Personal Business

Well, I rarely post on what's going on in my life, I usually try to keep things to topics that might be interesting for someone who doesn't even know me. But today I'm just gonna give everyone an update on what's going on. Mostly, I'm making this post cause I've unsuccessfully tried to explain to my parents what my living arrangements are like. If a picture is worth a thousand words I'm going to be way over my post length...



This first picture is of the converted ice cream parlor that has become our sink.



This next picture is of the sink/ice cream parlor, the ladder to the loft, and our one story fireman's pole.


This is what you see when you walk into our place. On the far right there is a picture of a crazy crazy man with a sword and an awesome mustache.


This is the closest thing we have to a living room.

Anyway, that's the place. I would go take a picture of outside and show that but I'm on the third floor and I'm lazy.

And as for everything else. My ward is okay. I think there are some good people here, I don't know if there are good interesting people yet, I'm holding off on final judgment.

School is going well. I only have 6 credits. I'm trying to work and study for the LSAT with the rest of my time. I don't feel prepared for the LSAT but I'll be taking it in December.

My roommates are good guys but I really miss my living arrangements from last year. I miss my old friends that have moved on. I basically just miss things as they were. I'm trying really hard (albeit unsuccessfully) to hang onto the friends that have remained but that's getting complicated too.

Since my friends have left I've been kind of lonely. I still have lots of friends here--they're just not like the core group of friends that moved on. I might have to upgrade a few friendships to tier 1 status. I don't even know what I'm going to do with this wonderful 3 day weekend, but I'm sure I'll figure out something.

And now for a little introspection. It's really sad watching important people in your life move on. On the one hand you're excited for them to experience new things and learn and grow, but on the other you wish they could just stay with you so things could stay the same forever. I'm really tired of seeing my good friends leave Provo and spread out across the country. I think one good reason to be married by my age is that everyone you know constantly leaves you, but if you're married, your best friend gets to stay by your side wherever you end up.

All this thinking about goodbyes just reminded me of a quotation from a philosophically weak but nevertheless entertaining book called "Illusions," by Richard Bach. The quotation goes something like this:


Don't be dismayed at good-byes.
A farewell is necessary before you can meet again,
And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes,
Is certain for those who are friends.

Many of the people I'm seeing go away were close enough that they felt like family...which actually reminds me of another quotation from that book, but I'm actually gonna have to get up and find the book to get this one right....

Okay, here it is:

The bond that links your true family is not one of blood,
but of respect and joy in each other's life.
Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.

I've always loved that quotation. It makes me think of the wonderful time I've had here in Provo and how my "true family" has grown while I've been here.

This quotation is also meaningful for those who have troubles with their birth family. I think it's really healthy to realize that the true bonds of family are forged through love and respect, not through some accident of birth (although I've been lucky to have my "true family" and my "family by blood" coincide).

Anyway, I've been sentimental enough for the day now. I hope everyone is well. I'm sure things will start looking up around here. They always have in the past. I guess I've just faced a lot of change lately-- some expected and some very unexpected. But, I'm sure I'll eventually come to terms with it all.

I hope everyone has a great day.

With love,
Danny/Dan

Me and Pops Jamming

Hey everyone,
This is a video of my dad and me playing "The Farm" by Batdorf and Rodney (don't know if I spelled their names right).

Anyway, hope you enjoy it.

Survey

I just moved into a new place. As I was moving everything I own I came across a survey I filled out years ago for a singles ward bishop. This got me thinking about possibly making my own questionnaire. Only problem was I didn't know what kind of questionnaire I wanted to make.

Later that day I had a conversation with a friend where I told her, "if you marry someone cool enough, we can still be friends after you're married" (a very gracious offer I thought).

She then asked me how she could know if a guy was cool enough for her to benefit from my gracious offer...and that's when it hit me. I knew what kind of questionnaire I'd make....a guy's coolness measuring questionnaire.

So, here is my first attempt. I'll make it better as I think about it more.

***

Girl's Potential Suitor Coolness Survey: First Edition.

1) What is the greatest musical band of all time (this is not a subjective question...there is a correct answer).

2) Did Han shoot first? Justify your response.

3) Is Dane Cook Funny? Is Carlos Mencia funny?

(if you answered yes to either part of question 3 please stop filling this questionnaire out).

4) What's the appropriate response when watching someone fall on a skateboard?

5) Whether or not you agree with the following statement, pretend you do and argue for it : "Ghostbusters is the greatest film of all time." (remember to support your argument with references from the film)

6) Now to test your ability to B.S. (and win an argument when all odds are against you) argue to support this claim: "The Hannah Montana movie is the greatest film of all time."

7) When was the last time you cried? Why?

8) What is your favorite song?

9) If you could punch anyone in the world in the face who would it be?

10) If you could have lunch with any figure from history who would it be?

Please justify all your responses

*****

Well, that was just a quick attempt at the questionnaire. I'll fine tune it later. If anyone wants to come up with more questions, or if anyone wants to share their answers to these questions, please do so in a comment.

Love and Stuff

Okay, so I have two questions that I'd like to work out here. Here they are:

1) do we love for value or do we value for love?

2) do we choose to love or do we "fall" in love?

Okay, so onto question 1. Even a year ago I would have said that the answer was definitely we love people for their value. I probably would have been of this opinion because of Aristotle. He had a theory on love that basically said there are three causes for love: pleasure, utility, and goodness. Of these three causes he said that goodness, which is a love based on the recognition and valuing of the goodness in another, was the only permanent type of love. He argued this by saying that goodness is a potentially permanent and ever increasing quality. Passion can dim, sometimes people stop being useful to us, but someone's goodness (where goodness describes the steady upswing of someone's well lived life) can last forever. When we love the good in someone that love is as strong and as ever-increasing as their virtue.

When I was younger Aristotle's theory made a lot of sense to me. It really simplifies the idea of love, it makes love a practical and almost measurable thing. However, I think, as I age, I'm agreeing with him less. You see, while I can't think of anyone I love that I don't think of as good, I can't strictly justify my love for those I love based solely on their goodness.

I can't justify my love strictly on goodness because I love some people far more than their goodness merits. Also, I know lots of people that are probably better people than those I love but I don't love them at all. So, I don't think goodness is a necessary or sufficient condition for love.

The best example I can think of this is my little sister. When she was born I loved her. I don't know what it's like to have a kid, I hear you immediately love them too, but for whatever reason, when the little Munchkin was born I loved her. It was strange cause it couldn't have been based on her goodness (she wasn't really functioning at the time), it wasn't because of anything she had done for me or I had done for her. It was really strange because when I met her my heart was just open, I was ready to love her immediately.

Now, this type of love really scares me. I have never been a fan of the idea of unconditional love. Unconditional love is kinda pointless. I mean, if someone told me they loved me that didn't even know me I'd say "why?" If they just said "because you're you" I'd think they were crazy. Basically, love without conditions is love without meaning. If love is without conditions it could be argued that it is forced. I mean, you have no understanding, no choice, you just love because you love and that's all you can say on the matter. I don't know if that bothers anyone else but it certainly seems to take away a lot of the beauty of love.

So I was really scared when I felt love in this way. I used to have a very strong, simple, and comfortable view of love. I agreed with Aristotle and thought of love as a response to the goodness of another person. Because I held this view I was able to think of love as a choice. I thought of love as rational decision where you analyzed the overall goodness of the person, took into account complimentary characteristics and then said "looks good I"m going for it."

One thing that this view granted me was a type of smugness when people would talk about "falling in love." I'd think to myself "you don't fall in love, you choose to love." You see, people don't fall on purpose, it's just something that happens to them. When you're walking you don't think "hey I think I"m gonna fall down right now." If we refer to love in the same way it's like we're just walking along and then one day BAM! you got a scraped knee and a bleeding heart.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, not sure yet), as I've grown older I've realized that my original views (and Aristotle's for that matter) were a bit limited. Now, while I cannot explain love as well as I used to, I can at least appreciate that I need to take a more post-modern approach to it and admit that there is some mystery to it.

So, in answer to my first main question, "do we love things because they have value or do we give value by loving"...while I like to think that what I love has value I'm prepared to admit that my love doesn't necessarily equate proportionately to the goodness of what I love. So, I have to admit that at least partially my love creates, for me at least, value. I think the two might feed off each other. Something has value so you love it, then by loving it you increase its value. I think this is why people that don't love very well aren't very happy. The world has no value unless you have love because love creates both meaning and value.

Okay, so if love creates value, how do we choose to love? Is it volitional or does it just happen. Once again I think it's gonna have to be a compromise. The example of my little sister was non-volitional love. I just loved her. I didn't make a choice to love her, I just did. Now, I've had girls I thought I loved in the past that I chose to love. I think I made a mistake those times. I just analyzed up the girls good qualities and, in a very Aristotilean fashion, I decided to love her because she was good, and good for me. Of course, judging by my single status that never really worked out well.

So now I am prepared to admit that it is possible that love might just happen. While I still think unconditional love is silly, I think that there are often conditions that we just aren't aware of, and that perhaps we can't be aware of, that lead us to love someone. This idea kinda scares me. I don't like the idea of having something so important in my life outside of my control. Now, while I still believe that I can choose to not love someone, and that for the most part I'll be successful in carrying out my decision to not love someone (say if the person isn't morally upright or abusive), I now freely admit that there will be times when I will just love someone for reasons I can't quite point to. Whether this makes love mysterious, powerful, or just plain inconvenient I'm not sure, it'll probably take years to figure out.

Well, I'm tired of writing but I thought I'd share one more thing about love that isn't totally related to the argument thus far. One thing I feel pretty comfortable saying about love is that it is disinterested. Now, most people don't know what disinterested really means so I'll say that really quick and then get on with my point. When someone is uninterested in something they don't care, they have a negative or merely an absence of care regarding something. However, when someone is disinterested they are impartial. A judge is supposed to be disinterested in that he wants the right thing to happen and he doesn't favor a side.

So why is love disinterested? Well, Harry Frankfurt argued it this way. He wrote, "Love is, most centrally, a disinterested concern for the existence of what is loved, and for what is good for it. The lover desires that his beloved flourish and not be harmed; and he does not desire this just for the sake of promoting some other goal."

When you love someone it should be a love that focuses on their development, growth, and advancement, a love that amplifies and betters them. This type of love sees the beloved as an end in itself and not as a means for evoking some emotion in the one who loves. What I mean by this is that this type of love sees the happiness of the beloved as reason enough for action.

People often do not understand this type of love when they see it. They see a kind act performed and they say "I can't understand that person's motive, why on earth would they do that? What's the angle?" But if someone really understands how to love disinterestedly they'd know that's the wrong question(s). Because, when you love disinterestedly, there doesn't have to be an angle-- the happiness of the person you love is the angle (if the word "angle can be used in such a way). Real love creates reasons for action and doesn't necessarily require reasons for action.

When you love someone disinterestedly you really just want that person to be happy, and you are kind to them because you want them to be happy. Not because their happiness makes you feel good (although it should) and not because you think being kind will improve your relationship (although it should). When you are disinterested their well-being/happiness is enough. You want them to flourish, you want to help them, whether it be self-improvement, help with work, with school, any random task really, sometimes even telling them something that they don't want to hear.

What's great about disinterested love is that it's pure. A disinterested love doesn't worry about every little thing, about power struggles, about whether someone updated their facebook status to show they are in a relationship, they don't worry about who calls more, who is putting more into the relationship...they just worry about how they can improve the life of the person they love. You see, they focus on the person, not their connection to that person. That's the trick.

Well, I think I better stop there. Basically what I got from this ridiculously long post is this. Love happens to us sometimes without our deciding to love, love creates/adds value in the people we love, and finally, love should be an end in itself, not a means to an end.

I can think of counter-examples but I'm tired. What are your thoughts?(if you even made it this far :)

Walking Girls to the Door

Okay, so today's post is on walking girls to the door at the end of a date. I probably don't need to tell guys this is important, but since I've had problems at the door, and since I know a few guys in my ward who have had similar difficulties, I thought I'd post on the matter.

Before I start writing about what you do at the door, let me first just emphasize the importance of actually going to the door! I once dropped a girl off and just gave her a high-five and let her walk herself to the door. Another time I just completely forgot to walk her up, I gave her an awkward "reach across the car shoulder hug" and let her walk herself to the door. On that time I even made matters worse when I realized my mistake about 3 minutes later and I called her and asked her to imagine that I'd walked her to the door. I think in situations like that it might be best to just let the mistake drop and not even acknowledge it. But anyway, make sure you walk a girl to the door. If you don't you'll have a weird feeling, kinda like you forgot the period at the end of a sentence, or kinda like you had a Chinese dinner but forgot your fortune cookie. Not sure why. Maybe it's cause you picked her up at the door and you need to finish the date where you started, maybe it's because in taking a girl out you took on the responsibility of seeing her back safely to her apartment, so when you don't see her back safely to her apartment, you feel guilt for breaking the modern code of chivalry. I really don't know, but what I do know is that when you don't walk a girl to the door at the end of a date something feels wrong.

Okay, so now that I've stressed the importance of making it to the door, let me say why the door is so important. The door scene is kinda like your report card for the date. The standard is to just hug her and say goodnight. If you don't hug her that's kinda rude I think. When you don't it's basically saying it was a bad date. If she won't hug you she's telling you you're pretty lame.

If the date went well and you're feeling pretty confident you can upgrade the door hug to a kiss. Kissing at the door is great (if she wants you to kiss her (if you can't tell if she wants you to kiss her you probably shouldn't)), when you do you sorta just float back to your car feeling like a champ...but just make sure that your door kiss is quick. A quick kiss is loving and tender, a long kiss is sensual and that's just an uncomfortable way to say goodnight/goodbye.

Anyway, the thing all these different door scenes have in common is they tell you to a pretty fair extent, through their differing levels of intimacy, where you stand with a girl. Once you get an idea where you stand with a girl you can then figure out what you'll do next, and this brings us to the second important thing that happens at the doorstep: the decision of whether there will be a second date.

It is so important to figure out at the doorstep of your first date whether you're gonna do a second. Doing this is pretty easy. All you gotta do is drop her off and say something like, "I had a really great time tonight, would you like to do this again sometime" --or some other variant. Saying this translates to "I like you well enough, don't be surprised if I call you again sometime." This gets the idea of future dates in her head so she can think about you as a more consistent thing. Also, saying this in front of her lets you see her expression when you bring the idea up so you can see if it's something she even wants to do. If you forget to do this in person and later do it over the phone you'll find it much harder to figure out whether she's interested and where she's coming from. You also run a high risk of just playing phone tag and watching everything just fall through the cracks. So, bring up a second date at the door if you want one.

All in all, the door scene is very powerful. It is either the best or worst moment of your date. I'm really bad at it. I usually just take the girl to the door, wonder about what I should do, realize that I'm standing awkwardly, mumble something stupid, give her a quick awkward hug, and then watch her go through the door with a look on her face that says "wow, way to drop the ball." So I'm no expert by any stretch, but since I've screwed up door scenes in so many creative ways I thought I'd do what little I could to prevent others from following in my less than enviable footsteps.

Good luck.

Swearing

Hey Everyone,
So I thought I'd talk a little bit about swearing today. Yesterday I was on campus and I walked past some construction workers who were swearing quite a lot. I was so surprised cause it's the first time I've heard swearing on campus (other than an accident I once had.) Anyway, it got me to thinking about swearing so here are some thoughts on the matter.

I guess the real question is "why is swearing wrong?" When you think about how we avoid swearing using words like Frick for the F-word, or any other lame substitute it seems kinda weird that swearing is bad. If the word is a substitution it should still cause the person to think of the original word which should cause a similar response in the listener. Also, when you explain what a bad word means the actual meaning of the word can be explained in totally mundane speech without offending anyone, so it's not really the meaning of the word that's offensive...it's the sense of the word.

A brilliant mathematician turned philosopher of language wrote a paper called "On Sense and Nomenatum" where he made an interesting disctinction on this point. He said words don't reference a static meaning, they reference "a sense of the word." By this he meant that when you say a word like "horse" people don't just think of a definition of the word but they reference an overall sense of the word, including horses they've seen, maybe thinking about horse rides, manure etc. This is partly why language is so elusive for many. It's also why there are some girl's names that I find beautiful that are kinda ugly--I've just known beautiful girls with those names and they've changed my overall sense for their names...and it's also why the name Jessica is so hideous.

Also, the way someone feels about a word and their intent in using the word needs to be addressed. Take the statement "I love you." If someone I just met on the street for the first time told me they loved me I'd say "well, appreciate the sentiment," but the meaning of "love" in that sense would be very weak. It has linguistic content but no emotional content. However, if someone in my family told me they loved me it would be a very different thing. As they said the words I'd probably feel a rush of emotion and think of the depth and time invested in our relationship and feel a very strong sense of the word emotionally and linguistically.

What is really weird is how even the moment and the place can change the sense (and thus the meaning) of a word. For example, if I was overlooking Provo valley after a wonderful date (a wonderful date of many) and I was holding her close and I really felt something for her and I finally told her "I love you" for the first time... that would be very different from sharing that revelation in a text message. If both statements are true, and if both statements were inspired because of a steady and beautiful connection you'd think the two would be the same. The reason they're not is because when we're close and overlooking Provo valley we're increaseing the "sense" of the word love by associating the beauty of the moment with the word.

So, if the emotional content, place, and time, create the sense of a word, and thus it's meaning, it's kinda strange to say that swearing is bad (because there may be no negative emotional content or circumstances for a negative sense of the "bad" word). It should be that speaking badly is bad, or speaking meanly or whatever. However, swearing is still bad, if for no other reason than it's taboo speech.

I once had a linguistics class where we spent a few days discussing"taboo speech." It's kinda interesting how taboo speech works cause we sorta collectively choose words to be bad. The way we make them bad is by choosing to restrict their use. We have to do this or the words really aren't bad at all. Swearing works because we say "this is a word you shouldn't use, so if you use it, a rule is being broken." That way, when someone swears, they are making a statement about how they feel about the rule not to use the word, and that statement reflects on how they're using the word--and what they're using the word for. When you swear at someone what you're saying to them is "I'm so mad at you that I am willing to disregard social propriety to fully express my feelings." The disregard for correctness puts a feeling of discomfort in the listener and onlookers, and forces them to re-evaluate the intensity of the speakers emotions.

The problem with this is that when people swear all the time the language stops being taboo. Luckily we have dictionaries and other commentaries on language that keep language relatively static so we can still have some swear words. These resources don't change as quickly as the words in them, because of this, we still have some measure of control over how we perceive words. Just be grateful, if we didn't have dictionaries and such we might have to come up with new swear words every week just to keep things fresh.

Well, I got more to say but I better get some stuff done. Hope you all have a great day.

Why Tarzan Books are Great

Okay, so here is some higher order literary criticism...for the Tarzan series. I am often asked "Okay sir, you're perhaps the most well-read person I know. You've read nearly every landmark work in the English language from Beowulf to 10 pages of Twilight. Why is it that you so passionately embrace a piece of admittedly escapist pulp fiction?"

Well, to be honest, no one has actually ever asked me that question, but I think some people mean to ask me that question when I tell them how much I loved the Tarzan books. So, anyway, if that question is ever asked, here is my answer.

I love the Tarzan books because they are about freedom. When I read the Tarzan books I was around 15 years old. I was at the perfect age. I was just starting to get a taste for what life would be like as a grown up--and I was scared. Grown ups don't have lazy summers where they just sit around idly watching water dry on the pavement after an intense water balloon fight. Grown ups don't run down the street barefoot just cause they can. Sadly, grown ups don't ever really do anything for the sake of the thing itself...grown ups always focus on the ends of their actions and forget the intrinsic value of the action itself.

In all they do the future hangs over adults like a spectre--every moment tainted by worry and obligation over some future contingency. Even supposed escapes are tainted by responsibility and obligation. When grown ups try to escape their problems all they do is convert their existing problems into a more attractive form. For example, on a vacation they worry about having as much fun as possible and hitting all the right spots, on weekends they worry about Monday's meeting etc. Simply put, as we age, the child like frivolousness, the ability to fully appreciate a perfectly hedonistic summer (the original meaning of the word thank you very much), the ability to fully be in the moment and appreciate its beauty disappears. And what do we do to compensate for this loss? Well, most of us just compensate by taking on more responsibilities. We take on new chains of responsibility, one at a time, wondering if the next one will so occupy us that we can finally get lost in work the way we used to get lost in play. With stuffy self-importance we accept each chain as indicative of increased adultly (new word) status and we thankfully begin our dogged march through adulthood. Everyone does this, it's part of growing up....for everyone but Tarzan.

Tarzan never learned about responsibility, until he was in his late 20s he didn't even know the word existed (and even then it would have been the French word for responsibility since he learned French before English). Tarzan grew up in the untamed jungle. Every day he'd stop and recognize the beauty around him. Tarzan had no conception of time. He just went from stages of being hungry to not being hungry. He slept when he wanted to, he ate when he wanted to. He was the master of his element, the true king of the jungle. When Tarzan took out a deer with his father's trusty hunting knife he roared at the top of his lungs and the whole jungle trembled. Even the lions (who admittedly aren't all that ferocious) skulked away.

So just imagine how deeply Tarzan's freedom would affect me as a 15 year old boy. I was just starting to realize the weight of responsibility that awaited me as an adult. Every day I was told where I needed to be, what I needed to do, when I needed to be there...Tarzan didn't worry about any of that stuff. Tarzan was free in a way that I could barely imagine... Tarzan didn't even have to wear pants (he did however accessorize when he met Jane).

Just think about what it would be like to be Tarzan. He didn't even know what it meant to lie until he met white explorers. Tarzan didn't know anything about being self-conscious, he didn't know anything about jealousy or frustration. Tarzan forever lived in the moment--only limited by his strength (and he was super strong so not much of a limitation) and his mind (and he was a genius).

Speaking of Tarzan's intelligence, so many people miss that. They always think of him as the terse, barely coherent "me Tarzan, you Jane." That is just ridiculous. Edgar Rice Burroughs even made fun of his beloved Tarzan's film characterization in his 22nd book. In that book Tarzan somehow manages to find the set of a movie based on his adventures. Coincidentally (we accept all coincidences as completely natural in these books) a lion escapes that day and the real Tarzan takes him down in front of everyone and saves the day. The director looks at Tarzan in all his ferocious splendor and says "maybe he could look the part," but then he dismisses the idea and says "no, he looks too intelligent."

You see, Tarzan was an English lord. He was self-educated, but by the end of the books he could speak fluently in over 20 languages. Tarzan beat the animals not because he was stronger (as they mistakenly show in the movies), but because he was smarter. Put simply, Tarzan was the best man that Burroughs could envision. Tarzan was handsome, strong, smart, honest, kind...he was everything I wanted to be, but I never envied him for any of these things, I only envied his freedom.

I wanted to run through the jungle feeling healthy and alive. I wanted to have no constraints, no schedule, to yell when I felt like it--to do whatever came to my mind simply because I thought to do it. I wanted to be totally free in a way that someone growing up in a city could only haphazardly imagine.

So, that's why the books are great. You can't help but read them and notice time slowing down. You can't help but read them and notice that so many of the things weighing you down are a bit silly, but most importantly you can't read them without feeling like you've cheated the system a little and postponed growing up, if only for a little while. Reading these books helps remind you of what you gave up to become a grown up.