Notes from the Petting Zoo

There’s nothing quite so cathartic or educational as screaming “What’s your fucking problem, anyway?!” at the mirror.

Seems to solve most of my problems, anyway.

Back to the Master List of Essays

Self-deprecation is a trap.

At first it seems safe, perhaps even cute or attractive, but it’s a trap and it’ll draw you into a spiral of self-destructiveness.  Not as bad as meth, but still pretty messed up.

Next time you feel the urge to be self-deprecating, try complimenting someone else instead.  Doesn’t have to be a big deal or effusive, just some sort of compliment.  Don’t tie it back to yourself, either (that’s being self-deprecating the sneaky way).  Just make it a clean compliment and move on.

You might be surprised by the result.

Back to the Master List of Essays

Damn science nerds, screwing up our flawless concepts of “love”! How dare they!

There’s a concept in physics called momentum. The short of it is that momentum is the product of mass and velocity. So, a great big huge thing moving slowly could have the same momentum as a little tiny thing moving fast. If you’re standing against a brick wall and a bullet strikes you, it’s just as awkward as a 15 mph car.

In order to change an object’s vector, you have to overcome its momentum. Say someone throws a bag of hamster testicles at you. That bag weighs such and so and is traveling at such and so speed. Multiply those together. Say you have a baseball bat and it weighs as much as the ballbag. If you want to smack that ballbag back in the opposite direction, you have to whack it hard enough to impart your OWN momentum, and if that momentum exactly matches the momentum of the bag of hamster testicles, then it drops to the ground, to be eaten by fiddler crabs.

However, if you want to send that bastard back to the person who threw it at you, and at the same speed, you have to impart TWICE as much momentum to it. Then it goes back.

Now, if you only want to DEFLECT it, you don’t have to hit it as hard. I could go into more details (if you know about vectors, you know what I mean), but suffice to say that the LESS you have to deflect it, the less force you have to use.

How does this relate to “love,” and more specifically its crass practical cousin “relationship”?

It’s like this:

When you and a partner first meet, you each are a blank slate. You can be anything or anyone, you can be a person who exercises every day, or a person who smokes, or a compulsive masturbator with an eye twitch and a preference for NIN t-shirts. The relationship can kinda’ go anywhere you want.

Because you have no momentum.

However, let’s say you’ve been together for a few years. You’ve each built a sort of model in your respective heads of the other person, and it’s pretty accurate. Your relationship has a certain direction and a certain strength to it.

You now have momentum.

This is okay, by the way.

But when it comes to problem-solving, momentum can fuck you up as surely as trying to defend yourself against a flung sack of hamster ‘nads with nothing but a bamboo skewer. You don’t account for momentum and you’re gonna get creamed.

Relationships in particular can be very vulnerable to the effects of momentum, because we tie so much of value to them. If you’re the boss, you can announce new policies to employees and it’s not a big deal, but try announcing some new policy to a partner and you might lose them. Usually, that would suck. So, you hesitate.

Right there, you’re up against momentum.

I repeat that relationship momentum can be a really neat thing. It can feel very good to be flying along at a good velocity with a loved one, in the same direction. Fantastic.

But if something gets bumpy, or if something has to change, unlike a new relationship, you’re going to have to overcome momentum. That’s going to take some work.

Remember, too, that like in physics, you have less momentum to overcome if you’re not trying to make things happen the opposite of how they’re happening. A gentle deflection takes much less effort than feeding the fiddler crabs. So, it really pays to be smart about how and where that force is applied, because if you want to keep that partner, you’re going to have to work WITH them to effect that change of speed or direction.

So new folks, lucky you — you have no momentum to overcome to make whatever relationship you want. This is probably good anyway, because the odds are against you.

But for those of us who’ve been around for more than a few years, never forget that momentum plays a big part of any problem-solving that comes up. You might not have to worry about the usual beginner issues, but you’ve got this whole NEW factor to deal with.

It’s not a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all.

But you’ve got to account for it, if you want to avoid trouble.

Back to the Master List of Essays

Is the toilet paper roll where you work locked? Ours is. Most of the places I’ve worked have locking toilet paper boxes. Why? Is there a rash of toilet paper threat looming over this fine nation? Is this a security issue? Are the terrorists just here for our toilet paper?

How how, exactly, are people stealing rolls of toilet paper? Are they smuggling it under the folds of their bellies? Are they unwrapping all the toilet paper and rewrapping it around themselves in hopes of not seeming too “lumpy”?

Are they perhaps taking it out a few feet at a time, disguised as “some sort of wrap”?

And, is this the same company that will happily assign you a laptop and let you carry it all over the place, including to Starbucks, where you’ll set it up on something all fancy and important-looking, and then camp out for twenty minutes in the bathroom (are you picking the toilet paper lock with a bobby-pin or what?) while your coffee (assuming you bought some) gets colder and colder and colder?

When did toilet paper become so valuable it had to be locked up?

Back to the Master List of Essays

I’ve been thinking about this whole “protectin’ the sanctity of marriage thing.” Not for long, because I think it’s a no-brainer, but I’ve been trying to wrap my head around why this is even an issue (other than “jealousy”, which actually would explain everything.).

One of the big reasons people seem to list is that legislating a definition for mariage will somehow improve divorce rates.

Now to me, this is completely unfathomable. First of all, let’s assume legislation and laws and law enforcement is enough to make people stay married (feel free to continue after the laughing fit stops). If that’s the case, then why not shoot the bull directly between the balls and… make divorce illegal. Obviously that’s a case of a law directly addressing the actual problem. How hard can it be? Make divorce illegal and anyone caught getting one goes to jail as a felon. Divorce rates drop like a fuckin’ rock. No brainer.

Now this is a no-brainer. This is clearly the solution needed by people who are willing to let the law guide them.

After all, look at how effective laws are in all other aspects of our lives. It keeps cars traveling at safe speeds on the highways, it keeps people from drinking and driving, and our murder rate is as close to zero as you can get without losing count of the decimal places. Clearly, the enactment of a law is a powerful deterrent, and the enactment of a law against divorce ought to be all those folks need to bring that pesky divorce rate back to the place where they can treat other people like “people” again.

Naturally, this has nothing to do with people who want to be married, regardless of their plumbing, so I see no reason to keep pretending it is.

Unless there’s a “jealousy” issue.

Back to the Master List of Essays

Be sure you’ve exhausted ALL your resources before calling a help line for your smartphone. It’s just gauche to openly admit you spent cold hard cash for a phone that has outwitted you.

Back to the Master List of Essays

A little background, in case this is a new one to you:

Teaching the “Controversy”

Sure, the idea of “teaching the controversy” works. Let’s try it.

Some folks say the profoundly religious are deluded. Others suggest they’re dangerously manipulative and bitterly cynical. Still others suggest that they’re simply terrified of not having a big warm hug at the end of their life and thus cling desperately to the idea that one awaits them.

You know — we don’t have to settle on just one — we can teach the controversy! We can present all three theories and let people hash it out for themselves.

Wow, that whole “teaching the controversy” sure is one brilliant piece of thinkery!

Back to the Master List of Essays

I think there’s a nutcase Quotient for churches.  I think it simplifies down to this:

Qn = V/A

Where
Qn = the Nutcase Quotient
V = the cubic Volume of the church
A = the church’s age

I’ll grant that there might be exceptions, but I suspect they prove the rule.

Back to the Master List of Essays

In case you don’t know yet, I’m a professional writer.  While not everything I write takes advantage of Sphere Conflicts, I’ve been working with this idea and chewing on it for about a year, and thought it was time for a Coming Out Party.

I know a lot of people who promote conflict as a way of pushing a story into a better place and I think, in some ways, that’s probably true.

But there’s a downside to it.

Conflict for the sake of conflict is just a joke.  It’s ridiculous.  It’s two children arguing over whether or not Superman could run faster than The Flash, and it sounds like this: “Well, Superman can run a million miles an hour!”  “Well, Flash can run FIVE million!”  “Superman can run a HUNDRED million!” “A BILLION!” “A HUNDRED billion!”  and so forth.  Conflict for the sake of conflict is like the theory behind sports:  Sports is the art and science of finding the hardest way possible to do a simple thing (such as put a little ball in a hole in the yard).

So, conflict for the sake of conflict is lame.  And when we see it in a story or (more often) see it on screen, we KNOW it.  We feel that the conflict is stilted, artificial, crappy.  We just don’t care about the characters, any more than we care if Flash or Superman really IS faster.

I’ve been thinking about conflict lately, and thinking, more specifically, about something I’ve been calling Sphere Conflict.  This feels much richer to me, story-wise.

My Sphere is my life, the people and things in it, the reasons I do the things I do, the causes and effects.  If I was devoutly religious, my Sphere would contain all the reasons WHY (maybe struck on the head by a radioactive crucifix during a freak lightning storm).  If I’m a character in a story, or a novel, or a script, not all of my Sphere’s going to be there.  It just can’t fit, unless I start writing dekologies, which is not scheduled for this week.  But as a writer, I’m seeing how critical it is to have a Sphere for each person.  Not only my leads, but everybody around.

Of course, most folks would think of this as ordinary background for a character, and yeah, so far, but there’s more I’ve been thinking of.

Imagine each person’s Sphere (and by this, I mean, try to imagine the person as a point and their Sphere as an actual sphere around them, like a big soap bubble).  My Sphere, your Sphere, some character’s Sphere, etc.  The Sphere isn’t a trivial construction – not if you’ve done it right.  It helps define a real person, all the things that helped make them who they are.  Think about those “boundaries” of that Sphere, too.  They can be real tough cases, those boundaries.  If someone comes up to you and pushes your boundaries, they aren’t pushing against some randomly chosen line you’ve drawn.  Oh no, they’re pushing against your Sphere.  They’re pushing against YOU and everything that has made you who you are – usually with their OWN Sphere.

If you’ve been able to imagine Spheres as soap bubbles, then imagining this conflict becomes very interesting.  If the two people aren’t close, then their Sphere’s only touch on one point.  But if they’re close, it’s a whole surface filled with conflict.  Think about pushing two soap bubbles up close to each other – between them forms a disc of double-walled bubble*.

The surface of Sphere Conflict depends on two issues: the closeness of the people involved, and the sizes of the Spheres.  Again, think of soap bubbles – huge bubbles just gobble up smaller bubbles.

Now, go all the way back to the beginning of this and think again about how to add conflict.  You can’t taffy-stretch two bubbles to come into conflict without it seeming completely artificial.  But, if you think of the Sphere Conflict, you suddenly can see how it can REALLY work – conflict is when two Spheres must be pressed close to each other.

When you write in such a way that the conflict is a Sphere Conflict, then you are writing with a much more powerful conflict, one that can’t be easily resolved, even if there IS a big Sit Down And Figure Everything Out Session.  It’s a Sphere Conflict, and no matter how brilliant the people involved are, it’s a non-trivial matter to resolve it (assuming you CAN resolve it).  Thinking this way also helps you understand how someone can get INTO a Sphere Conflict.  Again with the soap bubbles: two soap bubbles pressed up to each other will simply pop away from each other unless they are being forced by something outside of BOTH of them.  Other Spheres, a narrow corridor, or a soaped and gloved Hand Of Fate – all these things can contribute to where our Spheres are and why we don’t always have the option to move them.

This means that whatever the REAL issue is in the story, we aren’t going to get distracted by the Sphere Conflicts, but the Sphere Conflicts is where the RICHNESS of the resolution will be born, just like stars being born in violent stellar nurseries.

When we experience issues solved where there is Sphere Conflict, they seem more honest, more real (because that’s how life really seems to be), and when Spheres aren’t treated with the respect they deserve, we perceive the conflict (and resolution) as the cheap trick it is, smacking two-dimensional characters against each other and arguing over whether Superman or the Flash is faster.

Open for discussion, please!

*Actually, bubbles are ALREADY double-walled, so this would be a quad-walled circle.

Back to the Master List of Essays