alert. one month of bachelorhood remains in my life. sound the klaxons. ready the gurneys. man the cannons.

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Sometimes I feel very conflicted about writing on this blog. I wonder, does the world really need yet another person babbling away about what they think? Consider some of my recent entries – I’m just waffling away about subjects (happiness, names, politics) that I’m basically completely unqualified to talk about, in the sense that I’m certainly no expert on those themes.

I guess what really bothers me is the fact that writing here often makes me feel so arrogant. I mean, isn’t it incredibly presumptuous of me to think that anyone really cares about what I have to say?

Blogging often reminds me of this quote by Max Stirner, “I write because I want to procure for my thoughts an existence in the world. . . I sing because – I am a singer. But I use you for it because I – need ears.”

I really dislike the notion of ‘using’ others as ‘just ears’. But I know that’s not exactly what going on here, either. After all, if you don’t want to read what I have to say here, it’s easy enough just to not visit the site at all!

However, I often still feel so vain writing here sometimes – but writing (the actual process of writing) is so enjoyable, so therapeutic, that I continue to do it, even if I do have some serious reservations about the whole project.

I guess that’s why I always feel that my old posts are (for the most part) terrible, and why I always look forward to my next post, to the post not yet written. I say to myself, “Yes, that next one will certainly be good – it will certainly be better!”

Thinking in this way, my writing propagates itself naturally, organically – I feel like I need to write something better based on what I’ve already written! It’s a strange process, a kind of discipline in itself, but I really do enjoy doing it.

One thing I’m glad of, is that most people who comment regularly here have blogs of their own – that’s really reassuring, because I feel that at least I’m not the only one broadcasting my opinions to the world.

Strangely, I love reading other people’s blogs almost without exception. In fact, blog reading has surpassed my actual book reading (with the exception of my academic stuff), and I think that it is likely that I will continue to read about 70% online, 30% off-line for the rest of my life. I just don’t see any good reason why that pattern should change. Blogs are interesting, current, full of fact, fiction and multi-media – they’re infinitely better than most books in my opinion, even if they are written by ‘non-professionals’.

I wonder what everybody else thinks – why do you write? What do find yourself reading these days: blogs, books or both?

I learned about the shootings at Virginia Tech yesterday afternoon at around six in the evening. At that time, I felt virtually nothing except complete shock – I stared blankly at the television, barely heard the reporters voices. I went to sleep uneasily, not a thought in my mind.

This morning I woke up feeling terrible – my back and wrists felt inexplicably sore and tired. I was sullen, tired, my heart felt like lead. I managed to go to work, to smile and talk with the people there, but I wasn’t myself. I went to class and noticed that campus police were out in full force, more than I’ve ever seen on a regular school day. Class carried on as usual – I payed attention, took notes, got on my bike and rode home.

When I came in, I fixed a sandwich and turned on the television. There on the screen were pictures of the students and their families. I turned off the television, went into my room, and wept.

I cried not just because what happened was so horrible, so senseless, so terrrible, but also because I felt so hurt by it all as well.

John Donne wrote,

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.

“Each man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind.” Today I felt so diminished.

Compassion – meaning literally “to suffer with”. Although it may not seem to mean much to those people who are suffering so many miles away in Virginia, today I know for sure there are people, people all over, suffering with you.

One thing I’ve noticed lately is how many labels one can aquire over the course of a lifetime. Even in my twenty-two short years, consider how many of the following ‘categories’ could apply to me (or you!):

Son
Brother
Friend
Boyfriend (or Ex-Boyfriend)
Father
Uncle
Cousin
Husband
Student
Musician
Guitarist
Fiancee
Anthropologist
Nephew
Best Man

And the list could go on of course. For my part, some of these labels describe me accurately (Son, Brother) while others may be applied to me at a later date but for now go unused (Father, Husband). All of these labels express a fundamental idea – they illustrate a relationship between myself and the person who employs them. I’m always interested in how others use these words in casual conversation – who considers me a brother, a friend, a musician? Their choice reflects a certain truth about how they understand the relationship we share, but it’s often difficult to get a sense of what these terms really mean – there can be room for interpretation.

Take for example the designation ‘old friend’. When used in a postive manner, it denotes a trused confidant, a person one knows well, a friend that has in some way shared a part of one’s life. Used in a negative way though, the meaning changes completely – an ‘old’ friend is like an ‘old’ shoe – an unfortunate part of the past, a signifier of an ‘old’ self long since improved upon or forgotten.

Despite this occasional ambiguity, common labels aren’t all bad. They facilitate communication, they tell us who to trust and who to avoid, who we must tolerate (our family) and who we can fall in love with (not our family!). People outside the anthropological academic circle are often interested to find out that in the United States, we use what is known as the Eskimo Kinship System. There are other ways of designating what group you belong to, six others are usually recognized, in fact. Some of these are more inclusive, some less, than the system most westerners are familiar with.

This entry isn’t about the usefulness of these systems, though – it’s about how I don’t like them to be used as labels (like the ones I outlined at the beginning of this post)! And why would I dare to rail against such a useful, practical system? Because I have a special designation all my own that people sometimes fail to use, calling me instead one of those other generalizations. In short, I have a name!

Although it may not seem obvious, my name is not Jon, nor is it John, or Johnny, or Jean – though I’ve been misidentified as all of these at least once, sometimes many times. In fact, the name that will appear at the beginning of this post is not my name – it’s a strange, somwhat unusual hybrid of my real, true name.

That name, my real one, is Jonathan – and it’s a name almost no one calls me by. But I have a confession to make – if no one uses that name, it’s largely my fault. When I was very young, I was embarrased by my full name – it seemed clumsy, long, and arrogant – a full three syllables to the effecient and practical one and two syllable names of most of my peers. Why, I wondered, did I have to be the person with the name that took so long to pronounce, that was so unlike everyone else’s name?

So for years I hid my real name, placing it on offical documents only, telling everyone to call me just Jon – even the constant misspellings were more tolerable than the awful length and breadth of my real name. As I got older, I wondered why my parents hadn’t given me a more ethnic first name, something that reflected my wonderful Acadian heritage (Amidee, Alphonse, Cleus)? When I got to college, I realized my last name was more than enough to demarcate me as a Cajun – I realized there was no need to push the issue with a first name, although I still think it would have been cool to have an old French name.

So Jonathan it is, my name for better or worse, and lately I’ve come to realize it’s not such a bad designation. In Hebrew (the language of my name’s origin) I look like this: יְהוֹנָתָן / יוֹנָתָן

It’s quite nice I think. The name itself is actually a combination of two words ‘Jo’ and ‘Nathan’ respectively – thus, it’s really more appropriate to shorten my name to Nathan rather than Jon, but I doubt that kind of name change would catch on, even for me, at this point in my life.

I think my full name holds a great deal of power, indeed is somewhat mysterious to me, because it’s harldy ever used. I wonder, will I use it regularly one day? Will someone know me by that name, my real name, and no other? Who (besides my mother) will I be a ‘Jonathan’ to?

Whatever happens in the future, let this post serve as a reminder that, although I can be many things to many people, I am also one thing – a singular person – and I have a name that will go with and indeed one day surpass me. One day, hopefully long in the future, someone will walk past a tombstone (or urn, or something) with the name Jonathan inscribed on it. Will that name mean anything to them? Who will they imagine me to have been?

Our names – they are our past, they are our future, and they are all destined to one day stand for us as the final link between our life and death. Is your name ready?

i’ve been thinking about some things in our culture that exist for little or no practical reason. I would like to take this opportunity to slam those things.

if you were from a different culture, like the Inuit native americans, you would probably be so befuddled by these strange customs or developments that you would either reject it completely or embrace it out of curiosity. (P.S. i picked the Inuit because they pretty much have a practical use for everything they can get to survive)

word of warning: perhaps coincidentally, but maybe not, There’s a reason the majority of these things are still around, alive, vibrant, bigger than ever. People will look far past the utterly wasteful nature of exactly what they’re doing for pleasure, or tradition, or preservation of their culture/self/way of life. And another word of warning: several things in here are things that girls treasure. i am aware of this.

I’m not calling for the abolishment of said things, but if these things suddenly disappeared, i would not cry. and i would also have a great deal more money in my bank accounts. which i could spend on things that are useful.
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