Month: December 2023

outer space

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For a specific window of time growing up in America, the idea that a person had a shot at becoming an astronaut was a real thing. We were not told that we should excel in math and science so that we could be doctors or scientists but because we might become astronauts. We were entertained by futuristic television and film, where living among the stars was the norm. Space travel seemed inevitable, and with this cosmos of influence, who wouldn’t aspire to the stars?

Even if astronaut was an unlikely career outcome, it was touted as a possibility. I don’t know when this ”astronaut as realistic career opportunity” window opened, but it closed abruptly when the space shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986. Since that time, the astronomical (no pun, of course) costs, the risk, the winding down of the Cold War and its bravado-powered spectacles, and the ho-hum feel of space travel immediately preceding the ill-fated Challenger mission (even if it was anything but routine) contributed to a dampening of enthusiasm for the entire ”spaceman” enterprise.

But for a brief period, the feverish feel of exploring space captured the imaginations of virtually every American kid I knew. Even if we didn’t care that much, it was still something we probably heard about at least once every few days without seeking it out.

Rewatching the 1983 classic The Right Stuff over Christmas this year with someone who was reared and educated in Scotland, I learned (and this should not be much surprise, I suppose) that the idea of space travel, a space program, the prospect of becoming an astronaut – all thought of such things – was not even on the radar for most kids in the UK. Never mentioned. Perhaps this is not universally true since it’s just one person’s experience. But on the whole it does seem that the interest in astronomy and space wasn’t really ignited for a whole lot of people who weren’t already actively interested in such things. Watching the film, this friend exclaimed that he had no interest whatsoever in astronauts or space travel, which seems unthinkable to me somehow. Even if I was never eager to join the space program myself, thinking about outer space and unraveling its mysteries was always a part of the educational landscape and daily life.

you know what would complete this picture?

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All through the week preceding (and during) the Christmas holiday, I have been watching trivia shows (The Chase), reality shows on Animal Planet (My Cat from Hell), films, documentaries and tv series with my friend. And every time it is appropriate – and even when it isn’t – I helpfully say, “You know what would make this show better?”

Him: “No.”

Me: “CHARO!”

 

chess rant

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I am a bit obsessed with watching trivia shows, and I’ve noticed that in the less “high brow” games, any knowledge contestants display about chess and chess players is treated as esoteric, even obscure. Not that most contestants can actually answer the questions. But on the rare occasions they do, the hosts seem in awe. Somehow one guy knew the name Magnus Carlsen, which floored the host. But other questions about Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov were treated as … way out there knowledge. And that seems sort of weird, although I should not be remotely surprised.

“Chess diplomacy” and its role throughout the Cold War made chess players household names through much of the now-distant 20th century. And of course Bobby Fischer’s sad end was big news in Iceland, where I lived at the time.

I lament the lack of broad general knowledge that people carry around. It’s not that any of this is important stuff to know or remember, but somehow it feels sad that people don’t.

sniping

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I discussed with someone today that I have wasted far too much time in life taking in the films of Wesley Snipes. Not purposely. They were just things I passively watched (for the most part)… and there he was.

I can’t get that time back. But it may yet help me in a trivia game show or something.

One never knows the kinds of questions that may be posed.

On a University Challenge episode (some kind of celeb/holiday edition), one team was asked to identify the US presidents by looking at photos, and Ruth Davidson (yeah, her) guessed that Calvin Coolidge was Gerald Ford. Seriously. Gerald Fucking Ford. There is no way to mistake these two. I would not expect people in the UK (or anywhere, for that matter) to be able to identify Coolidge. The other team, in fact, guessed Herbert Hoover (which was a much better guess). But to somehow mistake Coolidge for Ford? No.

Incidentally the winning team also didn’t correctly answer the name of the male tennis player in the infamous Battle of the Sexes between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. I probably only remembered because the match has been discussed at length in so many other popular culture outlets – and I had just watched the season 2 episode of the lovely series Minx in which the match played a central role. But still. It wasn’t Jimmy Connors, folks.

I was also horrified watching The Chase because the Chaser was meant to guess in which Dostoevsky novel Razumikhin appears. The Chaser responded, “War and Peace”, which of course is not Dostoevsky. And when the team got the chance to answer after the Chaser missed, they said… and this really hurt… “Anna Karenina”.

ALSO NOT DOSTOEVSKY.

patent-protected meltdown

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Mental health status is private and unique to the individual. Being a witness to an individual’s mental health fluctuations and deterioration, though, makes it a shared experience where one person can only be the observer and cannot understand what motivates the shifts in response and behavior. The observer can intellectually understand a diagnosis but being exposed to it in daily life is entirely a different story.

A particular condition, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, can be generalized to the extent that it can be diagnosed and differentiated from other conditions. But the manifestations of a condition, while roughly hewing to the diagnostic criteria, can be painfully individual. Like everything with a pattern at generalizable scale, the real-life implementation is singular and layered.

what’s enough

christmas misery
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It’s hard to ever be completely satisfied with anything. But at the same time it’s possible to recognize that progress has been made and continue going without turning it into a self-made catastrophe.

At least I like to believe this. But it’s not true for everyone. Other ways of thinking, feeling, and conceptualizing the world and one’s place in it seem to create narratives of failure and spiraling depression. It does not matter if these are imaginary failures. They are real enough to the person feeling them. And how can anyone argue with such narratives and the pain that accompanies them?

Meanwhile witnesses to this real pain, resulting from what are imaginary circumstances, can only look on helplessly.

walls

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Always building walls creates a shield but never really stops you from being exposed to pain. It takes a long time of living and going through it to realize that you are not fully living if you are hiding behind walls. How many times must we go through the inclination to change, actually change, and then realize change is imminent or required yet again?

Life is fundamentally about change and how we respond to, react to, and live in it. Change, perhaps by nature/necessity, makes most of our responses/answers fluid. What we experience, see, do today leads to changes in how we move through the world.

the fix is in

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Does anything we do really count as “wasting” time? I am often blinded by some need to be “productive” (whatever that actually means), but the things I ultimately do, whether that is sleeping too much, spending time watching movies or engaged in long conversations, are things that I must need and want on some level or I would not do them. These acts do not seem productive. But are they needed in order to be productive?