Harper on Tedium

The days are hot this summer and there is no rain. I water my lawn on occasion, and my neighbors water their lawns every day, and the only difference between our lawns are subtle shades of yellow and beige. Our yards are gone except for the weeds, which are flourishing, now that all of that annoying grass is no longer choking the life out of them. They are slivers of green isles in the midst of a grassy dead sea.

Today, in a heroic effort, I mowed my lawn and the clouds of dust rose, and my home became an Oklahoma farm in the midst of the Great Depression. The process of mowing the lawn accomplished nothing but it was full of rituals. The ritual of applying sunblock to myself and getting dressed in my yardwork clothes. The ritual of pulling the mower out of the garage and getting it ready to run. The ritual of saying hello to any neighbors and commenting on the heat. Surveying my lawn as if I have any idea what I am doing. Running the mower and cleaning the mower and putting the mower away. Undressing. Showering. Redressing. Dozens of things to do. Chained together, these rituals created an illusion of productivity and I am searching in desperation for a sense of productivity because it keeps the tedium at bay.

When I phone Harper and tell him about my experience he says my obsession with tedium is pathetic and he calls it a "first world problem", which is not a Harper phrase, but it is accurate phrase. Both of our houses are too hot to continue a phone debate so we agree to meet for an early dinner and talk in a dark, cool corner of our favorite restaurant.

I say, "Help me understand what is wrong with me."

"Okay..." Harper says, "What is wrong with you?"

"I don't know."

"Then...I know what is wrong with you."

"You do?"

"Yes," Harper says, "you are ignorant."

This is a typical Harper logical response. The argument is tied up in an elegant little bow that looks pretty and accomplishes nothing. I try my best to look very annoyed and Harper sees it.

"Of course," Harper says, "People don't want to be ignorant, they want to have opinions because no one wants to look stupid, although "stupid" is a word often substituted for "ignorant", which is not the same as "stupid". If you did not know this, you are not stupid, just ignorant. If you are insulted that I just called you ignorant, as people often are, go look up the definition of the word "ignorant", because, if you don't, and you continue to believe that I just insulted you by calling you ignorant, you are being stupid."

This is typical Harper emotional response. He probably isn't insulting me but I am never completely sure. I try my best to look more annoyed, simply because I don't know what else to do.

"The good news," Harper says, "is that we all can address ignorance by putting in time and effort, and utilizing the proper resources, to reach a well-informed opinion. Before doing that, however, we need to take the time to decide if we really are passionate about an idea. If we don't care about an idea, we don't have to have an opinion. I know it feels like we should have an opinion, but we really, really don't. We need to accept our ignorance and truthfully say that we really don't know."

"Harper?"

"Yes?"

"Can you help me or not?"

Harper thinks for a long time. He strokes his non-existent beard. He thumps his temples. He grimaces and shrugs and winces. All for my benefit.

Then he says, "You don't need help."

"Why not?"

"Because your problem is that you are human."

I say, "There's not a lot I can do about being a human."

"That's true," Harper says, "But you can stop looking at being human as a problem."

"What do you mean?"

Harper says, "Humans spend so much of their lives trying to understand all of the big questions. Sure, we spend plenty of time and effort worrying about what shirt to wear in the morning, or how our children are doing in school, or whether or not the current traffic will make us late for work, but we have also spent an inordinate amount of time and effort on philosophy, theology, and psychology as well. We worry about the absurdity of the human condition, the finality of death and dying, the existence of God, the essence of reality, the origins of the universe and time and matter and energy, to the detriment of living. Do you understand what I mean?"

"I'm not sure I do."

"Maybe we should break this down into specific pieces. What is bothering you right now?"

I say, "I guess I feel ambivalent."

"Could you possibly be any less specific?"

"I don't think so."

"Then you probably should be more specific."

"I don't think I can. Questions about my emotions are difficult to answer. Not that I have a problem with sharing how I feel...on the contrary, I am often too blunt...but I don't always know exactly what it is I am feeling."

"Then you are probably stuck in the middle of a dichotomy."

"What does that mean?"

Harper says, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and that was the first dichotomy, and ever since then humans have been creating dichotomies of our own, an attempt to derive Order from Chaos, which is a significant part of being human. We created Good and Evil, and Happiness and Sadness, and Virtues and Vices, and we exercised Prudence in order to decide where it would be best to reside within the dichomtomy because the human condition does not live in either of the extremes, we exist in the blended grays in between, and when our dreams and fantasies gravitate towards one extreme we feel the pull of the other extreme because we need balance to keep us from flying off into a cold, chaotic void of space."

Then, he says, "There is another dichotomy between the extremes of Tedium and Adventure, of Boredom and Stress, of Contentment and Excitement, and it measures our movements along these other dichotomies, how fast, how often, how extreme, and you are static, at the extreme of Tedium, in the center of the human condition, at the crossroads of all of our dichotomies, like the spokes of a wheel with you in the center, in the calm dead silence of the eye of the storm, while all around you life rages on, and while you cannot feel life, you are aware that it is out there and this fills you with despair."

Then, he says, "You are in that time between time, waiting for something to happen, and remembering something that has already happened."

"You mean the present."

"Yes, from the perspective of time it is the present, but it is only one kind of present. I mean, it is a present, but it is a destructive kind of present because, within the context of the mind, a present can be reality or it can be something else entirely."

"Some sort of tedium, something like limbo."

"In Dante's Inferno, the first circle of Hell was Limbo, a kind of catchall for people that he liked and respected who died in original sin, and it is very much like life on Earth. So, Limbo is Hell, but life is not Limbo, it's not a waiting room, waiting is a choice, something that we control. You need to understand that all of us have the power to stand up and leave, and that all we ever need to do is to do something else."

"And what is the 'something else'?"

"Presently, the 'something else' is picking up the check for a meal with a very dear friend who has imparted a tremendous amount of wisdom upon you and has, up to this point in time, asked for nothing in return. After that, you are on your own."

Confronted with Harper's infallible logic, there was but one choice. I paid for our meals and exited the restaurant. Then, I went back into the real world and started looking for something else to do.

Harper on Phantom Wings

There are just the two of us, Harper and I, and we are talking in the dark corner of an all night diner where you can still find a waitress who wears too much perfume and calls everyone 'Honey'. I like to talk to Harper because he's the only person I know who is stranger than me. He also loves words and often mangles the English language in pursuit of that passion.

When two people are first falling in love and they form that little microcosm in which only they exist, Harper calls that the "hamster ball".

When a person discusses something passionately, flailing their arms around like Kermit the Frog on crack cocaine, Harper calls that going "Muppet Buck Wild".

When someone feels particularly emotional and is trying to explain how they feel, and their spoken words are coming out fast and twisted, Harper calls that either a "tangly ramble" or "rambly tangle" or "tangled rambly" or "rambled tangly" or a variety of other permutations. He says all these phrases are synonymous and interchangeable because the semantics are far more important than the syntax, and that, if a "ramble tangle" doesn't care about its order or grammar, then the phrase that describes it shouldn't care about its order or grammar either.

Tonight, we are discussing a phrase that he uses quite often and the phrase is "phantom wings".

Sometimes he says, "My phantom wings are killing me."

Sometimes he says, "Someone should check on her phantom wings."

Sometimes he says, "Stop crushing my phantom wings."

Every time he uses this phrase, as beautiful as it sounds, he confuses people, until he takes the time to explain that the phrase "phantom wings" refers to feeling stressed. This is a sufficient enough explanation for a majority of people. They hang the syntax in their memory banks and hook it up to the appropriate semantics and transparently translate the phrase the next time Harper mentions "phantom wings".

My memory banks don't work that way because my memory banks need concepts and stories to make connections. Besides, Americans have entirely too many unexplained colloquialisms in English as it is and, if Harper gets hit by a bus tomorrow -- which is not completely outside the realm of possibilities considering his inability to pay attention to the external world -- Americans will be stuck with one more.

So I say, "What are phantom wings?"

And he automatically says, "If I mention phantom wings, it means I am feeling stressed."

"Yes, I know that, but why?"

Harper sighs and says, "Takes too long to explain."

But I know Harper and when he says something takes too long to explain, it simply means I have to keep listening until he starts to talk again.

So, I listen, until he starts to talk again.

"In the beginning, there was God and God was the creator and the universe was his Magnum Opus and, when he finished, there the universe existed before time. It was good and the universe was a thing in and of itself, and its purpose was itself, but a work of art is not complete without an audience and the audience had to consist of sentient and rational creatures so that the universe would convey purpose beyond its mere existence. So God created angels as his audience for his work of art. But angels already had total knowledge of everything through their connection with God, so there was no mystery. God was not a Faith for the angels, he was a Fact. There was no conflict and, therefore, no drama, and, therefore, no context of conflict and drama in which a story could unfold through time and this make the universe static. There was only an infinity of praising and glorifying God until the fall of Lucifer and when Lucifer fell, he lost his wings."

"Sorry?" I said, "What version of the bible have you been reading?"

"What do you care? You're agnostic."

"Doesn't mean I don't respect a good book when I read it."

"I'm not being disrespectful. Every good reader who reads a good book sees their stories between the lines. I'm just telling you mine. You want to hear the rest of it or not?"

"Yes."

Harper stared at me, tilting his head.

"Yes!" I said, "I want to hear the rest...sorry..."

"Lucifer was delivered to the Lake of Fire, but hubris is the greatest of all sins, so Damnation was not sufficient punishment. So, God created phantom wings, a remembrance of was it was to be winged and knowledge of was it is to never being winged again and he cursed Lucifer with their bodily pain, carried just above his shoulder blades, as an added reminder of all that he had sacrificed. Lucifer's banishment created the dichotomy of Good and Evil and within those two extremes the angels saw that there existed many shades of gray and they asked God if they could enter into those shades and if they could praise and glorify him with their Faith and without their wings and God was pleased with their Faith so he created human beings as angelic avatars which allowed the angels to experience his universe in a uniquely human way. But, in order to turn God from Fact to Faith, the angels had to forget everything they knew and enter the human condition as a blank slate and God knew that this would cause despair so he gave each human a pair of phantom wings, a much milder form of Lucifer's punishment, to remind them of who they really were."

"And how did you find your phantom wings?" I asked.

"When I feel anxiety or sadness or despair, I dream, and when I dream, I have many symbols and settings and situations that recur in those dreams. Sometimes I think I have an unconscious treasure trove of stress in abstract forms buried somewhere in my mind because many of the dreams are the same. I am late for work, or I can't find my clothes, or I can't find my car, or I have a school assignment due even though I haven't been in school for years. In this dream, all other dreams coalesced, causing two knots of tension in my upper back. And though I don't remember all of the details of the dream, I do remember that it culminated in a scene in a large retail store where I was operating a cash register without any knowledge of how the machine worked and all around me were angry customers waiting for me to finish a complex and unsolvable business transaction. As the crowd threatened to crush me on all sides, the tension above my shoulder blades increased to an unbearable, pulsating pain and then two immense white wings burst through my flesh and muscle, unfurling and flapping with unprecedented power and the crowd was buffeted backwards by the force and I skyrocketed upwards through the ceiling and roof of the store and rose above a cloud cover in the sky until all below me was an endless floor of white mist and all around me was a glorious sunset of reds and oranges and pinks and purples and I felt an overwhelming, giddy joy, an ecstasy, that I knew only as a muted and filtered, human-sized portion of the infinite love of God."

After we finished our food and the table had been cleared and the waitress had brought us our check, I picked up the tab, with no argument from Harper, and I paid for both of our meals. It seemed a reasonable price for the discovery of the presence and purpose of my phantom wings.

Harper on Love and Omelettes

The phone was ringing at 3:00 am.

I knew because I looked at my digital clock just after it started ringing.

It could only be Harper, because he is my only friend that calls me at 3:00 am. No human being should be doing anything at 3:00 am. You are either up too late or getting up too early. That is how normal human beings behave. But Harper has never behaved like a normal human being, so I picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey."

"Harper?"

"Yes, it's me, sorry to wake you, but did you ever wonder about friendship?"

"Yes," I said, "I am wondering about friendship right now...do you know what time is it?"

"No, I don't know."

"Of course you don't."

"You ever wonder about friendship?"

"Yes, I already said I did."

"I have a problem," Harper said, "and I thought you could help me out as part of the friendship thing we do."

People often ask me about the "friendship thing that Harper and I do", because they find Harper difficult to be around for more than a handful of minutes. He is difficult, I won't deny an obvious truth. Still, if you have a Harper in your life, I suggest tuning into the tangled rambles they weave.

After a tough day of work, eight to fourteen hours of facing people who are stupid or crazy or cruel, I like to settle down and immerse myself in the experience of a conversation of ideas. This is my mental comfort food, words that are mystical, magical, abstract, obtuse, fractals of facets of Real Truth. When I crave mental white noise of the highest caliber, Harper is the best source I know. His words quiet me and I am comforted.

"What is your problem?" I asked.

"I think I am in love."

"Why is your love my problem?"

"Because I don't know if I am am in love and you probably do."

"Fair enough," I said, "Why do you think you are in love."

"Because I just flipped a woman a perfect omelette."

A moment of respectful silence from Harper and myself ensued, because a moment of respectful silence is what is appropriate for those people who understand the importance of flipping the perfect omelette. Flipping the perfect omelette is a labor of love, and flipping the perfect omelette for someone you love is the most perfect manifestation of simple and elegant and sublime and perfect love.

For those of you who don't understand, let me lay out the complete list of the challenges that await you. All of the decisions and permutations, the frustrations and barriers, the quintessential essence of flipping a perfect omelette.

Better yet, let me lay out for you Harper's description. I've had to listen to it at least a dozen times, so you all can certainly experience it once:

"Many decisions go into flipping the perfect omelette. First, you need to decide on two eggs or three, and then, you need to decide on how much salt and pepper to add, and then, you need to decide if you need to add a small amount of water or milk or nothing at all, because some people say that the eggs should be pure, and some people say the eggs should be fluffy, and some people say the eggs should be creamy, and then, you need to decide how to mix the eggs, because you can use a whisk, or a fork, and you can spend a lot of time, or a little bit of time, on the mixing process, and you can make the mixture bubbly or smooth, as I mentioned before, and the texture of the mixed eggs depends a lot on all of your previous decisions, but it doesn't end there, because then, you need to prepare the pan, probably a ceramic pan is best, because it is non-stick and easy to clean, but traditionalists love a cast iron, and there are lots of reasons why cast iron is both good and bad, but we need to keep focused on the task at hand, so, then, you need to select a good size, I have tried eight inch, and ten and one half inch, and twelve inch, and all three have pros and cons, but the eight inch gives you the most cooking and flipping control, and then, you need a nice thin and narrow spatula that can handle fragile items like eggs, and you need to select the heat of the burner, somewhere between medium and medium high, because eggs that cook too fast get rubbery, and eggs that aren't cooked enough are runny, and then, select butter, or cooking oil, or both, to add to the pan, and after the eggs start cooking, you need to decide if you will scrape the egg mixture with your spatula and let it settle, or if you will simply let it cook on its own, then, you need to decide if you will fold it over in half or in a three folds, and then, you need to decide if the middle will be wet or dry before the flip, but before all of that, you need to decide on the central ingredients, because some ingredients have more water and some ingredients have less, so you need to decide how wet the inside of your omelette is going to be, because no one likes a soggy omelette, and no one likes a dry omelette, so it has to be just perfect, which is to say that it is pale yellow, and not too brown, on the outside, and perfectly folded along whatever creases you decided upon earlier, which is not an easy thing to do if you mess up the flip, so you need a good flipping technique, flipping just with the spatula, or with both the spatula and the pan, and it needs to be firm on the outside, and tender on the inside, and all of the ingredients need to be nestled comfortably inside the well-cooked confines, and it need to look good, and smell good, and feel good while you are cutting it with a utensil, and feel good while you are chewing and swallowing it, and taste great...and that's it."

And that's it. The mastermind at work.

"Did she like it?" I asked.

"Like it?" Harper asked.

"Yes, did she enjoy the omelette that you prepared for her?"

"I don't know. Can you tell me how I would know that?"

"Did she eat it all and leave an empty plate?"

"Yes."

"Then she enjoyed eating the omelette."

There was a very long pause on the phone while Harper thought about this.

"She enjoys eating the omelette as much as I enjoy creating it?"

"Yes."

"The word 'enjoy' means the same thing for both of us?"

"Yes."

"You don't know that for sure. You are lying."

"Partially."

"Why are you partially lying?"

"Because you probably are in love and it is easier to agree with people who are in love than to argue with them."

"And..."

"And because I am half asleep and I really would like to be fully asleep again in the very near future."

"And..."

"And because, even on my best days, I don't know what love is."

"Why?"

"Because no human being knows exactly. It's just something you have to experience yourself."

"I'm not sure if you know this about me," Harper said, "but I'm not very good at just jumping into things without first doing a thorough analysis."

"I do know that about you, yes."

"And love is considerably more complex than an omelette."

"I believe, in most cases, that is correct."

Another long pause on the other side of the phone, then Harper hung up. Letting me go back to sleep was his way of showing his appreciation for my advice.

The love story does not last very long. Harper was slow to share his feelings although I imagine a considerable amount of thought went into them. I would inquire from time to time how things were going and received very little feedback for my efforts. The mystery lady was never revealed to me and one day, a few months later, she had faded away from his life.

Still, one has to crack a few eggs to make an omelette, and, in Harper's case, he just kept on cracking. His brief love affair, and the subsequent months after the breakup, provided me with some of the best impromptu brunches I have ever eaten: scrambled eggs with lobster, poached eggs topped with caviar, roasted asparagus and soft eggs on toast, crab cakes eggs benedict, huevos rancheros with shrimp, chipotle deviled eggs, curried egg salad with truffles, smoked salmon tarts, custards, flans, and creme brulees. It was a period of unbridled creative energy, completely unexpected, brilliantly executed, and absolutely delicious.

Then, one day, as I showed up at Harper's apartment, my mind spinning with the culinary possibilities of the humble egg, and he served me a cheese omelette.

"What's this?" I asked.

"It's a cheese omelette," Harper said.

"I know what it is..."

"I gave the matter a lot of thought," Harper said, "and I decided that I like omelettes best of all."

I nodded in agreement and began to eat. I like omelettes best of all, too.

Typical Morning Thoughts

The day starts like any other day and I am up when I am up and my mind reboots into reality and what a harsh reality it can be.

But today is the day and I am going to live in the moment and not let my past make me cringe in regret and I am not going to let my future loom before me in a messy mass of uncertainty and worry and fear.

I am not perfect, but I am going to be the best person I can be, the full package, not perfect, but not the worst, perhaps a bit quirky, I mean, it's not like I am crazy or dangerous or anything, although I do spend a lot of time talking to myself, but...

Today is my day, and today I am going to utilize my energy and time in positive ways, aside from the nine hours of work and the eight hours of sleep and the hour or two of commute time and...

Wait...what does that add up to?

Nine and eight and two and...did I include eating? I have to include eating, I'm not a machine, for crying out loud. I can't just go full throttle and not eat, I might pass out at work...

Gotta get to work...wait...what time it is?

Is that clock set to the correct time or is that the clock I set twenty minutes ahead to make sure that I am never late? Should I be recalculating the time like that? I shouldn't, right? That defeats the purpose of setting it forward.

Holy crap! Is that the TIME!?

Wait...no, that's the stove clock I forgot to set backwards for Daylight Savings Time. Almost gave myself a heart attack, which is probably not far off in my future at the rate I am going. I need to exercise more. I should eat better food.

Who ever sets the stove clock anyway? I guess it got set at some point. It doesn't blink 12:00 like the microwave.

Why does the microwave have so many buttons and features? Has anyone used the "soften" button in the history of microwaves with a "soften" button? Whatever happened to simple elegance in interface design?

The toilet. Simple design. One control. One result. Unless it gets plugged. Then, it has two possible results. I don't like the second result.

I should probably set the microwave clock.

How do I set the microwave clock?

I should probably set the stove clock.

How do I set the stove clock?

Why does my kitchen smell weird? Is it onions? Did I cook something with onions last night? Was it the night before?

Why do we even eat onions, they smell horrible! Whose responsible for eating the first onion? Who would want to do that? Did they just eat a raw onion like an apple and conclude, with that strong and harsh flavor, that onions weren't poisonous?

Is it rotten chicken? Did I cook chicken this week?

I should run the garbage disposal. I should squirt dish soap in first and then run the garbage disposal.

Is there anything in the garbage disposal that I can't see? Like a spoon? Will it break if I turn it on? How can I tell? Should I reach in?

What if I was reaching into the garbage disposal and the power surged in some weird way and the garbage disposal turned on and chopped up my hand? What would I do? Is that normal to think about having my hand chopped up in the garbage disposal? Do other people think about losing their hand in a garbage disposal or am I just weird?

No, I'm not weird. I'm...actually...I'm lucky...I should feel lucky. I have a good job and both of my hands and I am fairly healthy and I'm not dead, yet. That's pretty good. Especially the death part.

Assuming that death is worse than existence, that is. Which it might not be. I mean, it's either pure love or non-existence or reincarnation...or Hell, but, come on, that seems a bit pessimistic, even for me, so it's probably reincarnation because that's the most difficult one to deal with once you throw Hell out of the mix.

That would just figure, right? Billions of years...over and over...of...this...

Plus, who knows? Why should I even be reincarnated as a human? Why should it even be on Earth? Maybe I will end up as a pile of intelligent orange goo on some distant planet in some distant galaxy. There's an awful lot of space in space. I could be anything, anywhere, at any time. Would the quality of my life be better or worse?

Quality of life is important. I have a good quality of life. I'm lucky, really.

My quality of life would definitely be worse if I chopped off my hand. I will just run the garbage disposal without checking.

Smells better. Must have been rotten chicken in the garbage disposal.

I should try to find the manual for the stove clock.

It's getting late, I have to get going. I have to get to work. That was a waste of time. Completely unproductive. Maybe I can make up the time on my lunch break.

Where's my lunch?

My coffee? My keys? My wallet? My shaver? My jacket? My book? My snack? My water?

Where's that thing that I am going to forget until I start driving for about five minutes?

Got 'em.

Gotta get going. Gotta go. Gotta get through this day. Gotta make it count.

Life...it's still there.

The subtle art of saying nothing

There are a lot of things I know but there will always be more things that I don't know.

I accept my ignorance because I understand that existence is a complex process and human beings are complex creatures and societies are complex organizations and I am stuck right in the middle of it all and I am never going to fully comprehend any of it.

To deal with all of this complexity, we accept a lot of simple opinions and ideas without questioning and researching what they really mean. These ideas become our intellectual equivalence of browsing a greeting card aisle to avoid the time and effort of expressing ourselves through our own original thoughts and words.

Bumper sticker intellect.

Shrink-wrapped and fun-sized opinions.

They are mobile and convenient and a perfect accessory for that busy person on the go.

I understand.

People want to have opinions because no one wants to look foolish, although "foolish" is a word often substituted for "ignorant", which is not the same as "foolish". If you did not know this, you are not foolish, just ignorant. If you are insulted that I just called you ignorant, go look up the definition of the word "ignorant", because, if you don't, and you continue to believe that I just insulted you by calling you ignorant, that's foolish.

The good news is we can address ignorance by putting in time and effort, and utilizing the proper resources, to reach a well-informed opinion. Before doing that, however, take the time to decide if you really are passionate about an idea. If you don't care about an idea, you don't have to have an opinion. I know it feels like you should have an opinion, but you really, really don't.

Just accept your ignorance and truthfully say: "I don't know".

Or perhaps: "I don't have an opinion."

Or even: "Hmmmm..."

which is an effective, noncommittal way of moving a conversation forward if you happen to be stuck talking to a person discussing a topic on which you have no interest nor opinion. It's bound to happen time and time again.

And even if you have a well-informed opinion you still might want to consider using these noncommittal conversational techniques, because most people don't want to hear about your well-informed opinions, and have very strong opinions about where your well-informed opinions should go, particularly if they are opposed to their own opinions. Revealing, or even feigning, your ignorance will allow the other person to continue to express their opinions, without you having to agree or disagree with them, which will make you appear more intelligent and interesting.

In this way, a paradox is born in which ignorance becomes knowledge and apathy becomes compassion and silence becomes intellect and wisdom and power, and all you have to do is say nothing.

Which sounds easy...but is a surprisingly difficult thing for people to do.

Introspection of introversion

My sister, who is not as much of an introvert as I am, sent me, who is more of an introvert than she is, a link to one of many metadata sites that contains a popular cartoon guide to understanding introverts.

http://atchuup.com/how-to-understand-introverted-people/

It is a fairly good description, somewhat oversimplified, but I support the effort of any introvert, or extrovert, to try and understand introversion, and to communicate that understanding. I believe we are at a point in history where this understanding is critical because, as we are redefining our roles within the Information Age, many of us are gravitating towards introversion anyway. I am observing more and more people, particularly younger people, who behave like I do.

Does an introvert actually have Asperger Syndrome or ADHD or could some cases simply be a manifestation of the skills necessary to exist in the Information Age? Are we treating a disease or a personality? Are we medicating a disorder or a shift in a societal paradigm?

Maybe we should invent a drug that cures people of our pathological inability to look up from our mobile devices, because, let's face it, we all look like fools.

One of my favorite movies is a film by the guy who did "Boyhood", Richard Linklater, and it is called "Waking Life". It is just a collection of vignettes without a real plot, discussing intimate and interesting ideas. One vignette features a writer friend of Linklater, Kim Krizan, and she discusses the need to create as a need to communicate, and a need to communicate as a need to be intimately understood, and how difficult it is to be understood though language and words. I don't know if everyone feels this way, but for me, this passage describes the root of who I am and what motivates me:

Creation seems to come out of imperfection. It seems to come out of a striving and a frustration. And this is where I think language came from. I mean, it came from our desire to transcend our isolation and have some sort of connection with one another. And it had to be easy when it was just simple survival. Like, you know, "water." We came up with a sound for that. Or "Saber-toothed tiger right behind you." We came up with a sound for that. But when it gets really interesting, I think, is when we use that same system of symbols to communicate all the abstract and intangible things that we're experiencing. What is, like, frustration? Or what is anger or love? When I say "love," the sound comes out of my mouth and it hits the other person's ear, travels through this Byzantine conduit in their brain, you know, through their memories of love or lack of love, and they register what I'm saying and they say yes, they understand. But how do I know they understand? Because words are inert. They're just symbols. They're dead, you know? And so much of our experience is intangible. So much of what we perceive cannot be expressed. It's unspeakable. And yet, you know, when we communicate with one another, and we feel that we've connected, and we think that we're understood, I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion. And that feeling might be transient, but I think it's what we live for.

Interactions that are intimate and interesting. Feeling understood and understanding others. Anything beyond that feels like a waste of time and energy. Once that transient moment of understanding is shared with another, it is time to end the conversation and recharge. Time to go back and learn, or experience, something new again, alone, so that, at the next encounter, there something new to share and understand. This drives a need to create and a need to pursue new ideas. If these are the traits of an introvert then I am an introvert. But first and foremost, I am me.