The Memory Palace (Pros and Cons)

The Memory Palace (Pros and Cons)

The other day, I was giving someone my phone number. Not an everyday occurrence, but it should have been simple enough.

I was all “Hey Brain, can I have my phone number”
And brain was like “Phone Number! Right! Coming up!”

And what did I end up writing down? 810-228-3... BRAIN! That is a number that stopped being relevant in 2002! You might remember that year, it was the one when we moved out of my parent’s house and no longer needed that neat Cobra cordless phone!

“You wanted a phone number.”

“YOU HAD ONE JOB!”

And thus the fundamental flaw inherent in the Method of Loci is revealed.

Let me back up a second, because this requires some explanation. If I ever write a book for helping parents understand challenged kids based on my own experiences, I will title it “A Fistful of Learning Disabilities” and if I write a sequel for people challenged by sleeplessness I will write it “A Few Sleep Disorders More” because that’s how the movies went! If it bugs you did I didn’t go with “A Fistful of Sleep Disorders” you can read all about my feelings on the subject in my blockbusting, best seller follow up “The Good, The Bad, And the Fuck You, That’s Why” but I digress.

Dyslexia makes digesting words really hard, ADD makes reading a huge pain in the ass to begin with. If you’ve ever had your eyes just drift over the words, but not take them in, it’s kind of like that, only the book sometimes seems to have been translated by someone who only speaks English as a third language and never actually learned Centari, but figured they could translate the book based on the pictures. Now make it three times more frustrating than that, because your basic ADD sufferer is actually paying attention to every signal entering their brain, but I digress.

So while I was still young, and they thought that I was either what was still being called retarded or possibly a next level “Professor X is going to show up any day now” superbeing, suggestions were made. I honestly have no idea what side of the ledger Memory Palace came from, but it was one of the things I had explained to me. I distinctly remember by father told me about a method called Roman Room, or Journey Method. Now, I love my father very much, and he was doing his best, but can we all agree Memory Palace is a way more badass name and move on?

So a quick breakdown, if you haven’t read any of the links I presented...

Imagine that you are trying to remember your grocery list, a long and complicated list that would require a lot of work. Instead of writing it down and reading the list, you remember the list by walking through your home and look at a series of object you placed there earlier. You place them in the imaginary version of your home, not the real one. The idea is you remember your home pretty darn well, so you would remember the things you place in it. Now, either you place the actual physical steak you want, or you get symbolic (or even resort to puns) and maybe just leave a wooden steak imbedded in the floor. You’ve got a flower blooming in the window (get flour) and a bird sitting on the flower pot (eggs... probably?) and so on. It’s more complicated than that, way more complicated.

It can become hyper-complicated and even fractally complicated. Quick example, I’ve got a wing of the palace dedicated to each person I know. I walk down the wing, and each door has some notice explaining what that particular memory is about. I close in on the door and instead of just zooming in, I get as much information as my attention can hold. I enter the room, and the curtain has my mental notes about the meal we had together that day. I close in a little, and I can remember what each of us has, in a little further how it tasted, in a little further and how each morsel felt, in a little further and each drop of water that condensed on the glass and in a little further and I’ve suddenly lost five hours because staring that deep at the curtains takes time and energy and should only be done at leisure or because of a serious need. There is also the minor issue of other people, and for that the connections between them are connected by portals, themselves acting like hyperlinks to someone else’s story, while all existing in the same room. I said it got complicated.

The other problem is, numbers don’t work. Numbers are this... thing. That’s where my dyslexia goes into overdrive, numbers are not and will not ever be my friends. I can’t even trust them to enter my head in the right order (I don’t swap letters around much, but ho-boy does 12 turn into 21) how can I trust them to behave when they get there.

So here’s the thing, I do have these lavish wings where I put events. Things that happened to us, conversations we had, they are woven into the carpets and sensations are embedded in the grain of the wood that makes up the furniture, but stuff like names and labels, we have to go to the library for that. And you’re thinking “Hey, no problem, dewey decimal, microfiche, computerized records... google. No prob, I totes got this.” AND I just laugh and laugh and laugh.

See, my mind isn’t set up like a modern library, nothing so easy. My mind operates like a medieval library, and the three of you who know what that means are cringing and clutching their teddy bears. See, we’re talking parchment scrolls, and vellum books with no note on the spine about what’s in them. Books were so expensive that if there were thirty pages left over at the end, you’d just write thirty more pages worth of stuff to fill those pages. Piles of scrolls and manuscripts often shoved into cubby holes and possibly only the head librarian knew the contents and location of each scroll and book. Possibly, sometimes you had to just read through and see if you could find anything.

And that’s how the other half of the palace exists. One half, an opulent palace, as the name suggests, on the other half a cold cloister, half library and half warehouse (Because there are stacks of banker’s boxes stuffed full of “Old Business” that I don’t wish to clutter up space) and while the librarians are often quite helpful they will sometimes just blindly grab into the cubby that says “Phone Numbers” and hand me any old scrap that their fingers happen to grasp. Normally, it happens to be the piece on top, but I find I tend to run at full speed through the place when I’m dreaming and things can get disturbed.

The sheer amount of information my brain has decided it can hold onto it also a problem, since we haven’t a Bing Search but a Brother Bernard a Brother Darryl and another Brother Darryl. The problem is that the person who put everything in place, and who knows where everything is, was Father... Ted(?), and Ole Dad Teddy ain’t be seen round these parts fer some time now. This means that Bernard, Darryl and Darryl have exactly zero idea where to find anything beyond the basic labels.

As a result, I got the wrong number.

The Geek World is Not My World

I’ve often said this to people, but probably not enough. I am not actually a geek. Some people think I might be, because I know a lot of stuff. Useless, pointless, meaningless stuff, but more stuff than almost anyone else they know. Of course, every once in a while, they’ll need to actually know something and I’ll still have the answer to that. However, you just need to meet me for a few minutes on a good day to know I’m not a geek.
On a bad day, I’m so withdrawn that I might be mistaken for one, or I could be a mountain dwelling goblin unused to all the fresh air and sun light.

Now I know what you’re going to say. “Weirdo, you’ve got geeky interests. You’ve got lots of geeky friends. You only sleep with geeks as far as I know. How can you not be a geek?” Well, I only sleep with bisexuals or people with strong bi-curiosity as well. Does that make me bi? I used to hang out with a lot of black people, does that make me black? Most my friends are women, does that make me a woman? The thing is, there is something I’ve often noticed about the geek world, or rather geeks as people. It’s one of the things that keeps me out of their world.

Geeks aren’t very smart, or at least not smart in the right ways.

People who are part of the geek world cling to their intelligence like a life ring in a storm. They have a nasty tendency to act like they’re the only smart people in the world, and are unable to understand why the rest of the world regularly dumps on them. Of course, the rest of the world knows why they dump on geeks, and it’s got nothing to do with the glasses or liking Star Trek.

Lots of really cool people wear glasses these days. Doctor Who is pretty close to a mainstream interest and Star Trek has been mainstream for decades. Everyone knows Star Wars, and lots of people like Wil Wheaton, not just geeks. Wil might be seen as a cool geek among geeks, but he sort of left geekery back in the dust sometime ago. He became a cool person, who has geeky interests. Here is the thing, Wil Wheaton is smart in two ways. He’s smart in Cool Person ways and he’s smart in Geek Ways. He’s good with rules that can be written down and rules that cannot be written down.

Social Rules can never be written down because the way you understand them is by smell and feel. People who understand the rules understand there is no way to write them down because the information can’t really be written down. There are too many fiddly bits, too many complications, too many factors that adjust other factors and too many factors that adjust because the other factors have adjusted to the adjustments made by other factors that are always adjusting because why the hell not? You have to feel your way along, you have to read tiny subtle signals and you have to adjust constantly.

What I've mainly noticed about geeks, is that they're not very good at Social Rules because those can't be written down.

Computers aren’t like this. The rules of computers can be written down, and easily understood. The thing is, computers are far less forgiving than social situations. If you screw up with a computer, you kind of have to stop and start again from the beginning. Socially, you rarely really have to do this. You aren’t regularly cast from and entire circle of friends, having to start with completely new people just because you failed to use a slash when you were supposed to use a backslash. You’re not required to find that one damn slash and turn it into a backslash before anything else can move forward.

This is one of the reasons people who are good at Social Rules freak out on computers. They don’t understand why we can’t just forget that one error and move on. If it were a social situation, they’d take a little shit, and then we’d all move on. In the Geek World however, a mistake is a big thing that must be corrected. It must be documented, it must be categorized, it must be fixed before we can move on. This has crippled more than one geek before they even start. They see that they’ve made an error in a social situation and try to apply computer rules to it. They think they can’t fix it, because everyone else has ignored it, and think they’re being shunned. This is a problem because in reality, they fix it by ignoring it.

Geeks make a Social Error and flip out because they think it’s like a Computer Error and worry they won’t be allowed to fix it.

Of course, one problem is that Social Rules are a constantly shifting ice flow of contradictions and hierarchy. People who play that game badly think it’s about pushing those around you down lower so they can be higher. People who play the game well know it’s about raising people so that you can stand on their shoulders and you’ll all go up together. People who play the game abysmally, think it’s about making yourself like the guy you want to raise you up. And then you have the fear that one person will get raised and you’ll be ignored. That was, greatly speaking, the point of my last post.

The game has no formal rules though, because if people could read the specific rules, with each little detail there for them to see, they would start acting differently. Once they were conscious of their behavior, they would strive to change it. Try this as an experiment sometime, make mention of someone’s little verbal tick. Mention that they say “Exactly” a whole hell of a lot. Then watch as they strive to cay “Certainly” or “That’s Right” instead. When a normal person realizes their behavior can be tracked and predicted, they will start doing something else. This is another part of the rules, but one that can be written down because it’s large enough not to be specific. You can have the big unspecific rules written down because they don’t help much anyway.

No part of the Social Rules may be written down, or the rules cease to work. Including this one.

This is why I can’t really be a geek, or part of the Geek World. I can’t be part of the Normal World either though, in case you’re wondering. I understand both sets of rules and play each world with a combination of rules from both sides. I feel my way along in computers and science, and I use the strict written rules as a wedge to get into people’s heads. I understand enough about both worlds to float around and be a strange, quixotic character for either group, mainly by playing opposite strengths around each group while demonstrating an understanding of the rules of the current group.

Mind you I also have paranoia, A.D.D. and social anxiety disorder to work with here. So it’s very possible that my mind is cracked in just the right way that I can both exist and not exist in whatever world. I understand the rules quickly, but have a totally inability to really play by any of those rules. I don’t belong, but I can be here as an observer. I am accepted everywhere I go, but not really a member of any group.

I am, socially speaking, Schrödinger's Cat.

Which proves that maybe it wasn’t such a dumb idea and that things really can exist in two forms at once. But probably not, I suspect Schrödinger was right and the cat would either be alive or dead.

Why Do You Still Need Feminism? (A Discussion About Food Preparation)

We sat at the counter and ate and drank. "Did you make the spaghetti sauce?" she said.
"Yeah. A secret recipe I got off the back of the tomato paste can."
"And the salad dressing? Is there honey in it?"
"Yep. Got that from my mother."
She shook her head. "Fighter, lover, gourmet cook? Amazing."
"Nope. I'll take the fighter, lover, but the gourmet cook is a sexist remark."
"Why?"
"If you'd cooked this no one would say you were a gourmet cook. It's because I'm a man. A man who cooks and is interested in it is called a gourmet. A woman is called a housewife. Now eat the goddamned spaghetti." I said.
She did. Me too.

Promised Land - By Robert B. Parker (1976)


There is something you are taught in therapy, I have been told. I myself have never had more than a brief fling with therapy (it becoming obvious quite quickly that it actually wasn’t me that had the problem the one time I went in for real) but I have been told and I have read a lot. You’re not supposed to make “You Statements” when you talk about something bothering you, but rather “I Statements”. It’s not supposed to be “You do this to annoy me!” but instead go for “I am annoyed by this.” which brings charges that therapy makes people selfish, because they talk more about themselves than they do about other people. I’m often thrown by this, because the complaint often becomes “She just talks about herself and doesn’t want to gossip anymore.” or “They won’t just sit and listen to me anymore!” and I check out of the conversation from there. As a result, I’m going to try to use a lot of I Statements here, because I want to talk about how a thing effects me as well as others.


I’ve listened to a lot of Men’s Rights stuff over the last few years, and almost agreed with some of it. The problem is that they often loose me the more they talk, see if you can see where I’m going with this little playlet.

MRA – Men aren’t allowed to be what they want in this society!
Me – Okay, you’ve almost got something of a point there. (Let’s see what you do with it)
MRA – We’re as trapped as women by the expectations of modern life.
Me – Here! Here! (Why can’t a man wear a dress?)
MRA – Which is why feminism needs to go away!
Me – I’m sorry?
MRA – Women need to get back into the kitchen and remember their place!
Me – Wha-Huh?
MRA – And then men can be MEN again!
Me – What in the seven levels of hell are you talking about?
MRA – Bitches won’t date me! I’m Unwillingly Celibate!
Me – Um....
MRA – I mean, I open doors and everything.
Me – Okay, you need to shut up now or I will beat you to death with this small decorative elephant that a relative gave me as a memento of their trip to Mexico. Why a brass elephant from Mexico, I’ve always wondered, but I will kill you with it.
MRA – You’re just saying that because *URK*!
Me – *thump* Muthafucka! *thump* I did say. *thumpthumpthump*


NOW! Why was I even listening to this person at the start? It has to do with the quote I started with. A person starting with that phrase can go one of two ways, you can either go towards some idea of gender equality, or towards the idea that you should be handed “hot bitches” free with every oil change. I am not going to go into the whole argument here, but if you shower and if you open doors because you’re polite (instead of making a speech about chivalry and how now people OWE YOU for being a decent person) then things will actually go easier for you. It’s not that women love jerks, if they did, they’d go for some of you self-professed Nice Guys.

That’s not even what I called you all here to discuss!

I cook, I have always cooked, ever since I was a child I have cooked. When I have cooked, there have always been people who have treated this like it’s some kind of magic. As if I stood back away from the stove, rolled up my sleeves and yelled “Ala-ca-muthafuckin-ZAM!” and with a brilliant yellow flash (which would mean there was sodium in the mixture) there was suddenly food. Even people who themselves knew how to cook treated this mystical skill of mine like something I learned at the feet of Wong Fei Hung. Because I was a male, and cooking, it was regarded as an odd and noteworthy event.

I was quite old before I realized that I actually could cook quite well, enviably well in fact. That it wasn’t just people reacting to the notion of a male-child applying the mystic roots and ancient flames to ingredients in order to create food from non-edible matter. The concept of a male cooking has become less noteworthy over the last twenty years or so, but well into my early twenties it was still an odd and interesting thing to talk about. That I was basically the only one in our house that did the cooking, was often seen as weird and frankly wrong.

Now, Syd can cook some. In that she can cook some things, when she puts her mind to it. I suppose if she had to cook all the time, she would probably be good at it, but she doesn’t need to. Holly could just about toast bread and spread peanut butter on it without burning the house down. She was more than happy to let me do the cooking, because she had no interest at all. In fact, most the women I’ve dated haven’t had much use for the notion of cooking, allowing someone else to do it as much as possible. Just a thing, like so many others. Women I have dated have many a similarity. ANYWAY. I get annoyed at the idea though, that because I cook I am performing magic. It’s bad enough when I actually do something magical, like make a marshmallow. It’s doubly annoying when someone treats any application of heat to food like I’ve performed some kind of goddamned miracle and should have statues erected in my fabulous honor. (Note, I’m not saying cancel the statue, it’s a great statue, but honor my skills as a world-class lover, not as someone who can cook.)

The problem with all gender issues boils down to the cooking thing for me. Sexual identity means something to me, because all identity issues mean something to me. How you identify yourself is important, because without self-identity where are you? What you decide to be, who you are, how you act, how you present yourself to the world, it all has an impact. Sometimes it’s changing everything about you (even fixing physical errors you were stuck with by the cheap dvergar laborers that the gods hire for people construction) and sometimes it’s just doing what you feel most comfortable with.

Cooking should not be considered some kind of transsexual affair, and I should be considered a hero for doing it. And yet, I was by people who thought they were admiring me. I often got treated like I was some brave pioneer, throwing off the yoke of gender identity roles while... I dunno, cooking without an apron. I have never worn an apron, I don’t tuck a towel into my belt either. I just keep a hand towel on the stove and this isn’t important. I was actually called “Pretty Brave” by someone who was well meaning and thought they were delivering a compliment. When asked to elaborate, they said some people would “call you queer for doing that” and that “it’s kinda gay for a guy to cook” but that I made it “look masculine”. I almost felt bad killing that person and leaving their body in a peat bog but it was the only way people will learn! Now remember, that was supposed to be a compliment. It didn’t feel like one at the time, and the person began to see how I felt about it as the interview continued.

No one has ever tried to insult me, or threaten me because I canoodle in the kitchen (cooks have VERY big knives) but they do belittle the event with this notion of gender normativism. It’s deeply insulting to think that only a woman is really supposed to cook, and it harms both me and the woman not cooking to say so. That, if I may conclude where I intended to begin, is why I still need feminism. Yeah, it’s not as big as other people’s, but I’m a cis-gendered middle class white male. If I don’t like something you do or say to me, I’m still legally allowed to burn your house down (unless you are an upper-class white male) because, you know, privilege. That’s just it though, as a therapeutic tool, this has to be about me, not about you. Still though, it’s a sign, one that comes even up to the cis-gendered middle class white guy level that says “Shit’s still broken!” and asks us to fix it. The deeper we go, the more problems we're going to find, and if this one made it to the surface...

When I’m still being applauded for being a man that cooks, and rape culture is still a thing that people pretend doesn’t exist, and gender stereotypes are still rigidly enforced... can any of us say we’re truly free? There are eight million stories in the Naked City Internet, this is one of them.

How Hipsters Taught Me The Beauty of The World

Scientists say that complaining is a part of life. It’s unavoidable, because it’s a necessary part of existence. It’s chemical, people MUST complain about things. If you have nothing to complain about, life ends, so you must find whatever tiny irritant exists to have something to complain about.

Now, we’re supposed to hate hipsters, despise them in fact. We’re supposed to call them shit stains on the underpants of humanity and complete wastes of space for being the total shit stains on the underpants of humanity and complete wastes of space that they are. BUT WAIT! Just hang on a moment, give me a few minutes of your time and let me tell you about how Hipsters changed my mind about life, the universe and everything.

In 2008, Polaroid (or what remained of it) announced it would no longer be making instant film. The hipsters, true to their rather worthless form, treated this as the sign that the apocalypse had begun. They rushed to LiveJournal and tumblr and bitched and moaned about how unfair it was. Oh the howls, oh the moans, of the gnashing of teeth and wailing into the wind my dears, my darlings.

“Oh shut the fuck up!” cried many a denizen of this fine internet.

“First World Problems!” Declared others in a firm and steady voice.

BUT! If I may, allow us to examine this from another angle, I think you may see that actually these hipsters carry with them the promise of heaven.

YEAH! I said it. Promise of Heaven.

Think about this for a moment, if you will. Or rather, dig if you will the picture...

This life is a sad veil of tears, yeah? But there are, in mythology, beings called messengers or envoys. These beings enjoy a more joyous and perfect life. In Greek, the word used to describe such perfect creatures is ángelos. They bring us glad tidings, they bring us hope. We can look towards these creatures, some beautiful, some hideous, some both, and know that perfection can be achieved.

Now consider this for a moment. There are mortals who enjoy lives so encapsulated by bliss, so crystalline and flawless, so utterly and completely perfect that the only thing, THE ONLY THING, that they have to complain about is that an economically unviable product, from a bankrupt company, was no longer going be to available for their use. The rest of their time is spent liking things before they were cool, buying albums they bought on itunes a months ago on vinyl, and growing their facial hair. We’re still complaining about pain, physical pain. We complain about crippling depression, bigotry, sickness, and the simple basic difficulty of getting over the betrayal of loved ones. We are too much of this earth, ever too much in the sun.

While we concern ourselves of these base and low concerns, these... these... these plaid clad angels with ugly horn rim glasses and handle bar mustaches walk among us. Yes, you might argue that there is a reason people stopped having handle bar mustaches, but they disagree and besides it took her so much effort to grow. Who are we to disagree? They are, as I said angels, walking abroad among us in this world.

YES! Brothers and Sisters! I say unto you, that these angels are a promise of a better world! One where the only thing we have to worry about is Polaroid film and someone, somewhere, liking something before we liked it. They are a PROMISE my dears, my darlings. They live in a world of unutterable beauty, of inexcusable perfection. They are our angels.

In point of fact, they’re better than angels. Real Angels are like... Wheels of Fire! With a giant eye looking out from the middle. If one of those showed up, you’d think Sauron had just showed up and you’d just sit there trying to scream, but no words would come out. At least with a Hipster you know the reason you’re not saying anything is because you’re biting back a lot of comments.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking this is satire, that I’m being comical. That’s a reasonable supposition, particularly if you’ve read me before, but no! I’m being serious.

The world is a beautiful and glorious place, and all I had to do was to look at it like these mindless creatures, who are so far above that even thought is beyond them. They live in a jewel of perfection of a world, and we just need to work hard and achieve that level for everyone. There is a place so beautiful it causes rancor and endless cynicism for its inhabitants. Don’t you see? We no longer need the gods, we don’t need to look forward to heaven. We, and these beautifully hideous creatures, we can form such a place.

My dears, my darling, do you know what that’s worth? Heaven can be a place on earth. They say in Heaven, love comes first. In 2010, The Impossible Project started producing new lines of Polaroid Cameras and film for the old cameras. Heaven, my dears, my darlings, is a place on earth.

I will forever find comfort in these beautiful, mad, frightfully stupid bastards. You can too. Maybe you were afraid before, I’m not afraid anymore.



It should be said, when I explained this to Syd she opened a browser and brought up this image...



So, maybe it’s not a universal theory.

If the Food Didn't Kill You, You Probably Cooked it Fine.

People get very defensive about articles like these, you know why? Because they resent someone stating their preference as solid fact. And I think they REALLY resent someone who, to them, is completely unproven telling them that they can't cook. I have never heard of this person before in my life, why the hell should I listen to them? No, really. I've never heard of them, and at least the way the article quoted them makes them sound like a complete dickhead.

I'm gonna throw it down right here. I'm gonna say it. There is no right or wrong way to cook an egg. There is a preferable method that will yield the result you are looking for, but there is really no wrong way. This is very much an issue of tone and I'll bet 4 out of 5 people who commented on this article didn't really read it, they just reacted to the smug, irritating tone. Some of them clearly only read the kind of offensive headline and wrote the whole thing off from there. Because being told you're doing it wrong is an instant way to get people worked up though, and works as effective click bait, they went with that. Problem is, people are now not going to buy this person's book, because they think he's an asshole who tells you that you can't cook. And people are basically tired of being told they're doing everything wrong by worthless foodies who are a blight on humanity. And how hard would it be to say "This is a great method that you might like." instead of "UR DOIN IT WRONG!" which annoys people? It's not just this article, almost every other food article is dedicated to telling you that you're either cooking wrong, or eating wrong, or dining out wrong, or having the wrong thing, and I just think about my Grandma, who would have put a stiletto between your third and fourth rib if you told her she shouldn't be eating what she's eating.

And, allow me to state for the record, if you served my grandmother the runny-ass eggs this person is suggesting, she would have garroted you. Grandma didn't fuck around when it came to breakfast and I still have a scar across my left shoulder from the day she grazed me with a .22 for over cooking her bacon. Light and fluffy, that's the scrambled egg my grandmother showed me. And when the person teaching you killed six men with a ball peen hammer the night before, let's just say you pay attention. Are grandma's eggs cooked wrong? No. Was Grandma wrong? A little impetuous perhaps. I still maintain those last two were trying to surrender. However, I loved my grandma too much to deny her the joy of smacking their heads like grapefruit. Grandma loved the old ultra-violence so.

Anyway, the method explained here is fine, but don't think it's the one true way. I can take either to me honest, but that's because I'm agreeable. Always be agreeable, no one wants to try and kill the guy who agrees to things and once hung a Bulgarian on a meathook for seven hours patiently and agreeably watching him bleed out. To be fair, he did have that coming, and I was doing the whole smiling and nodding and saying "Yes, for the love of god." bit which worries people to no end when you can make it go seven hours. You don't kill my protegee, them's the rules.

There is no one true way in cooking. Cook things the way you want to eat them, learn different methods so you can find out what you like, and leave people who tell you that you're eating or cooking wrong tied to a tree in the desert and listen for them coyotes. That's what Grandma would ave done to this guy. Grandma loved to hear a man being torn apart by coyotes. She was a cruel woman, and deeply unfair in her cruelty.

Love you grandma, miss you everyday.

Hep Cats and Pack Behavior

Everybody wants to be a cat. Because a cat’s the only cat who knows where it’s at.

You can never really find a large group of individuals. The best you can ever find, for large groups, is a gathering of them. Take an art retreat, a weekend convention, or an occasional bust by a single British agent while innocently planning the downfall of the western world. The reasons for this are two fold. One, your true individual is more comfortable as a single entity, doing their own thing at their own pace. The desire for self determination is stronger than the desire for company, and as such they rarely (or at least, not as often) want to follow along as other people fulfill their self fulfillment programs. The second of course is once you become a large group, you are defined by whatever narrow thread connects the group and as such, no longer individuals. At that point you become “Artists” or “Entrepreneurs” or “War Criminals” or whatever thread connects you.

Now when I say individual, I of course mean it in the semi-classical sense of the Romantic Movement. The obvious images should, of course, be floating to your head already. The solitary poet, the lonely cowboy, the distant painter, the mad scientist planning to show them… show them all. These images are obvious, but they are by no means the only ones. Your individual need not be entirely alone, after all. However, they’re not regularly found at the head of large groups, as I’ll describe here. I’m pretty sure you know where I’m going with this, because most of you are clever people who have at least mastered pattern recognition.

The individual is a cat.

You could almost take this to the extreme of talking about the hep cat rather than the normal person. A hep cat is already a thing after all, but I’m keeping deeper with my cat metaphor. Also, this is so clearly part of a series, where cats are already a theme and if I suddenly make this all about hep cats at this stage then someone’s brain will throw a rod and we’ll all be in trouble by then.

Follow me for a moment, see where this leads. The world loves and individualist in theory, but very few people have the patience to actually put up with one in practice. And in a very real sense, why should they? Take Byron as an extreme example and ask why on earth anyone would tolerate his antics for more than a few weeks. Sure, there are reasons, but they’re not good ones. However, Byron was fuzzy and had big eyes and would only occasionally turn and suddenly bite you for touching his belly. The point is that the individual is hard to deal with because of their wish for individuality. There is a separate point about this metaphor becoming stretched, but we’ll ignore that for now.

Even without the antics of Byron (really? We’re gonna keep going with calling what Byron did “antics” here?) the individual has a hard time being tolerated. There is a constant pressure to fall in line, follow the norm, be part of the group. There is a lot of pack mentality in here, an awful lot of people wanting those around them to conform. Oddly though, they often want the individual near them to conform while admiring the distant individual. The pack must be maintained and the order of the pack must be preserved. So most people are dogs, while the individual is a cat, and chicken tastes of human*. Good, I’m glad you’re going with me on that.
*In actuality, mister Izzard was wrong about this. Human tastes of pig, and the cannibals who ate it called it Long Pork.

Most people are, like dogs, essentially pack animals.

Keeping pack structure is desperately important to those who are invested in it. I’m not talking about children here, who barely understand the structure and simply understand pecking orders and how to maintain them. I’m talking about adults here, the sort of adults who will try and dissuade and young person from taking a path that isn’t one of the acceptable paths. This is best seen in the parent trying to stop a child from majoring in art history and demanding they go into accounting like their parents did. It extends far outside that realm though, as anyone generally feels they can comment on someone who fails to conform to the standards set by their own pack structure. People get told a dozen times a day that they’ve got blue hair, or that they wear clothes outside the norm, or even that their body structure has variances outside their internally set mean in one way or another. I’ve heard people scream that someone is fat about as many times as I’ve heard people scream that someone has a great ass.

In simple terms, most people are dogs. They are tamed, but trapped in a pack and feeling the constant pressure from both sides of the hierarchy. As a result of this, most people long to be that solitary cat. Cats are not tame animals. They are, at best, acclimated to humans. They only cling to us in the first place because our stores of grain made for an interesting abundance of rodents. They don’t perform tricks without direct reward. Even when they do perform those tricks you’re basically working on the sympathies of the cat and asking it to take pity on you. The cat has some society when in the company of other cats, but not a rigid structure where alphas get to eat before the rest of the group followed by betas. Cats are far more interested in pleasing themselves and will eat the food right off your plate while you are eating if you don’t defend your piece of chicken.

The twin result of being trapped in a hierarchy, and seeing someone who is not trapped is envy. People long to be the lone mariner, the solitary cowboy, the… isolated… Antarctic penguin botherer? Yeah, I ran out of things. Interestingly though, as I said, cats are always solitary. They have society, like artists have communities and writers have circles and even lone mariners have that one bar they all frequent. These are the places where the hep cats gather, and perform whatever strange requirements they have for their social structure.

Most dogs really want to be cats.

The interesting thing about all of this, is how much people long to be the individual in conceptual terms. They long to get a sail boat and just sail around the world, but never actually do it. They’d like to get a Walden-esque cabin in the woods, but they like cable tv too much. They want to get a Harley and ride cross country, but the kids need braces or they’ve got that project to do, or something else comes up. There are often practical obstacles in the way, but there are also pack reasons why they can’t do these things. The neighbors would talk, the in-laws would disapprove, their friends would laugh… and so on.

They want to be like cats, but deep in their hearts they are dogs. They conform to a standard that was set long before they were even born and trying to break out of that standard takes more then just an ounce of courage. Most people are aware of the pain, the genuine isolation, the misery, the hunger and the fear that can come with breaking pack behavior. It’s not something to be taken lightly. In many cases, you can’t do it halfway because doing it for real is the only way to do it. So the longing remains.

The longing to be like these people, sometimes leads certain people to hang out in the places where the cats gather. They are not truly cats, they are not hep, but they are dogs that respect the cats (as dogs should) and group around those individual cats, hoping to catch a wif of the freedom they enjoy. They are so known for their grouping behavior, that one might call them groupies. Yes, groupies, let’s go with that. Someone call Webster’s, I’ve got a new word for them.

Large group leaders, however, are dogs and not cats.

When you’ve got a leader of men, he’s rarely an individual in the romantic sense. Your cats are far too self indulged, too self directed, not interested if someone else lives or dies. Most the big leaders in the world are like alpha dogs. The may seem like romantic individuals, but often that’s simply because there is no one above them in the hierarchy to direct them. They are forced to make some decisions on their own. However, they do much to keep the pack structure. They keep those who agree with them at the top of the heap, they keep down those who deviate, and they mark their territory by pissing on things. Seriously, if you don’t have a big estate to keep them on, CEOs are terrible pets. I don’t know how those people who keep them in small apartments can live with themselves knowing they’ve got them cooped up all day.

There are some perks to being on top though, and one of those perks is not worrying about what the people above think. There is no one else to tell you that you can or can’t do this or that, but much of that pressure is replaced by a doubling of pressure from below. There is the twin problems of those who want to be top dog nipping at your heels, and then there is the second subtler group which is far harder to deal with. That second group is the people who don’t want to be on top, but want you to be a good leader. Everything top dog does is going to engender disappointment in someone from that second group, no matter what. Sometimes it will even be anger and hostility before you even begin. See Also – Barrack Obama. In those cases, it can be very easy to just simply ignore the complaints of anyone criticizing them and behave more or less like the sort of sociopath most people think cats are. This might include invading a nation no one wants to invade or telling the enemy to bring it on. See Also – George W. Bush.

These are not the behavior of a cat though, as a cat has no interest in leading anyone anywhere. Besides to their food bowl in or to demand to know why it’s empty. And cats don’t actually act with sociopathic disregard, they just have limited a capacity for solving people’s problems and they know it. So they behave in a manner that best suits their abilities and if that sometimes clashes with the needs of others they’re sort of sorry about it, but there’s only so much they can do. Yes, they could try and be a little less solipsistic, but that’s really more effort than they can manage right now.

The cat does care, but has limited ability to help

And they’re way too cool to try helping if they knew they’d fail.

The Geek World is Not My World

I’ve often said this to people, but probably not enough. I am not actually a geek. Some people think I might be, because I know a lot of stuff. Useless, pointless, meaningless stuff, but more stuff than almost anyone else they know. Of course, every once in a while, they’ll need to actually know something and I’ll still have the answer to that. However, you just need to meet me for a few minutes on a good day to know I’m not a geek.
On a bad day, I’m so withdrawn that I might be mistaken for one, or I could be a mountain dwelling goblin unused to all the fresh air and sun light.


Now I know what you’re going to say. “Weirdo, you’ve got geeky interests. You’ve got lots of geeky friends. You only sleep with geeks as far as I know. How can you not be a geek?” Well, I only sleep with bisexuals or people with strong bi-curiosity as well. Does that make me bi? I used to hang out with a lot of black people, does that make me black? Most my friends are women, does that make me a woman? The thing is, there is something I’ve often noticed about the geek world, or rather geeks as people. It’s one of the things that keeps me out of their world.

Geeks aren’t very smart, or at least not smart in the right ways.

People who are part of the geek world cling to their intelligence like a life ring in a storm. They have a nasty tendency to act like they’re the only smart people in the world, and are unable to understand why the rest of the world regularly dumps on them. Of course, the rest of the world knows why they dump on geeks, and it’s got nothing to do with the glasses or liking Star Trek.

Lots of really cool people wear glasses these days. Doctor Who is pretty close to a mainstream interest and Star Trek has been mainstream for decades. Everyone knows Star Wars, and lots of people like Wil Wheaton, not just geeks. Wil might be seen as a cool geek among geeks, but he sort of left geekery back in the dust sometime ago. He became a cool person, who has geeky interests. Here is the thing, Wil Wheaton is smart in two ways. He’s smart in Cool Person ways and he’s smart in Geek Ways. He’s good with rules that can be written down and rules that cannot be written down.

Social Rules can never be written down because the way you understand them is by smell and feel. People who understand the rules understand there is no way to write them down because the information can’t really be written down. There are too many fiddly bits, too many complications, too many factors that adjust other factors and too many factors that adjust because the other factors have adjusted to the adjustments made by other factors that are always adjusting because why the hell not? You have to feel your way along, you have to read tiny subtle signals and you have to adjust constantly.

What I've mainly noticed about geeks, is that they're not very good at Social Rules because those can't be written down.

Computers aren’t like this. The rules of computers can be written down, and easily understood. The thing is, computers are far less forgiving than social situations. If you screw up with a computer, you kind of have to stop and start again from the beginning. Socially, you rarely really have to do this. You aren’t regularly cast from and entire circle of friends, having to start with completely new people just because you failed to use a slash when you were supposed to use a backslash. You’re not required to find that one damn slash and turn it into a backslash before anything else can move forward.

This is one of the reasons people who are good at Social Rules freak out on computers. They don’t understand why we can’t just forget that one error and move on. If it were a social situation, they’d take a little shit, and then we’d all move on. In the Geek World however, a mistake is a big thing that must be corrected. It must be documented, it must be categorized, it must be fixed before we can move on. This has crippled more than one geek before they even start. They see that they’ve made an error in a social situation and try to apply computer rules to it. They think they can’t fix it, because everyone else has ignored it, and think they’re being shunned. This is a problem because in reality, they fix it by ignoring it.

Geeks make a Social Error and flip out because they think it’s like a Computer Error and worry they won’t be allowed to fix it.

Of course, one problem is that Social Rules are a constantly shifting ice flow of contradictions and hierarchy. People who play that game badly think it’s about pushing those around you down lower so they can be higher. People who play the game well know it’s about raising people so that you can stand on their shoulders and you’ll all go up together. People who play the game abysmally, think it’s about making yourself like the guy you want to raise you up. And then you have the fear that one person will get raised and you’ll be ignored. That was, greatly speaking, the point of my last post.

The game has no formal rules though, because if people could read the specific rules, with each little detail there for them to see, they would start acting differently. Once they were conscious of their behavior, they would strive to change it. Try this as an experiment sometime, make mention of someone’s little verbal tick. Mention that they say “Exactly” a whole hell of a lot. Then watch as they strive to cay “Certainly” or “That’s Right” instead. When a normal person realizes their behavior can be tracked and predicted, they will start doing something else. This is another part of the rules, but one that can be written down because it’s large enough not to be specific. You can have the big unspecific rules written down because they don’t help much anyway.

No part of the Social Rules may be written down, or the rules cease to work. Including this one.

This is why I can’t really be a geek, or part of the Geek World. I can’t be part of the Normal World either though, in case you’re wondering. I understand both sets of rules and play each world with a combination of rules from both sides. I feel my way along in computers and science, and I use the strict written rules as a wedge to get into people’s heads. I understand enough about both worlds to float around and be a strange, quixotic character for either group, mainly by playing opposite strengths around each group while demonstrating an understanding of the rules of the current group.

Mind you I also have paranoia, A.D.D. and social anxiety disorder to work with here. So it’s very possible that my mind is cracked in just the right way that I can both exist and not exist in whatever world. I understand the rules quickly, but have a totally inability to really play by any of those rules. I don’t belong, but I can be here as an observer. I am accepted everywhere I go, but not really a member of any group.

I am, socially speaking, Schrödinger's Cat.

Which proves that maybe it wasn’t such a dumb idea and that things really can exist in two forms at once. But probably not, I suspect Schrödinger was right and the cat would either be alive or dead.

I can smell fear, and it smells like Drakkar Noir

Once upon a time, I knew some rich people. Not 1% rich, but 5% maybe 10% rich. Trophy wife and private school rich. Yacht and second house bigger than most people’s first house rich. So rich, but not mega rich. Rich enough that they’ve become terrified about their relative postions.

I was 15/16 and a friend of a friend introduced me to a friend and I was informally adopted for a couple of weeks during a couple of summers when someone was home from school. The details are unimportant and hazy, and I’m not interested in talking about that right now anyway.

The story I want to tell is when I was chosen as an escort to some… thing or other. Someone was getting an award and there was going to be a dinner afterward and I wasn’t told I would be in a room full of suits until we were on our way or I might have not worn purple sweatpants. However, I did, and I’m not ashamed of that fact because I’m not ashamed of much at all.

Shame doesn’t get you very far in life kids.

So I’m sat at a table, while the girl who in retrospect had a crush on me the size of Mt. Rushmore and was aching for me to make a move, went off with her mother to talk about something. I’m not entirely sure what they were talking about, but she wasn’t getting in trouble for bringing me because I think her mother was hoping to pick up a bit on the side when she was done with me. Also, she would have mentioned if her mother had been annoyed because she was reveling in annoying her mother that year. I do believe, I was part of that, but that’s not important right now.

As a result of her being called off, I was sat at a table with seven other guys. Five of them were employed by the company that was giving someone an award, one was their boss and the last one was a college kid who was interning with the company, but because of college he didn’t have the full suit but only a shirt and tie. The boss was one of those silvering haired jackasses that likes to be an executive, and likes to tell people he’s an executive and has been an executive so long he has truly forgotten people like me exist.

So we’re sitting there, and it’s a no-booze do because of all the college kids and people like me. So the executive orders a Slice with “lots of ice” requesting the waitress to “fill the glass” and I can see a couple of the guys sort of squirm. They hate Slice, but they’re going to drink it because Bossman drinks it. I’m not joking, as she goes around the table it’s “Slice, lots of ice.” “Slice, lots of ice.” “Same for me.” and my heart is filled with contempt for these people. I can tell damn well that one wants a Pepsi, that one wants some root beer and that one wants a needle filled with heroin and a line of cocaine to chase it with.

It’s about this time that I start to notice that unlike most places I’ve been, the colognes of the men aren’t mingling into a strange mixed scent. It’s only Drakkar Noir at table five, no other scents prevail, perhaps mine. But my scent was a faint hint of shampoo and not much else because I hadn’t even shaved. It’s about this time that I realize the thing that separates me from everyone else.

I’m the only person at this table who isn’t terrified.

Everyone else, even the bossman, is afraid. They’re afraid of not being on the right track. Sure, they all drive Fords, but are they driving the right Ford? Does a winner drive an Explorer? Surely, only a looser drives and Escort. What about a Mustang, or a Thunderbird? Can a winner really be seen driving those? Remember this is the early 90s, when neither car had any balls to speak of. Is this the right shirt? Should I have an oxford collar? What if only a loose uses a Windsor knot? High School is merciful, compared to the management track. There is as much information to understand as there is in the geekworld, it’s just the rules aren’t written down and you have to be smart in a different way. More about that in my next post.

And then there was me…

I don’t care how these people view me, I don’t care if they like me or not, I’m not thinking about anything they can do to me or for me. They can’t do anything to or for me. Even if they could, I don’t much care. I’m not worried about it, I know what I need and I know what they need and I get things done. I am, in a few words, the man without fear. I have never been concerned with the stupid little things that need to be done, should be done, ought to be done. I have no respect for social levels, or how much someone makes, or if I’ve impressed so and so. Ask Syd how easy that makes me to live with sometime. Weddings are a chore because “fuck wearing a tie, I don’t give a shit about those people” and so on. The thing is, the lack of fear mixed with the not giving a good god damn, makes other people want to sit next to me.

A lack of fear might be a sign of psychosis, but it is also perceived as a sign of being big dog on top.

When the waitress came to me, I decided to buck trends and stick to my guns and stay the course and not actually think about it and just order like I always do. “Coke no ice.” Oh how easily the words tumbled from my lips. Nothing major, not for me, but conversation at the table stopped. Someone put on a record, just so they could do that sound of yanking the needle and making a record scratch sound.

“Really?” one of the scared dogs men at the table asked. I looked at him for about two seconds longer than I needed to before smiling and saying “Yeah, I don’t like my pop watered down.” He looked at me, and I looked at him and he broke eye contact first and nodded, which caused the Bossman to laugh. He actually threw his head back and laughed. One single solid “HA!” and that was it. Now, I’m not sure my dears, my darlings, what I said that was so funny. All I can figure is that I’d stared down a guy who had perceived himself as a sergeant at arms and given him an answer that couldn’t be balked in a polite setting. I’d worked out a way around him and no one could do anything about it. His only real reaction was one of fear and bluster, and I have no fear to react with so he broke first.

As a result of this, the bossman started talking to me. Instead of talking about my plans, what school I was going to, where I would work, and what road I would eventually take to get from here to there, I spoke about what interested me. I told him about a documentary I’d recently seen about the evolution of mankind and how we pertained to apes. By refusing to talk about what he wanted to know about, and only talking about what I wanted to talk about, I managed two things. One, avoiding boredom. Two, and this would have been important if I’d had any use for it, which I didn’t, I established for the table which of us was the bigger dog. I was on top of the conversation, I was leading the bossman around the room with my fresh knowledge about human behavior being like that of chimps, and I was holding the table.

You could see it in their eyes, I was clearly a bigger, more important dog than their boss. Their boss was the biggest, most important dog they knew, and I was dominating him. I could see a couple of guys, particularly the one who wanted a root beer, thinking that maybe turning their loyalties toward the kid in the flannel shirt was the way to go. So much so that when the waitress came back to freshen drinks, the root beer kid did the bravest thing he’d ever done in his life. He ordered another Slice, but this time without ice! I wanted to berate him, I wanted to bang the table and demand he order the root beer he wanted, but I couldn’t. That would have been pack behavior, that would have been showing concern for another member of the group, and I don’t have pack behavior. I’m not a group member, not of any group, but I am pretty and fuzzy and will let the right people pet me while biting everyone else.

I’m not a dog, I’m a cat.

That’s what they didn’t understand, that’s what almost no one ever understands. I’m not looking to be the top dog in the hierarchy, I’m looking to be the most honest cat who just doesn’t give a shit and will tree a bear if provoked. My wants and needs are so far different from everyone else’s that while they might try and act like they get what I’m saying when I say this, their actions prove that they haven’t the first notion what I mean.

I can’t honestly suggest this to you as a career path, because it doesn’t work for al people. You have to be smart enough, strong enough, interesting enough, and pretty enough all at once to pull it all off together. Also, you have to understand the difference between tough and mean, between clever and cruel, and most of all between honesty and douche baggery. Hang on a second, that needs to be a bigger point, it’s far more important.

You have to understand the difference between tough and mean, between clever and cruel, and most of all between honesty and douche baggery.

Also, don’t use Drakkar Noir, because it smells like fear.