My husband and I have an acquaintance who he met through one of his former graduate school classmates. He was her boyfriend at the time that he first crossed my husband's path and is currently her fiance. At my first meeting with the boyfriend, I accidentally embarrassed him and he has carried a little grudge ever since.
The nature of that mistake was that we were all sitting in a bar at a social gathering during the first month of my husband's first year at his school. The girlfriend set up this informal little to-do, and we went largely so my husband could make some social connections at this early stage. I had previously met the girlfriend, so I knew her slightly from a potluck held about a week earlier. I figured that an easy way to relate to him was through his relationship with her so I asked how they met. He said it was at a party full of people and he saw her from across the room. I asked what I thought was a reasonable follow-up question given the situation and that was, "What drew you to her in particular?"
This question stymied him. He seemed dumbstruck for an answer and I'd just come off of years of teaching English in which I'd dealt with students who were often at a loss for words because they couldn't express themselves, so I tried to "help" by asking if it was this or that about her (attitude, style or whatever). He continued to be confused and then, after "thinking" for awhile, he switched to an ad hominem attack and said something like, 'you know the problem with you psychology types is you think about "why" too much instead of just taking things as they are.' At that point, I dropped my line of questioning on this issue, and it was hardly a probing attack. It was one question and a few suggestions and then he got defensive.
Fast forward a year and a half or so and my husband is having a conversation with someone else who felt that I had an aggressive way of carrying on a discussion. In her case, she had a point as we were debating a political point and she was being an idiot about it (the short version of it is that she suggested that vandalizing public advertising was somehow going to help undermine the effects of white privilege). The girlfriend from the previous scenario got caught up in this and remarked that, "Oh yeah, she (meaning me) is like that." She meant that I was too tenacious and she said that based on my (well-meaning) attempts to make conversation with her boyfriend from a very long time ago.
What I took away from this was that the boyfriend was more than embarrassed by his inability to come up with what attracted him to his girlfriend. He was humiliated and it stung enough for him to make a big deal out of it such that the girlfriend made this remark about a brief exchange from nearly two years previously. This told me something more than I'd already speculated on. One thing was that my guess is that he could have answered the question, but the answer was too embarrassing (like he saw her wearing a corset with her big boobs heaved up - she designs them and does wear them from time to time). The other was that he is deeply insecure and hates to feel as if he's been somehow been bested. This was not my intent on either count, but I think that is how he felt.
Fast forward to a graduation party for my husband's graduate school class and both girlfriend and insecure boyfriend are there. Given my knowledge of how fragile his ego is, I planned to be extra careful about whatever I said to him and planned to avoid any questioning of any kind. When we arrived, most of the seats were taken and people needed to sit on the ground. Boyfriend was sitting in one chair and his girlfriend in another. I told my husband to take the remaining one because he had had to stand a lot during the graduation ceremonial activities and I was sitting.
The boyfriend offered me his seat and I accepted it. My husband made a joke and asked him if he gave up the seat to me because of "Jewish guilt" (the boyfriend told us he was Jewish). Since I was concerned that someone with such a fragile ego would be offended by this, I cut in and said, "I'm sure it is just an act of courtesy." The boyfriend then went on to say that courtesy was a way for people of superior intelligence to make those of lesser mental capacity feel comfortable. He essentially insulted us by saying he was being kind because we were dumber than him. Of course, I let this go as I saw this as yet another manifestation of his insecurity. My husband assumed it was his way of making a cutting joke.
After that party, the boyfriend asked my husband to friend him on Facebook, but he did not ask me. This did not insult me, but given the fact that he knows each of us equally well, the message was clear. He was snubbing me intentionally because he was still smarting from the initial exchange. Occasionally, my husband has read a comment here and there by the boyfriend because they are of interest for the way in which they reflect his issues. One of the recurring themes he has demonstrated is his condescension and his talk of being a "gentleman" or exercising "courtesy" toward people. He always speaks of it in a manner which asserts that a "gentleman" does such things for those who are less than him in some fashion or another.
Clearly, this man is far from a "gentleman" and lacks any real sense of what courtesy is. Such things are not mere hollow demonstrations, but they bring along with them a genuine intent to make people comfortable and declarations of the inferiority of the people you are exercising said courtesy toward vitiates the authenticity of the supposedly kind actions. Yet, this man not infrequently frames himself as a gentleman. He keeps saying it and I wonder if he believes that announcing who he believes he is somehow means that we should accept him as what he identifies as instead of what he demonstrates himself to be. He behaves like a rude, smug, and supercilious jerk while proclaiming himself kind and courteous.
One thing that I have noticed in America is that people have a sense of who they are. They "identify" as something or other and they feel it necessary to proclaim that identity repeatedly to the world. There is a sense that the world doesn't get to decide for itself based on who you show yourself to be through your words and actions, but you get to choose a label and force it upon people. If they refuse to accept your self-determined identity, even when it is opposition to your behavior, then they are the ones who are in error.
This need to proclaim oneself as this, that, or the other is a manifestation of insecurity about ones sense of self. It is very much as if the people who make such proclamations, whether they come via Facebook status messages, tattoos, or personal dress style, are trying to convince you of something that they themselves are not the least bit secure about. Such messages scream "I'm totally insecure about who I am and how I'm seen so validate my self-image!" They, of course, don't even realize that they're broadcasting a psychological issue - a neuroses - for all with a perceptive mind to hear.
It's my opinion that Americans are especially prone to this sort of thing because there is no strong sense of identity common among us. Also, people are indoctrinated into the notion that being "an individual" is important so there is a need to distinguish oneself as different from others in order to confirm ones individuality. The funny thing is that, the more people proclaim who they are, the more they become just like everyone else who isn't secure enough in their sense of self to just "be" who they are and let those around them reach their own conclusions. This need to force their self-image onto others unites them into an insecure tribe rather than divides them into individuals. I daresay that it is rarer to find someone who just "is" and allows people around them to decide for themselves than it is to find people who feel the need to bray, broadcast, and overtly advertise who they want you to think they are. These sorts of proclamations make such people part of the crowd, not stand-out individuals.
My husband is a very tolerant person and tends to be more sanguine about people's behavioral and psychological quirks than me. However, recently, even he got tired of the neurotic posting that this guy was broadcasting on Facebook and hid his feed. It wasn't that he was so pompous. It wasn't that he was so insecure. It was the fact that he couldn't see how he was coming across to others. This sad lack of self-awareness and awareness of how others see him was just more than my husband wanted to deal with intermittently. Frankly, I feel the same way. People don't get to weave their own reality and then hold up the tapestry in front of me and insist I accept that picture of them rather than the reality that is so clearly behind it. I get tired of people's issues being in my face and I especially am tired of being told repeatedly and obnoxiously who someone believes they are rather than being permitted to make up my own mind.
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
America, Land of the (Literally) Free
After living in Japan for 23 years, I found that there were many changes to the way things worked in America. For one thing, there is "self-check-out" in markets. It seems to betray a high level of trust, but technology (a weight-sensitive baggage area) and a watchful clerk overseeing the operation make it unlikely that anyone can pilfer stuff. Along similar lines, every gas station that I've seen has become self-service. As far as I can tell, the "service" in "service station" is a thing of the past.
There were also logical changes that I knew had happened, but had not experienced. One of them was the use of debit or credit cards instead of personal checks. It took me awhile to figure out how that worked, and then it took a bit longer to realize that it works a little differently depending on the shop you're patronizing. Japan is a cash-based society so this whole system was new to me. Even when credit cards are used, they cashier takes it from you and manages it rather than have you do the swiping.
These all fairly "expected" things that I felt uncomfortable with, but knew were coming when I left that little island country for the shores of what no longer feels much like "home". One thing which I did not expect was how relatively easy it is to get things for free. Perhaps I should qualify that by saying, "free".
Since coming back, I've been subscribed to about a dozen and a half magazines including Smithsonian, Vogue, Martha Stewart Living, Popular Science, Redbook, The New Yorker, and Eating Well. I have not paid for any of them. I also have a Starbucks card loaded with $50 of credit that did not come out of my pocket and I've gotten a few hundred dollars in credit at Amazon.com. I've also been e-mailed offers for free stuff if I just send my name and address. My internet bill is largely covered by Google even though I don't work for them in any capacity.
My very first experience with free stuff came with my Safeway card. For those who don't live on the West coast, that's a chain of supermarkets that has a loyalty card which occasionally will give you a shot at a free full-sized product. They started off with a dozen eggs just for signing up. Since then, the selection has been spottier, and they do have a tendency to offer free items and then not stock them at all, but they do come up with some goodies here and there and, since I use the loyalty card for discounts anyway, any free stuff is gravy.
One of the things that modern technology has done is make personal data a commodity which you can choose to "sell" in various ways provided that you want to look around and take the limited risks involved. I say "limited" because the main issue is whether or not spammers and marketers get their claws stuck in you. No one ever asks for your social security number. It's only your name, address, e-mail address, and telephone number, though sometimes it is not even that unless they need to physically send you something.
In terms of how you do this, you can start the way I did which is by searching for "freebie" sites. There are no small number of them out there doing the work of tracking deals and posting them for you to take advantage of or pass on. You can follow them on an RSS feed or Facebook for the most up-to-date information. I follow a pretty good one called "Freebie Shark". They're the ones who put me on to the fact that the Coke I was buying had a number on the inside of the box that I could use to collect points and get free stuff. Since I'm buying the Coke anyway, it's gravy. I'm currently saving points for a wireless mouse, but I already got a water bottle from them that my husband uses when going to the local pool.
That was how I started to get onto all of this potential for free stuff, but another part of it was a lead my sister gave me years ago. She told me about a site that she had used called "MySurvey" that allows you to get rewards for completing surveys. Yes, the surveys take time. Yes, you sometimes do not qualify to complete them and some of your time is wasted. No, they are not fake or a rip-off. The aforementioned Amazon credit came to me from accumulated credits from taking surveys. I probably make about $25 in credit every two months pottering around with the surveys while watching videos on YouTube. I imagine that, if you are someone who messes about on the internet at work because you have down time, this would be a way to earn a few bucks while you're bored.
In terms of the Starbucks credit, there are two freebies attached to that. First, Starbucks will give you a free drink or food item on your birthday just for having a card. Second, there is another survey site which I take part on which offers credit of a different sort including Starbucks and iTunes credit. That site is e-Rewards. A lot of their rewards include hotel and air fare discounts, but I'm not exactly the flying and traveling sort these days because, if I had the spare cash for those activities, I wouldn't be trying to get stuff by taking surveys.
The free magazine subscriptions sometimes are just completely free and sometimes require a short survey and writing a few brief reviews. In addition to magazines, I got a subscription to the Wall Street Journal from them (the print edition). It was supposed to last 42 weeks or something like that, but they never cancel it. In fact, the subscription ended in mid-August and I got a letter in October saying they extended it a few months as a courtesy, but it would end on October 14. I'm still getting it. Frankly, it's one freebie which I wish would go away, but apparently not badly enough to call someone and arrange to cancel it. Those come to me through intermittent e-mail messages from some place called "Rewards Gold".
Once you tap into these sites, you start getting other offers as well. Through "MySurvey", I've been sent real products to sample and fill out surveys about including a full-sized bottle of Mr. Clean multi-purpose cleaner, full-sized shampoo and conditioner, and one single roll of toilet paper. The last was hardly worth the effort, but the others were worthwhile.
If you're a reader, there is also a service called "Bookbub" which will take your profile in regards to your reading material interests and send you a list of ebooks to consider. Nearly every day, there is a free book on the list (provided that your reading material scope isn't too narrow). My sister has a voracious appetite for books and was incredibly happy to add to her collection from their offerings.
Local libraries are well-known for their potential to mooch from them temporarily, but some of the bigger ones will do you one better. Our local library offers three free DRM-free songs from an enormous library (including everything released by Sony) per week. My husband is like a kid in a candy store about this. He can get free, legal downloaded music (six songs per week with both of our library cards). This is through something called "Freegal" (free and legal). I don't know if just anyone can use it, but it's worth looking into in connection with your local library if you want to build a collection.
In terms of Google's paying my internet bill, I have to say that I just got lucky on that one. I was solicited to take part in a program called Screenwise which monitors my internet usage stats on multiple devices and pays me for it (I get $55 per month for it). This was actually more of a hassle to set up initially as I had to install hardware and go through a pre-screening process, but they did pay me about $250 upfront for the trouble. I don't know how long this will last, but I'd be happy if it went on forever. Unfortunately, I think they'll stop after a year and that little gravy train will end its journey.
Getting free "stuff" is also something that I didn't expect, and it does require a bit more effort. If you are inclined to do the things which will bring freebies your way anyway, then it's not such a big deal. For one thing, if you write lots of Amazon reviews because you enjoy that sort of thing, make sure that you fill out your profile on Amazon and include your e-mail address. There is a chance that someone will contact you through the profile and offer you things to review. This is what has been happening to me.
I've been offered a kid's heart rate monitor, baby vitamin supplements (both of which I didn't take as I have no children), an armband for iPad, a choice of various cables and adapters for tech items including computers and iPhones, and a flashlight that charges USB-powered items. I was also offered something by a Chinese company which I'm still not sure of what it is as they linked to the wrong reference page when they offered it to me.
If you're not an Amazon reviewer, but you are a blogger, the gravy train can be similarly rolling through your town. I used to blog about Japanese snack food and people offered me free snacks. I also know for a fact that book review bloggers are offered free books (as are those who post lots of reviews on "Good Reads"). I haven't tried it, but I'd wager that if you have a site which has a focus and that site has a decent readership or has been around for several years, you could probably contact a company that sells things related to your blog and solicit items of interest for review.
Obviously, there is a risk when you allow your private data to be tracked as I do. However, I think the risk is often smaller than people think. My name, address, and telephone number are already out there whether I released them or not. My ISP has already sold these things off to various entities and yours likely did so as well. They wanted to charge me $5 more per month to prevent them from doing so. I was already screwed in this regard just by living in a place with one option for internet service. If your ISP hasn't sold your data, there's a pretty good bet that some other unavoidable entity (utilities, telephone, etc.) has sold you out.
If you do a white pages search online, you can get anybody's address, name, and phone data (and often e-mail). What I'm doing is giving nothing more than is already out there (except for Screenwise, which is getting a whole lot more). I never give credit card data or social security numbers. If an entity even asks for these, it's a red flag that it is a scam.
If I were rolling in extra cash, I wouldn't be pursuing these options. The truth is that I've got time, but not so much money. Very poor people who want to augment their lifestyle a bit may want to take advantage of such things as they are easy ways to get a little extra wiggle room in your leisure budget. I daresay the Amazon money I've gotten would buy a few really nice Christmas gifts or a lot of little so-so ones. I've had people balk at meeting me at a Starbucks for a drink and a chat because they don't want to waste $4 on a cup of coffee. Well, I don't either, and I don't have to. However, I'm not going to pretend that I don't spend time doing things to get these "freebies", but the time I spend is generally not quality time. Most people are sitting in front of the babbling television texting or playing little games anyway. I'm just taking surveys and earning credit while I do that instead of pecking at my device like a deranged chicken that is interested in the boring details of other people's lives.
I don't really find it amazing that there is so much that you can get for giving people opinions and personal data because America is a consumerist culture. Buzz is more important than the trivial cost of merchandise. Personal data and opinions are commodities that can be sold so someone is going to be out there and willing to "buy" these things from you in exchange for things like Amazon or Starbucks credit. It is a direct reflection of how our culture values consumerism that this sort of system exists for me to take advantage of, or for it to take advantage of me (depending on your perspective). I had no idea that it was like this, but I can say it has been one of the few pleasant surprises of being back in the U.S.
There were also logical changes that I knew had happened, but had not experienced. One of them was the use of debit or credit cards instead of personal checks. It took me awhile to figure out how that worked, and then it took a bit longer to realize that it works a little differently depending on the shop you're patronizing. Japan is a cash-based society so this whole system was new to me. Even when credit cards are used, they cashier takes it from you and manages it rather than have you do the swiping.
These all fairly "expected" things that I felt uncomfortable with, but knew were coming when I left that little island country for the shores of what no longer feels much like "home". One thing which I did not expect was how relatively easy it is to get things for free. Perhaps I should qualify that by saying, "free".
Since coming back, I've been subscribed to about a dozen and a half magazines including Smithsonian, Vogue, Martha Stewart Living, Popular Science, Redbook, The New Yorker, and Eating Well. I have not paid for any of them. I also have a Starbucks card loaded with $50 of credit that did not come out of my pocket and I've gotten a few hundred dollars in credit at Amazon.com. I've also been e-mailed offers for free stuff if I just send my name and address. My internet bill is largely covered by Google even though I don't work for them in any capacity.
My very first experience with free stuff came with my Safeway card. For those who don't live on the West coast, that's a chain of supermarkets that has a loyalty card which occasionally will give you a shot at a free full-sized product. They started off with a dozen eggs just for signing up. Since then, the selection has been spottier, and they do have a tendency to offer free items and then not stock them at all, but they do come up with some goodies here and there and, since I use the loyalty card for discounts anyway, any free stuff is gravy.
One of the things that modern technology has done is make personal data a commodity which you can choose to "sell" in various ways provided that you want to look around and take the limited risks involved. I say "limited" because the main issue is whether or not spammers and marketers get their claws stuck in you. No one ever asks for your social security number. It's only your name, address, e-mail address, and telephone number, though sometimes it is not even that unless they need to physically send you something.
In terms of how you do this, you can start the way I did which is by searching for "freebie" sites. There are no small number of them out there doing the work of tracking deals and posting them for you to take advantage of or pass on. You can follow them on an RSS feed or Facebook for the most up-to-date information. I follow a pretty good one called "Freebie Shark". They're the ones who put me on to the fact that the Coke I was buying had a number on the inside of the box that I could use to collect points and get free stuff. Since I'm buying the Coke anyway, it's gravy. I'm currently saving points for a wireless mouse, but I already got a water bottle from them that my husband uses when going to the local pool.
That was how I started to get onto all of this potential for free stuff, but another part of it was a lead my sister gave me years ago. She told me about a site that she had used called "MySurvey" that allows you to get rewards for completing surveys. Yes, the surveys take time. Yes, you sometimes do not qualify to complete them and some of your time is wasted. No, they are not fake or a rip-off. The aforementioned Amazon credit came to me from accumulated credits from taking surveys. I probably make about $25 in credit every two months pottering around with the surveys while watching videos on YouTube. I imagine that, if you are someone who messes about on the internet at work because you have down time, this would be a way to earn a few bucks while you're bored.
In terms of the Starbucks credit, there are two freebies attached to that. First, Starbucks will give you a free drink or food item on your birthday just for having a card. Second, there is another survey site which I take part on which offers credit of a different sort including Starbucks and iTunes credit. That site is e-Rewards. A lot of their rewards include hotel and air fare discounts, but I'm not exactly the flying and traveling sort these days because, if I had the spare cash for those activities, I wouldn't be trying to get stuff by taking surveys.
The free magazine subscriptions sometimes are just completely free and sometimes require a short survey and writing a few brief reviews. In addition to magazines, I got a subscription to the Wall Street Journal from them (the print edition). It was supposed to last 42 weeks or something like that, but they never cancel it. In fact, the subscription ended in mid-August and I got a letter in October saying they extended it a few months as a courtesy, but it would end on October 14. I'm still getting it. Frankly, it's one freebie which I wish would go away, but apparently not badly enough to call someone and arrange to cancel it. Those come to me through intermittent e-mail messages from some place called "Rewards Gold".
Once you tap into these sites, you start getting other offers as well. Through "MySurvey", I've been sent real products to sample and fill out surveys about including a full-sized bottle of Mr. Clean multi-purpose cleaner, full-sized shampoo and conditioner, and one single roll of toilet paper. The last was hardly worth the effort, but the others were worthwhile.
If you're a reader, there is also a service called "Bookbub" which will take your profile in regards to your reading material interests and send you a list of ebooks to consider. Nearly every day, there is a free book on the list (provided that your reading material scope isn't too narrow). My sister has a voracious appetite for books and was incredibly happy to add to her collection from their offerings.
Local libraries are well-known for their potential to mooch from them temporarily, but some of the bigger ones will do you one better. Our local library offers three free DRM-free songs from an enormous library (including everything released by Sony) per week. My husband is like a kid in a candy store about this. He can get free, legal downloaded music (six songs per week with both of our library cards). This is through something called "Freegal" (free and legal). I don't know if just anyone can use it, but it's worth looking into in connection with your local library if you want to build a collection.
In terms of Google's paying my internet bill, I have to say that I just got lucky on that one. I was solicited to take part in a program called Screenwise which monitors my internet usage stats on multiple devices and pays me for it (I get $55 per month for it). This was actually more of a hassle to set up initially as I had to install hardware and go through a pre-screening process, but they did pay me about $250 upfront for the trouble. I don't know how long this will last, but I'd be happy if it went on forever. Unfortunately, I think they'll stop after a year and that little gravy train will end its journey.
Getting free "stuff" is also something that I didn't expect, and it does require a bit more effort. If you are inclined to do the things which will bring freebies your way anyway, then it's not such a big deal. For one thing, if you write lots of Amazon reviews because you enjoy that sort of thing, make sure that you fill out your profile on Amazon and include your e-mail address. There is a chance that someone will contact you through the profile and offer you things to review. This is what has been happening to me.
I've been offered a kid's heart rate monitor, baby vitamin supplements (both of which I didn't take as I have no children), an armband for iPad, a choice of various cables and adapters for tech items including computers and iPhones, and a flashlight that charges USB-powered items. I was also offered something by a Chinese company which I'm still not sure of what it is as they linked to the wrong reference page when they offered it to me.
If you're not an Amazon reviewer, but you are a blogger, the gravy train can be similarly rolling through your town. I used to blog about Japanese snack food and people offered me free snacks. I also know for a fact that book review bloggers are offered free books (as are those who post lots of reviews on "Good Reads"). I haven't tried it, but I'd wager that if you have a site which has a focus and that site has a decent readership or has been around for several years, you could probably contact a company that sells things related to your blog and solicit items of interest for review.
Obviously, there is a risk when you allow your private data to be tracked as I do. However, I think the risk is often smaller than people think. My name, address, and telephone number are already out there whether I released them or not. My ISP has already sold these things off to various entities and yours likely did so as well. They wanted to charge me $5 more per month to prevent them from doing so. I was already screwed in this regard just by living in a place with one option for internet service. If your ISP hasn't sold your data, there's a pretty good bet that some other unavoidable entity (utilities, telephone, etc.) has sold you out.
If you do a white pages search online, you can get anybody's address, name, and phone data (and often e-mail). What I'm doing is giving nothing more than is already out there (except for Screenwise, which is getting a whole lot more). I never give credit card data or social security numbers. If an entity even asks for these, it's a red flag that it is a scam.
If I were rolling in extra cash, I wouldn't be pursuing these options. The truth is that I've got time, but not so much money. Very poor people who want to augment their lifestyle a bit may want to take advantage of such things as they are easy ways to get a little extra wiggle room in your leisure budget. I daresay the Amazon money I've gotten would buy a few really nice Christmas gifts or a lot of little so-so ones. I've had people balk at meeting me at a Starbucks for a drink and a chat because they don't want to waste $4 on a cup of coffee. Well, I don't either, and I don't have to. However, I'm not going to pretend that I don't spend time doing things to get these "freebies", but the time I spend is generally not quality time. Most people are sitting in front of the babbling television texting or playing little games anyway. I'm just taking surveys and earning credit while I do that instead of pecking at my device like a deranged chicken that is interested in the boring details of other people's lives.
I don't really find it amazing that there is so much that you can get for giving people opinions and personal data because America is a consumerist culture. Buzz is more important than the trivial cost of merchandise. Personal data and opinions are commodities that can be sold so someone is going to be out there and willing to "buy" these things from you in exchange for things like Amazon or Starbucks credit. It is a direct reflection of how our culture values consumerism that this sort of system exists for me to take advantage of, or for it to take advantage of me (depending on your perspective). I had no idea that it was like this, but I can say it has been one of the few pleasant surprises of being back in the U.S.
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Self-awareness and consciousness as curses
Several weeks ago, I had a very disturbing experience while swimming at the local pool. When I arrived, the sound of a goose constantly honking was in the air. As I walked to the ladies changing area, I saw two people, a maintenance man and another swimming, looking over to the left. There was a goose with it's head low and its neck in a bit of a loop crying behind a low barrier. The woman speculated that something was wrong with its neck. The man just seemed to be confused about what to do. I suggested they call animal control to have someone with expertise come and look after it, but the maintenance man said that that entity got angry at being bothered over a goose last time this had happened.
After my visit to the changing room, I walked by the distressed goose and his audience again and suggested that perhaps the parks department might be able to help out. I don't know if anyone was ever called, but while I was putting on goggles and shoving in earplugs, I saw the maintenance man try to "coax" the goose, which was clearly suffering horribly, to leave the area by nudging it with a wheeled trash can. It was clear that he cared only about getting the problem out of his bailiwick and didn't care about the goose's pain. Between this callous behavior and the knowledge that this animal was suffering, I was very disturbed.
During the time of my swim, I could hear the goose continue to cry. It was at first quite loud and frightened. As time went by, it grew weaker and more strangled. To me, it seemed obvious that it was dying and the fading in cries were the result of its strength ebbing away. I was in the pool for about 40 minutes, and somewhere between 30-40 minutes, I noticed several people milling about in the area where the goose was located. When I got out, it was gone. I don't know if it died and they removed the body or if someone eventually came along to manage this suffering animal, but the entire situation was on my mind for quite some time while I was swimming and I was filled with sympathy and emotional turmoil at being witness to this animal's pain.
With that much time to ponder, a lot of varying thoughts went through my head. One was that this type of thing happens all of the time in nature. Birds, especially those which reside in close proximity to humans, will not infrequently eat the wrong thing and die as the substances gum up the digestive works. My guess is that this is likely what happened to the goose as there are flocks of these birds in the park next to the pool. Also, it's slow fade and prolonged distress would indicate slow and painful processes at play. While I was very upset to be around a bird in this condition, I'm sure it happens many times to animals in the wild and I am not there to witness it. This is, most sadly, a part of nature's process. Animals suffer and die. It's no worse for the bird because I'm hearing it. It's only worse for me. I may want badly to stop it because I don't want the bird to be in pain, but it's also a desire to relieve my own empathy-driven misery.
Another thought that I have had more than once was about the nature of what an animal thinks and feels in these moments. Humans, by virtue of their ability to be self-aware, anticipate and know about their eventual deaths. We often even know that we are dying. My paternal grandfather, on the day that he died, said to my grandmother, "I'm sorry, but I can't hold on any longer." He not only knew he was dying, he knew it was going to be at that moment and he could not escape it.
I've wondered when animals are sick, injured, or in pain if they have the cognitive capacity to realize what is to come. People say that animals can smell "fear" and given the myriad chemical reactions in the body during moments of terror, this makes some sense. I don't know enough about bird biology or that of other animals to say, but it seems logical that something in sweat, pheromones, etc. would be discernible to an animal's senses during times of acute distress.
Some even speculate that they can anticipate death and fear it coming. I recall something about how cows heading for slaughter seemed to sense that they were going to die and became stressed. However, we don't know if they smell the hormonal reactions that come along with the fear and momentary pain of dying of other cows in the area or if they have some sense of their eminent demise. Until we develop human to cow psychic abilities, we'll never know for certain.
As I was swimming, I pondered, did the goose merely cry because it was in pain or was it in that state because on some level it "knew" that it was dying? Was it's honking a "I hurt, I hurt, I hurt" message or was it a call for other geese to come near to comfort it as it knew it was finished here. Was it pain or was it fear or some combination of both that elicited the crying? I should note that no other geese ever came near it. If it was a distress call, it went unanswered despite the fact that it definitely would have been overheard by many other birds of a feather.
I cannot know, but my feeling is that animals have no complex sense of anything. They act on instinct, and despite humans bandying that word about in reference to their own behavior, humans do not have instincts. For the record, instincts are pre-programmed behaviors, often complex, which animals are born with. Nest building is an instinct that birds have. Humans don't necessarily come with a clean slate, but we have to learn our behaviors. Animals come with a lot more programming already written on their hard drives than humans. However, there are little things which we do as reflexes (simple, unconscious actions) for survival which are often mistaken for instincts. For example, a baby immersed in water will hold his breath.
Animals, in my opinion and based on their lack of a cerebral cortex or any of the brain areas or activity associated with consciousness, likely do not have self-awareness. What is more, I think they don't have a sense of the future or past as humans do. One of the essential elements of consciousness is that you can remember the past or imagine the future as a narrative. I think animals learn and have memory, but they don't have such narratives. For example, they remember food was here or there and might go to that place when hungry in hopes of locating food when their stomach is empty. They don't remember the day when they saw one of those big things that walked on two legs and was always reaching down to touch them putting down a bowl of dry edible stuff and how they should avoid eating the food when those two-legged things were around because they don't like being pawed at. I think it's much simpler than that for animals. I believe it's simple and associative, not complex and story-like.
Humans, of course, balk at the idea that animals lack complex understanding. We impose our narratives on them. I recall a video which spread like wildfire of a dog using its nose to splash water on a fish writhing on the pavement. People were constantly anthropomorphizing the scene and saying that the dog cared enough about the fish to help it survive. There is no evidence that dogs care about inter-species survival. In fact, it is more likely that the dog perceived the bad smell of the fish and was using the only available substance on the paved surface of the road to try and bury it (an instinctual behavior).
When this video made the rounds, I could not say what I felt to people because the need to assign complex thinking to animals, especially with noble and positive emotional contexts, is so powerful among those who possess such thoughts. They want to believe animals are self-aware, caring, kind, and "pure" of thought and deed. They want to believe it so strongly that they'll ignore all sorts of evidence to the contrary like the fact that even domesticated dogs will kill or act aggressively toward other smaller animals (squirrels, cats, etc.) as well as each other. A dog trying to save a fish would indicate self-awareness (a desire to offer compassion and to see itself as a compassionate entity) as well as awareness of others (the fish's suffering), but there is no evidence that dogs possess this capacity. They can perceive and respond to stimuli including their owner's emotions, but there is no evidence that there is an underlying complexity to their thought patterns.
When I consider this point (the self-awareness of animals), it is not with an eye toward justifying the fact that animals die in the service of human needs. I don't need to make any such justifications despite not being an active vegetarian because the cycle of nature and life is that everything occupies a space on the food chain. The only reason your dog isn't setting up a human farm and harvesting you for man-steaks is that he doesn't have the big brain or opposable thumbs to manage such a thing. If that thought upsets you, I suggest you look up the word "anthropomorphize" and take a good hard look at your own navel. As an aside, I will say that I'm a vegetarian by default these days. As I approached 50, I lost nearly all of my desire to eat meat. It wasn't an ethical choice. It was just a change in appetites and digestion, but the truth is that few animals die in service to me these days. Lots of legumes are losing their lives, and perhaps the very rare chicken or turkey, but I'm not in need of justification for my choices.
Returning to the matter at hand....
Humans spend a lot of their lives in a state of reflection and no small amount of the time spent in that state revolves around anxiety and fear. We can do this because we are aware and possess consciousness. In fact, it is the ability to weave a narrative about the future and our death that creates the most distress. It's why we hook people up to machines to keep them alive. Imagining the end of us is very painful to sit with and we comfort ourselves by proving that end can be put off by forcing others who are nearer to death to remain alive. If animals are spared this speculation as a result of a lack of consciousness and self-awareness, wouldn't that be a blessing?
I consider myself to be a very self-aware person and I continue to find that more of a liability than an asset. Despite this perception, I strive to make sure no little psychological nook or cranny of me remains in darkness from myself. This has been a powerful tool in helping me cope with the difficulties that life has sent my way. It has empowered me by insuring that I will not be caught off-guard by revelations by others about me. That may sound like an odd thing to say, but often people's self-image and understanding is out of sync with the reality.
In fact, sometimes, it is dramatically wrong and is a source of much perplexity among those who have issues finding partners or making friends. They can't see themselves for who they are so they can't know how others see them. I not only see myself for who I am, but I know exactly how others may perceive me inaccurately and why they do so. I see it the moment it occurs by the looks on their faces or their reactions, and it's okay because I know myself well enough to know that they are reacting not to me, but to something in themselves which can't emotionally tolerate some aspect of me or is unaware of something about my life or experiences. This is my generally highly attuned sense of others. As I've said before, this is a survival mechanism that I developed unconsciously early in life and have been fine-tuning and honing consciously for decades now. And, as I said in the post linked to in the previous sentence, this enhanced awareness is not something that has brought me much in the way of happiness and has been an incredible burden.
When you know that others are in pain or can contemplate your own death or suffering, this is a product of self-awareness and consciousness. Humans rarely dissect this experience and they impose it on other creatures because they take it for granted. It is so much a part of the human experience that it doesn't even occur to them not to impose this style of existence onto other entities. It's why we imagine that trees can "think" and "feel" and it fuels imaginative characters in stories like ents. We talk to plants and imagine they must "hear" us on some level because there is a positive growth reaction. We do this despite the fact that they have no ears or sensory capacity to detect the sound of voices.
Though it is very difficult to pry ourselves away from imposing our thoughts, feelings, motivations, etc. on other creatures and even objects, I think that it is important to do so if we want to understand and accept the world on its terms rather than our "humancentric" view. I also think that the lack of conscious awareness that animals likely possess is not degrading to them, but rather an acknowledgement of the likelihood that animals, plants, and other entities have a different way of perceiving reality. This is not damning them to a lower perception or existence, but freeing them from the curse of self-awareness and consciousness. They may die, but they don't think about it for years ahead of time. They may perceive another animal suffering, but they don't contemplate the motives behind it happening. They may fear something, but they don't have to contemplate whether that fear is rational or irrational and whether to act or not to act. They may be in pain and cry piteously, like that poor goose, but they aren't wondering all the while whether or not some entity will rescue them from their pain or if this is a momentary experience or the end of existence.
To be free of self-awareness and consciousness is to live more in the moment. It is to live in attune with the environment and the body without the distraction of ruminating. Of course, it is also to live free of the capacity to plan and to survive using creativity and imagination. It limits potential, but it liberates the mind. All in all, as an aware being, I'd rather be aware despite the "curse" it brings, but I wouldn't necessarily wish that curse on animals, trees, rocks, the sun, the moon, or the stars. It's not an underestimating of their potential or a mitigating of their value which makes me conclude that they lack what I have. It's taking the available evidence of their behaviors at face value and an appreciation for freedom such a state grants them. Why would I take that away from them in order to comfort me in the suffering humans alone appear to experience as a result of their consciousness and self-awareness?
After my visit to the changing room, I walked by the distressed goose and his audience again and suggested that perhaps the parks department might be able to help out. I don't know if anyone was ever called, but while I was putting on goggles and shoving in earplugs, I saw the maintenance man try to "coax" the goose, which was clearly suffering horribly, to leave the area by nudging it with a wheeled trash can. It was clear that he cared only about getting the problem out of his bailiwick and didn't care about the goose's pain. Between this callous behavior and the knowledge that this animal was suffering, I was very disturbed.
During the time of my swim, I could hear the goose continue to cry. It was at first quite loud and frightened. As time went by, it grew weaker and more strangled. To me, it seemed obvious that it was dying and the fading in cries were the result of its strength ebbing away. I was in the pool for about 40 minutes, and somewhere between 30-40 minutes, I noticed several people milling about in the area where the goose was located. When I got out, it was gone. I don't know if it died and they removed the body or if someone eventually came along to manage this suffering animal, but the entire situation was on my mind for quite some time while I was swimming and I was filled with sympathy and emotional turmoil at being witness to this animal's pain.
With that much time to ponder, a lot of varying thoughts went through my head. One was that this type of thing happens all of the time in nature. Birds, especially those which reside in close proximity to humans, will not infrequently eat the wrong thing and die as the substances gum up the digestive works. My guess is that this is likely what happened to the goose as there are flocks of these birds in the park next to the pool. Also, it's slow fade and prolonged distress would indicate slow and painful processes at play. While I was very upset to be around a bird in this condition, I'm sure it happens many times to animals in the wild and I am not there to witness it. This is, most sadly, a part of nature's process. Animals suffer and die. It's no worse for the bird because I'm hearing it. It's only worse for me. I may want badly to stop it because I don't want the bird to be in pain, but it's also a desire to relieve my own empathy-driven misery.
Another thought that I have had more than once was about the nature of what an animal thinks and feels in these moments. Humans, by virtue of their ability to be self-aware, anticipate and know about their eventual deaths. We often even know that we are dying. My paternal grandfather, on the day that he died, said to my grandmother, "I'm sorry, but I can't hold on any longer." He not only knew he was dying, he knew it was going to be at that moment and he could not escape it.
I've wondered when animals are sick, injured, or in pain if they have the cognitive capacity to realize what is to come. People say that animals can smell "fear" and given the myriad chemical reactions in the body during moments of terror, this makes some sense. I don't know enough about bird biology or that of other animals to say, but it seems logical that something in sweat, pheromones, etc. would be discernible to an animal's senses during times of acute distress.
Some even speculate that they can anticipate death and fear it coming. I recall something about how cows heading for slaughter seemed to sense that they were going to die and became stressed. However, we don't know if they smell the hormonal reactions that come along with the fear and momentary pain of dying of other cows in the area or if they have some sense of their eminent demise. Until we develop human to cow psychic abilities, we'll never know for certain.
As I was swimming, I pondered, did the goose merely cry because it was in pain or was it in that state because on some level it "knew" that it was dying? Was it's honking a "I hurt, I hurt, I hurt" message or was it a call for other geese to come near to comfort it as it knew it was finished here. Was it pain or was it fear or some combination of both that elicited the crying? I should note that no other geese ever came near it. If it was a distress call, it went unanswered despite the fact that it definitely would have been overheard by many other birds of a feather.
I cannot know, but my feeling is that animals have no complex sense of anything. They act on instinct, and despite humans bandying that word about in reference to their own behavior, humans do not have instincts. For the record, instincts are pre-programmed behaviors, often complex, which animals are born with. Nest building is an instinct that birds have. Humans don't necessarily come with a clean slate, but we have to learn our behaviors. Animals come with a lot more programming already written on their hard drives than humans. However, there are little things which we do as reflexes (simple, unconscious actions) for survival which are often mistaken for instincts. For example, a baby immersed in water will hold his breath.
Animals, in my opinion and based on their lack of a cerebral cortex or any of the brain areas or activity associated with consciousness, likely do not have self-awareness. What is more, I think they don't have a sense of the future or past as humans do. One of the essential elements of consciousness is that you can remember the past or imagine the future as a narrative. I think animals learn and have memory, but they don't have such narratives. For example, they remember food was here or there and might go to that place when hungry in hopes of locating food when their stomach is empty. They don't remember the day when they saw one of those big things that walked on two legs and was always reaching down to touch them putting down a bowl of dry edible stuff and how they should avoid eating the food when those two-legged things were around because they don't like being pawed at. I think it's much simpler than that for animals. I believe it's simple and associative, not complex and story-like.
Humans, of course, balk at the idea that animals lack complex understanding. We impose our narratives on them. I recall a video which spread like wildfire of a dog using its nose to splash water on a fish writhing on the pavement. People were constantly anthropomorphizing the scene and saying that the dog cared enough about the fish to help it survive. There is no evidence that dogs care about inter-species survival. In fact, it is more likely that the dog perceived the bad smell of the fish and was using the only available substance on the paved surface of the road to try and bury it (an instinctual behavior).
When this video made the rounds, I could not say what I felt to people because the need to assign complex thinking to animals, especially with noble and positive emotional contexts, is so powerful among those who possess such thoughts. They want to believe animals are self-aware, caring, kind, and "pure" of thought and deed. They want to believe it so strongly that they'll ignore all sorts of evidence to the contrary like the fact that even domesticated dogs will kill or act aggressively toward other smaller animals (squirrels, cats, etc.) as well as each other. A dog trying to save a fish would indicate self-awareness (a desire to offer compassion and to see itself as a compassionate entity) as well as awareness of others (the fish's suffering), but there is no evidence that dogs possess this capacity. They can perceive and respond to stimuli including their owner's emotions, but there is no evidence that there is an underlying complexity to their thought patterns.
When I consider this point (the self-awareness of animals), it is not with an eye toward justifying the fact that animals die in the service of human needs. I don't need to make any such justifications despite not being an active vegetarian because the cycle of nature and life is that everything occupies a space on the food chain. The only reason your dog isn't setting up a human farm and harvesting you for man-steaks is that he doesn't have the big brain or opposable thumbs to manage such a thing. If that thought upsets you, I suggest you look up the word "anthropomorphize" and take a good hard look at your own navel. As an aside, I will say that I'm a vegetarian by default these days. As I approached 50, I lost nearly all of my desire to eat meat. It wasn't an ethical choice. It was just a change in appetites and digestion, but the truth is that few animals die in service to me these days. Lots of legumes are losing their lives, and perhaps the very rare chicken or turkey, but I'm not in need of justification for my choices.
Returning to the matter at hand....
Humans spend a lot of their lives in a state of reflection and no small amount of the time spent in that state revolves around anxiety and fear. We can do this because we are aware and possess consciousness. In fact, it is the ability to weave a narrative about the future and our death that creates the most distress. It's why we hook people up to machines to keep them alive. Imagining the end of us is very painful to sit with and we comfort ourselves by proving that end can be put off by forcing others who are nearer to death to remain alive. If animals are spared this speculation as a result of a lack of consciousness and self-awareness, wouldn't that be a blessing?
I consider myself to be a very self-aware person and I continue to find that more of a liability than an asset. Despite this perception, I strive to make sure no little psychological nook or cranny of me remains in darkness from myself. This has been a powerful tool in helping me cope with the difficulties that life has sent my way. It has empowered me by insuring that I will not be caught off-guard by revelations by others about me. That may sound like an odd thing to say, but often people's self-image and understanding is out of sync with the reality.
In fact, sometimes, it is dramatically wrong and is a source of much perplexity among those who have issues finding partners or making friends. They can't see themselves for who they are so they can't know how others see them. I not only see myself for who I am, but I know exactly how others may perceive me inaccurately and why they do so. I see it the moment it occurs by the looks on their faces or their reactions, and it's okay because I know myself well enough to know that they are reacting not to me, but to something in themselves which can't emotionally tolerate some aspect of me or is unaware of something about my life or experiences. This is my generally highly attuned sense of others. As I've said before, this is a survival mechanism that I developed unconsciously early in life and have been fine-tuning and honing consciously for decades now. And, as I said in the post linked to in the previous sentence, this enhanced awareness is not something that has brought me much in the way of happiness and has been an incredible burden.
When you know that others are in pain or can contemplate your own death or suffering, this is a product of self-awareness and consciousness. Humans rarely dissect this experience and they impose it on other creatures because they take it for granted. It is so much a part of the human experience that it doesn't even occur to them not to impose this style of existence onto other entities. It's why we imagine that trees can "think" and "feel" and it fuels imaginative characters in stories like ents. We talk to plants and imagine they must "hear" us on some level because there is a positive growth reaction. We do this despite the fact that they have no ears or sensory capacity to detect the sound of voices.
Though it is very difficult to pry ourselves away from imposing our thoughts, feelings, motivations, etc. on other creatures and even objects, I think that it is important to do so if we want to understand and accept the world on its terms rather than our "humancentric" view. I also think that the lack of conscious awareness that animals likely possess is not degrading to them, but rather an acknowledgement of the likelihood that animals, plants, and other entities have a different way of perceiving reality. This is not damning them to a lower perception or existence, but freeing them from the curse of self-awareness and consciousness. They may die, but they don't think about it for years ahead of time. They may perceive another animal suffering, but they don't contemplate the motives behind it happening. They may fear something, but they don't have to contemplate whether that fear is rational or irrational and whether to act or not to act. They may be in pain and cry piteously, like that poor goose, but they aren't wondering all the while whether or not some entity will rescue them from their pain or if this is a momentary experience or the end of existence.
To be free of self-awareness and consciousness is to live more in the moment. It is to live in attune with the environment and the body without the distraction of ruminating. Of course, it is also to live free of the capacity to plan and to survive using creativity and imagination. It limits potential, but it liberates the mind. All in all, as an aware being, I'd rather be aware despite the "curse" it brings, but I wouldn't necessarily wish that curse on animals, trees, rocks, the sun, the moon, or the stars. It's not an underestimating of their potential or a mitigating of their value which makes me conclude that they lack what I have. It's taking the available evidence of their behaviors at face value and an appreciation for freedom such a state grants them. Why would I take that away from them in order to comfort me in the suffering humans alone appear to experience as a result of their consciousness and self-awareness?
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