°2005.05.27.fr | Social Difficulties
Like a mouse, I eat the crumbs of Nora's reading. Like a person who attracts mice, Nora leaves many just started and half finished books about the apartment. Sometime she even brings me treats from her circuit of thrift stores. About a year ago she brought me Dharma Punx, which contributed to my beginning a Buddhist practice in earnest. (The author, Noah Levine, now hosts meditations near NYU which I look forward to attending.) Recently, Nora brought me Marc Barasch's Field Notes on the Compassionate Life. It's an odd but excellent book: a popular science sort of book on empathy (cognitive, alterity, mirror neurons, etc.) from the perspectives of Buddha and Darwin -- my two favorite thinkers. (It's a preprint and has the sort of silly errors I don't think an author would ever make, perhaps they come from the typesetting?) I intended to make it my bedtime book, a few odd pages to savor before getting sleepy, but I get too excited reading it and hop out of bed to jot down ideas and references.
A few evenings ago, while I was reading Field Notes and Nora was reading one of her novels, I read aloud of how those with Williams Syndrome (hyper-empathy) are very fond of fiction and those with Asperger's Syndrome (mild autism) tend to read non-fiction exclusively. I thought that was interesting since the only fiction I read is science fiction, children's fantasy, and what I pick up of Nora's. Which brings me to the final book of this entry, one of Nora crumbs, Mark Hadlon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. It's written from the viewpoint of someone with Asperger's. Hadlon has worked with autistic individuals and fills the book with such detailed preoccupations: mental puzzles and maps, the Monty Hall problem, Sherlock Holmes, Star Trek, science shows, computers, etc. This causes me to wonder about the similarities to myself. But I then pause, because it is now part of the geek chic to be clever, and nerdy, and sometimes socially awkward. I think it perhaps permits one to pass the blame for being a snotty jerk.
Last week, at a birthday party, folks were talking about how amazing it is that they knew people with similar birthdays. Knowing that I was treading water, I ventured a short, simple -- and I hoped interesting -- explanation of the well-known birthday paradox in computer science. And my contribution to the conversation sank to the deep. Nora later told me "not everyone wants to be so serious." But to me, that's not serious, it's interesting and therefore fun. But I have learned and I try to ease along, and if people were doing small talk, I try to practice the Buddhist notion of "compassionate listening." But that, frankly, doesn't do the trick either since I'm somehow failing to hold up my half of the conversation. Whatever it takes to partake in ordinary social conversation, I'm not too good at it. And I don't say this as a snotty excuse. I sometimes think of myself as a social nymphomaniac: preoccupied with a pleasure that will never be achieved. My first zine, the Lone Ranger Diary was all about my search for a sense of community. I now study collaborative culture and practice empathy and compassion but remain a friendless misfit in the lonely occupation of a scholar. If it were not for Nora and my family I would be the hermit I sometimes daydream of becoming and realize it might be more of a nightmare.
On GI Joe they used to say "and knowing is half the battle!" I know that I have some issue here, but I'm no closer to the solution. I do like other nerds, but sometimes their rough edges can make it doubly difficult. And there are those of brilliant charisma with whom I feel like a successful social being, but those are the sort of people that, if they have any complaints, are overcommitted and stretched thin: they don't need any new friends. And there's 90% of the ordinary social topics that I have difficulty with: work (stressful), gossip (unappealing), and intoxicant induced silliness (of which I know nothing, regardless of how redundant the behaviour or stories). A friend, whom I fear I've alienated, used to joke about the time we went to a party and I asked some women "what interesting thing have you learned today?" I had decided that asking people about their major, or job, or what beer they were drinking was boring and unrevealing. Understanding peoples' enthusiasms was the magical ticket to social interaction. Except that these two just stared at me in shock.
A continuing puzzle without a logical solution.
°2005.05.26.th | Rasputina
Last night Nora and I walked into the mist, across the canal, and up the slope to Fifth Avenue. Rasputina was playing at a local venue, and I enjoyed the show greatly. For those from Boston, it's as if Fly Rabbit -- a store of witty greeting cards, odd little science kits, voodoo dolls, and zines, a cat and a punk girl -- had been transmuted into music. Or, as if one were going through the chest of drawers of a young eccentric Victorian.
°2005.05.17.tu | Aural Spring
The sound of a night cricket, I listen: a breeze plays amongst new leaves.
°2005.05.11.we | Ellis G 2005
On Smith St., from Union St. to Atlantic, "Ellis G" has chalked the outlines of shadows cast by the street lights. It's uncanny for some reason, particularly at night: subway rails, parking meters, cars, and even bikes no longer there but still casting a shadow.
__
Copyright 2005 NrrrdBoy. All Rights Reserved. https://goatee.net/