looking for good

In so many things I've seen recently it seems that the undercurrent is that "being kind is out, being cruel is in."

Either because if you're being kind, you might be kind to a Bad Person, or because being kind means you're a chump and a "beta," or some other thing.

And you know? I can't with that. I can't be otherwise. I can be firm when I need to be firm and do stuff like tell a student "Look, you plagiarized the paper even after I explained what plagiarism was and offered to help anyone struggling, so you earned a 0 on it, there is no negotiating here because that's my class policy, and I showed you the printout of the website you copied from" but I'm not going to berate the student or tell them they're stupid or evil. (A couple times when I caught plagiarists? They came and apologized to me, saying they "just let the time on the assignment run out" and while I am sympathetic to not having enough time to do everything, that doesn't excuse stealing someone else's work)

(The other thing is: I think relatively few people are genuinely Bad People. I think we all have the capacity to do wrong and hurt others - which is really the very definition of sin, and by nature, man is a sinful creature, because we are selfish. But I think very few people are irredeemably so. But I also think everyone is capable of doing wrong; I know I do it myself in various ways - not doing things I should do, or doing things I should not. I've joined in in too many internet pile-ons of stuff to declare myself innocent.

I also think things are sometimes more complicated. Sometimes you have to do a wrong to stop a larger wrong. Is a soldier who shoots an enemy soldier in a war evil? What if that enemy soldier supported a regime that was killing innocent people? Or was going to invade another nation and kill people there? I mean, I believe killing people is wrong, but....there is NO WAY to get out of this life without sinning, large or small. I think there's very much a modern proclivity to purity-test everyone, and frankly, when you do that? Everyone is going to come up lacking. Even the people who set themselves up as arbiters of purity. (In a way: modern Pharisees, I think)

And anyway. I cannot bring myself to sell all I have and give the money to the poor. So I will not cast the first stone, to mix Biblical metaphors).

But yes, today was one of the Bad Days. Partly because I was thinking of my dad yet again, and feeling sad. But also partly because that existential sadness - partly brought on by the losses I've had but partly brought on by (gestures vaguely at the wider world) everything out there, and I found myself walking into class with a distinct "what's even the point any more" feeling. There is so much bad and if I can even do any good, it is so, so small.

I mean, maybe there really isn't a point. But a person has to make a living on this earth and this is how I make mine, so I try to smile and explain the material the best I can and work in a few anecdotes that will either be funny or memorable, and get through the stuff.

I cannot do other than try to do good - otherwise would go against everything I was raised to be - but it's so distressing to see such a lack of results and to feel like the bad old world will remain just as bad, no matter what I do.

But yeah. This is one of those days where I kind of wish I had an affectionate spouse or kid or even a dog, someone who actually seemed happy when I got home for the day. One of those days when, as someone I read once put it "I need to be loved a little louder."

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I helped a colleague who was trying to help a student with a problem, so there's that.

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And while teaching lab I noticed out the back windows of the room - there is a bank of Buddleia planted there - it was full of monarch butterflies, so the monarch migration is on (I told the students about it even though we were doing something else) and seeing it makes me happy. I don't know, there's just something about the whole monarch migration that is wonderful to me for a lot of reasons. As a kid, my brother and I were allowed to "capture" caterpillars and keep them in an empty aquarium in the house and feed them milkweed, and when they went into their chrysalises, we would watch every day, and when the butterflies emerged, we let them go. I know now that most of the ones we raised (maybe all of them, we were pretty far north) were not the generation that migrated to Mexico, but I do remember how exciting it was when I was a kid to wake up and find that the monarch had come out of its chrysalis. And I have happy memories of  "banding" butterflies with stickers (as part of a study of their migration patterns) a couple of years ago. And just seeing them makes me happy. I like butterflies. I think the fact that they are (at least in some branches of Christianity) a symbol of resurrection and new life is part of it, but also, they are just pretty and are interesting.

I once told someone I thought I'd find the extinction of monarch butterflies sadder and more distressing than the extinction of elephants or giant pandas or whatever charismatic megavertebrate you care to name from Africa or Asia, because I actually had direct experience with monarchs and was used to seeing them. (I have read though that the past year or two, their numbers are on the increase, in part because of the movement to encourage the planting of milkweed for the juvenile insects).

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I started "Christ Stopped at Eboli" again last night. (I may wind up having to give up on it if it turns sad; I've had to do that a lot lately with books.). It's the story of a doctor (Carlo Levi, who wrote it as a memoir) who is basically sent to a small town in the Lucania province of Italy as a sort of "house arrest" during WWII because he was an anti-fascist and it was when Mussolini was in charge. Levi was a doctor and a painter; he wound up serving some of the people in the town. I'm hoping it's mostly an account of small rural Italian life but I'm bracing myself.

(The title comes from the fact that the people of Southern Italy were seen - and perhaps on some level, saw themselves - as less than human, because they were not "Christian" in the sense that wealthier and more northern people were. This stood out to me because there used to be a saying around here that "There's no law east of Blue and no God east of Bennington" but I know that's not actually true from having known people from that area, but the idea that the far southeastern corner of my state is a lawless, Godless wilderness is an old, old one. [apparently someone I know once had a run-in with someone who thought he was a "revenuer." Yes, in the moonshine-and-Feds sense]. Though I presume given what I know of Levi, his aim was to show that the people were, in fact, every bit as human as the wealthier folks - and maybe even more-so than some of the Facisti.)

I think I also need to be a bit more disciplined about reading for a while and stop dipping into books here and there and actually read something through to completion. After this one I might start one of the Tom Cox books I ordered (they should be here by then; I read slowly and I don't have much time to read)

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Jay, no one else requested the Thoreau, so if you still want it, e-mail me your address (e-mail link is in the sidebar). I'll send them "media mail" (which used to be "book rate" or "bound printed matter") which can take a while but is not expensive.

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I ordered a volume (Inexpensive! Dover reprints for the win) of MacDowell's piano music - Pandora has regularly been giving me one of his Woodland Sketches ("To a Wild Rose") and I like that sort of music, and I wonder if I have the chops yet to be able to play them. At any rate, I need some new stuff to try out.



I just find that kind of piece restful to listen to, and I think it would be pleasant to play. Watching the person's hands suggests to me I might be able to do it.

Right now I'm working on "'Simple' Variations on an Original Theme" (in G) by Beethoven (WoO 77) and it's frustrating me because it does have some slightly long reaches, and I can't play it as fast as it should be played. I don't *quite* want to give up on it yet, but....something simpler would be nice.

I like "To a Wild Rose" though. I don't know if MacDowell's other music is in that style, but it's what I think of (without the contempt that the term sometimes means) as "parlor pieces" - small, short pieces, not too difficult for the average pianist, that are pleasant to play and restful to listen to. Some day I aspire to be a competent "parlor pianist." There is something nice about being able to entertain oneself in that way, and maybe entertain friends (if I ever get over my stage fright, and ever acquire nearby friends who would be interested in hearing me play.

I think now of an orchestra teacher I had many years ago, back when I played clarinet, who asked me once WHY I was playing the clarinet, and who went on to tell me that (a) If I wasn't interested in getting up to 'professional quality' I was wasting my time and his and (b) went on to imply I really didn't have musical talent anyway.

I gave up the clarinet not long after that discussion :(

Now I am older, and I see: there's a lot of value in wanting to do something for yourself. Fortunately my piano teacher also understand that: that you don't have to be a pro, that you don't even really have to perform (she plays sometimes at her church, and has played for fun with her husband's band, but doesn't even expect that of her students). And maybe....there's also value in doing something you enjoy even if you're not *great* at it. (I admit that's something I still struggle with).

But the idea of being able to sit down at the piano and play something that is beautiful or nice or soothing - I still go back to "Precious Lord, Take My Hand" again and again - yes, that does something for a person.

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And at the same time, I found they VERY BRIEFLY had an offer up for the "dark skinned, long wavy hair" Creatable World doll (aka the one I want the very most) for list price, rather than the third-party-seller prices that are almost twice the normal cost. I ordered one and I am hoping it's not another "curvy Fashionista dancer" thing where they keep putting me off and off until I either cancel the order or just pay the third-party prices. It's supposed to arrive on the 19th. (And this doll is definitely going to be a girl; I like the hair that comes with it. Not sure about a name yet but hopefully Alex and Skye will get another friend soon.)

Thought: all of my dolls have their little "squads," even some of my stuffed animals have their imagined friend-and-family groups. (In my Doll Universe: Rapunzel and Merida are friends, and they also hang out with Squirrel Girl. And Sam has Skye as a little sister, and Skye has her friend Alex, and (hopefully) her yet-unnamed other friend. And Sam and Ginger are friends with each other, and all of that....I think because I'm a fundamentally lonely person, and someone who often felt on the outside looking in, I imagine that thing. Just like when I was a kid and I wanted my own quiet spot where I had control over everything, so I liked dollhouses and had several....). Sort of a wish-fulfillment thing.

(There is an ad - I think for cars? That declares "Everyone has a crew" and I joked about how that was a microaggression against introverts, but, truth is: I would like to have a crew. Or I'd like to have a diversity of friends - I do tend to do better in one-on-one interactions, but it would be nice to have a LOT of friends, so there was always someone available when you were free and wanted to do stuff.)

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I said something funny (just something nonsensical - absurd humor or pointing out the silly things that just happen in life is my humor brand, I cannot do "mean" humor) and apparently made one of my mutuals laugh. That's one of the few things I can do that maybe makes me feel a little better, if I can point out silly or funny things and make someone laugh. (And again: I cannot do "mean" humor, not at all.)


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I think this evening - given that it's Elder's and Board meetings - it's going to be one of my rare "get food from out" nights. (Even if I do have leftover meatloaf at home, and could probably fix something from scratch about as fast. Hush. I'm tired of meatloaf right now). Not sure if I just get a fast-food chicken sandwich (I prefer grilled to fried; I wonder if Sonic has a decent grilled chicken sandwich; they have fries I prefer over Freddy's fries, which are too small and too hard) and maybe a small milkshake? I don't know. I should be reducing, that was one thing my doctor said i could do (that I wasn't already) to stave off any risk of congestive heart failure in the future but....yeah. I don't know. Or maybe I get a big big cherry limeade instead if I go to Sonic....