Thursday, a week and a half ago, was a very important day.

Because that Thursday was my sister's birthday.

I had intended to write last week in honour of the fact that it was Valentine’s Day (among other things) on the 14^th, but as I tried to pen my thoughts it struck me that I am ill-prepared to comment on the sorts of things that Valentine’s Day is associated with, and that xanga is ill-equipped to be an appropriate medium for my comments.  Some people might have realized this a long time ago – that since I’ve never had a girlfriend I might not know what to talk about and since I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve, xanga might be a bad place to talk about it – but it was a slow week for me, and it took me most of the ensuing week to realize that the post which I wrote was precisely that about which I did not intend to talk.

The rest of this post has nothing to do with that introduction.

Rather, it is concerned with this article.  Now this article is generally referring to the shortcomings of singly young males in this generation, particularly as regards maturity, culture, and attention span.  Since the latter is a sub-point of the article it would probably be errant of me to simply summarize it for all of you, but since those of you who just read the summaries probably wouldn’t read the article anyway, here goes.

It is the natural tendency of guys to develop their own culture which does not require them to grow up.  This is clearly manifested in the fact that more guys than ever aren’t marrying or are putting off marriage, spend most of their time clustered around an X-box or other such frivolous activities, and have independently fueled a generations-worth of minimum-input-gratification items like Maxim magazine, Halo 3, ESPN the Ocho, and delivery pizza.  There is a stark cultural divide between men from the 50’s who settled down and accepted responsibility in things like a family or home ownership and men from today who live in apartments with roommates and hook up with girls at bars.  In fact, there’s even a cultural divide between men who read Playboy (for the articles) and men who read Maxim (the articles in which have nothing to with anything sophisticated).  [The last point isn’t to say that Playboy was a high-water mark of culture or maturity, but that there was a cultural understanding that one should appreciate art, opera, academics, etc. – or at least pretend to do so.]  More than that, we’ve lost what I guess you could call cultural shame, since not only do so many young men participate in these activities, but we then go and laud them on blogs like Tucker Max’s eponymous website (which I would highly recommend against visiting, on grounds of the content) or in most comedies filmed since 1991.  After giving a brief history of ways that men have avoided doing the things that other people or groups wanted them to do, the article closes with an explanation of why the problem has been getting worse – because society has stopped trying to make these men into anything else – and of what effects that’s going to have on everyone – failing families, chronic indecision, and men as a group of “unfinished people.”

Hokay.  I think the general framework of the argument is correct – I think a lot of guys are really immature, and they are so because no one really tackles them and makes them do something different.  And, like the article, I think that the consequences could potentially be dire if nothing is done about that – not dire like “the icecaps are melting, but people will forget to respond to gradually rising sea levels and be wiped out by highly improbably weather patterns,” but dire like society’s going to get a lot smaller.  So that’s all well and good, but there are also some qualifications I’d like to put on the article.  We’ll get back to the agreements later.  For now, the first problem I see:

Men are fundamentally different from women, and this is a good thing.  The article decries two things about men for which I’d like to put in some number of words in defense; first, that men appreciate “stupid” humor, and second, that men get easily wrapped up in pretty dumb activities like watching football.  Regarding the first, there are two reasons why I’m actually in favor of some levels of stupid humor.  One is that I think that stupid humor is pretty funny – see the Powerthirst commercials for further proof – but I also think that a guy’s way of dealing with things keeps the world from being taken too seriously.  Take Maddox’s commentary on vegetarianism, for example: in it, he lampoons people who are engaging in a fairly ridicule-able activity (vegetarianism as a moral stance).  Actually, it’s funny for two reasons – first, and most importantly, Maddox is teaching us there to take light-heartedly things which aren’t that big a deal – like trying to make a difference by being a vegetarian.  He takes an idea which has become quite accepted (thanks in so small part to my home state) and points out how stupid it is in both this and his corresponding articles.  Second of all, though, his counter is a hilariously bizarre one – the idea of tripling your meat consumption just to tick off vegetarians.  It evokes humorous mental images of people force-feeding themselves to try to keep pace with an idiotic counter-standard (Monty Python's "they're wafer thin" skit comes to mind), and I’m pretty sure just about no one will actually try this for a variety of reasons.  This means all he’s really doing with this post is encouraging people to laugh at the dumb things other people do – and thereby discouraging them from being done.

Now for a wide swath of reasons Maddox shouldn’t stand as a general reference on what things should be loved or hated, so lets take another example that might be a little more poignant: metrosexuals vs. retrosexuals.  The entire idea behind the retrosexual movement is to say “all those decisions you make about your wardrobe are quite frivolous.”  Sure retrosexuals make a great deal of humor at the expense of metrosexuals, most of which is in some way simultaneously criticizing homosexuality, but the purpose is to keep people from flying off of the handle about issues that have solely to do with fashion – a subject that could not be overcovered.  Especially when this sort of trash is the best that fashion experts can come up with.

N.B. that my point about whether “stupid” humor is worth it could probably be an interesting point of discussion.  It is certainly funny, and it can serve as a bonding experience, but at the same time it really is just a waste of time, and if it isn’t enjoyed in limited quantities – at most – then you’re probably overdoing it, and deserve to be made fun of in return.  Also, as a further n.b., making fun of something shouldn’t be purposeless, but should rather be designed to discourage that activity amongst rational people with a good sense of humor.  If I spend all day critiquing everything in the world that I don’t happen to favor, then I’ll probably come off as a pompous jerk.  That or a lazy jerk, and either way it’d be a pretty strong indicator that I’m doing something wrong with my life (something about being a jerk…).  Rather, we caricature things to highlight the inconsistencies or problems in the worldview that they espouse, and as long as we simultaneously try to understand legitimate arguments about why one thing is better than another or vice versa, it doesn’t hurt to have a little Ann Coulter-esque fun every now and again – among friends.

The second point is, perhaps tangentially, about football.  It’s been noted by a lot of people (but recentlyquite eloquently by John Eldredge in Wild at Heart) that men have a tendency to desire something more physically demanding than a 9-5 job with a game of pickup basketball in the evenings.  Maybe we all saw a little too much of Braveheart as kids or something like that, but most guys like to picture the world in terms of stark good-vs.-evil conflicts, where we can pick up a sword for one side or the other and go out and do great things for the world and justice.  And at the same time, for reasons well expressed by people like Mr. Eldredge, I think that that’s a good thing.  I think that knowing what things are worth getting up and fighting for, and having something unbridled and wild living inside of you is a very worthwhile thing, and that it’s probably spared the Western Heritage at more than one cultural Thermopylae since the world began.  But (and this is why football is a good thing) that sort of desire is like a free radical – it needs something to latch onto, or it will get destructive.  Settle too many men in too dumbed-down a culture, and they’ll either stop acting like men, or they’ll lose a screw and turn all Fight Club on you.  So football, then, acts like the sheath in which we store that side to our personalities – that willingness to go crack skulls with our fellow man over things that mean something, stored within the socially acceptable veneer of a pleasant viewing experience, fine gambling opportunity, and fast-food spending frenzy.  Now does football appeal to most guys (including myself) as something that requires no work but gives us immediate gratification?  Yes, but it’s much more encouraging than something like a Wii, I would argue.  See, people emulate their cultural heroes, and when your cultural heroes are men like Eli Manning, it will encourage a lot of guys to get off the couch and throw the old pigskin around just to avoid being made fun of by other guys.  This is the natural order and this is good.  But when your hero is [name of the main character in the GTA series] then not only is the overall moral influence a bad one, but there’s nothing to which it can directly conflate.  You enjoy football more if you stay fit by playing pick-up games with your friends, but you enjoy Madden blitz more if you plop down with an egg-sandwich and a controller for two hours every afternoon.  At least that’s my understanding.

As regards the rest of the article, I think that there are some problems that they’re blowing out of proportion in comparison with the way that things used to be.  Take the Playboy example, for one.  Does the cultural shift to magazines like Maxim say something bad about where we’re going?  Possibly, but since no one ever really read the articles in Playboy until after they’d burned out on the more immediate draws of the magazine, I seriously doubt that it means things have gotten that much worse in the condition of people – it just says that culture has decided to be more open about it.  Stupid sexual revolution.  At the same time, I don’t think that movies like Knocked Up represent anything salvific for our culture – I think that the only thing that will really reorient people to where they’re concerned first and foremost with responsibility and doing what ought to be done is when they read something like David Brook’s indictment of popular uncultured-culture and realize that it applies to them.

I also have some disputation on the topic of marriage, but that’s exactly why I didn’t post last week, so I don’t think that we’ll go there.

Instead, to wrap up: yes, we’re irresponsible.  But we need to draw a line between boys being boys and boys being irresponsible, and then have the cultural cajones to enforce that line.  It’s a fine balance, which will sometimes require people to tell guys that they’re being insensitive jerks (if they are), and at other times will rely on people withholding judgment and recognizing that the man in question is tackling the problems that need to be tackled – even if we don’t like what it might be doing to our world in particular.  It would require fathers to be better fathers, and mothers to better mothers, and sons and daughters to be better sons and daughters, which is, to say the least, way beyond the scope of what I can do with a xanga page. 

But for those who got something from this, consider this my admonition for you to try a little harder to go and sin no more.  After all, more influential people than I have already commanded it.

And for those who didn't get anything, Bill Watterson already went there too: "Live and don't learn, that's us."

Oh xanga.  I was never very kind to you, although you were quite kind to me.  For every little piece of my soul that I poured out into the vast and public expanse of xanga I received so much in return, but for a variety of reasons I never gave very much of myself to that end.  Some time ago, I wrote the following semi-soliloquy on the serious void in my literary expression since graduating from Webb, and it went:

"I feel that I should note that xanga entries from me come largely by some sort of inspiration.  I generally attempt to do my best to conceal most emotions other than general happiness and nice things like that, but xanga is in some ways a litmus test for when I fail at so concealing them.  This is because inspiration, as noted above the reason for my entries, so often springs from emotion.  I will write when I am depressed or sorrowful, as when my grandfather died last summer; ecstatic or overly impressed, as I was after I saw the Lord of the Rings, Return of the King on 8 stories of IMAX projection goodness last December, when I have a striking change of scenery with enough time to think about the world around me, as was the case a month or so ago when I was standing in a parking lot in freezing rain for security, or more generally when some beautiful piece of music, or highly pleasant occurrence/set of occurrences crosses my path.  This lull in my writings since coming to Hillsdale is not to imply that I haven't been happy or emotional, because I've certainly enjoyed myself here, but for some reason, the inspirational moments have been fewer and further between.  Consequently?  Maybe I need more sleep.  Maybe I need more free time.  Maybe I need to think more.  Maybe I need to stop being lazy and force myself to recognize inspiration in the world around me, then hold the thought long enough to put it in xanga.  But we'll leave that question to the philosophers."

(The quotation is from my personal journaling during my freshman year; you really don't have to cite it if you wish to copy it.)  I wrote that my freshman year here at Hillsdale, but it didn't quite seem right to say it then, nor did it for the last three years.  However, some things will never seem particularly “right” to say, but that doesn’t make them any less so, and coming to this conclusion, I decided to post it anyway.  I hope any remaining audience, and xanga itself, will have the kindness to forgive me for the fact that it took me so long to get around to realizing this.

So I'm going to try to restart this thing, not because I really think that I need what xanga has to offer, nor because I really think that anyone has to hear what it is that I have to say, but because I think that somewhere, somehow, it will do some good, and some good is always a thing worth doing.  And even if it doesn't I suppose it will make me feel a little better to have written in it.  And even if I don’t feel much better, I'm sure I can say that I did, call it good, and thereby justify the whole scheme of things.  But if someone really does find their life improved, or perhaps even changed by the experience induced here, then I suppose I'll actually be quite glad that four and a half years ago a giant accident led to the creation of this whole shebang.  And if someone really does find their life improved, I'd also appreciate royalties on the improvement.

More seriously though, I’ll be returning to write in xanga because I think that people (I in particular) have a tendency to get distracted from more important things, so for all of the communication which this page encourages, or the thought which it supports, or the understanding which it inspires, or work ethic which it induces I will write to foster these things.  Indeed, as Mr. Kierkegaard tells us, "the thing is … to find the idea for which I can live and die," and in this spirit, I will try to bring this page to focus more on higher things.  Which isn’t to say that I won't comment on politics, humor, menial occurrences, or pretty much whatever else I feel like, but the objective is for there to be a more serious inclination to the whole affair.  Now, anyone who’s been with us from the beginning, or at least taken the time to read the back issues of "pettusphile96" will recognize that this is grounds for a fairly serious departure from the way things were.  I can't really negate this, since that's basically true, and in fact, since I've also acknowledged that this page will aim for consistency only on overarching issues (like the general direction I want my life to be heading), we may well see the format largely balled up and thrown out again at some point in the future.  I'm neither so prescient nor so caring as to make any real predictions as to what this page will be like in a year or more from this shot at resuscitation, and there’s certainly room for turning off the lights, stacking the chairs on the tables, and departing for a while to collect my thoughts and writing materials before striking out again for whatever it is that I'll do here.  But then again, maybe all that destructing and rebuilding isn’t such a bad idea – a story, if I may so indulge, comes to mind.  It is that of Andrew Carnegie, who when he discovered that his entire steelworks system could be replaced with a more efficient model which produced each quantity of steel for 0.1 cents less than the current [new] model, stated "Tear them all down."  We must, as much as I despise Emerson, possess the honesty to appraise what we've done and say "it should be better," then move from there to make it so.  Hopefully our lives, like Andrew Carnegie's empire, will be a noteworthy thing because of it.  And hopefully our philosophies will, unlike Ralph Waldo Emerson's, be a good thing for the rest of the world on account of it.

So that's the idea of it – improving that which I am (and, I guess, that which my readers are, because without you it’s not much of a blog, and very much of a diary.  And diaries are kind of gay).  A daunting task, but also basically the objective of … everything.  Which makes it a thing worth doing, in my estimation.

Not unlike beating Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

By the way, by way of continuity from the former post to this one - My left shoulder recovered completely, as far as I can tell.  Props to Dr. Ryu, whom none of you will ever meet.  Nihar, if you're still out there and your should is still out, find the man and get surgery from him.  I still love yard work/landscaping, and my "sling tan" is gone.  Obviously.  Italy won the World Cup (for which I am glad) and Zinedine Zidane is a man among men who, nigh on about singlehandedly, restored my opinion of France in general (Nikolas Sarkozy may have helped) by exhibiting manly virtue in the field of play against a man who deserved it.  (Anyone, however, who didn't learn in the two ensuing years that Italy won or what was up with the controversy surrounding Mr. Zidane probably doesn't care.)  I also discovered how cool Ornithology is, continued to love Band of Brothers - and now, We Were Soldiers too - and memorized I John.

In fact, that's probably why I changed the focus.  The disciple tells us in the fifth verse of the first chapter of that epistle "that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all."  That says a lot about where we should be going, and even if it took me two years to get my head around that fact, I think my life will be better because of it.  And I sort of hope xanga will, like a cockroach after a nuclear blast, survive the change.

The recovery seems to be going smoothly.  The doctor took the stitches out last Friday (all whopping three of them), and I got the last of the bandages off, so one can now see the three little crosses/x's (depending on the angle) where they shoved needles, vacuums, camera, thread, drills, and everything else they needed into my shoulder.  My physical activities are limited to right arm and the stationary bike (so as to not jostle the newly repaired shoulder), and I still can't move my left arm, other than the one dull "nose to toes" exercise, and probably won't be able to until I get the sling off in two or three weeks (c'mon, two...), so no big news there.  Except for the stitches being out.  By the way, I've been having my parents take pictures of my shoulder as it got progressively less covered in bandages.  As we develop those, I may try to put an album of them up on facebook, or I might be lazy and just let them collect dust.  But if anyone really wants to see them (and me with my shirt off!) just bug me and I'll see what I can do.

So, since I can't drive anywhere (one arm and all), I've been spending a lot of time around the house.  And being an active boy, and there being only so many hours in a day in which one can study (or, more importantly, watch World Cup soccer on the Spanish channel), I've started doing a lot of work in our yard.  We've sort of been planning to redesign our yard and everything for some time, but my mother always had other things to do, my father never cared that much to change it, and we kids were kind of always too lazy.  But, since time was suddenly an abundance to me (and I wanted to take advantage of some of that Southern California sun), I decided to go out and take on (one-handed, no less) as many of these yard projects.  There's some gardening/pulling weeds stuff involved, but I've found that I've focused mostly on cleaning up old problems in the yard that previous homeowners and thirty years of just sitting there have left us.

For example, our side yard has always been covered in gravel, but since gravel looks ugly, I decided to move it to the bare spot where my dad parks, and I got down to the "dirt" below it.  But this was no ordinary dirt.  See, the previous owner had had a tarpaper and gravel roof (tarpaper for keeping water out, gravel to reflect the sun and decrease damage to the tarpaper), and when my parents bought the house he offered to "remove" and replace it.  And he did replace it, but his idea of removal meant knocking all of the gravel, old tar paper, and fifteen years worth of accumulated leaves and dead birds into the side yard, then covering it with fresh gravel.  So now our side yard is a foot-tall pile of dirt/dead bird covered gravel.  Great going, Norman.  And my task for this coming weekend is to remove as much of the gravel et al as I can, and maybe make it so we can plant something there, so it doesn't look like an impromptu burial ground.

Anyway, fun stuff like that has been the meat and potatoes of my work (figuratively, of course - there was no meat left on the birds), but I've also gotten a chance set up stuff for our grape vines to grow on, dig holes for and plant dahlias (sp?), grow agapanthas, and clear out rocks for a new set of irises by our front walk, which has all been sort of fun.  And not just 'fun' like 'hey at least I don't have to do this for a living' fun, but actually enjoyable.  I think I've discovered the appeal of 4-H, in teaching kids the joy and responsibility of fostering the growth of living things.  There's just something totally awesome about cultivating life.  I hope I can always have plants in my life (especially since I'm not sure if I can always have a dog, which would be way more awesome).  Plus, shoveling out holes for the irises was pleasently reminiscent of making the sandlot volleyball court back at Webb.  Best of all though, I wasn't wearing a shirt the morning I transplanted the baby agapanthas, so I now I have a sling-shaped tan on my back.

My biology classes start next week, so that might be interesting.  Hopefully?

World Cup soccer!  So the US got routed which was too bad, and we played like trash which was worse, but we've still got a shot; and to our credit, we must have done something to outrank Italy.  We just need to do it again when we play them.  England won both of theirs so far, so that was cool, and Korea had a good second half against Togo which was good, and apparently Spain massacred Ukraine.  As Seinfeld so aptly noted, "the Ukraine is weak."  And they prevented us from having the worst loss of the tournament.  Germany's doing well, Poland's in dire straits, Mexico won and tomorrow will tell more, and Trinidad and Tobago still have a good shot (metaphorically speaking) if they thump Paraguay.  Here's to making Round 2, for all of my favorite teams.  Oh yeah, and Brasil and Argentina won, but it's not like any bookie would have let you bet on that.  Kind of annoying thing - only two English channels are playing the games (ABC and ESPN2) but we don't get ESPN2 and ABC, in all of their cleverness decided that no one could possibly want to watch all of those long boring soccer games, so so far they've aired about ... three.  Fortunately though, the Spanish public access channel is airing them all.  So Walter and I watch futbol, and I translate (goooooooooooooooooooooooooool = goal).  [Sorry, my computer is refusing to add accents atm.]

We've been watching Band of Brothers (my brother, father, and I) recently.  It's just as incredibly moving as it was the first time, and even more meaningful having been through OCS (part 1).  In time, those men may be surpassed by another, greater generation, but their actions are forever an example of the valour and honour that men ought to aspire to.  Too bad the 101st only allowed one medal of honor per operation.  There was a great quote that I saw on a war memorial in Philadelphia, but I'm not finding it now; perhaps I will post it later.  Regardless, reading about World War II chokes me up.

I've been reading the Bible a lot recently (being tied to the couch and having little better to do than study), focusing mostly on John's epistles (for the moment).  I'd like to post some revelation, but "how can I understand [what I am reading] unless someone explains it to me?"  Since I'm also (now) reading the commentary, maybe I will have a better understanding in time.  Maybe I should also read the NIV instead of the KJV.

Note:  I will be down in the LA area in just over a week, buyt more briefly than usual this time.

I must now stop writing this, since I've been doing this as a hiatus from writing Aaron Hummel.  And I really need to write him before he ships out for Iraq.

If you're really squeamish about needles and stuff, don't read the next two paragraphs.

The surgery went fine, at least according to the doctor.  He gave me an eight-minute video of the surgery from inside of the arm (since they have a little camera in there anyway to let him see what he's doing), so you can see where the sub-glenohumeral ligament was torn in two (which sort of begs the question of what actually was holding my shoulder in ...?) and how the doctor pretty much sews it back together and sews everything back to the bone.  It was probably the first time I was proud of a man for his skill with the needle and thread.

After I came to from the anaesthetic (which was really powerful; they didn't even have to have me count backwards firm 100, it was so fast) they gave me an epidural/neural block administered by a shot in the base of the neck.  Now I don't really mind needles, but to be honest, I wish they'd plugged me while I was still passed out - I mean, something about getting lanced in the neck does not resonate with me.  Anyway though, this stuff worked wonders, and by worked wonders I mean 'made it so that I couldn't move my fingers.'  But this was good because where there is no movement there are no nerves [online], and where there are no nerves there is no pain, and after being stabbed in the shoulder for two hours, there was probably grounds for a lot of pain.  So they gave me a free pair of socks, and I insisted on dressing myself, and I got a ride in a wheelchair out to the car, and I came home and slept all day.  The neural block wore off some time during the night, but I didn't ever really need to take any of the Vicodin they gave me, there was so little pain.  Props to Dr. Ryu

We had an appointment the next morning, and the doctor taught me how to put on a shirt and stuff.  Now, I've been recuperating for two weeks, I ride the stationary bike when I can (since I'm not allowed to do any exercise that would jostle my shoulder), and Life Is Beautiful.  I probably have another four weeks in the sling, followed by months of low activity, but we'll cross those hurdles as they present themselves.  For the moment, I am very appreciative of all the prayers anyone has offered on my behalf, grateful to God for the apparent successes thus far, resigned to the fact that I will probably always be little Nihar, glad of the laid-back summer still before me, and totally looking forward to the World Cup.

On that note, Go Team USA!  I don't actually think we'll win, but as a rabid USofAmerican, I will cheer for our boys until the cows come home.  If I actually had money to put on it, I would call it for England, but that's just my guess.  We shall see how it all develops, once the games actually start.  By the way, does anyone know if facebook is going to run updates on it or anything?  That'd be cool if they did, but since they haven't done anything yet...

Also, I saw X3, and it was pretty sweet, but they could have done a lot more with a lot of these characters.  When the film is only 104 minutes long, either the producers are getting lazy or the moviegoers need to put some serious work into their attention spans...  I feel sort of like I did after seeing the twins in Matrix 2, like the creators had something totally awesome that they just killed off because they wanted to be done with it all.  Too bad, but still sweet.

I saw Webb's graduation last weekend too, but owing to my recuperation, I wasn't really up to doing anything else while I was down there.  I hope Webb remains a good place in the upcoming years, and I met some people who gave me good reason for some faith in its future (Dorian Sneed, Mr. and Mrs. [Harris?], Gill, etc.) but my connections with that place are practically nonexistant now.  Most of my teachers have moved on, and unless you count Dino or JinWoo, pretty much all of my friends have.  I hope that in the years to come more upstanding young men and women take the helm of that place and fight for it to continue to pursue a worthwile and honorable course, but there isn't much more that I can do to see them off in that direction.  My battles lie elsewhere now.  So good luck and Godspeed to Webb.  Maybe I'll swing by to see graduation again next year.

That's all for me, for now.  Typing with one hand is too much of a bear for me to press on.

Shoulder surgery, tomorrow morning (that's Tuesday, May 30th) at 0715 (West Coast time; that's 1015 for the East coasters and something else for those in between).  Three years after the day that Kit knocked my foot out from under me and dropped me on my left arm, first dislocating it (in all fairness it was my fault, not Kit's), I have decided to get it fixed and close this chapter of my life.  Seven dislocations seemed like quite enough, and the Marines are not a big fan of a 'broken' candidate.

Also, The Killers "Mr. Brightside" is a sweet song.  Thanks to Stephen Hann for getting me into it.

Time to go enjoy my last 18 hours of two-armed-ness.