This Fine Social Scene

I’ve been on vacation for a week and a half now, and already, it’s been an eye-opening experience. It’s been one of my better vacations so far because I actually have friends (yay!) who think that I’m worth spending time with (double yay!). Needless to say, I always find it a little shocking when I find out that people enjoy my company. Of course, since it’s also summer, this is the time where I realize that after 10 months of busting my ass, I’m still single and lo and behold, more of my friends are married or engaged than last summer. Somehow, the calculus of relationships surprises me more than the actual mathy stuff.

I’m not writing for randomness though, I’m writing because I’ve actually been able to look around and see what we are. We here meaning the friends I’ve been spending time with. I have three groups of people I’ve been spending my time with. There’s been the posse. The last four truly single people of our friends (we like to pretend) in a sea of married, engaged and dating people. We are each other’s fortress against the romantic lives of others. We can rely on seeing each other every night, which is very comforting. When our married or otherwise engaged friends are off talking to their soulmates, we can sit around and be a little surer that we won’t be alone. It’s a harrowing time in life.

Then there’s the general high school group. Marrieds and all. It’s a fun group, but in much the same way, when you see them together, you know you’re alone. I like to believe that I’m not alone because of some character flaw (right?), but more of a matter of timing and surroundings. All that said though, it’s thrown in stark relief when you’re with the happy couples. It feels too grown up. Like next time we see each other, it’ll be over cocktails at someone’s house. And we’ll be talking about business deals. And wondering where the hell the time has gone and where our lives just went. And I’ll still be single. And of course, it’s very much a haves/have-nots situation. Money would be easier to deal with, you make a career choice and if it’s something you believe in and love for whatever reason, then hopefully the fact that you have a friend who’s making 6 figures isn’t bothering you too much. But the relationships, the shared smiles, the ability to talk for hours, the connection, and quite frankly, the touch–that have not is all the more painful. Because I don’t think many people choose to be alone, unless they absolutely have to. I once had a grad student who said that human touch is essential for happiness. I believe her more and more every day.

And the last group is the college friends. I see them in bits and pieces every week. Help a friend move here, out to dinner there, pool party etc. Some of these people I genuinely enjoy spending time around, and some seem like they really like me too. But tonight was a great example of me being able to step back and see a group that, even if I might be friends or friendly with every person in the room, I’m still disconnected. I was ready to leave by 10:20 not because the people there were boring, but because I felt like I was good for a head nod or a brief conversation, but either I wasn’t trying or wasn’t interesting, and I could just step back and see everyone have fun and almost literally disappear. No one looking my way (for about 5 minutes), just me, my towel and my thoughts. This is the group that shakes me. Is this where I’m headed? What I’m becoming? Ultimately it was fun, but I felt disposable. Smaller groups with some of these people though make me feel a little better.

These are my fine social scenes. The title is from a Zero 7 song of their latest album, “The Garden”. It’s about how we laugh and have a good time, but ultimately, we just feel more uncomfortable with the people we’re around, they bring out our insecurities, our fears and our smiles. It’s a sweet pain. You laugh while you shiver inside. It’s hard to find a place when you’re completely comfortable, and even when you do, you find that you’ve been warped by the drive that’s taken over your life, to push in class, in work, in everything, until you become a more disconnected and less whole person. I don’t know if I can go back, and I’m not sure what I’d be going back to, but the last few weeks have shown at the very least that I’m still not happy with who I am, and sometimes who I’m around. I see the cracks in my fine social scene, and I want to feel comfortable again. I don’t know where, who or how (perhaps a serious relationship), but whatever it is, I’m missing something.

Incidentally, “The Garden”, while not as consistently good as some of Zero 7′s earlier stuff, is still a very solid album. “This Fine Social Scene” and “Waiting to Die” are excellent. But don’t trust me, trust a site that knows what they’re talking about.

Vanity (originally a Facebook note)

So I don’t usually write notes…okay, I never write notes, but this is something that’s been on my mind for a while and I figure I’ll put it out there and if anyone traipses across it and has something to say, I would like to hear it.

So, I guess I’ll start by saying that it’s never sensical to take quantum mechanics and neurobiology in the same quarter, for many reasons. Of course, I’m also the guy who most people might remember at some point or another as going “Ooooh, FIRE!!!”, so clearly, I’m not one for common sense.

More importantly though is that this has been one of those stretches where what you’re learning reinforces again and again the tenuous grasp we all have on reality.

Take the brain. It’s all a bunch of chemical signals, stimulated by teeny tiny ions and small molecules. Nothing more. Know what makes a memory? Well neither do the science-y types, but it’s probably not a huge, complex trick. Just some electrical signalling footwork. And when those signals degrade, the memory fades (more or less). Voila. Nothing mystical about it, it’s just another computer.

Then quantum. Oh quantum. Two weeks ago in class, my prof was talking about….well, let’s just leave it at particles. As it turns out, there’s something called the Pauli Principle (wiki it if you’re adventurous) which basically boils down to the fact the several types of particles, including electrons and protons, cannot be in the same “place”. Why is this important? Because only one part in every 1000000000000000 (that’s 15 zeroes, it’s called a quadrillion, I had to wiki it to find it) has any actual matter in it. The rest is just empty space, while technically still an “electron” or “proton” or something else. So the Pauli Principle’s concept is the only thing keeping any of us, as mostly empty space, from falling through our chairs. Or typing through the keyboard. Or floating through the earth. Basically, imagine what it would be like to be a ghost. Maybe that’s what it’s like.

So what’s the relation between the two? It usually takes binding of something to a receptor on a neuron to trigger a signal in the brain. That means a small molecule that essentially does not exist, just a lot of bluster and a little matter, binds to something else, also heavy on hot air and light on substance, and makes you remember something. Well…kinda. Because what you remember might not be what actually happened (forget how each of us perceive reality differently). So everything, literally, every last step to what we consider so fundamental to our individuality, our mind and consciousness, is just wisps of what might actually be there.

And therefore what?

I don’t know. All I can think of is one of the few quotes I remember from learning the Chumash (Old Testament) growing up. Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), 1:2, my favorite translation: “Vanity of vanities, everything is vanity”.

At the end of the day, I guess what there might not be a whole lot that’s real in this world. Maybe the only thing we can aim for is to take whatever reality we see and give it as much meaning as possible. Life is very customizable. While it might seem like the world falls out from under you (not literally though…sorry, couldn’t resist) when you see just how flimsy reality might be, it also creates this vast open space where you fill in the details.

I think Ryszard Kapsucinski said it best:

“A person, an individual being, has a thousand ways of conveying his feelings and thoughts. He is riches without end, he is a world in which we can always discover something new.”

With the freedom you get from knowledge, you get an appreciation for the subtlety of life. We might call people multi-faceted, but we’re wrong. It’s more than that. One person has more depth than anyone can comprehend. A person is infinite.

Just a thought, but I don’t really know. I’ve rambled enough.