Cappy

I don’t believe that, if you wish it enough, things will work out the way you like. And hope, to me, is pretty useless when there is no evidence that you will achieve the thing you hope for. Especially when you are trying for something that has been proven as failed time and time again. There is nothing wrong with hope, but if it gives you a willingness to evade reality and ignore the proper path, then you’d best find something else to pull you along, like reason.

A while back malignant tumors were removed from my granddad’s gallbladder. A few months later he went in for a checkup, and more tumors had grown in their place. So we can say, without a doubt, that he has cancer, and that it’s bad, though containable. But my granddad has decided that from now on, he will shun conventional medicine in favor of homeopathy.

For those of you unaware, homeopathy is basically the creation of highly expensive tonics that contain substances which, in diluted form, cause symptoms similar to the disease they are supposed to treat. This, in theory, upsets the disease paradigm, or some such nonsense, and makes the bad things go away (it should be noted that the very nature of the treatment requires that the patient get worse before they get better, which is great for the doctors pushing this stuff). I would suggest reading the Wikipedia article on Homeopathy, as well as the corresponding references. It makes the case pretty clear that homeopathy is little more than a placebo. Taking the medicines would hardly harm someone. But rather, the patient becomes convinced that homeopathy will cure them, and traditional medicine is a route left untraveled.

Generally in such cases I would prepare my facts and take my argument to the loved one in question. But here’s the crux kids: my granddad is a homeopathic doctor. He sold his half of a profitably construction company in San Antonio several years ago to become one. There will be no conversion. I suppose all his family can do is voice their disapproval, and I will certainly do so.

I love my granddad, I really do. But there is no way, if the worst happens, that I could bring myself to mourn such a waste.

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I’ve been selling some books of mine on Amazon, and have realized that they have a wonderful, though very simple model for promoting competition and the lowest prices from book sellers. In your book inventory, you are always shown whether or not your book is the lowest price listed, and if not, you are shown what the lowest price is. This means that as soon as two are more people start selling the same book of same quality, you can expect the see the price slowly drop on both until the book is sold. After all, the prices are only lowered a couple cents at a time to become the lowest price, so each time a seller lowers the price, they hardly consider the loss. But a couple checks every day over a week, and the book you want has become considerably cheaper!

This isn’t too great for sellers like me, considering that a book I listed several days ago is already listed as $3 cheaper, but it’s great for buyers, and for Amazon, who gets a cut of every sale.

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It has taken me a long time to realize just how little I’ve done in life. I am 24 and I have no degree, no career or even good credit. But of all these things it pains me more to see my paltry pile of creativity. I sometimes fancy that I actually am a writer, yet the evidence doesn’t match my theory. A few good stories among lots of junk, unfinished drafts that really could go somewhere, and lots and lots of planning.

I sometimes feel that I am not disturbed enough, or beaten enough, to be a good writer. Just look at the great writers throughout history: abused, alcoholics, refugees, madmen. I am none of those things. My life has been pretty good, I have no psychological or chemical abuse problems, so it worries me that I might be able to write something profound and moving. Isn’t that silly? And right now, with no money and in need of work, I find myself too depressed to write! How ironic.

This is why I need to go back to school. I am not so arrogant that I think I am anything but a student of writing. I need practice and study and some goddamn homework. I need someone to say “Write me a story about pink elephants saving the world from rampant vacuum cleaners and have it to me by Friday OR ELSE!” I need some structure. If anyone reading this would like to boss me around, just let me know!

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Camille Saint Saens makes me feel like anything is possible. The music drives with such veracity, such life, that you can’t help feeling some great emotion at the sound of it. Sometimes I feel energetic, the way you do after a powerful movie, like you suddenly have to fling yourself forward because walking isn’t good enough. Other times I feel pride that another human could write such music, and that other humans are capable of enjoying it. But Camille Saint Saens has yet to make me sad. Even his Danse Macabre (Dance of Death) is uplifting and exhilarating.

Music is at once so mysterious and so simple. So mysterious because we don’t know why we react to it the way we do. It is only pitches and tones, pace and volumes; and yet somehow it can move us to great feelings, even to tears. And so simple because its affect seems completely obvious, and we cannot imagine music being anything but incredibly powerful.

Music is also so highly condensed. A film can last two hours, a book can last days or weeks, but music needs only a handful of minutes to do its damage (or its repair). Only visual art, which hits us in the instant we see it, can compete with music in the speed of the delivery of its message.

I’ve played music since I was very young – the piano, the trumpet and some other things – but I always preferred listening. In high school I would frighten my girlfriend by conducting while I drove. I imagined that the conductor was controlling the entire orchestra, feeding them every bar with the movements of his hands, creating the song they played as they played it. As such, conducting was a rather physical task for me, and deferred my attention from the steering wheel. Later, when I lived in a small room in California, I would play pieces loud and stand on a chair before my stereo and lead it in a symphony. Afterwards my heart would race and my arms would tingle with the effort.

When I was very young (I say “very” because I think 24 is still pretty young) I thought of pain as sound. That sharp pains were loud and shrill, that dull pains were low and well, dull. And sometimes when I was hurt badly I thought that I actually heard it.

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In the near future, parents will let WhoIs decide baby names to insure that their child-to-be will have their own personalized domain name.

Playing the guitar really can get you places no one else gets to go.

On the way to get some breakfast this morning at the nearby cafe a bum stopped me for change. His story was very event specific (needed to get to an HIV clinic, went to the wrong one, needed a train ticket to get to the right one), and was the exact same story he had used when I ran into him before several weeks earlier… two blocks away.

No matter how much you like Ayn Rand’s works, that’s no reason to steal her plot-themes. A little originality people! The world is full of stories!

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