Pontification

"btw your blog is fucking tits."

- to me, via email

Halfway between CB and Denver

Ohmygod I want one! This thing can tear it up around Berkeley, cruise across Davis, or haul straight up the Rockies. Gimme.

Met an established CB resident named David today. He ordered a book that's just come out about the historical evidence around the actual person who is now remembered as Jesus (yes, that Jesus). David has some stories. Check it:

He met General Dwight D. Eisenhower at the Hoover Dam when he was 7. His grandfather was the first Rabbi in L.A. He had an uncle take a young Richard Nixon to court and win for failing to pay for a window installation. He had another uncle who worked for 20th Century Fox, won two Oscars for cinematography, and introduced him to John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe (this was back when it still said Hollywoodland). David himself went to UC Davis in 1955 (where he lived in a barn) and worked for UC Berkeley in the 60's as a statistician of student affairs. As the first and last federal park ranger at Pointe Reyes, he made national news by busting a congressman for poaching deer and refusing to drop the charges. He busted so many illegal campers in 1969 that he was known as the Ranger Who Never Sleeps by the local papers. He was so hard-nosed that his superior officers repeatedly relocated him until he was left to patrol a 7,000 acre stretch of park south of Lake Mead (waythefuckout in the Nevada desert) by himself. He has four degrees and seems to know everything about everything.

That's the heavily abridged version of what I can remember from a 90 minute monologue. I hope it was good for you.

I took second place in the first official round of on-the-clock-mini-golf with my co-workers and our awesome boss, Phil. When Phil put the scorecard in his pocket at the end of the game, I asked if he was going to keep it. "No. I'm gonna burn it."

Insta-Roadtrip

"Anicca, baby!" (BTdubs, it's pronounced a-neech-a)

- Tempel Smith

Sense of scale

I bent down to pick up a wrench at the base of a bike stand, stood up too quickly and managed to bang my head on the clamp. It hurt more than it seemed like it should have. That night, I found a clump of dried blood in my hair. Gross.

I was supposed to help build bikes today and instead drove to Denver to help get an order of books for the store. Arvin asked if I would come with him as I was leaving the house. I took a moment to consider that I had no real obligations and that I could help Jonathan at the co-op some other day.
That's it. That's all it took for me to commit to a 12-hour favor with 10 minutes notice. I realized at about Hour 8 that I hadn't taken into account what the chore would really entail or what sort of favor Arvin would owe me. It had at no point occurred to me calculate the "generosity cost-benefit". Arvin wanted help (it was the book distributer's fault that the books would not arrive on time) and I was available. End of story.
So what's my point?
I've spent years trying to cultivate and internalize certain values and develop positive emotional habits. I'm constantly putting energy into improving my relationship to things that cause aversion*. In the past, I would have gnashed my teeth over being self guilt-tripped into such an inconvenient favor— knowing what was the right thing to do, but begrudgingly agreeing only after negotiating the terms of my compensation. Today, it took the same amount of effort to agree to help Arvin as it does to brush my teeth before bed. I've always wanted to be the sort of person who would, with genuine compassion and humility**, give their time and energy to someone else's problem. I can now honestly say that I am that sort of person. Go me!

* Buddhist concept of Aversion: Aversion arises reflexively as an emotional defense against unpleasant sensations. For me, spending money, even on important things, triggers anxiety. I have an aversion to the anxiety so instead of facing reality, I avoid spending spending money and suffer the lack of food or other resources. It's emotionally easier to feel hunger than anxiety. Obviously it's not healthier. If I improve my relationship to the sensation of anxiety, the Aversion will dissipate over time.
**While I was indeed humble in the actual moment, the irony of me blogging about my humility has not escaped me.

Dudes and Bikes

" Studying (western) philosophy taught me how to think. Buddhism taught me how to feel."
- customer on academic vs. experiential education

Variety is our special-tea (get it?)

Sitting in my living room with a bunch of guys watching How I Met Your Mother. An ad for a female contraceptive came on which was so choked with side effect warnings that it wasn't clear what they were selling. We were left to speculate on how exactly the thing worked. Michael suggested that it was a miniature paperclip that clips the cervix closed. I submitted an IUD made of enriched uranium. Arvin, however, took the cake with a vision of truly futuristic contraception. 

I went to the bike co-op in town to rehabilitate an old road bike that's been sitting in the driveway for six months. Jonathan, the guy who's trying to keep the place running, wants to build up the donated frames and parts into a rental fleet to generate income. When I offered to help him with the project in exchange for using the space, he cleared his throat the way someone might choke back a spit take. Apparently the shop guys around town are pretty tribal when it comes to sharing resources, leaving poor Jonathan in need of all the help he can get.

Tried to play Fidelity on the guitar. I see potential for a truly hilarious talent show submission.

Coffee Shop Philosophy

I had a good chat with Arvin today about privilege. We got on the subject after hearing a friend of mine worrying about Meaning. As in, a summer waiting tables in Crested Butte is Meaningless— a waypoint on the way to a significant, Meaningful life. I didn't bring up my whole Buddhistish life-is-meaningless-so-chill-the-fuck-out-and-enjoy-yourself thing because the conversation usually ends pretty quickly at the impasse of "Well, if you think everything is meaningless, then why even bother doing anything that you don't absolutely have to?"

This got me thinking about privilege. 

Not just my specific middle class American white male privilege, but privilege as a condition, as a state of being. I've been told to "check my privilege"*, mostly by equally privileged people trying to live more righteously. For the most part the idea hadn't really nestled into my consciousness. Today, however, I had an interesting thought while trying to explain this sentiment to Arvin (who's parents are Indian, was born in Trinidad & Tobago, and grew up in Miami).

If I think of my privilege as a negative condition— as a benign illness— then I can either ignore it and let the symptoms get worse, or acknowledge it and treat it. I used the word "commit" while talking to Arvin, when I really meant "embrace". If I embrace something, I'm accepting it fully for good or ill and taking responsibility for my relationship to it.** It's one thing to be privileged, it's another to deny it. A personal (and weird, I know) example that came to mind earlier: I have a favorite brand of condom that I buy on the internet because they're hard to find in stores. I am privileged to be culturally educated about safe sex, have access to any contraceptives at all, and have the internet as a resource. How much of a dick would I be if I felt inconvenienced by the "inaccessibility" of a specific brand in the face of past and present STI epidemics and population control problems. 

So. I embrace my privilege not to be a pretentious asshole, but to avoid the trap of pretending like it isn't there and becoming an even bigger asshole. I am blessed to be able to "waist" a summer in Crested Butte. I'm not going to drop this to go join the Peace Corp and neither are you, but the worst thing I can do is act like I deserve better.

*The phrase "check your privilege" turns out 150,000 results on Google. "Don't do drugs" turns out 3 million, "live the American dream" 4.3 million.

**Buddhist idea of acceptance: I embrace my distaste for spicy food. I cannot blame green chiles for being spicy and thus offensive. I am offended by the taste of chiles. They do not offend me. If I take responsibility for my relationship to spicy food, I no longer need to view the chiles themselves as "bad". One less thing to hate. Try it on something that pissed you off today. Was it the thing, or how you felt about the thing that pissed you off?

Highlights

Arvin to me as I'm leaving the house for a run, wearing only running shorts:
"You better not get any ladies pregnant on that run!"

Danica and gay friend Michael went to a play about "the lives of women", while Arvin and I stayed home and marveled at the high-resolution performance of my new Xbox hooked up to the HDTV. When Michael asked about my evening and I related our excitement, he replied "That sounds about right; we went to see a play about bras and you boys played video games."

I'm mixing an acoustic cover of Praise You with GarageBand.

Vagabondery

Today is my 35th day couch surfing in Davis between seasons in Crested Butte. I've slept on 6 couches, in 10 beds, and with 6 people (not like that). I've eaten at 23 co-op dinners, run 64 miles, played 5 sessions of D&D, consumed 7 doses of H.S. Thompson-grade chemicals, and gotten laid more than once*. Life is good.

I rolled up to one of the student co-ops yesterday and was greeted warmly by several people on the lawn. Someone declared "Damn, Peter. Look at you. You just look so good." I firmly believe that if you drop out of school, quit your job, re-invest in your community, and mooch juuust enough to get by that you too can look this "good". For those of you who aren't prepared to take that leap or are vaguely offended by the way I brazenly suckle at the teat of my socioeconomic privilege, I say twice as much rest, sunshine, and hugs will get you most of the way there. Anyone who feels that there is no time for or value in that kind of leisure is in desperate need of a lifestyle enema.

Sell your stuff. Bake cookies for someone who doesn't know your last name. Shop at your local dumpster. Go outside.


*A math-grad friend and I decided that because getting laid for the first time after a dry spell is so much more revitalizing than getting laid a second time, the relative difference between hooking up twice and 100 times is null. Thus, a distinction need only be made between getting laid 0, 1, or >1 times.

Stay strong

"Getting it together in Crested Butte means having a pair of powder skis, a pair of rock skis, and four jobs."