Breach of Social Contract

As long as we're back in essay mode again, I thought it was time for a slightly "headier" one. See, as much as I love talking about fun stuff like Aliens or Transformers on this site, it's just not as important as some of what's going on in the "real" world. God, that word leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Unfortunately, I've now seen all of the Presidential Debates between incumbent Barack "Everybody Chill the Hell Out, I Know Math" Obama, and Mitt "Makin This Up As I Go While Armed With Money and Binders of Women" Romney. While we're at it, I also took the time to watch the Vice-Presidential Debate between Joe "That's a Bunch of Stuff and Malarkey" Biden and Paul "The Fountainhead Shrugged When I Told My Party Leader to Shut Up" Ryan. Yeesh. If I were feeling diplomatic, I'd describe the events as filibuster-like bouts of political give and take. But I'm NOT so I'll call them what they are: public demonstrations of the reasons I continue to self-identify as a misanthrope. Yeah, we're going there.

By now, the subtlety with which I have lampooned each of the candidates should have tipped off many of you that I have a...oh, let's call it "bias" towards the left wing of American politics. Of course, if you've read any of my posts prior to this one, you should have figured that out by now, but for the newbies here: I definitely do consider myself to be "liberal" on the binary switch that is American political ideologies. But that very duality, my dear readers, will form the subject of today's post. For you see, I think I understand a little better why it is we consistently fail to come together as a people and make this world the shining place many believe it can be. From where I stand, it all stems from a common misunderstanding about human social nature. Most people would categorize us as "Social Animals", and that's essentially accurate. The trouble is we are best classified as "Tribal Animals", but...


We Don't Accept Our Tribal Nature 

I imagine a few definitions will be required to flesh this out a bit, so let me start from there. Social Animals are, to my understanding, animals that typically act as and within a group of their own species to ensure the continued survival of both the individuals of the group and the group as a whole. This is behavior typically exemplified in many kinds of organisms on Earth up to and including Chimpanzees, Ants, Buffalo, Geese, Wolves, Bees, and a myriad of others. This definition absolutely includes Human beings, but, as some of the more zoologically inclined among you may have noticed, not all those animals I mentioned are social animals in the smae way.

Ants and bees fit into a category of social organism often referred to as Eusocial, from the greek root "eu" meaning "good/proper" or "true/real". They get this definition from the way that they act not as a group of individuals, but as ONE individual entity with independently functioning pieces. None, save for a leader organism (often a matriarch in the form of a queen), have any indepenent "will" that guides their behavior, and all effort is directed towards the maintenance of the whole at the expense of any individuals. In this model, no one organism matters as the success of their "society" is dependent on the continued existence of the whole "hive" and nothing more. Obviously, humans (as a species) do not fit this pattern, but we'll return to this soon, so keep it in mind.

Now geese and buffalo, on the other hand, absolutely strive for the protection of the individual, but do so by relying on a "safety in numbers" method of group behavior. The "Herd Social" organisms of the world function, not like a hive, but rather as individuals that share a space and each finds a niche where they can live out a relatively unmolested existence. The social aspect comes in when a situation arises that potentially threatens the herd. If any individual raises the alarm, the rest will follow suit and respond appropriately; i.e. they will all run away or stand their ground as a group to ensure the survival of as many as possible. In many respects, human civilization seems to follow this pattern; the majority don't claim direct responsibility for any other individual and we react as groups to threats to our space or existence by rising to one aid. Pretty close, I agree, but still not quite right. For our answer we look to chimps and wolves: we are "Tribe Social".

Tribalism is basically the form of social living where a given individual lives amongst others of its species where there are strict boundaries set around which others are part of its social circle. The "pack" or "mob", if you will, forms the social unit in question. Often, there is an associated "Alpha" (not always, but often male) who "leads" the tribe by maintaining a strict hierarchy within it of who is permitted to mate, or eat, or enjoy other social liberties within the tribe. This leadership is often absolute, but changes when a challenger of sufficient strength (as defined by the tribe's collective perception of strength) "usurps" the current alpha and takes his/her place as head of the tribe. Additionally, the tribe works as a whole (under the alpha's guidance of course) to expand territory, acquire food and other resources, and protect the community from various dangers...including other tribes.

Yes, the other defining feature of a tribe, that sets it apart from a herd or hive, is that tribes DO NOT MIX WELL. The contact of one tribe by another is either stringently avoided or results, nigh-inevitably, in open conflict or war. Tribes don't get along very well, and under the alpha's guidance, tribes will often fight for the right to control territory, resources, access to mates, and security. Sounding familiar to anyone else? Sounding at all like our democratic process? Obviously, we often choose to dress up our tribal behaviors in the guise of something "civilized" by holding debates, elections, and "campaigning" for resources rather than outright fighting over them; but make no mistake, we are tribal creatures through and through. Besides, we regularly (as a species and a nation) engage in actual violent conflict with other "tribes" for a variety of reasons. The debates between our various candidates represents nothing more or less (to me) than the head-butting of tribal Alphas, campaigning on behalf of tribes labeled as "Democrat" or "Republican" by their various constituents. Millions of Americans align themselves with a tribe and root for "their alpha" to "win" the debate, and therefore gain some sort of claim over the way the nation will progress.

But don't think that we're only tribal at this scale; look at ANY classroom and you'll see the exact same behavior in the form of cliques and circles of friends at any age. To those who would say "my clique/circle doesn't have an Alpha", look carefully, and you'll see that it most assuredly does...it just might not be YOU. In fact, it might not be a proper "human" at all. Sometimes an image or an ideal is sufficient. The punk movement has no organization, but it has beliefs that guide its members. And even in those circumstances, "leaders" inevitably rise who embody the movement. Civil Rights in the US had no nominal official leader, but I'll be damned if someone tries to make the case that people like Dr. King or Malcolm X don't fill that role handily.

This pattern exists at virtually every level of human social gathering that I can think of. Left-wing, right-wing, liberal, conservative, libertarian, socialist, indepenedent, academic, gamer, musician, religious, graduating class, sports-fan, fan-boy, fan-girl, neighborhood (sometimes down to the building!), city, town, state, country, skin color, hair color, height, weight, straight, gay, bisexual, male, female, cat-people, dog-people, lizard-people, and COUNTLESS others all form the basis, for good or ill, for tribalism amongst us. It's actually so imbedded in our nature, that we are often multi-tribal. I know I've identified in my life as many things that all have a "tribe" with an "alpha" who is them-self part of multiple other tribes. In some cases, I have even been the alpha myself. It's nothing to be ashamed of, but it's essential that we pay attention to and remain aware of this behavior. Why? Glad you asked.

So much of our time on this Earth, as a species, is spent looking for a tribe to belong to. Most of us don't need to be an "alpha" of our tribe, just a constituent. But in our quest to find the tribe (or tribes) that that we fit, something weird always happens: we deny that tribal nature and attempt to dress up our world in something more "pleasing". Let me give you a couple examples: recall the definition of the Eusocial Animals - the ones that live in a hive that exists solely to serve the hive itself with no regard for the needs of any individual. Sound anything like Fascism to you? It ought to. The Nazis called themselves "National Socialists", implying that they are a nation of individuals who serve their Nation absolutely. I can almost hear the buzzing. And yeah, their "queen's" mustache, alone, was grounds for re-thinking that idea.

Look at the Communist party of virtually any nation that has attempted to build their infrastructure around its tenets. Communism itself is essentially an attempt at Herd Social behavior. Think of the mantra of the Communist party: "From each according to his ability, and to each according to his need". Sound like the mutual protection of all with no specific elevation of any one? Sound like life in the herd? I, at least, think so. Essentially, the mantra asks that each individual contribute to the heard without being individually responsible for the herd as a whole. In cases of protection, we fight or flee as one, but otherwise we simply carry on.

Of course the problem with that is that you can already see how another form of Herd Social behavior can arise as a direct consequence of that "live and let be" model: Reaganomics! What's more "herd" than simply leaving everyone alone entirely and letting them "do as they please" while simply coming together for a war? I can almost hear Ayn Rand nodding in approval. Under these terms, the new herd is one where some in the herd are doing VASTLY better than others, but still expect the compliance of the rest of the herd. How could this be expected to last? It couldn't!

Which brings us, at last, to the 2012 election. It almost seems like we're finally in a situation where we can embrace our tribal nature. Two parties: one red, one blue (a sign of tribalism if there ever was one), fighting it out for Alpha-status over both tribes. But alas, it is not to be. The governing principle of the last two (if not three) election cycles that I can observe is this notion of "reaching across the aisle". Especially in this election, there seems to be a concerted effort on the part of both candidates to work on a "bipartisan" level. In essence, both tribal alphas are fighting over who could peaceably unite both tribes the best. All I can say to that is: WE ARE NOT A HERD! Although the average American would probably never admit it, we don't want to reach across the aisle. We want the other side of the aisle to shut up and stay down. We want to bludgeon the opposition into submission so that "our side's alpha" can lead us onward. In our heart of hearts, we want, nay, need conflict. And why shouldn't we? It's in our very nature.

No generation on the planet has managed to grow up without a major war as the single most powerful cultural influence of their time; no one gets through life without establishing boundaries and pushing against the boundaries of others in the name of progress (high-school  anyone?). But this, I submit to you, is not a flaw in the human condition...merely its natural expression. See, while it might be uncomfortable to admit it, the peace and harmony of "reaching across the aisle" doesn't get us anywhere. I've watched the "bipartisan" politicians utterly fail to achieve anything. Obama can't get things done because he can't garner the support of the Republicans AND Democrats alike. Congress can't ever pass a decent law that would make any noticeable progress in our lives because they can't do anything without compromise. Harmony, however comfortable or ideal it may be, is stagnation and mediocrity. Conflict, at it's core, is our life.

With the elections just around the corner, I just want to remind everyone to PLEASE go and cast your vote. We may not have this whole thing down perfectly, but nothing improves without the participation of its tribe in the social order. This promises to be a very divisive election, so please make sure to contribute to this very important conflict. With any luck, we will see some improvement.

Happy voting.

I'm Trevor and that's my Frame of Mind.

Transform, and Sell Out

Ok. So it's been a while since I've gotten something more traditionally "Me" on this site so I think it's time for a return to form. I know some of you are expecting my Post-Con entry, and I assure you it is coming, but I have something special in mind for it that will take some more time. Don't worry...the further away from Con we get, the more cold water I feel justified in pouring over it (spoiler alert). I can virtually guarantee you'll like it (spoiler alert).

What, you might ask, do I have in mind then? Well, I may not have Dragon*Con to complain about right now, but that doesn't mean I can't get in my two cents in (which in this economy will be worth far less than two cents by the time this goes live) about something else relating to my beloved "Geek Culture" world. So then, let's get down to business, eh? I've got a bone to pick with the people responsible for bringing one-time Nerds-only icons into the larger popular culture. See, I've been speeding down memory lane by going over cartoons and such from my childhood (read: the 80's and 90's) and I think I've finally nailed why so much of what has emerged lately just doesn't sit right with me. Put succinctly:

Even Products Have a “Soul”

Of all the many, MANY, icons of my childhood that I've been re-consuming rabidly, one of the most important and often misunderstood by both geek and pop culture is The Transformers. No, stop! Do not close that browser window! Yes I know they're basically just toys and toy commercials. I also know that you probably can guess where I'm about to go with this. Maybe you can't or simply don't care. Either way: patience, grasshopper. Patience.

Since the last decade has only provided me Michael Bay’s incarnation of the property alongside a couple newer, well-meaning-but-empty cartoon iterations, I’d been craving some of the old-school version. To that end I've been watching the first two seasons of The Transformers cartoon from the early 80’s known as the G1 Transformers. I fully expected it to be pretty pathetic compared to the rose-tinting of my memories, and I was partially right about that. I have so many fond memories of the characters and their antics, and I still treasure those memories. I went into this stroll down memory lane confident that whatever flaws I found in the show (and make no mistake, they are there), I’d still cherish those positive associations. However, as I got through the first season and switched over to the second, a funny thing happened: I didn’t feel the rose tinting dissipate. In fact, I felt my fondness for the show and it’s “shtick” grow.

And then another strange feeling; I instantly knew what it was that got to me about their recent transition into modern world, and specifically with the recent movie adaptations. Michael Bay has made, as of this writing, three Transformers movies in live-action using CGI robots, and a fourth is currently in the works. All three of them worked in many of the classic G1 Transformers I’d expected along with some of the original iconography of the show. All three were sprawling epics depicting explosive battles and near constant action. All three were box-office mega-hits grossing billions of dollars. And all three of them…how shall I put this….SUCKED!

Don’t get riled up…if you personally enjoyed them, then good for you. You’re wrong, but good for you. All kidding aside, there were some definite bright spots to the “Bayformer” movies, and I confess to having enjoyed some of the blatant fan-baiting this franchise has managed to crowbar into the script and sets. Unfortunately, that’s actually the problem: in attempting to make something to appease its fan-base (i.e. people like me who grew up on them) and make it marketable to a wider less devoted audience, they can’t do anything but pander while basically tossing out everything that made Transformers what it was. In essence, they managed to (mostly) replicate the body of the work, but left out the “soul” of it that gave personality and meaning.

Those who would (rightly) point out that Transformers is, was, and always will be a toy commercial with an overly-elaborate budget should keep in mind that this kind of “simplicity” actually gives writers and directors a good deal of creative freedom to create the “product” in imaginative and intelligent ways. Look underneath the hood (get it? Car joke? No? Fine, I’ll stop this now) and you’ll find a pretty well thought out show with well realized characters and a consistent moral and philosophical infrastructure.

As a small-ish example of this, let’s look at the way the Autobots and Decepticons (the two opposing forces, for those who still haven’t clicked the link above) are depicted as teams. The Autobots function as a sort of Arthurian democracy where their well-respected and beloved leader rules absolutely, but with compassion, and who maintains a healthy respect for his “subjects” and there contributions throughout their struggles. The Decepticons, on the other hand, would seem to operate under a similar structure, but their leader is a megalomaniacal tyrant who inspires his team, not to cooperate, but to betray him and each other at least once per episode; often to the detriment of their mutual goal. See what they’re saying here? Heroism is achieved by unity under a respectful and thoughtful leader, while villainy is ultimately its own downfall due to the failure of its leadership to achieve that unity. That’s pretty deep for a toy commercial, wouldn’t you say?

So if a commercial can make philosophical statements with just its setting and characterization, why is it that a multi-million dollar special-effects laden spectacular has to boil down to a story about a suburban teenager trying to get laid? Seriously, if you haven’t noticed, the plot of all three of these movies is basically “how do I get into Meagan Fox’s (and eventually Rosie Huntington-Whiteley’s) pants?” repeated ad-nauseum, while occasionally being interrupted by some explosions caused by giant robots. Well, it’s because the G1’s were basically a cult phenomenon (slightly bigger, I’ll grant, given the legions of followers; we…er….they are called “Trans-fans”), and cult phenomena don’t sell enough movie-tickets. So the solution: use the images, language, and iconography of the old show (the easiest pieces to replicate – even I could design an Optimus Prime themed website, for example) and swap out the infrastructure for something broad and pleasing to allow for greater audience reach. The results speak for themselves.

Any of you who haven’t had their heads in the ground while reading this will know that I am absolutely for inclusivity in all things, and that absolutely applies to the franchises I love. So why does the obviously far-reaching approach to Bay’s Transformers bug me so much? You’d think that this would be a form of that ideal made into reality. Well, unfortunately, it isn’t. Because inclusivity is not about making people like what you like. It’s about allowing people to discover why they like it, too. Exposing new audiences to Transformers is a good idea; great even, by my standards. Doing it by removing the thing that made it a phenomenon in the first place so that more people will be “convinced” they like it? Not so much. That’s not inclusivity at work; it’s just pandering. Moreover, it yields an entirely different product than the original. In essence, Bay’s Transformers is NOT The Transformers of my childhood. It’s something new, masquerading under the marketable name of The Transformers. This isn’t a problem in-and-of itself, but it will ultimately just disappoint people like me who have built up an expectation over the years and simply mislead “new fans” by offering something completely unlike what is claimed to have inspired it.

Just to prove that it can be done properly, look at Marvel’s The Avengers. Tons of fan-service, lots of flashy special effects and gorgeous actors (seriously…I don’t care what your sexual orientation is, that’s one hot team) all designed and marketed to invoke the world of the comic books that inspired them. What did they do right? They didn’t toss out the underlying principles and ideas that made them The Avengers. Instead, they tossed out the specific details and minutiae from the comics. Any comic book fan will tell you that the fine details don’t resemble any of the Avengers books with much fidelity. Sure, the heroes themselves are visually recognizable as their comic counterparts, but the reason that works is that they feel like the heroes from the books. They speak and behave like The Avengers rather than like walking monuments to a previous incarnation of the same name. The story isn’t actually much like any of the canon that I know, but it feels like an Avengers story just the same. Pandering iconography like the Tesseract (or The Cosmic Cube, for you fans out there) or the tease at the end (which I won’t spoil) are all present, but they work because that “soul” remains that keeps the whole enterprise grounded and coherent. Now that’s how it’s done.

So if anyone else out there reading this hopes to bring some vestige of my childhood to the world at large, just keep this in mind: everything (commercial, art, or both) has something like a “soul” that defines it. Those things also have their distinctive looks, language, and icons, but that soul is the most important part to understand. If Transformers doesn’t feel like Transformers, your job wasn’t done right. And remember, lackluster or uninspired source material isn’t a license to “not care” about or disregard that soul. One of the most successful films of the last decade was about a billionaire who dresses up like a flying, rodent-like mammal and beats up a criminal in clown make-up because his mommy died. It can always be done.

I’m not saying you “shouldn’t” enjoy something like the Bayformer movies and I'm also not suggesting that these two new groups of fans can't get along or even unite. But I am asking that we take a moment to consider that real inclusivity and real outreach means giving others a chance to discover the thing it is, not the thing it was marketed to be. You might find something great, but at the very least, you’ll have learned something more about yourself in the process: this just isn’t for me.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed this return to my over-crowded mind.  It's good to be back.  Given the subject matter, I suppose there's really only one thing left to say: ‘Til all are one!

I’m Trevor, and that’s my Frame of Mind.

In Memoriam - Robert LaRocco

Introduction

On August 27, 2012, a man I love very much passed away. Robert LaRocco was 63 years old; too young to have left us, but old enough that he had left his mark on countless others as a teacher, mentor, friend, partner, father-figure, and even a beloved "uncle" to me and my family. On September 4, 2012 that same family, along-side dozens of people who knew and loved him dearly, held a funeral service where any who wished could speak about his life and how he had changed it. What follows are, in order of presentation, eulogies prepared by some of his closest friends and family.  Where possible, original grammar, punctuation, and formatting have been preserved in their original form. 


Sam Austin

Rob LaRocco is the last person who would ever permit me to stand in front of an audience and be boring. So even though my subject is a sprawling epic, I will try to keep my tribute brief and diverting. Rob and I first crossed paths in Fall 1981 when Rick Rosen, a dentist who hoped to quit his day job by producing a musical I’d written, gave me Rob’s name as someone who was selling a piano. All I knew about Rob is that he was selling a piano, and I lost interest as soon as I heard it was a Story & Clark piano.

There the matter might have ended had Rick not invited Rob to join him one night at a restaurant in the Village where I was playing. Rob immediately struck me as a dynamic and charismatic presence, with a smile that could light up the entire room. But he really got my attention when he learned that Rick’s plan was to produce my musical in Connecticut for a transfer to Broadway. “Why do you want to mount a whole production in Connecticut? I could understand if you just want to get your chops up, but if you want to bring this show to New York what makes you think you’re going to get producers up to Connecticut to see it? Instead of wasting your time with Connecticut regional theater, why not do a workshop in New York to begin with?”

What Rob didn’t know is that the other people at the table were the board of directors for that waste-of time Connecticut theater company. This was the first of many occasions I heard Rob say something that, while undeniably true, might not have been the most politic comment to make. And even though later that same evening he was apologizing to me for offending the board, I was delighted that he had. I felt as though I finally had someone in my corner who knew what he was talking about. Then when he invited me back to his apartment and played me some of his many beautiful songs, I realized he was much more than just an outspoken guy selling a piano. He was my hero.

It took me a couple of weeks to move in, but after that night I never really left. And through the thirteen years I was by his side, we met and cultivated all kinds of wonderful people, shared untold splendid adventures, and even dared a few years in to start collaborating on what turned out more often than not to be some terrific material. Having promised to be brief, I couldn’t possibly bear witness to all his acts of caring and generosity, but I will let one of the earliest stand for all. My sister had recently moved to New York with the hope of pursuing a singing career, and Rob suggested we visit the Winter Garden theater just so she could see how they had transformed it for the big smash hit of that season, Cats. We got all the way to the lobby of the theater before Rob whipped out a ticket for one of the best seats in the house at that evening’s performance, handed it to my sister and said “Enjoy.”

[I want to go off book for a moment here because after I wrote this I remembered another of Rob’s many generous acts that was also a crazy adventure with many amusing episodes and one that I wanted to share. He volunteered for Fountain House, a wonderful nonprofit organization in midtown that is basically schizophrenics helping each other to function. Rob created and played many Fountain House shows, and on one of those occasions I was charged with getting his parents to the show after Rob had already gone ahead. I wanted to make sure I had the right address to give the cabbie, so I called ahead and one of the schizophrenics answered. I asked “Can you tell me where you are located?” and she said, “I’m in the lobby.”]

Shortly after we got together I told Rob that I had thrown away the card with his name and phone number. When I told him why, he said “Oh I would’ve refused to sell you that piano, it should only go to a beginner.” Even then I had no reason to doubt that he would do what he thought was in someone else’s best interest even if it meant sacrificing his own. Oddly enough I never doubted that, even through all the strange twists our relationship took. His commitment to caring for and nurturing those around him was that absolute and unwavering, even if he often made you feel like you were wasting your time with Connecticut regional theater. He was always in our corner. He loved us all. And we will never forget him. And we will miss him more than words can say.


Trevor Schechter

This is bullshit.

I hope you'll forgive my irreverence. I know he would. Rob was often an irreverent and inappropriate man. Not out of some misguided sense of rebellion like the average teenager, nor out of a desire to cause trouble or make people uncomfortable. He was the way he was because it was sincere; because it was genuine.

Sincerity was all-important to Rob. Ironic, I suppose, given his commitment to the world of theater where nearly everything you say and do is technically a lie. But as any good performer will tell you, if you can't feel it yourself, no one else will. And so, that's what he tried to instill in me my whole life: mean it, or no one will care. And he must have meant it: look around you at everyone who cares. Any doubt that any of us may have had about whether or not he was right is gone as of this moment. We all cared. More people than can possibly be here today cared; all because he maintained the strength needed to be sincere and true to his sense of self.

I say "the strength needed" only because I know how hard it is to be what you are in this world. I suspect that all of you do as well. So much pressure to conform, so much resistance to change; it all works against us. But Rob found his way to stay sincere: he was a creator. In the struggle to leave our mark on the world, Rob left his by creating sincere, honest, and admittedly crass people out of everyone he touched. I can only imagine that some time ago in his life, he had simply grown tired of dealing with the all the insincere showmanship (both on stage and in real life) and decided to just do better himself.

But that alone wouldn't leave a mark. Maybe a footnote reading "here lies a bitter and irreverent man", but nothing worth remembering. Rob, whether he wanted to or not, made sure he'd be remembered: he put himself into the world. Ask yourself: how hard did I have to work to understand Rob? How much effort did it take to really understand what was going on under the hood? I suspect the answer may be: a lot. But why was it so hard? Surely someone who wore his heart on his sleeve like he did wouldn't be difficult to figure out. Well, that's what makes Rob memorable: that work you were doing wasn't really about understanding him, it was about understanding yourself.

Rob had an uncanny sense for when people weren't being honest. He wasn't a human polygraph machine, but he knew when people didn't mean what they were doing or saying. He knew sincerity when he felt it, and it was all he wanted from us. None of the pomp and circumstance, none of the formality: just you, as you want to be. And most amazing of all was that he could bring that out in you. He went above and beyond to make you more like you. He would scoff at attempts to play something down; shove you, willingly or not, into the spotlight; and laugh at your attempts to be anything more or less than what you are.

Now some might think of this as cruel or unfeeling. It isn't. His actions carried the sincerity he felt was needed in you. When he made you learn that song, or pushed you onto that stage, he did it because he knew that whatever you may suffer, it was in the service of your evolution as a genuine human being. He was making you into you, because he didn't want anyone else. He didn't care for your status, your power, or even your beliefs. He wanted to see who you were when stripped of all pretenses. He wanted to see what you'd do with an audience that cares; even if that audience was just him. He wanted to care about you and most importantly, he wanted you to care about you.

It is a rare gift to be able to look so honestly at yourself and come out of it stronger than you were. So often we hide our flaws and make excuses for our mistakes. Rob wouldn't stand for that. He would make you confront you at every turn and he would be there to guide you away from the despair that often comes from being so honest with yourself. He wanted a world filled with honest men and women who can look at themselves with sincere love, and he would go to hell and back to see it become a reality.

You see, the truth of the matter is: everything you are, even the ugly, is still you. And in the mind of Rob LaRocco, that made you beautiful. That made you magnificent. And it made you worth caring about. No bull.


Alexandra "Sasha" Schechter

For Sasha's eulogy, I would like to direct you to her Tumblr where she has posted it in its entirety.  It's a beautiful story spoken from the heart with great feeling and sincerity.  I encourage you all to read it.


Saletta Boni

THE TUESDAY AFTER LABOR DAY.

THE TUESDAY AFTER LABOR DAY IS THE TRADITIONAL BACK TO SCHOOL DAY IN AMERICA. SO IT WAS FOR ME 55 YEARS AGO TODAY - THE DAY I WENT BACK TO SCHOOL- A NEW SCHOOL. THAT DAY 55 YEARS AGO TODAY I MET ROBERT LAROCCO. 8 YEAR OLD ROBERT PERMITTED NO ONE TO CALL HIM ANYTHING BUT ROBERT (NO ROB, NO BOB, ONLY HIS AUNT LIVIA GOT DISPENSATION TO CALL HIM “ROBBIE”). HE WAS ROBERT AND YOU KNEW THAT FROM THE DAY YOU MET HIM AND IT REMAINED SO FOR THE FIRST 20 ODD YEARS OF HIS LIFE.

ROBERT AND I LIVED ONLY ABOUT A BLOCK APART IN DERBY CONNECTICUT. THAT TUESDAY AFTER LABOR DAY IN 1957 WE WERE BOTH STARTING THE THIRD GRADE AND.. FOR ME.. IT WAS A NEW SCHOOL, THE FRANKLIN SCHOOL, HAVING JUST MOVED TO A NEW STREET, TO SENTINEL HILL. ROBERT OF COURSE WAS AN EXPERT ON THE FRANKLIN SCHOOL. HE HAD MOVED TO SENTINEL HILL A WHOLE YEAR EARLIER. THAT DAY IN 1957 WAS THE BEGINNING OF THE JOURNEY OF A LIFETIME. WE BEGAN A FRIENDSHIP THAT TURNED INTO A LOVE AFFAIR THAT NOT EVEN DEATH CAN INTERRUPT. I LOVED ROBERT. AT TIMES I WAS ENRAGED WITH HIM, OFTEN IN THOSE SCHOOL YEARS IN DEEP TROUBLE BECAUSE OF THE PLOTS HE INVOLVED US IN (WHICH SOMEHOW ALWAYS LEFT ME HOLDING THE “YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER” BAG.) AND THERE WERE TIMES WHEN I NEEDED TO PUSH HIM AWAY. BUT FOR ALL THESE YEARS I HAVE KNOWN THAT HE LOVED ME, THAT HE KNEW ME BETTER THAN ANY OTHER PERSON I HAVE KNOWN, THAT HE SUPPORTED MY SOUL AND MY EVERY DREAM. TOGETHER ROBERT AND I WERE ABLE TO ACHIEVE WHAT IN DERBY, LIKE IN ALMOST EVERY SMALL TOWN IN AMERICA, DURING THE 1950S AND EARLY 60S WAS VIEWED NOT ONLY AS UNACHIEVABLE BUT ALSO AS UNSPEAKABLE …WE BUILT AND NURTURED DREAMS AND PLANS THAT WE WERE BOUND TO ONE ANOTHER TO SUPPORT-

WE FOUGHT - SOMETIMES WITH EACH OTHER - BUT ALWAYS -IN THE END- WE FOUGHT TOGETHER TO HELP ONE ANOTHER TO LIVE THE LIVES WE DREAMED… IN A WORLD WHICH WE DEFINED AS GOOD- FULL OF NOT SO GOOD POTHOLES ALL AROUND- BUT FUNDAMENTALLY A WORLD WHICH WE ALWAYS BELIEVED DEMANDED GOOD OF US TO THE BEST OF OUR ABILITIES TO DO GOOD IN A COMPLICATED WORLD. AND WE WERE REWARDED IN A SHARED BELIEF THAT THAT COMPLICATED WORLD COULD AND WOULD GIVE BACK IN KIND, IF YOU DO NOT GIVE IN AND DO NOT GIVE UP.

IT HAS BEEN A JOURNEY OF LOVE, OF AMAZING GROWTH, AND OF OUTRAGEOUSLY HARD WORK - FOLLOWING DREAMS THAT SO MANY TIMES WE COULD ONLY COUNT ON EACH OTHER TO SUPPORT. THE EXTRAORDINARY LOVE WE SHARED WAS UNCONDITIONALLY GIVEN TO MY CHILDREN, TO BOTH OF THEM- TO EACH ON THE DAY THEY WERE BORN. HE LOVED THEM AND NURTURED THEM AND, THROUGH THOSE RELATIONSHIPS HE BUILT FIRST WITH TREVOR AND THEN WITH SASHA—THE BOND HE AND I SHARED GREW EVEN STRONGER.

I WILL NEVER STOP COUNTING ON ROBERT FOR LOVE AND SUPPORT BECAUSE NOTHING IN HEAVEN OR ON EARTH, NOT EVEN DEATH, CAN INTERRUPT THE POWER OF A LOVE THAT PROFOUND. I WILL NOT SAY GOODBYE TODAY ONLY THAT OUR ENERGY WILL ALWAYS BE JOINED…. THAT OUR JOURNEY WILL NEVER END AND THAT I KNOW… THAT THE ESSENCE OF WHO WE ARE WILL ALWAYS BE CONNECTED. I LOVE YOU ROBERT LAROCCO. AND DAMN YOU FOR MAKING SUCH AN EARLY EXIT FROM THIS STAGE. SEE YOU SOMEHOW ON THE NEXT ONE WHERE I AM SURE YOU WILL CONTINUE TO BE A SHINING STAR.


Paul Steinberg

I’m smiling, even though I’m heart-broken, because when Rob’s students were singing too seriously or too earnestly, he would call out “Smile!” He wasn’t even looking at them; he was looking at the music, but he could hear it in their voices. I’ve sat through countless of my niece’s and nephew’s lessons and watched Rob do that over and over, and it’s easy to hear the difference in the singing when they’re smiling or not smiling. But it wasn’t until I took a few voice lessons myself and heard Rob yell at me to “Smile!” that I came to realize that smiling doesn’t just improve the sound of your voice, but it actually changes the energy in your body—it gets you out of your head and into your body—and then everything looks and feels much better. So I will try to keep smiling through this and in the days ahead. Rob would definitely approve.

When I first met Rob, I had already been an uncle for 11 years—the first four an uncle by love to the kids of a very close friend, and after that an uncle by blood when my sister started having children. Being an uncle had become the most important aspect of my identity to me; it brought me more joy and more satisfaction than anything else I was doing at the time. Not having children of my own, I was able to devote all of my parental instincts to my nieces and nephews, and I was a pretty good uncle. Then I met Rob and something wonderful happened. Here was someone doing the same thing as I was, and even more so. And it was the first time I ever met anyone else doing it like this. Now I had a companion and a model, someone who really got who I was in a way that no one else did. I could see myself in him, and he could see himself in me. Rob wasn’t just an ordinary uncle—the kind that has his own life and who loves the kids but mostly spends time with them only on holidays, birthdays and special occasions. No, Rob was a consistent and nurturing presence in all aspects of Trevor’s and Sasha’s lives, and like good parents do, he learned as much from the kids as they learned from him.

At that time, even though I was loving being an uncle, I was still struggling with the desire I had always had to be a parent of my own children, but I hadn’t been able to figure out any way of doing that that felt right to me. But when I got to know Rob, I finally saw that being an uncle could be a thing in itself, and it suited me perfectly—probably better than being a parent myself. One thing about Rob was that he had no absolutely use for authority or convention, and in fact he actively worked to blaze his own path despite pressures from family, friends, community or culture. So Rob made up his own way of being an uncle, and he perfected it. There are no words to describe how much it meant to me to know him and get close to him. By the way he lived, he helped me understand who I am and what I want to be. We were the “gay uncles” (along with many others), and thanks in part to Rob, there is nothing else I could ever want to be.

I want to say one more thing, and if Rob were here in his body, it would make him very mad. But he would not want me to speak at all if I didn’t say at least one thing he could fight with me about. The thing about these fights was that at least half of the time I didn’t really believe that he believed in the position he was taking, and the rest of the time, two seconds after the fight was over, he was back to normal and saying that he likes seeing others loving what they’re doing even if he didn’t like it or approve of it himself. He was like that—judgmental in one sense but open and accepting in another sense.

Anyway, there is a teaching in an ancient yoga scripture (of course Rob would snort with contempt at the word “scripture”). The teaching is that we never die, because we are never born—our true essence or spirit or soul exists independent of the body. The body is like a suit of clothes: it wears out over time and then we cast it off, but that does not change anything about who we truly are. Death has no effect on the existence of the spirit. Rob lives on in Sasha…in Trevor…in Saletta…in Tony and Sam and David…in me…in all of his students…in all of you…and in everyone else he touched. And he is here right now (probably rolling his eyes). We can see him, hear him and feel him if we let go of our assumptions and they way we’ve been conditioned to think about the way the world works. That’s one of the ways Rob lived his life—shattering assumptions and convention—and if we can learn that from him, he can remain a constant and loving presence in our lives.


Tony Davis

Over thirteen years ago on Halloween I met Rob, from that moment on there were few days that we were not side-by-side; it was an instant attraction.
It was not just his wit and his writing talent that made him special. It was how his heart opened up to me; I was the privedged one to be loved by him.
You could debate on any subject for hours; and you would usually win.
We had built an amazing life together.
Full of adventures.

He was the Master of collecting quotes. One of his favorites that he would remind me of when I questioned myself on making important decisions was:

TAKE RISKS;
IF YOU WIN, YOU WILL BE HAPPY,
IF YOU LOSE
YOU WILL BE WISE

You were my strength.
I always knew you would be there. I'm going to miss those 3am wake-ups because you couldn't sleep; you just wanted to talk and get a hug.
I'm going to miss you calling me at 5pm everyday to see what time I was going to be home from work.
You encouraged me to go back to school; which I've been doing one-class at a time.

Then this year we talked about getting married.
It had only been conversation until just a few weeks ago when we were having dinner with our friends Janet and Larry, you suddenly out of nowhere blurted out, "We're going to get married."
We went home that evening and made plans to get married this October on Halloween. My life was complete. Now you're gone.

Goodbye my love.
Big hugs to you.
Life will never be the same.

Epilogue

Robert LaRocco is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx along side some of the most well known and beloved musicians and composers of our time.  A fitting resting place for a great artist and an even greater man.  I thank all of you for indulging in me in commemorating someone I loved more than all these words could possibly say.  I invite all of you, my readers, to contribute any words of your own to this memorial by posting in the comments section.  Don't hold back; speak from the heart.  That's how he would want it.

Rest in Peace, Rob.

We are Sam, Paul, Tony, Saletta, Sasha, and Trevor, and that's our Frame of Mind.

Xenomorphs and The Sacred Feminine

UPDATE: I wanted to thank everyone who contributed their two cents to my problem.  This is such an important mythology to me, and I've been looking forward to playing a new chapter for such a long time that it was incredibly frustrating to experience such cognitive dissonance over it.

Well, fortunately, I have good news to offer you all: We Won!

That's right, Gearbox, in a rare display of wisdom, listened to it's very vocal fans (myself included) and has announced officially that there will be female playable characters in their game.  As if that weren't enough, apparently it's not just the multiplayer mode where it would arguably be more vital, but in the single-player campaign as well that the women will be joining the fight.  Folks, I know it seems like something unimportant at times, but this is a big deal for the games industry from where I stand.  I was really starting to despair a little bit there given how magnificent their previous Aliens game (Aliens: Infestation on the Nintendo DS) was in regards to having male and female perspectives.  I'd begun to think that Gearbox and/or SEGA had gone the way of the overly-macho development studios cranking out endless streams of Y-chromosome-only shooters.  I'm thrilled to be proven wrong this time.

It's rare that any developer listens to its community with regards to these kinds of late-in-the-game changes, but even rarer when it's an issue of social justice that drives the community outcry.  I could not be happier with their decision and I'm pleased to announce that I fully intend to support their effort towards creating a more inclusive experience by pre-ordering a copy of Aliens: Colonial Marines for my Xbox 360.

I would also like to encourage any gamers or fans reading this to stand with me in buying a new copy of this game (NOT used; I want Gearbox to get the money they deserve for this) to show your support for a very positive and very progressive move on the part of the development team in a time where this sort of decision is not made lightly.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed their thoughts on this matter, and an extra big thanks to SEGA/Gearbox for doing the right thing in the end. 

A post breaking from our usual content (to deal with something very personal) will follow shortly, and then we'll be back to our typical discussion essays by around the middle of the month.  I thank you for your patience and understanding and hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend.

I'm Trevor, and that's my Frame of Mind.

ORIGINAL POST:

I come before you, my readers, with a quandary, and I'd like your help. I am currently unable to decide whether or not to purchase an upcoming game due to it's position in popular culture. I know that not all of you keep up with video games and some of you couldn't care less about them. That's fine; I'll do most of the work for you, in terms of bringing the issue to light. The problem, put simply, is that the game I speak of occupies a precarious position in popular culture (for me and several others) that makes it very difficult for me to make up my mind about buying it. I've been racking my brain for a while now, and fed up with indecision, I realized I could just bring it to you and see what you all have to say on the issue. I won't promise to base my decision solely on whatever feedback you may give me, but I will say that your thoughts on the matter may help tip me in the right direction. Furthermore, it's actually kind of interesting to talk about. Besides, it involves two of my favorite things on this planet:

Aliens and Women

Ok...did that stunt get your attention? Good! Glad to have you on board. Those of you who do follow gaming news will no doubt have surmised that the game in question is Sega and Gearbox Studio's upcoming shooter Aliens: Colonial Marines. A little background for those of you new to this: the game is framed as a direct sequel to James Cameron's masterpiece Aliens and focuses on a squad of colonial marines investigating the events at the now devastated and abandoned LV-426 (the colony where the movie takes place). The basic mechanics are like those seen in any FPS (first-person-shooter) and incorporates an emphasis on multiplayer tactics in both a cooperative and competitive environment. The single player campaign can be played alone (not recommended...it's an Aliens game, after all) or with a friend. The multiplayer mode has two modes: In cooperative, you and a team-mate must survive the onslaught of xenomorphs while defending a position or maneuvering to a new one, and in competitive, you are either a marine or a xenomorph and both teams are tasked with racking the highest body-count before the round ends. For the sake of brevity, let me put my enthusiasm for the game in terms that some of you might expect to hear coming out of my non-digital mouth:

OMG! AN ALIENS GAME THAT FOLLOWS FROM ONE OF MY FAVORITE FILMS OF ALL FREAKIN' TIME! OMG! AN ALIENS GAME WHERE YOU CAN PLAY AS A XENOMORPH AND EAT ALL THE HORRIBLE, EVIL, STUPID, TASTY HUMANS, YUM YUM! OMG!

Got it? Cool. Moving on then. In addition to all those (less vacuous) features of the game, the player is allowed to customize a marine and "enlist" for the purposes of the aforementioned multiplayer games. Combine that with the possibility of playing as more than one type of Xenomorph and Colonial Marines sounds more and more like the kind of game I simply must own.

So where does "women" come in? Well, that's actually why we're here today: they don't. At all. Gearbox has officially announced that none of the playable characters in the game's single or multiplayer modes will be female. "So what?" I hear some of you ask. "Another video-game excludes women...big deal". Video games don't have a great track record when it comes to female representation, and most games don't have playable female characters. This is especially true of the FPS genre, and even more true recently. So, maybe you'd be right in just shrugging it off as another of the many, MANY games that just aren't gender-equality friendly. Normally, and under any other circumstances, I'd be right there with you in dismissing it. But this isn't any other circumstance. This is Aliens.

I've been a fan of the Alien franchise since I first caught a glimpse of Aliens (yes, I saw the first one second; you got a problem with that?) when I was five years old. As I started asking my family questions about the movie, they saw fit to introduce me to Alien, Aliens (in full this time) and eventually Alien 3, and, thus, a fanboy was born. These three movies proved to be a very important part of my formative years as I found newer and more nuanced ways to appreciate them as works of imagination, action, science-fiction, horror, art, and even science-fact. In short, I became obsessed with these movies and have maintained that obsession into my adulthood (stop snickering...I am an adult). To this day, the xenomorphs haunt my nightmares, and their iconography is both a terror and a joy to behold. It's a strange phenomenon that I can be so fascinated with and frightened by them even at this point in my life. I still can't put one of these movies on at night, lest I have trouble sleeping (except Alien Resurrection, which I can't put on at all), and I often won't watch them alone for fear of scaring myself. I've never been a big horror fan, so I'm not "in to" fear as an adrenaline booster, and I don't like being surprised or scared. Despite all of that, I can't help but be drawn to the monsters born of H.R. Giger's imagination and to the cinematic universe they inhabit.

"Still haven't explained what this has to do with women, Trevor." Ok, fine...As I said just a moment ago, I've found new ways to understand the Alien franchise as I've matured in both body and mind, and there's one aspect about this particular universe that, while I couldn't have said it then, has always been important to me as a viewer. It's not unreasonable to say that this is actually the thing that drew me to it as a franchise in the first place. Whatever else can be said about the Alien movies, they are, fundamentally, about women. Not horror, not action, not even monsters. Women.

Every single movie in the original franchise (no, you don't get to count the Alien vs. Predator movies, although they have their own kind of appeal...more on that in another post) has been about female perspectives and voices in a male-dominated world. Alien dealt with a working-class woman named Ellen Ripley aboard a ship of "manly-men" (yes, yes, and one other woman - who, if you pay attention, is the example of how women should NOT act) and her struggle to both survive and hold everyone together, despite not being particularly powerful or respected. Her actions are always made with the best interest of her crew in mind, but almost all of them are immediately smacked down by a man who wants to make sure she "knows her place". And who survives the whole ordeal? HER! That's right, the movie does more than just pass the Bechdel Test, it actually makes feminine thought and action it's star while subverting antiquated patriarchal thinking in the process.

In Aliens, the general theme of women being ignored to the detriment of all is spoken even louder. In the beginning of the movie, all of the big, burly, corporate men, (and one woman, ok?) shoot down everything Ripley warns them about due to their single-minded pursuit of profit for their corporation. So, naturally, they choose to send down a group of big, burly, army men (and women who have decided to embrace many aspects of traditional masculinity) to "deal with it" and, SPOILER ALERT, they all get eaten...except for one. Corporal Dwayne Hicks....now there's an interesting counter-example. Yes, he's male. Yes, he's a marine. No, he's not a "big, burly, army man". He's actually the ONLY man in the whole franchise to date who has openly chosen the path of cooperation with women willingly and without anything but his own sense of reason to guide him. He's the only man who actively courts Ripley's ideas (and to an extent, Ripley herself) and seeks to find a solution with her, rather than around or in spite of her. No, the android doesn't count either. He's interesting in his own right, but not vis-a-vis his relation to Ripley or women in general. It would take a whole other post to deal with him properly.

I'm not going to discuss Alien 3 in length for the sake of time, but here's the Cliff notes: Ripley is, again, the ONLY survivor in a prison colony made up exclusively of men. I'm confident you can figure out the meaning in that for yourself. Instead, I'm going to bring up another aspect of Aliens' treatise on women that makes it so special in it's own universe and the world of sci-fi action more generally: Motherhood. The ENTIRE movie is a discussion of the exclusively female issue of motherhood. Ripley's daughter is dead at the beginning of the movie forcing her to confront issues of child-loss and failed motherhood. Later in the movie, she encounters a little girl (reminiscent, no doubt, of her own daughter) whom she decides to care for in order to help fill that void left by her tragic loss. Rebecca "Newt" Jorden, is herself, a good example of female triumph in the franchise, since she is also a lone survivor whereas her brother, father, and mother all got killed in the initial take-over by the xenomorphs. But moving on, there is one last example of motherhood addressed in this movie that can't be ignored. It brings up issues of single-motherhood, rearing children in a grim and unpleasant world, and the challenge of fighting for both your childrens' and your own survival: The Queen. Thought I forgot that, didn't you?

The Alien Queen herself is a grotesque mirror for Ripley's character in the film. Both are parents forced to confront loss and pain in regards to their children; both are in the midst of a struggle for survival against terrible odds (or did you not think the Xenomorph hive would be destroyed by an over-heating nuclear reactor?) and both are prepared to do whatever it takes to ensure that survival. This is a story of women's issues through and through, and it does it in a way that doesn't rely on "girliness" to make a point about embracing feminitity or "tom-boyishness" to make a point about the rejection of femininity. Ripley neither surrenders to traditional notions of womanhood (like her late co-worker in Alien) nor does she submit herself to the anti-feminine masculinity of the army culture (like Vasquez in Aliens). She is a complex women, to be sure, but she maintains that complexity by embracing the reality of her situation. She can be mothering to a frightened girl and torch a nest full of xenomorphs all without losing her sense of self in the process. She's a true heroine. It's this characterization of Ripley that has held my attention so firmly on this franchise. I may not be a woman, myself, but dealing with gender-identity issues and conformity are most certainly things I've had to confront in my life as a boy, teenager, and adult man. Just because she's a woman, doesn't mean that I, as a man, can't understand her struggle. Watching her provide such a shining example of a person who can simply "be" without being constrained wholly or unnecessarily by mere genetic pre-configuration was an inspiration to me when I was a boy, and still is now.

So to bring this all home, let's return to Colonial Marines. Given all this thoughtful writing and characterization of women throughout the franchise, why in all the surveyed worlds would they exclude them completely from an in-continuity game? It just doesn't make any damn sense! I can already hear some of you saying: "maybe women don't want to play this game". WRONG. Some more of you are probably of the opinion that it's not really a step forward to have women take up the role of "big, burly, army men". On that I would agree with you wholeheartedly, but it's not up to the developers of any game to make that choice for an entire demographic, nor is it right for anyone to say that they shouldn't if they really want to. Would I likely be playing as a female avatar were they to include them? No. In fact, I can pretty conclusively tell you that I don't like using female avatars. Part of that is identity, but the other part is that I just like the way men look in armor more than women (and particularly so when the artists "over-stylize" the women...gamers, you know what I'm talking about). Besides, anyone who's known me more than a minute knows I'll technically be playing as a female anyway: I'll be playing as the Xenomorphs! Either way, it's not really relevant, since If I find it more meaningful to play through a game with an avatar more closely approximating my own gender, then why would we assume that women wouldn't feel the same way? It seems really backward and not especially thoughtful on the part of the development team. Even Halo: Reach and Gears of War 3 finally wised-up and gave the option of a male or female avatar to accomodate the expanding demographic of gamers.

In summary: The game looks like a blast to play, incorporates characters and themes from a franchise I love dearly, and boasts the opportunity to vent my frustration with the human race by turning them all into an a-la-carte menu. On the other hand, it has ignored, entirely, an aspect of the series that has by far the most significance and meaning of any of its recurring themes, and in doing so, has turned up its nose at a demographic that I have nothing but admiration and respect for. Hell, if they'd even just include one woman in downloadable content, I wouldn't even be having this argument with myself.

So it boils down to this: Do I buy the game and enjoy it for the great time I can virtually guaruntee it will be, or do I avoid lending my voice of approval, via wallet, to a product that ignores such a critical social reality? Let me know in the comments what you think, or failing that, what you would do.

I'm Trevor, and, this time, I need YOUR Frame of Mind.

Speak No E-vil

I'd like to begin with a quick question: How on Earth is our world supposed to improve if every time we come up with something magnificent and revolutionary all we can do is use it to belittle and exclude others?  To say that the human race gathers together to do something extraordinary only once in a blue-moon would be overstating the matter, but it seems like every time we do, some people get it into their heads that this is the new way to prop themselves up above everyone else.  Doesn't this fatigue anyone else? ......Do you all know what I'm talking about?  No?  Okay, okay...buckle up, ‘cause this one's a doozey.  And it's not all fun and games.

The Tragedy of the Great Equalizer

In the annals of American History, there is a smattering of truly remarkable, earth-shaking, game-changing events, such as The Declaration of Independence, The reunification of the Confederacy with the Union, The Women's Suffrage and Liberation movements, and Civil Rights to name a few.  Let me add another event to that list that most of you probably don't think of as "on-par" with the previous: The Birth of The Internet.  "Bwah?!" I hear you say.  Yes, the creation of the interconnected network of computers that once went by the moniker "ARPANET" belongs right up there in the pantheon of major game-changers that make up the history of the good ol' US of A.  No, I'm not being facetious...well, not entirely.  I'm adding it to the list because it has a lot in common with those social movements I just mentioned.  Unfortunately, not all of the things it has in common are good, and that will be the primary focus of today's discussion.

You see, when we break them down, each of the movements mentioned above had a similar set of goals: Unification and Liberation. In the case of Independence Day, the express purpose of our declaration was to unify the colonies and liberate them from the tyranny of King George III of England.  The Civil War was fought largely with the goal (from the Northern perspective anyway...I am a New Yorker) of bringing the Southern states back into the fold of the US and liberating all the people living under American democracy from, in one case, slavery, and in another, economic hardship due to failing agricultural/industrial sectors and war.  Women's Suffrage?  Civil Rights? I bet you can figure it out, but just in case: Bring together the oppressed minorities (i.e. women and non-whites) throughout the country and liberate them from an untenable lifestyle and outright oppression and subjugation by the established authority (read: white heterosexual cis-gendered males). 

So what about the internet?  Well, while the explicit goal of creating the internet may not have been Unification and Liberation, that's pretty much exactly what it did.  The advent of a stable means of connecting disparate groups of people easily and with no real restrictions of time or space has brought people together like never before.  We've seen people come together for an incredible variety of reasons over the last couple decades, all thanks to the simplicity and ease-of-use made possible through the internet.   Hell, some of you wouldn't even know what I'm thinking without the internet!  And as for liberation, well, do I need to spell it out?  The freedoms of speech, assembly, etc. have never been more practiced and expressed.  You can literally say whatever you want on the internet to spark a discussion or engage with whoever you want.  It's what I do on this very blog, and it's what each of you does by exercising your right to read it.  It's unregulated, it's unmonitored (mostly) and it's a magnificent tool for expressing yourself.  And therein lay the tragedy.

If you think back to my opening statement, you'll recall that I have observed a pattern endemic to these kinds of massive unification and liberation movements that I find distasteful.  Well, let's not mince words; it's outright infuriating.  See, as wonderful as these various moments in history were (and still are), there has been another consequence of their happening that seems to occur without fail: the emergence of a small, but very VERY vocal minority who abuse their new-found (and even deserved) liberation by using it as a tool of oppression. In each case I mentioned, an otherwise noble and necessary undertaking has been made the bludgeon of a few very insecure, attention-hungry fools who are ruining the good name of their cause. 

Not long after Independence, a war began in the US that took the idea of "free and independent states" to its logical extreme when the once-unified country split down the middle over a dispute about how far freedom could extend.  Obviously I'm oversimplifying, but the basic idea is that the Civil War was largely a byproduct of an over-politicized notion of freedom as expressed by various constituents of the newly liberated country.  And once the union did finally get over its disagreement, the halves remained loud and proud about their respective "sides" during the war to the point where, to this day, people proclaim that the Confederacy was the home of "real" patriotism and the Union was full of "elitists".  Pathetic. 

Now look at Women's Liberation and Civil Rights.  Both were incredibly powerful movements that were desperately needed in the "Land of the Free".  That melanin-content could be a reason to discriminate or that an entire half of the population of the world was inferior simply for having different genitalia was and is unconscionable in a country that touts "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" as its mantra.  Everyone who took up those banners and declared themselves a proponent of equal rights for women and minorities was right to do so.  But look what a few of those same people have managed to do to their cause: Too many minorities have decided that their original state of oppression entitled them to simply "blame whites" for their unfortunate circumstance rather than take responsibility for their lives in an age where they have some (albeit imperfect) equality.  Too many women have decided that their oppression entitled them to "blame men" for their tribulations regardless of the situation.  The result: both Civil Rights and Feminism are viewed in certain circles as, at best, a joke, and at worst, a hammer to strike down any voice of dissent that comes from a non-minority or non-female voice.  This is not what Civil Rights and Feminism were or are about.  This is simply UNACCEPTABLE.

We're running long again, so let's return to the internet with all this in mind and finally get to the point of all this.  In short, this is happening again.  The internet is a magnificent tool by its design and has untapped potential to bring us together in more ways than could have been imagined even 30 years ago.  In many ways, it already has.  Anyone who has more than a passing familiarity with Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, or even general forums and blogs has witnessed this capacity and its ubiquity.  But what have some of us chosen to do with this?  They use the anonymity and slang (often dubbed "Netspeak") as a means of excluding the people who "just don't get it" or who haven't decided to marinate themselves completely in the culture and rituals of the internet.  They use it as a tool for spewing hate-speech of all kinds at people who can't "fight back" simply by virtue of not being in the same room.  They've used the lack of consequences as a license to ignore even the most basic rules of courtesy.  These behaviors are tainting the genuine greatness of this medium and giving a false impression of the wonderful communities it makes possible.  And for what?  So a few 12-year-olds (even if they're 35) can vent their insecurities at will? This cannot be allowed to stand. 

I love the internet and what it can do.  I'm a proud proponent of a free and open internet and I will fight against any who tell me that it needs to be chained and restricted.  But the flip-side to that is that we must take responsibility for our community.  We must prove that we deserve this freedom. These people who have used it as a platform for hatred and exclusivist behavior should no longer be tolerated.  The right to speak does not grant you the right to be heard, nor does it give you the right to impose your "freedom" on the freedom of others.

Like any problem, this one will not go away if the good people of the world choose to do nothing.  I'm tired of seeing people shamed on forums simply for not "knowing" something they're "supposed" to know.  I'm fed up with hearing about the hate poured on people just for having a dissenting opinion.  But, most of all, I'm sick of seeing a tool for unification and liberation being used as a means of excluding those who don't kneel before its alter and submit to the iron-fisted rule of the people with the loudest megaphone. 

If anything I've said has ever motivated you to do something new, please let it be this: Do not stand for this behavior anymore.  Refuse to play by the rules of those who don't even understand them.  Do not let what should be the greatest melting pot on Earth turn into a stagnant sewer.  Help us all make the internet the inclusive "miracle" the world so desperately needs now.

I'm Trevor, and that's my Frame of Mind.

Something for Nothing

You know, I really need to watch what I say on this blog.  Not cause I get into anything super-controversial (although I don't mind doing so), but because I have an odd habit of cursing myself.  In this case, last time, I'd promised to show you "what I can do with nothing at all".  Well, not long after that, my computer suffered several massive hardware failures and died on me.  I had to replace both video cards, two of my three hard-drives, and two of my three RAM chip-sets.  Yeah.  You don't even want to know how long this all took and what kind of Hell I had to walk through just to get the components.  With my computer reduced to nothing, I set about re-building her from scratch. The story has a happy ending though, since none of my personal data was lost except a few trivial StarCraft II replays that even I don't mind losing, and I've been able to (mostly) restore my machine to her former glory as of the time of this writing.  Oddly enough, though, having to rebuild my beloved Hive Queen from scratch (Yeah, I call my computer the Hive Queen...don't act surprised) is rather fortuitous as it provided me with living proof of the value of what I intend to inflict...er...discuss with you today.

The Value of "Nothing"

I worked as a New York City Public School teacher for two years after I graduated college, and before that, I spent several summers as an intern with the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) at their site near Yankee Stadium.  Don't worry, I'm not about to go describing the experience in full; I'm trying to keep your interest here.  In my time as a teacher/TA, I learned that one of the things considered most important in educating the youth of America, is structure.  Structure in the form of rules and regulations, consistent scheduling, and heavily standardized classes and activities were (and still are) all the rage.  The very thought of giving the children any down time was a sort of "Mortal Sin" unto itself. 

Now, I'm not going to start up a discussion of the merits of this highly structured model. I think it's rather obvious that people need structure in their lives and that school needs to have rhythm and routine to work properly - we'll come back to this in a minute, though.  It would be SEVERAL blog posts worth of discussion to go into why I personally believe the Board of Education needs to re-think a lot of it's structuring, and it's not what I want to talk about.  I want to talk about what I came to see as the true downside of structuring life: sometimes, you need time to do nothing.

Let's look at "nothing" a bit more closely.  When I say that people need time to do nothing, I mean people need time to themselves where there are no obligations, expectations, or requirements of their time that would prevent them from doing/thinking/feeling whatever they want.  In essence, I mean that I believe people benefit from time away from the structure of modern life. There's no denying that structure is good for us, but on the whole, I've come to think that "no structure" is actually better for us.  Don't get me wrong, this is only true when we have some structure in our lives, and the people in the world without any structure don't benefit, but on balance, I really believe that the ratio of "nothing" to "something" is healthier when it's tipped towards the "nothing" end. 

Why? Well, because "nothing" allows us to experience what I consider to be the most important aspect of our cognitive lives: the ability to create.   See, as a species, we're hard-wired to want to make something from nothing.  It's an interesting aspect of the human psyche.  When presented with a blank canvas, the human animal cannot help but envision a work of art.  If given tools, we're likely to build with whatever we happen to have available.  Time spent thinking is invariably time spent creating; sometimes images, sometimes sounds, sometimes abstract ideas, but always we are making something.  It's just how we are. 

The irony some of you may notice in this is that we never have "unstructured" time.  Bingo! There is no such thing as truly unstructured human life.  When left to our own devices we create our own structure.   This is essentially the reason we have organized social life as a species.  We need structure so we make it where there is none.  So why is "nothing" so important?  Because it allows us the room to create a structured space we control.  I'm not going to bash societal constructs for being limiting or bad for us (although some of them plainly are), but I will definitely say that the demand to acquiesce to these structures creates a feeling of confinement that we all resist to some extent. 

Those who remember my (not terribly successful) Defense of Escapism from about a billion years ago will recall that the central thesis of that post was that we all require rules of our own to live a happy life.  They don't need to conflict directly (or at least openly) with the rules of reality; they just need to be ours.  Well, we can't have these rules of our own without that "nothing" required for us to go about creating them.  When all we have are the structures outside ourselves, we can't live as enriching a life.  The rules and structures of the other will always feel limiting compared to the ones we create on our own. We need rules; we need structure.  We just need it to be partly ours. 

This is why daydreaming is so important to development.  We put our children through so much structured life in today's world between school, camp, and after-school activities, that I feel like there's a real risk of not having enough "nothing" to let the mind create.  I know that most of the activities I just mentioned are about learning new skills to create, but like I already said, if it's all from outside, it just feels like work and not enough like our own act of creation.  Hell, we actually call time off "recreation".  That's not an accident, folks - that's what we do in our "down time". 

This attitude that we must be "doing" at all times has seeped into nearly all aspects of the modern American life, and in my opinion, it's not for the best.  Schools believe that giving children down-time will make them delinquent or unruly; employers believe that employees who aren't working every second of every day are just stealing from the company; and even modern movies are terrified of not spelling everything out for their audience.  This fixation on structuring has gotten out of hand, and it's killing our creativity, and more importantly, our happiness. 

I know that sounds sensationalist, but consider this anecdote before I leave you. I was genuinely angry (justifiably so, I feel) that my computer got reset to zero during the crash.  I was not looking forward to having to put everything back the way it was when it had always just been that way.  But as I started putting pieces back into place, a strange thing happened: I started enjoying myself.  By bringing my computer back to a state of nothing, I was given that blank canvas that tempts our imagination.  While I admit that I was not especially imaginative in setting everything up again, I can't deny that going through all the applications, plug-ins, drivers, and codecs had a zen-like charm to it.  I started relishing the re-building experience.  I was spending time making my computer my "friend" again.   It felt good; it felt like daydreaming.  I was making it whatever I wanted.  Finding just the right tools or programs to make it work better than before made it feel like I was in control, not just of the machine, but of a part of my life.  I was giving it real structure; my structure.

I won't say that the solution is to start from scratch; that would be ridiculous.  I will say, that we might all benefit from a little more "nothing" in our lives so that we might "recreate" our selves from time to time.  After all, we want to play by the rules; we just want to play by our rules once in a while. 

I'm Trevor, and that's my Frame of Mind.

Some Assembly REQUIRED

So The Avengers is totally sweet!  It's damn near miraculous that the movie itself even exists, but the fact that it managed to be as great as it was makes it all the more amazing.  Don't worry, I'm not about to turn this into an in depth analysis of the Avengers (much), especailly when I know a few of you don't really care all that much about it.  That's cool...I've got something a little different in mind for how The Avengers will frame our topic.


One For All


A lot of things can be said about what The Avengers accomplishes just by it's very existence at this point in the history of media.  Even more can be said about what significance it has for the world of popular culture.  But I'm here to talk about what this movie has to say to it's audience about human nature itself. 

The Geek Age of Cinema (as I suspect it will come to be known) has brought us a lot of works based on intellectual property that has long been the exclusive domain of the comic book world.  While attempts at movies based on superhero comics are not exclusively a modern invention (Superman from the 70's or the Tim Burton Batman, for example), they've never had as wide an audience or as much variety as they have in the last decade.  In the last 5 years alone, we've seen the first appearance of Iron Man in live action, two renditions of the Incredible Hulk, a movie about the preposterous Thor, and a WWII pulp-film about Captain America, to say nothing of the rise of Christopher Nolan's Batman movies and the continuation of Spiderman's cinematic run. 

As impressive as all this is, though, I can't say it's been entirely a positive thing.  I've already touched on my issues with the "geek" community's response to their sudden popularity, and I don't want to rehash that when I've got something new to talk about.  Suffice it to say that the prevalance of the Super hero as a the all-encompassing mythology of the 21st century (in the US at least) hasn't had an exclusively positive impact on the cultural mindset of the current generation.  The good news, is that if you look hard enough, you'll see that The Avengers actually stands in stark contrast (see what I did there?) to the trend I'm referring to.  You see, what sets The Avengers apart from the pack is pretty simple, yet all-important: Teamwork.

As a part of the generation often called (disappointingly) Generation Y, I've had first hand experience of a rising culture that places an excessive emphasis on it's own radical individualism.  While I've certainly been guilty of this myself, I recognize that it's a problem that needs addressing.  I don't want to do that here, but it's worth mentioning that this overemphasis on individualism that I believe to be endemic to my generation has and will have some serious consequences if it isn't adequately addressed in some capacity. 

Back to our topic, though, I will say that I find it quite encouraging that The Avengers seems to make this point for me.  For the unfamiliar, the basic idea of The Avengers is that a team of Superheroes from various genres and series of their own (i.e. Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America) are brought together to take on a threat to the world.  That's all I'm going to say about the content of the film specifically so as not to spoil for anyone, but that's really all you need to know.   

In the age of the superhero that tackles the world alone and lives to tell about it every time (yes, comic book characters die, but be honest...they don't stay that way very long), it seemed like pop-culture itself was fueling this adolescent notion that we are both special and totally independent.  While I'm all in favor of taking responsibility for your own actions and am also a huge advocate of individual liberty, I also recognize that it has gone too far.  With everyone out for themselves in this terrible economy, it seems like there isn't a whole lot of reason to think that teamwork will benefit you in any tangible way.  An yet, that's exactly what The Avengers is here do something about.

You see, the basic formula for a Superhero movie up to the present can best be summarized by "take an extraordinary individual, give him/her extraordinary powers, and have him/her solve extraordinary problems all by his/her self".  This isn't a recent phenomenon, as the majority of these characters have existed in some form for almost a century at this point, but in doing things by this set of principles, the comics and their movie counterparts deprive themselves of the opportunity to speak to the social aspect of our nature. The Avengers, on the other hand sets out to do just that. In essence, the whole message of this awesome film can be boiled down to that metaphor about the bunch of twigs that can't be easily broken. 

The whole first hour-and-a-half of the film is spent deflating all our previously established heroes.  I won't say how or in what ways, but I will tell you that this is a brilliant move on the part of the writer (thank you, Mr. Whedon).  Obviously it seems like a trope of team movies that each individual member needs to be taken down a peg, but these aren't just any characters; they're our literal heroes from pop culture.  Think about this: having established four incredible individuals as our icons of worship and idolization over the last five years, this new mash-up has the presence of mind to take the wind out of their sails for more than half the movie.  That may be what fans were expecting, but I can't deny that it's good timing. 

With our heroes humbled with regards to their own individual prowess, the movie then proceeds to set up it's primary point; namely that we are stronger when we are brought together with real leadership.  The script isn't heavy-handed about it; it just makes damn sure that you get the message.  It's rare that ensemble stories do this so effectively.  More often than not, they end up just letting each hero do their own "thing" while they happen to share a framing story.  But The Avengers goes above and beyond by demonstrating how vital their coordination and cooperation is to their success. 

Had the movie just spelled that out and called it a day, that alone might have been enough, but it actually goes a step further.  This group of people, unlike some hero ensembles (the Matrix sequels come to mind) is genuinely diverse in it's skill sets.  Rather than use that as a an excuse to just show off the CGI (although, by Odin, does it), it takes the opportunity to illustrate how that diversity is key.  The fact is, without all six of the principle characters, the team wouldn't work.  Even more compelling, is that no one's role in this remarkable group effort is downplayed.  Absolutely everyone in this team gets a moment to shine, but they do it without upstaging someone else or at the expense of the leadership that got them there. 

We're running long so let me wrap this up.  In an age where more and more young men and women are growing up with such individualistic influences, it's a welcome breath of fresh air to see a hero story where the real "hero" is unity of purpose under strong leadership.  It's proof that there is true grandeur to be found in our capacity to work together.  I won't say that this film is perfect (hell, it's not even my favorite superhero movie), but I will happily sing it's praises for it's very welcome story of the triumph of the group and of the social animal that we have always been.

As always, if you have something to add to this discussion (about The Avengers or human social behavior, or anything in between), feel free to post it in the comments. 

Thanks for indulging me in this little foray into my over-excited mind.  Next time, I'll show you what I can do with nothing at all.

I'm Trevor, and that's my Frame of Mind.

It's In Our Selves

See? I told you my luck wouldn't last.  I promised this post "next week" almost 3 months ago at this point...yeesh.  Sorry about that.  Life really does just pile it on sometimes.  Well, now that I've dug myself out a bit, I gotta say it's good to be back.

Well I think that's enough preamble; we've already been putting this off for 3 months, so let's get into it.

Blame Over

First off, for those who were stumped trying to figure it out (which I assume is all of you since no one came forward with an answer), the title (and now titles) of my post are paraphrases from a line in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, wherein Cassius says "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,/ But in ourselves, that we are underlings."  (Julius Caesar, I, ii, 140-141).  This line was a commentary on the idea that in order to escape servitude, one must take responsibility for one's actions and work to correct it.  While I've not been talking about subservience explicitly in these posts, I think you'll find it's appropriate for what we're about to discuss.

When last I left you (sorry), we had explored how the act of assigning blame is akin to a threat.  Let me clarify one thing before we proceed: I do NOT think that a life-threatening moment (e.g. physical assault) is tantamount to blaming someone for messing up a project or whatever.  I drew the comparison only to point out that threats of any kind instill in us this Fight-or-Flight reaction, and it often does so out of proportion.  Any circumstance we find ourselves in where we feel vulnerable, exposed, or cornered invariably produces this kind of response to some degree, but the assignment of blame is ubiquitous enough that we need to find ways to mitigate that response.  I therefore submit to you my suggestions for how to fix some of the problems the blame game creates; and as the title suggests, it's in our selves:

1) Solve Problems Rather Than Punish Failure
A big part of the problem is just how eager we are to assign blame.  I haven't spent enough time abroad to know if this is uniquely American or not, but it does feel as though a huge portion of the population is very attached to the idea of blame.  I don't mean it in a sadistic way; just that a lot of people seem to take comfort in the notion that blame is both a way to get things taken care of while simultaneously relieving them of their own responsibility.  And you know what? I see the appeal.  Who wouldn't want to be completely exculpated?  It's normal and natural to want to be free of burdens (to an extent...another post, I promise), and it's also normal to want to simply be looked over when things get rough.  But it's not an excuse to start tossing out blame. 

As we already covered last time, blame is a type of threat (or is at least perceived as such).  Since threat almost invariably results in that cycle of pointing and deflecting, it only creates a hostile environment that feeds on its own hostility until someone in the scenario is unable to defend against it.  The result may be that something gets done, but even if it does, the damage caused to the psyches of everyone involved is NEVER worth it.  I can't think of any scenario where unsettling and even hurting our colleagues and coworkers has any benefit to solving problems in a collaborative environment.  Even in the interpersonal blame situations, I don't see how hurting someone over responsibility ever really improves matters.  I've only ever witnessed it killing productivity and straining relationships.  It reminds me of the expression "once bitten, twice shy" in that it's never easy to feel safe around someone who "bit" you with blame recently.  You might find a way to get along, but you'll never have the sense of confidence and trust in that person(s) you did before.  Besides, they already demonstrated that they can and will bite...who's to say they won't do it again?

So, basically, we need to take it upon ourselves to stop being so willing to blame others.  There will always be situations in life where you want to blame someone, however rightly, for your predicament.  Someone will make a mistake, someone will forget, or someone will do something wrong, and you'll be tempted to point fingers and accuse.  But instead of starting the blame game, try asking yourself "is blaming this person going to improve matters?"  I can already hear some of you saying "Of course it does! They need to know that what they did is wrong! If they never know that they did something wrong, they'll just keep doing it!"  True, but it's not the same as blaming them. You should DEFINITELY point out where and how something has gone wrong, but it's not necessary to dump a lot of threatening language and hostility on anyone.  Just explain, calmly and coolly, why what happened was bad, and more importantly, how they can fix it.  Remember, assigning responsibility is about problem solving, not about hurting.  There'll be a time and place to vent your frustrations, but this isn't it. Punishment doesn't usually get results, or at least, it usually doesn't get good results.  Encouragement and reinforcement, on the other hand, usually do.  

2) Consider Your Reaction to Blame
I've already made it pretty clear that I think that those who fixate on blaming don't have their heads in the right place, but I also want to stress that this isn't all on the blamers...the blamees need to do some work too.  Even if you've been rightly blamed for the inciting incident, how you react to being blamed can make all the difference.  It's unreasonable to expect everyone to just never blame again, so when they do inevitably point their fingers, we need to be prepared to meet it in a reasonable manner.  The tough part here is that you're fighting against instinct, so it's often hard, if not outright impossible, to preempt our reactions.  When it is possible, though, we need to react to blame calmly.  If at all possible, try to recognize that your accuser doesn't necessarily mean you any harm; they're just trying to fix a problem.  Even if they do mean you harm (which some of them might), focus on the knowledge that what needs to happen is that something must be fixed.  Try to re-frame the accusation as "I need you to fix this" as opposed to "you broke this".  If you can't fix it yourself, instead of fighting back, try to suggest a way it could be fixed or who might be able to fix it. I know it seems trivial or even stupid, but it's not.  We always respond better when we feel we're working towards something good rather than making amends for something bad.  Furthermore, other people will respond to YOU better if you show that you're willing to work with them rather than skirt responsibility altogether.

In the event that you've already gone into Fight-or-Flight mode, it's still not to late.  We all mess up, and we all get caught off guard once in a while.  The goal then, is to keep things from escalating.  Just back up and try to get to a place where you're not defending, and they don't feel the need to attack.  Keep the problem solving goal in your mind and work towards that.  I know it's hard not to go straight to defending yourself, but it's vital that we come to recognize that we don't really need to.  Even though blame is threat, it's still not truly harmful if we simply look past the threat towards the issue that needs addressing.  We owe it to ourselves and our peers to find this space of comfort with ourselves so we can all learn to be better problem solvers.  If you get good enough, you'll find that when you stop defending, you start encouraging those around you to stop attacking.  The thrill of assigning blame is gone, so there's less incentive for it to happen in the first place. 

This is on us, folks.  We need to find ways to both work around our instinct towards blame and get over our need to fight back.  There are more than a few obstacles to this process (none of which I have time to address here) and it'll be really uncomfortable when we're starting out.  However, like riding a bike or learning to swim, eventually we'll have internalized it so well, it may even surpass our instincts. No, I don't mean it'll completely replace fight-or-flight, just that it'll become second nature.  We'll be able to instantaneously move to a place where we can solve problems instead of assign blame.  It'll be tough, but I promise you that it's worth it. 

It may not be anyone's fault that we live in a world where blame is so pervasive, but that doesn't exempt any of us from trying to fix it.  It's tempting to say "that's just how things are; why should I be different?" and call it a day.  Lord knows I've said things like that myself, but I was just as wrong then as I would be now.  I'm not suggesting we should all be trying to change the world; all we have to do is change our selves and our little corner of it enough, and the world will follow suit.

If you've got any other ideas or suggestions for how we can address the problem of blame, post them in the comments.  I'm excited to hear what you've got to say.

Thanks for sticking with me through this.  I'll try and be more prompt with posts in the future. With that said, next time: something you can't blame me for.

I'm Trevor, and that's my Frame of Mind.

It's In Our Stars

Well, would you look at that...I managed to crank out a post within the time frame I actually promised!  Hope this doesn't set a precedent or anything, cause I doubt I'll be this lucky again any time soon. But, we're here now, so let's get down to business.  I promised we'd discuss Fault in this post, so that's what we're gonna do. 

-Before we get to the nitty-gritty of it though, I'd like to offer 100 points to anyone who can correctly identify the source for the title of my post.  Hint, it's a reference to a story I like, but it's also directly related to our current subject matter.  The answer will be in next week's post (boy the expectations are high, aren't they?) if no one gets it. 

A Game of Blame

We've all been victims of it; we've all done it.  Every person who's ever been able to understand the idea of "consequences" has been guilty of pointing fingers at someone at least once in their[NOT sic] lifetime.  Everyone who's ever done anything that's gone even slightly wrong has had a finger pointed their direction.  It's unavoidable; it's undeniable…so why talk about it?  Because it's…well…evil!

We'll get to why in a second, but to facilitate understanding why, I'd like you to try something for me.  Ask yourself some questions: Have you ever felt afraid for your life?  How about your livelihood?  Have you ever felt like your very state of being was ever threatened?  Maybe just shaken?  It doesn't need to have been a truly mortal moment.  Maybe you were just really startled.  Maybe you were mugged at knife-point, or maybe just pick-pocketed.  Think back to any moment where your personal security was genuinely compromised. 

Now then…how did it make you feel?  Scared? Nervous? Panicked? All of the above?  Did you get angry? Did you feel like you should defend yourself at all costs? Did you suddenly feel like something needed to be done IMMEDIATELY?  Did you simply shut down and feel numb? Helpless? Maybe you just felt like giving up or felt robbed of your control over events? 

Now think back to a moment in your life when you were blamed for failing at something.  Doesn't matter how big or important that particular instance was; just find a moment where YOU were held responsible for a mistake and YOU were put in the spotlight for it.  How did you feel?  Notice anything familiar?  I'd bet a healthy sum of cash that you experienced most, if not all, of the same sensations you felt when you were threatened.  It's understandable, since both mortality and blame pose a similar problem for the individual: the threat of vulnerability and exposure to circumstances. 

If we break down what happens when someone points at us and says "It's YOUR fault!", we can see that what's essentially happening here, is that we are asked to account for ourselves.  The bubble of comfort we normally walk through is busted and we are forced into a fight-or-flight mode to protect ourselves from a new "threat".  In this, case, it's the threat of consequence for failure.  It many cases, it might even be life threatening.  I doubt very much your boss wants to see you killed, but isn't it just as bad (if not worse) to find yourself out of a job?  We need jobs to maintain our livelihood and the notion of suddenly finding ourselves without that security definitely falls under the heading of "life-threatening". 

Of course, we don't usually think of blame in these terms.  I can hear some of you saying "Trevor, it's not that bad. People just need to take responsibility for their actions.  That's all they're saying when they assign blame."  That's certainly true, but what's true in theory, is not necessarily true in practical reality.  Just ask any UChicago student. Practically, we do not respond "rationally" (God, I hate that word…another post, I promise) under threat.  And no matter how you cut it, a finger of blame is a threat. 

This "blame game" gets played out everywhere for minor and major things, but it's always about responsibility.  Something went wrong, so someone is responsible for it.  Leaving aside the possibility that no one is responsible (which may very well be the case), we can safely assume that one or more parties involved had something to do with the mistake.  Let's take all that for granted.  Basically, the game is asking that someone to take responsibility for the error and work to correct it.  If they claim that responsibility and they fix the error, everything goes back to the way it's supposed to be.

In theory, all this is fine and good.  But, as we already discussed, theories are treacherous things that welcome you in with their soft, warm, sweet, simplicity and then turn out to be a bear trap baited with marsh-mellows and cotton candy…whoa…I gotta remember what I had for breakfast this morning.  Moving on…In practice, what this means is that someone in the group (you know who you are) gets really excited that it's not their fault (or at least that they can claim it's not their fault) and gets to point a finger at someone before someone else decides to do the same.  The result is this sadistic cycle of finger pointing where everyone is both trying to avoid blame and assign it immediately.  If someone else in the herd gets taken down, at least it's not you. 

We try so hard to not be the one whose life is threatened that we go out of our way just to make sure the spotlight falls on someone else…even if it is our own fault! Look at the lengths to which we'll go just to find a bad excuse. And who can blame us?  We're just trying to get back to doing our "thing" in peace. Besides, it's not so much that we don't think we're to blame…it's that we don't want to deal with the fall-out.   Furthermore, in our zeal to blame someone, we often focus exclusively on making sure the blame sticks.  Since we all understand the need to defend ourselves from blame, we work extra hard to make sure it sticks to the one we've targeted. 

And what's the result? Someone is blamed (however rightly), everyone points, and then one unlucky person defends and is either shut down or passes it on to start the whole cycle over again. Meanwhile, somewhere in this shuffle, a thing is broken, a person is ignored, or a task is unfinished…all while we were trying to establish who to blame for it.  Nowhere in this process was any problem actually solved nor has anyone actually taken responsibility for solving it.

That's the kind of nonsense we're dealing with when we play the blame game; and it has got to stop.  Now I notice I've been rambling for a while now and I have yet to give you my suggestions for what can be done to deal with this; and I hate simply posing a problem without at least hinting at my idea for a solution. Since I don't want to give everyone eye-strain, let's make this a 2-part post.  For now, I'd like all my loyal readers (and the noobs if you're not a veteran) to post their suggestions for how we can address this issue.  Give us your thoughts on the matter, and I'll share mine with you next time.

I'm Trevor, and that's my Frame of Mind.