As you are probably aware, I’m obsessed with Schopenhauer’s idea of the Will and how it overrides our rational facilities. In it’s most basic form, it comes down to this: we struggle through today so that we can struggle through tomorrow. Now obviously, Schopenhauer’s ideas predated Darwin and we understand why it is that we have this irrational compulsion to keep living: if we didn’t have it, we wouldn’t have survived as a species. Still, we are not hummingbirds. We have rational abilities. Yet we let this primordial instinct carry us on through lives that are very often not worth slogging through. But the universe could surprise us.

I should be clear: I don’t find my argument for the continuance of life all that compelling. If I had lived thousands of years ago and believed that Thor created thunder, maybe it would be different. But I don’t. In the time scale of a human life, the universe is a very predictable thing. And though I may have superstitions about gravity going away, at the core of my being, I think that things will continue on as they have. And sadly, what I’m about to say does not help me because it is too intellectual.

Surprise

A rational reason not to blow your brains out tonight is quite simple: surprise. It’s not just that tomorrow might be better; tomorrow might be mind blowingly better. It might be a combination of heroin, cocaine, being offered your dream job, and the best orgasm you ever had — or could imagine. You don’t know. It’s like Bertrand Russell’s story of the chicken. The life of the chicken is pretty great: you get to do what you want and the farmer feeds and cares for you. Nothing in your entire life has prepared you for the day when he cuts off your head.

So we don’t know. But deep down, I feel that I do know. When I was in graduate school, I was swimming in a sea of general circulation models (GCMs) — more or less computer models for predicting the weather. And with all that computing power — the 8 CPU 10 GFLOPS ETA10 and thousands of brilliant minds — we didn’t predict the weather very well. Indeed, we still don’t predict weather that well. I’ll give you the secret of predicting tomorrow’s weather almost as well as a supercomputer: look outside and say tomorrow will be the same. And if you have a barometer, well, watch out! (Here in the Bay Area, the pressure has been dropping — storm’s coming in.)

Tomorrow’s going to be like today. Sure, I know intellectually that the sun may rise tomorrow and be paisley. But I “know” in a much more fundamental sense that this is not going to be the case. And I’m glad! Because even though tomorrow could bring the greatest orgasm imaginable, it could also bring the greatest suffering imaginable. Surprise is a double edged sword.

Personally, I don’t kill myself because even my worst days aren’t that bad. Stevie Smith once said that when she learned of suicide as a child, it came as a great relief to her because it meant she had control. If life ever became unbearable, you could end it. I like that thought. But what really seems to separate those who do kill themselves from those who don’t is the feeling of hopelessness — a lack of belief in surprise — the idea that today is eternal. So be happy! Tomorrow could surprise you in a very pleasant way. Of course, well, you know the caveats.

I’m not the easiest person to get along with. But I don’t consider myself a jerk. I’m not one of the difficult people. I don’t try to be difficult. But like most people, I have bad days; I take things the wrong way; I lash out. The problem I find is that when I’m having an argument with another person, I don’t know whose being the jerk. In most cases, there’s blame on both sides. But that in itself is something I’ve learned about such encounters. It’s a very good sign if you can see that you are at least partly to blame.

What I’ve noticed is true of the most difficult people — the ones who are forever getting into altercations — is that they think the world is against them. According to them, just about everyone in their lives are difficult. For a normal person, this should set off alarm bells. There really are only two possible explanations. The first is that you choose really bad people to hang around. For example, suppose you are a hate radio addict, it would be stupid to live in Berkeley. You would find a lot of people who think very different than you do. If that’s the kind of conflict that you like, have at it. But don’t be surprised that your relationships are difficult.

Difficult People Find Others “Difficult”

The most common issue, however, is that people find others difficult because they demand that everyone act just the way that they want. If that’s the case, you are going to find people “difficult” but the real problem is that you are difficult. They are just the way they are. So regardless whether you have decided to surround yourself with people who are naturally at odds with you and your worldview, or you require that everyone agree with you and do things your way, the problem is you not the world.

The vast majority of my relationships are extremely positive. But when I get into a fight with someone, I’m very concerned that I’m in the wrong. And even when I don’t think I’m in the wrong, I’m willing to take blame and get back to work. Life’s too short. But if the other person involved is not interested in accepting olive branches — indeed, if they use the olive branches to expand the conflict, then I know the problem is not me. I’m just dealing with a difficult person — a jerk.

I’m not sure what the difficult person gets out of being a jerk. But I can relate what I think is a telling experience. I had just spent half a day working with a difficult person and was told various things about how I should live my life. It wasn’t just advice of course, it was peppered with claims that I was an idiot and didn’t know what I was talking about. Later, I was going to dinner with this difficult person, and we ran into someone they knew. And I stood there for a good 15 minutes as this poor man was told exactly the same things I had been told with only slightly fewer insults. I wanted to say, “I’ve heard this lecture; could you give it on your own time?”

Difficult people have found a loophole in civilization. They’ve realized that most people are just too nice to tell them to shut up and mind their own business. But when someone does get the point of not being able to take it, that’s when the difficult person gets their greatest victory: oh, how wronged they’ve been by all the difficult people in the world!

The only way that you can know if you are a difficult person is to look out at the world and see what it thinks. I don’t think I’m a difficult person because the only person I know who thinks I’m difficult is widely considered one of the most difficult people working in their industry. The people who work with me have all kinds of pejoratives to describe me — but mostly just “weird.” But “jerk” is not one of them. Nor is “cruel.” But the real question is not figuring out if you are a difficult person; the real question is how you can avoid them.

I was walking to the local supermarket to get Gatorade because my right kidney has bee hurting and I just learned that Prilosec is only supposed to be taken for two weeks and I’ve been taking it for years. So I thought I would get some electrolytes in me and cut down on the tea and then start drinking water and maybe stay alive for another decade. And then I had the interaction with the martial arts girl.

In the same shopping center as the supermarket is a martial arts “academy.” I see all the little tykes in there doing their moves. They are kind of cute in their ways. But there are also olden children. And the girl was one of them. She was dressed up in her white fighting uniform with her big bag and she intimidated me out of her way, even though (1) I had right of way and (2) I am an old man.

This is not totally unusual for me. My life in public is very much one of trying to not be seen. And I generally find young people terrifying, but only because they are awful. But the encounter crystallized a question that had been vague in my mind for a long time: why would parents have their young children study martial arts?

I understand why people make their kids learn musical instruments. They do it because music is great. Learning an instrument provides the child with a lifetime of greater enjoyment of music. But on a more fundamental level, it allows them to play music: alone, with friends, in a band or orchestra. Are the parents who take their kids of martial arts classes expecting that their children will get into fights? Are they assuming that their kids will have to physically protect themselves later in life?

Now I know: all that martial arts stuff is tied into lots of ideas about honor and respect. I think that’s just compensating. For one thing, it’s never struck me as anything but affectation. But in all my years studying music very seriously, I never had an instructor give me a lesson about respect and the proper use of what I was learning. That’s because what I was learning did not involve breaking someone else’s nose.

The Paranoia of Martial Arts

We in the modern world get such a distorted view of the world because of the news. It is never reported that all the children from the local grammar school all got home safe and sound. So we end up with this skewed impression that the world is a very dangerous place. And when that leads to things like kids wearing bicycle helmets, that’s great. But I really do think that these parents are taking their kids to martial arts classes out of the same fear.

I understand that there are bullies out in the world. But martial arts classes are not the answer — they are the problem. Because if people think that it will just be the bullied who get this training, they are sadly mistaken. In fact, I suspect that the testosterone fueled environment of the martial arts class only encourages it. I think these parents are being shortsighted. And it’s ruining our civilization.

It is probably never a good idea to write anything too personal publicly. But I’ve never been very good at going along with good ideas. So I thought I would spend a moment to talk about the boring people I went to high school with. I don’t mean all of them, of course. I don’t know all of them. And some that I do know are quite interesting. But you see: I get mail.

I have a horrible memory, so I only have the vaguest of recollections of the people from high school. But they will write to me from time to time. This is pretty much always because of one aspect of my colorful life. They want to know if I am as evil as I appear to be. Do I snarl? Eat puppies for breakfast? Of course, they don’t put it that way. But the subtext is clear enough.

I no longer respond to such email, because I know how these things go. Regardless of how I respond, there will never be a reply. I think of it as the internet equivalent of doorbell ditch. But it really is them getting a thrill out of the process of comparing what they remember as a shy, skinny kid and his later life as despoiler of the world’s children and general pox on society. It makes me feel like a geek at a freak show.

And then I have to go and screw it all up by showing that I’m much more like a mathematics professor at a small liberal arts college. The disappointment must be extreme. But still, there are the books! They’ll always have the books! But I get the sense that they think somehow the lives they’ve led have been better than mine. And they might be right. I’m in no position to judge. But most of them have led what I think of as very boring lives.

This is not a surprise. I went to a high school that was known locally as “the ranch.” In fact, if my memory is correct, on the side of the gymnasium, that was painted in big block letters. And even though it was a suburban school, it had a certain feel of being a country school. The people who came out of it are now mostly a conservative lot — many of the Donald Trump supporting variety. You know the type: don’t much like African Americans, even though they’ve only seen them on television.

That’s all fine. Most people do just want a normal life — that’s why they call it that: a normal life. I like barbecues as much as the next person. But why reach out to me? I think that shows a certain amount of boredom with their own lives. I’d never write to someone I barely remember asking them about the twenty years they spent as a supply clerk in the army. Then again, I’ve lived, in retrospect (having survived it), a charmed life — and certainly not a boring one. I’ve traveled extensively, known amazing people, done some great things, got in ridiculous amounts of trouble, and lived to tell the tale. Not that I do — at least not to those people from the deep past who want to drive by my digital home and slow down, hoping to see me sacrificing a goat.