feel about dictators, so instead I'm going to catch up on a little blogging. I also know that if I hit the sack now there's no chance in hell that I'll wake up by 9:30 to turn in this shitty assignment.

Yesterday's (er, two days ago?) post about punishment wasn't really aimed at anyone in particular. But I re-read it today and realized that I've once again danced on the boundary between making my friends happy and kicking sand in their faces. Hell, it's passive aggressive, but in an ironic way that is both unfunny and not really entertaining.

Maybe my blog should have a disclaimer. It's not like I'm an expert in human psychology. I'm just an enthusiast. A wonk. And I know how people in college like to seek revenge upon one another-- they're observations anyone could make. It wasn't even really that accurate in its wording: Those examples are all forms of everyday psychological torture, not punishment in general. You can also punish people by breaking their arms or using a cattle gun.

Anyways, I was serious about what I said at the end: We're all human. Part of being human is giving into that selfish, stubborn gremlin that tells you to complicate your life by being vengeful. I guess I'm just trying to remind everyone that, really, happiness is always a simple answer: An apology, a hug, or a smidgen of trust.

Let's see, okay, what else...

I just wrote about three more paragraphs expanding on trust and being truthful and happiness and all that good stuff. And then I deleted it because I think I'm becoming less of a blogger and more of a fourth-grade cartoon show, complete with morals and zany characters. So no soup for you, at least not today.

I started writing science fiction. Uh-oh.

I have a problem with recidivism

I've got a big boner for criminology. Yesterday, my contemporary ethics class began a weeklong straddling of the death penalty and the criminal justice system. I was actually enticed to look up from my computer and pay attention and recall everything I'd learned in my criminology class a year ago. All the old questions of crime and punishment, retributive justice versus deterrence, and which school of criminal justice I subscribe to came rushing back in a way I hadn't considered since...

...well, since the last time I found myself being punished. Because punishment is fun!

But I think punishment is much more interesting on the microscopic, everyday level. Nevermind these bigger questions of the death penalty and mandatory incarceration times and things like that. Look around you. How do your friends punish their enemies? How do you punish your enemies?

Hell, how do you punish your friends?

Because we do all of those things on a semi-daily basis. Say your roommate kicks you out of your own room for one evening. Maybe he's smoking meth or humping the girl of your dreams or something. How do you retaliate?

• You could do it the way we did it in the 90's, by being super passive-aggressive and complaining to one another about how much we hate so-and-so. We throw around that PA word a lot in contemporary society. It's one of those pseudo-psychological phrases you learn in middle school and use to sound smart, but it's much more nefarious than that. What you're doing is weakening a person's ability to make trusting bonds in their life. Weakening their friendships. De-constructing their social framework behind their back. Just, you know, realize that the end result of everyone being passive-aggressive is that no one trusts anyone.
• Direct confrontation. I'm pretty used to the passive-aggressive retaliation at this point in my life, but when someone actually comes up to me and asks me dead-on to explain myself, I often fall short of words. And that's part of the punishment: Looking like an idiot. I'd say that direct confrontation only happens on drunk Thursday nights at pub when you're still tired from the week and liable to start a fight.
• There's another, more evil form of direct confrontation that happens by proxy. Instead of telling you to your face that you're a douche, people have been known to get all of their friends to do it for them.
• Being emo. Today's self-pity society has learned to take advantage of other people's feeling by inflicting kamakaze punishment on others. Think passive-aggressive without actually talking to people about your problems. Just hole up, don't talk to anyone, be really sad when you do talk to people, and eventually the person you're trying to punish will feel so incredibly bad that they'll bear the bulk of the psychological burden.
• Being fucking insane. Just get all hopped up on drugs and stumble around campus, mumbling to yourself and requiring a three-man team to put you back to bed. Just like being emo, you will eventually get the attention you're seeking.
  
• Not being at all. The tricky people among us are actually unfazed by petty things like this example. They play the didgeridoo and probably enjoy the outdoors. In the end, they let their inaction and utter lack of hate propel them into a happiness that neither meth nor sex could ever help to achieve.
  
• Then there's the elaborate, movie-style retribution path that really only happens in movies.

The ultimate form of knowing one's self is knowing your retributive side. It's the side that we have to deny because, really, no one likes to admit that they are the same vengeful beast as the rest of us. But we are.

We're all human.

Like a good song, you hum the limericks

My life needs a shocking jumpstart
So I'm pushing around a crash cart
But a kick in the saddle
Is hard with one paddle
It barbecues my little Barnhart!

Writer's block has a death grip
I can only pen quip after quip
Anything longer
And my words start to wander
My focus is starting to slip!

So give me a day or a week
To write something witty and sleek
something something
something something
I have class so excuse this poor geek.

Not so alone after all...

A boy's best Valentine is his mother :-)

Music awards always kill me

Dear Grammy Awards,

If you're wondering why the 2008 Grammy Awards show failed to bring in any viewers whatsoever, you need only check your own list of nominees and winners.

Also, I had no fucking clue the awards were last night. Maybe the RIAA can spot you some cash for advertising next year. They seem to have enough money to put retarded ads in theaters and pay off lawyers to sue 8-year-old kids for downloading Kayne West.

But props for giving Herbie Hancock a Grammy. That's probably a step in the right direction.

Love,
Kyle

Happiness is a list of bullet points

I have every topic in the world to talk about. I could talk about how happy I've been lately. I could talk about how I've been jogging and cutting out smoking and getting good grades and going to class and fleshing out a plan for after college and all the other things that have been peachy lately but...

...I'm also feeling downright uninspired. For all good that's come to me I feel completely incapable of expressing it in words. I've gone through three completely separate drafts for Thresher columns and toiled over two different works of fiction in my spare time, with each literary endeavor failing to meet whatever strange expectations I've come to place upon myself.

Writing is funny like that.

I know I have a lot of things to say. But every little caustic thought is trapped up in my noggin, where I don't have to worry about burning anyone else. You know me-- I like spilling my guts. I was raised to believe it's therapeutic but, then again, I was also raised Protestant.

Life doesn't need to get easier. I can handle this. I can handle everything and I am happy, I'm not just saying that. But I do need something. I need reassurance. I need to know that all this hard work, all this electrical engineering, and all my life's current endeavors are going to lead me to a happy place. That I'm not wasting my time. It doesn't have to be the place I expect now and it doesn't have to be soon.

I sure do have some weird expectations.