on toilets

In the early 1800's aristocrats in England began using an indoor flushing toilet, an invention to increase comfort and sanitation. Roughly a hundred years later many Americans had ditched the outhouses and evolved. We brought the toilet inside as a mark of prestige. We brought it inside to keep warm, to enable increased magazine perusal, to sit on while sisters curled one's hair. We named it toilet after such preparations. We brought it inside our homes, with our parlors and our beds, and then we quickly put up a door to hide it.

Everyone poops, according to children's author Taro Gomi. So why is it that we cannot talk about it? I'm not advocating body humor--in fact it annoys me--but I am asking this question. Children are originally content to evacuate in diapers, until they are trained otherwise. Shame quickly develops in young ones who potty train slowly. Eventually they learn to separate themselves from the actions of their bodies and to close the door when they're done. We pretend it doesn't happen.

In fiction, functional use of a bathroom is most conspicuously absent. I wondered in Harry Potter five how on earth all of the characters could hold their bladders for nearly twenty-four consecutive hours (from before the History of Magic OWL to the temper tantrum of Harry's after dawn the next morning). In histories too there is no mention of how pioneers snowed into cabins handled the frequent needs of the inmates. Maybe it's unpleasant, maybe it's gross, but maybe it's just natural and these are things we wonder about. The reason for the immature humor surrounding words like poop and fart and gas (get over it!) is because we cannot use them. The reason for stupid euphemisms is that people are embarrassed at saying the words in proper context. Say it: excrement, urine...penis.

That's another thing: sex. People used to live in one-room cabins and cottages or on farms. Even children knew what sex was, and what's more, they knew when their parents engaged in it. I don't want to know about the sex-lives of my parents, not at all, but I wonder at the taboo surrounding open discussions. Along comes the Victorian age and increased income per capita. All of a sudden families could afford larger homes and separate bedrooms, and once again a door covered a natural physical function of human life. One no longer saw sex, therefore one couldn't discuss it. Pregnant women--event legitimate married women--were hidden away for the duration of their pregnancy because society didn't want them advertising the fact that they had intercourse. Never mind the proof in form of a baby later. We, ladies and gentlemen, are all products of sex.

There are many things that are simply taboo to discuss in this culture, and in many others. In Hinduism and Judaism a woman is considered unclean when menstruating. In Hindu culture, she must eat alone and with special utensils so as not to defile others. In Jewish history, a woman has been required to perform a sin sacrifice each month. You know what? I can't ask a girl in my class for a tampon, because then everyone will know I am menstruating. It happens once a month, and maybe if you knew it (without going into details) you'd understand why I'm suddenly crying at Star Trek.

We don't talk about anything negative, those slimy gross things we try to hide: divorce, eating disorders, mental illness, aging, genocide. Why don't we talk about these? If they are wrong, they will not go away without discussion, without voice.

And why is it that so many things that are good are also silenced when society deems them uncomfortable topics? Bodies, we do not talk about the flesh of our bodies unless it is to criticize (that's a-ok by the media) but God gave us these bodies to love and to use, yes even in ways that we try to hide. Everyone poops, and everyone should be lucky enough to enjoy sex with someone beloved. Yet nudity is frightening and bodies a squirmy topic of conversation.

Emotions. Emotions are messy, and deeply, deeply personal. We handle them with a twelve-foot pole if at all. Exaggerations of them are paraded on HBO and the WB and we gorge ourselves on mockery. The true homey and good feelings are ignored quietly like anything behind closed doors. We rarely discuss love in real life. We cannot share our emotions with others because such raw sharing is equivalent to opening all the doors in our houses, the ones meant to hide bedrooms and bathrooms from visitors. I cannot tell you I love you, or that I'm sad, or that I am frightened for my dad or of the future. You ask me, "how are you" and society dictates that I answer, "I'm fine."

I go on this rant about opening these doors, when I am not convinced all doors should be opened. I feel confined to my island when I cannot share how I feel or what I am thinking; but were social restraints removed, I don't know if I could give that much of myself to you. The idea is as foreign to me as leaving the stall door open when I am using the bathroom.

random rewards

B. F. Skinner, pioneer in behavioral psychology, conducted infamous tests on rats and pigeons to discover reactions to reward. He found he could teach a mindless animal to do a very complicated task simply by breaking said task into small increments and rewarding the animal every time it incidentally completed a step. He got pigs to vacuum. He found that as soon as the reward was taken away or a punishment induced, the animal desisted from said behavior. They persisted most determinedly, however, if the reward was given at random intervals, unpredictably interspersed with punishment, on the off-chance that a reward would be given. Everyday example: a girl waits by the phone for hours despite the fact that her boyfriend rarely calls.

I was thinking about Skinner today because I was ready to give up on my dad. He hasn't really been Dad in a long time, and I am afraid of him in those times when he doesn't really register my presence and annoyed with him when he does see me and ignores me. I try, less and less frequently, to have a relationship with him. I recently invited him to a John Wayne movie and he told me that he didn't want to. He didn't even pretend to be busy. He never comes to family events and he is now talking of moving to New Mexico (don't get me started on him and his plans!) In the year I lived in Texas he never called me once. So I don't try too much anymore.

But today I was given three free tickets to the BYU basketball game. I invited my friends initially, but I was given chair seats, so I couldn't sit with the fourth if she came via and all-sports pass. So I tried to figure out whom to take. In a fit of who knows what--a last ditch effort maybe--I called my dad. Not only did he answer the phone but he also agreed with enthusiasm to come. I was speechless (which is itself a figure of speech since I usually wax gregarious). The conversation didn't last long but it left me feeling bemused. Dad's behavior, completely inconsistent, makes it impossible for me to give up. Every once in a while, sometimes after long spells of decline and disinterest, my dad surfaces for a day or an hour of a relationship. For those moments, I keep trying and probably will keep trying despite common negative results. I am no more an agent unto myself than Skinner's vacuuming pigs.

idle minds

Life is noisy. Even the mind cannot shut out the background distractions, the parts of the brain that keep tickertape on your spending and a laundry list of things to-do in case one has a spare moment (for we must avoid those devilishly idle hands). In class, professors tell us what they think and what Great Thinkers have thought before us. What do you think about those thinkers, their tests ask us, and from a more practical standpoint, what will the professor think about what we think about these thinkers? My sisters quote movies at me, and while I am responding to the situation at hand my brain is scouring my repertoire to find the right character with the right voice with the right line who matches not only what was said but what I am expected to say next. It’s like I’m in a play with a script the length of all media I’ve consumed in days past. Think, think, think. Did you get that reference? Are you on your toes?

Sometimes I just want the world inside my head to be a little less bombarded by the world outside it. I need to stop thinking what I’ll term as motor thoughts. These are the types of thoughts that get us from one place to the next, that get us through a test, a conversation, a chore. These are like motor skills, those which result in motion, the more precise the better. Thoughts can be like that: some result in motion through life, some quite task-specific and others rather more foundational. Converse to motor thoughts are latent thoughts, as related to the first as potential energy is to kinetic energy in physics. The two cannot exist at the same time. Sometimes I need latent thoughts.

Latent thoughts are always there, but they are quiet, so quiet that the rest of the mind must be absolutely still in order to hear them. They are Potential. These are personal philosophies, dreams and creative energy. We have worlds inside our heads waiting for our God-like forces to unleash them. But we never pause long enough to understand. Self-reflection is a way to listen to latent thoughts. Journal writing, poetry, art, a long walk dedicated to observing. These are ways in which we begin to listen to the little voices inside, these little voices which sound somewhat arbitrary (for they are not relevant to the external world of motor thoughts) and oftentimes deep in some silly way. It is when we are listening quite hard that new ideas begin to form and God-dropped seeds begin to ferment and grow.

I have never wondered the purpose of my existence in the same moment in which I am balancing my budget. I have never let my mind trace the edges of eternal mysteries when I’ve gone over a class syllabus. I don’t dwell on hope and love and dreams when I am watching Arrested Development. But I can do those things when I take make the conscious effort to stop thinking my motor thoughts, to leave the world of kinetics behind. Then I am free to focus on Potential.

on being shallow

I'm tired of comedies not winning Best Picture. Juno was good, and I want it to win this year. Why is it that we assume pain is more profound than joy, or that "deep" writing is better composed than something that makes us laugh? In my creative writing class, everyone has handed in poignant and pretentious essays on the most severe tragedies of their lives. They get back shining reviews from the class, because who can criticize your writing when you've just found your brother's body? Does it matter that your voice was irritating or your sentences were so identical in structure that it read like a cookbook? I still--still--can't say anything because your brother was on drugs. Damn, hand her the trophy for best writing! Sure, the writing sucked, but you have to be nice to cry babies.

For my essay I wrote something light, something pointless, something funny. I did it out of anger, and I am most funny when I am mad. I wrote about food, the things Joyce and I ate when we were growing up. How did it go over in the workshop?

Praise:
engaging voice
gripping first sentence, we're hooked the whole way through
I laughed and laughed
great puns
the swearing helped put an adult twist on a child's perspective.
really descriptive
good continuity
fun theme
very well written

Criticism:
I'd like you to develop this into a deeper theme, maybe comment more on your relationship with Joyce. I want more depth to your feelings.

Which won out? They spent fifteen minutes on the criticism and in the end everyone quickly listed the good points. All the ones I included came from the professor himself. In the end my essay was viewed as having a lot of potential...if only I had put in some sob story about how Joyce and I had drifted apart.

I think I'll use this rant as theme for my next essay and see what they do about that. I hope they tell me again that I have a lot of potential, because that is my favorite backward comment, one that says I'm not good yet. I love it.