Renaissance Guy (Mobile)

Projects in Progress

So the other day as I was browsing the Internet in typical fashion, when I came across an embedded YouTube video, which I watched. When I clicked play, I saw, for the first time in about six months, an advertisement. This prompted me to ponder about how having YouTube Red has played out over the past few months. After all, six months is long enough to have perspective, but not so long that one is liable to forget the experience of what came before.

I immensely enjoy having the ability to create playlists that I can download to my phone. I enjoy it more than I thought I would. There is a certain joy in having just the perfect soundtrack for an occasion. So I can have a video game stealth mission soundtrack for prowling the aisles at the supermarket and acquiring the targets from my list, a military training cadence for exercising, the Jeopardy theme for waiting in line, etcetera. Having the proper soundtrack for an activity elevates the experience of it in a way that is difficult to describe in the abstract.

The exclusive content, insofar as I have had occasion to peruse it, has not captured and held my attention. The quality is decent enough; the series are TV quality. But this isn’t necessarily a good thing in my book. I already have access to plenty of TV series; more than I could reasonably watch. I don’t particularly need more series to add to my watch list from YouTube, even if I enjoy the creators behind it.

There is a certain utility in not having to contend with advertisements. It is hard to quantify this aspect, particularly because I do not notice the absence of advertising. Certainly I see far less advertising in total than previously, but so long as I am still connected to television, radio, and so forth, advertising still has a notable presence in my life.

Of course, it’s fair to argue that advertisements in the context of YouTube videos are more impactful, because they are presented when one is actively seeking and watching something rather than merely playing in the background during a scheduled break in program (which in most cases I will try to fast-forward through), and because YouTube advertising is targeted. This plays into a larger theme which has come up repeatedly in my life, regarding the value of my time and attention, through which I have sought to reduce my exposure to advertising.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that although I haven’t grown completely comfortable with paying for YouTube Red, I also haven’t come to regret my purchase. This is about as decisive a conclusion I am likely to come to in the near future.

While I’m on the subject of follow up, I may as well append a couple of remarks about the new year’s resolutions I posted earlier this year. The first resolution, to switch to 24-hour time, is going more or less according to plan. Phone and iPad have both been set to 24-hour display, as has my clock radio. My smart watch doesn’t have an option for 24-hour time, at least not on the watch face I use to display my medical data (needless to say, this oughtn’t be messed with). Aside from that, I have been working studiously to try and adopt the system mentally as well, stopping short from trying to convert in my head.

But of course, that resolution was the easy one; the low-hanging fruit to motivate me to get started down the list. The other ones have been more of a mixed bag. Exercising is, of course, difficult in wintertime; nevertheless I have made some progress. I have not made any sort of progress on sorting out my excess clothing, but then again, I expected that this would take some time, and I’ve been preoccupied with other matters.

Notes on Descriptivism

There is an xkcd comic which deals with linguistic prescriptivism. For those not invested in the ongoing culture war surrounding grammar and linguistics, prescriptivism is the idea that there is a singular, ideal, correct version of language to which everyone ought adhere. This is distinct from linguistic descriptivism, which maintains that language is better thought of not as a set of rules, but as a set of norms; and that to try and enforce any kind of order on language is doomed to failure. In short, prescriptivism prescribes idealized rules, while descriptivism describes existing norms.

The comic presents a decidedly descriptivist worldview, tapping into the philosophical question of individual perception to make the point that language is inherently up to subjective interpretation, and therefore must vary from individual to individual. The comic also pokes fun at a particular type of behavior which has evolved into an Internet Troll archetype of sorts- the infamous Grammar Nazi. This is mostly an ad hominem, though it hints at another argument frequently used against prescriptivism; that attempts to enforce a universal language generally cause, or at least, often seem to cause, more contention, distress, and alienation than they prevent.

I am sympathetic to both of these arguments. I acknowledge that individual perceptions and biases create significant obstacles to improved communications, and I will agree, albeit with some reluctance and qualifications, that oftentimes, perhaps even in most cases, that the subtle errors and differences in grammar (NB: I use the term “grammar” here in the broad, colloquial sense, to include other similar items such as spelling, syntax, and the like) which one is liable to find among native speakers of a similar background do not cause significant confusion or discord to warrant the often contentious process of correction.

Nevertheless, I cannot accept the conclusion that these minor dissensions must necessarily cause us to abandon the idea of universal understanding. For that is my end goal in my prescriptivist tendencies: to see a language which is consistent and stable enough to be maximally accessible, not only to foreigners, but more importantly, to those who struggle in grappling with language to express themselves. This is where my own personal experience comes into the story. For, despite my reputation for sesquipedalian verbosity, I have often struggled with language, in both acute and chronic terms.

In acute terms, I have struggled with even basic speech during times of medical trauma. To this end, ensuring that communication is precise and unambiguous has proven enormously helpful, as a specific and unambiguous question, such as “On a scale of zero to ten, how much pain would you say you are currently experiencing?” is vastly easier to process and respond to than one that requires me to contextualize an answer, such as “How are you?”.

In chronic terms, the need to describe subjective experiences relies on keen use of precise vocabulary, which, for success, requires a strong command of language on the part of all parties involved. For example, the difference between feeling shaky, dizzy, lightheaded, nauseated, vertigo, and faint, are subtle, but carry vastly different implications in a medical context. Shaky is a buzzword for endocrinology, dizzy is a catch-all, but most readily associated with neurology, lightheadedness is referred to more often for respiratory, nausea has a close connection with gastroenterology, vertigo refers specifically to balance, which may be either an issue for Neurology, Ophthalmology, or an ENT specialist, and faintness is usually tied to circulatory problems.

In such contexts, these subtleties are not only relevant, but critical, and the casual disregard of these distinctions will cause material problems. The precise word choice used may, to use an example from my own experience, determine whether a patient in the ER is triaged as urgent, which in such situations may mean the difference between life and death. This is an extreme, albeit real, example, but the same dynamic can and will play out in other contexts. In order to prevent and mitigate such issues, there must be an accepted standard common to all for the meaning and use of language.

I should perhaps clarify that this is not a manifesto for hardcore prescriptivism. Such a standard is only useful insofar as it is used and accepted, and insofar as it continues to be common and accessible. Just as laws must from time to time be updated to reflect changes in society, and to address new concerns which were not previously foreseen, so too will new words, usages, and grammar inevitably need to be added, and obsolete forms simplified. But this does not negate the need for a standard. Descriptivism, labeling language as inherently chaotic and abandoning attempts to further understanding through improved communication, is a step backwards.

Heroes and Nurses

Since I published my last post about being categorically excluded from the nursing program of the university I am applying to, I have had many people insist that I ought to hold my ground on this one, even going so far as filing a legal complaint if that’s what it takes. I should say upfront that I appreciate this support. I appreciate having family and friends that are willing to stand by me, and I appreciate having allies who are willing to defend the rights of those with medical issues. It is an immense comfort to have people like this in my corner.

That firmly stated, there are a few reasons why I’m not fighting this right now. The first is pragmatic: I haven’t gotten into this university yet. Obviously, I don’t want the first impression of a school I hope to be admitted into to be a lawsuit. Moreover, there is some question of standing. Sure, I could try to argue that the fact that I was deterred from applying by their online statements on account of my medical condition constitutes discrimination in and of itself, but without a lot more groundwork to establish my case, it’s not completely open and shut. This could still be worth it if I was terribly passionate about nursing as a life path, which brings me to my second primary reason.

I’m not sure whether nursing would be right for me. Now, to be clear, I stand by my earlier statement that nursing is a career I could definitely see myself in, and which I think represents a distinct opportunity for me. But the same thing is true of several other careers: I think I would also find fulfillment as a researcher, or a policy maker, or an advocate. Nursing is intriguing and promising, but not necessarily uniquely so.

But the more salient point, perhaps, is that the very activities which are dangerous to me specifically, the reasons why I am excluded from the training program, the things which I would have to be very careful to avoid in any career as a nurse for my own safety and that of others, are the very same things that I feel attracted to in nursing.

This requires some unpacking.

Through my childhood my mother has often told me stories of my great-grandfather. To hear all of the tales, nay, legends of this man portray him as a larger than life figure with values and deeds akin to a classical hero of a bygone era. As the story goes, my great grandfather, when he was young, was taken ill with rheumatic fever. Deathly ill, in fact, to a point where the doctors told his parents that he would not survive, and the best they could do was to make him comfortable in his final days.

So weak was he that each carriage and motorcar that passed on the normally busy street outside wracked him with pain. His parents, who were wealthy and influential enough to do so, had the local government close the street. He languished this was for more than a year. And then, against all odds and expectations, he got better. It wasn’t a full recovery, as he still bore the scars on his heart and lungs from the illness. But he survived.

He was able to return back to school, albeit at the same place where he had left off, which was by now a year behind. He not only closed this gap, but in the end, actually skipped a grade and graduated early (Sidenote: If ever I have held unrealistically high academic expectations for myself, or failed to cut myself enough slack with regards to my own handicaps, this is certainly part of the reason why). After graduating, he went on to study law.

When the Second World War reared its ugly head, my great grandfather wanted to volunteer. He wanted to, but couldn’t, because of his rheumatic fever. Still, he wanted to serve his country. So he reached out to his contacts, including a certain fellow lawyer name of Bill Donovan, who had just been tasked by President Roosevelt with forming the Office of Strategic Services, a wartime intelligence agency meant to bring all the various independent intelligence and codebreaking organizations of the armed services under one roof. General Donovan saw that my great-grandfather was given an exemption from the surgeon general in order to be appointed as an officer in the OSS.

I still don’t know exactly what my great grandfather did in the war. He was close enough to Donovan, who played a large enough role in the foundation of the modern CIA, that many of the files are still classified, or at least redacted. I know that he was awarded a variety of medals, including the Legion of Merit, the Order of the British Empire, and the Order of the White Elephant. Family lore contends that the British Secret Service gave him the code number 006 for his work during allied intelligence operations.

I know from public records, among many other fascinating tidbits, that he provided information that was used as evidence at the Nuremberg Trials. I have read declassified letters that show that he maintained a private correspondence with, among other figures, a certain Allan Dulles. And old digitized congressional records show that he was well-respected enough in his field that he was called for the defense counsel in hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee, where his word as an intelligence officer was able to vindicate former colleagues who were being implicated by the testimony of a female CPUSA organizer and admitted NKVD asset.

The point is, my great grandfather was a hero. He moved among the giants of the era. He helped to bring down the Nazis (the bad guys), bring them to justice, and to defend the innocent. Although I have no conclusive evidence that he was ever, strictly speaking, in danger, since public records are few an far between, it stands to reason that receiving that many medals requires some kind of risk. He did all this despite having no business in the military because of his rheumatic fever. Despite being exempt from the draft, he felt compelled to do his bit, and he did so.

This theme has always had an impact on me. The idea of doing my bit has has a profound, even foundational effect on my philosophy, both in my sense of personal direction, and in my larger ideals of how I think society ought work. And this idea has always been a requirement of any career that I might pursue.

To my mind, the image of nursing, the part that I feel drawn to, is that image used by the World Health Organization, the Red Cross, and the various civil defence and military auxiliary organizations, of the selfless heroine who courageously breaks with her station as a prim and proper lady in order to provide aid and comfort to the boys at the front serving valiantly Over There while the flag is raised in the background to a rising crescendo of your patriotic music of choice. Or else, of the humanitarian volunteer working in a far flung outpost, diligently healing those huddled masses yearning to breath free as they flee conflict. Or possibly of the brave health workers in the neglected tropical regions, serving as humanity’s first and most critical line of defence against global pandemic.

Now, I recognize, at least consciously, that these images are, at best, outdated romanticized images that represent only the most photogenic, if the most intense, fractions of the real work being done by nurses; and at worst are crude, harmful stereotypes that only serve to exacerbate the image problem that has contributed to the global nurse shortage. The common denominator in all of these, is that they are somehow on the “front lines”; that they are nursing as a means to save the world, if not as an individual hero, then certainly as part of a global united front. They represent the most stereotypically heroic, most dangerous aspects of the profession, and, relevant to my case, the very portions which would be prohibitively dangerous to an immunocompromised person.

This raises some deep personal questions. Obviously, I want and intend to do my bit, whatever that may come to mean in my context. But with regards to nursing, am I drawn to it because it is a means to do my bit, or because it offers the means to fit a kind of stereotypical hero archetype that I cannot otherwise by virtue or my exclusion from the military, astronaut training, etc (and probably could not as a nurse for similar reasons)? And the more salient question: if we assume that the more glamorous (for sore lack of a better word) aspects of nursing are out of the question (and given the apparent roadblocks for me to even enter the training program, it certainly seems reasonable to assume that such restrictions will be compelled regardless of my personal attitudes towards the risks involved), am I still interested in pursuing the field?

This is a very difficult question for me to answer, and the various ways in which it can be construed and interpreted make this all the more difficult. For example, my answer to the question “Would you still take this job if you knew it wasn’t as glamorous day to day as it’s presented?” would be very different from my answer to the question “Would you still be satisfied knowing that you were not helping people as much as you could be with the training you have, because your disability was holding you back from contributing in the field?” The latter question also spawns more dilemmas, such as “When faced with an obstacle related to a disability, is it preferable to take a stand on principle, or to cut losses and try to work out a minimally painful solution, even if it means letting disability and discrimination slide by?” All big thematic questions. And if they were not so relevant, I might enjoy idly pondering them.

Byronic Major

I’ve tried to write some version of this post three times now, starting from a broad perspective and slowly focusing in on my personal complaint, bringing in different views and sides of the story. Unfortunately, I haven’t managed to finish any of those. It seems the peculiar nature of my grievance on this occasion lends itself more easily to a sort of gloomy malaise liable to cause antipathy and writer’s block than the kind of righteous indignation that propels good essays.

Still, I need to get these points off my chest somehow. So I’m opting for a more direct approach: I’m upset. There are many reasons why I’m upset, but the main ones pertain to trying to apply to college. I get the impression from my friends who have had to go through the same that college applications may just be a naturally upsetting process. In a best case scenario, you wait in suspense for several weeks for a group of strangers to pass judgement on your carefully-laid life plans; indeed, on your moral character.

Or, if you’re me, you’ve had enough curveballs in your life so far that the pretense of knowing what state you’ll be in and what to do a year from now, let alone four years from now and for the rest of your life, seems ridiculous to the verge of lunacy. So you pull your hair and grit your teeth, and flip coins to choose majors because the application is due in two hours and you can’t pick undecided. So you write post-hoc justifications for why you chose that major, hoping that you’re a good enough writer that whoever reads it doesn’t see through your bluff.

Although certainly anxiety inducing, this isn’t the main reason why I’m upset. I just felt it needed to be included in the context here. While I was researching majors to possibly pick, I came across nursing. This is a field in which I have a fair amount of experience. After all, I spent more time in school in the nurse’s office than in a classroom. I happen to know that there is a global shortage of nurses; more pronounced, indeed, than the shortage of doctors. As a result, not only are there plenty of open jobs with increasing wages and benefits, but there are a growing number of scholarship opportunities and incentives programs for training.

Moreover, I also know that there is an ongoing concerted effort in the nursing field to attempt to correct the staggering gender imbalance, which cake about as a result of Florence Nightingale’s characterization of nursing as the stereotypically feminine activity; a characterization which in recent years has become acutely harmful to the field. Not only has this characterization discouraged young men who might be talented in the field, and created harmful stereotypes, but it has also begun to have an effect on women who seek to establish themselves as independent professionals. It seems the “nursing is for good girls” mentality has caused fewer “good girls”, that is, bright, driven, professional women, to apply to the field, exacerbating the global shortage.

In other words, there is a major opportunity for people such as myself to do some serious good. It’s not as competitive or high pressure as med school, and there are plenty of nursing roles that aren’t exposed to contagion, and so wouldn’t be a problem for my disability. The world is in dire need of nurses, and gender is no longer a barrier. Nursing is a field that I could see myself in, and would be willing to explore.

There’s just one problem: I’m not allowed into the program. My local university, or more specifically, the third-party group they contract with to administer the program, has certain health requirements in order to minimize liability. Specifically, they want immune titers (which I’ve had done before, and never not been deficient).

I understand the rationale behind these restrictions, even if I disagree with them for personal reasons. It’s not a bad policy. Though cliched to say, I’m not angry so much as disappointed. And even then, I’m not sure precisely with whom it is that I find myself disappointed.

Am I disappointed with the third-party contractor for setting workplace safety standards to protect both patients and students, and to adhere to the law in our litigious society? With the university, for contracting with a third party in the aim of giving its students hands-on experience? With the law, for having such high standards of practice for medical professionals? I find it hard to find fault, even accidental fault, with any of these entities. So what, then? Am I upset with myself for being disabled, and for wanting to help others as I have been helped? Maybe; probably, at least a little bit. With the universe, for being this way, that bad outcomes happen just as a result of circumstances? Certainly. But raging at the heavens doesn’t get me anywhere.

I know that I’m justified in being upset. My disability is preventing me from helping others and doing good: that is righteous anger if ever there was a right reason to be angry. A substantial part of me wants to be upset; to refuse to allow anyone or anything from standing in the way of my doing what I think is right, or to dictate the limits of my abilities. I want to be a hero, to overcome the obstacles in my path, to do the right thing no matter the cost. But I’m not sure in this instance the obstacles need to be overcome.

I don’t know where that leaves me. Probably something about a tragic hero.

2017 in Review

Author’s note: I started writing this at the beginning of December, and then promptly got distracted. As a result, most of this piece is written from a while back.

In many ways, my 2017 has been a sort of contrasting reflection of my 2016. My 2016 started off okay, got slightly better, before bottoming out in the end. My 2017 started at a fairly low point, but got better; incrementally at first, and then in larger strides. All in all, though, it is probably too soon to call 2017, for a few different reasons.

First, and most immediately relevant, is the fact that I am currently in the midst of trying to pull together college applications. This process probably should have been started with more time before my New Year’s deadline (Author’s note: We got it submitted in time). In my defence: I was told that the software my school uses would make the process streamlined and simple. It might have worked, if the school computers didn’t insist on purging my account from the registry no matter how many times it’s reactivated. Maybe I should have anticipated such problems ahead of time. Alas, I am too often too trusting.

I should say that whether or not I am accepted, or even whether or not my application comes together in time to be submitted will not have a great impact on my overall morale and views of the achievements of the past year. I should say this, but I would be lying. If I get accepted, likely then I will look back on this year as a moderate success overall. Else, I will probably view this year as equivocal; it had its good moments, and it had its bad moments.

In any case, it is difficult for me to internalize the year coming to a close while I have yet to wrap up my last great project of applications. Indeed, this difficulty in coming to grips with the rapid onset of the holiday season has led me, as it often does, to unknowingly procrastinate on gift acquisition. Here I must add that in addition to the considerable distraction of college application, and the unprecedented stress and anxiety which hath befuddled me amidst this process, I have also seemed to have taken ill with viral symptoms.

Among all this equivocating and qualifying, there are a few solid events and conclusions about the year with which I am reasonably comfortable. For one, I received my diploma (I still struggle to grapple with the term “graduation”, as that term carries implications which I believe are misleading), and ceased formal enrollment at my high school. Typing this sounds like I am underselling these events, but in all honesty the formalities were surprisingly anticlimactic compared to the struggling before it.

I traveled a fair bit, spending an appreciable proportion of time at Disney World, visiting the White Mountains and Bretton Woods, and seeing the eclipse, which, even with all the hype, did not disappoint. I attended a record number of Nerdfighter-related events, going first to NerdCon: Nerdfighteria, and then later to the release party for Turtles All The Way Down. Such events are invariably never what I expect, yet still good. Most recently, I embarked on a Disney Cruise which departed from New York and traveled to the Bahamas and to the Disney parks. And though I have not yet been able to fully collect and organize my thoughts on the subject, I must add that for what is otherwise a multi-day car trip, cruise ship is an excellent alternative.

Of course, I traveled a fair amount in 2016 as well, so it’s hard to call the travel record-breaking or year-defining. Nor has the sociopolitical convolution been particularly distinct from yesteryear. Certainly things have been active; chaotic even. But to a large extent this feels like an inevitable consequence of the momentum generated from past events. Indeed, many of the political items which I am inclined to focus on as being of singular historic importance – the mass demonstrations, the special counsel investigation, even the surprising turns of events in elections both domestic and abroad – seem more like reactions to the current conditions than like actions in themselves; and therefore do I feel that they are less relevant to considering this year separate from others.

What has been defining about 2017, at least the latter half of it, has been the appearance of free time in my life for the first time in recent memory. This has had two principal effects.

First, it has led to a proliferation of personal projects, ranging from simple items such as setting up a gallery page, and a crowdfunding campaign, to more ambitious endeavors such as restarting my creative fiction writing, and building a prototype board game. Even though only a handful of these projects have yet been achieved, and none have been the runaway success that my wildest enthusiasm might have daydreamed, I do believe that I am better off from having tried all of them.

Second, I am happier now than in school. Even though the process of wrangling college applications has caused a minor relapse into some of the less healthy mental patterns, and it is difficult to make meaningful data out of the minute to minute fluctuations in mood and happiness, I can say without reservation that I am happier on balance now than at any point since my first year of high school.

Like I said previously, the determination of how 2017 compares will likely be one made in retrospect, partly because the events which are likely to define it in retrospect are still ongoing, and partly because it’s nigh impossible to judge this year in particular devoid of its proper context. That being said, this year has defied my expectations, and has been, if not quite as good as my wildest hopes, then at least, better than the trajectory of the end of 2016 had led me to fear.

2018 Resolution #3

2018 Resolution #3: Get back to exercising

Around spring of this past year I began, as a means of giving myself some easily-achievable goals, a loose program of regular exercise, chiefly in the form of regular walks. Although this simple routine did not give me, to borrow a phrase from the magazines I pass at the checkout counter, “a hot summer bod”, it did get me out of the house at a time where I needed to, and help build my stamina up in order to withstand our summer travel itinerary.

Despite my intentions, I fell out of this new habit after mid-November, and have not managed to get back into it. In my defense, my normal walking route from my house through town lacks sidewalks, and the lawns which I normally walk through are covered in snow. Our house is populated and organized in such a way that even if I possessed proper exercise equipment, there would be no place to put it.

Going to a gym does not strike me as a practical alternative. To put it simply, there is not a gym close by enough to drop by under casual pretenses. This is problematic for two reasons. First, an intense routine on a set schedule that requires a great deal of preparation and investment is more or less contraindicated by my medical situation, which has a distinct tendency to sabotage any such plans.

Secondly, such a routine would clash with the lies that I tell myself. In executing my more casual routine, I have found in motivating myself, it is often necessary, or at least, helpful, to have some mental pretext that does not involve exercise directly. If I can pitch getting out of the house to myself instead as a sightseeing expedition, or as a means of participating in town society by means of my presence, it is much easier to motivate myself without feeling anxious.

Accordingly, my resolution for the coming year is to exercise more later in the year when I can. Admittedly this is a weak goal, with a lot of wiggle room to get out of. And I might be more concerned about that, except that this was basically the same thing that I did last year, and at least that time, it worked.

2018 Resolution #2

2018 Resolution #2: Remove unused clothes

At present, I have an overabundance of clothes. In my case I define overabundance as having reached a point at which some 65% of my clothes have not been worn in six months, and some 35% have not been worn in a year. On the one hand this statistic is slightly misleading, as most of that 35% are clothes have never been properly catalogued and entered into my organizational system in the first place, probably because they were given to me in a large bundle all at once, and I simply never got around to sorting them, because I never found myself wanting for anything from those particular bundles.

Other times it is because The clothes no longer quite fit me comfortably, or I have simply not had occasion to wear them, or that the clothes are not even mine, but merely reside under my jurisdiction because on the day that specific item needed to be stowed away, I had space where others did not. Consequently I have acquired several stacks of clothing and apparel in closets and against walls.

This problem is exacerbated by the nature of our household’s gift economy, which is such that clothes which survive to no longer fit me are given to by brother, who has much the same problem, as he has clothes coming in both from gifts, same as I do, and from me. So in order to clear the backlog in my room, there has to be room in my brother’s room, and so on.

This task does not represent a terribly large physical difficulty, nor a particularly prolonged period of execution that would necessitate a major time commitment. It does however represent a challenge of both logistics and cooperation, in that it requires several parties to work on the same page.

2018 Resolution #1

2018 Resolution #1: Standardize to 24-hour time

A year or so ago, one of my resolutions was to finally iron out the problem of writing dates. For context: I grew up in Australia, where the default is DD/MM/YY. But in the US, where I now live, the default is MM/DD/YY. Now if I had to pick one of the two, I would probably lean towards the former, since it seems slightly more logical, and more natural to me personally. But since everyone around me uses the latter, taking that avenue would only cause more confusion in my life, perhaps not for me, but certainly for those around me.

For a while I would switch between the two systems depending on what purpose I was writing the date for. Items such as school assignments would be dated in the American fashion, while things for my personal consumption would be done in the commonwealth manner. Until after several years I started going throug my own files of schoolwork, particularly artwork, and encountering dates such as 9/10. What does that mean, in the context of a pencil marking in the corner of a sketch, jotted down as an afterthought? Does it mean the tenth of September, or the ninth of October? Or was it completed during the month of September, 2010? Or perhaps it is merely the ninth piece of a series of ten? Or perhaps it received a score of 90% that I wanted to record for posterity.

I knew that the dualistic system was untenable, but I also knew that I would likely fail in the mental self-discipline necessary in forcing myself into either of the two competing standards; especially given that there remain certain contexts where it is necessary that I use each. I therefore decided to adopt a whole new system, based on ISO 8601.

Henceforth, where I was given the choice, I would record all dates in YYYY-MM-DD format. This would make it abundantly obvious that I was recording the date, and the format I was using. It was also different enough that I would not confuse it. Where compelled by outside forces, such as stringent academic standards for school assignments, I would continue to use the other formats, but there it would be clear which format I was using.

Despite skepticism from those around me, this system has worked out quite well, and so I am expanding the project to include having time displayed on my devices in 24-hour time.

Secret of Adulthood

For the entirety of my life until quite recently I was utterly convinced of the idea that all “grown-ups”, by nature of their grownupness, had the whole world figured out. It seemed to me essentially up until the week of my eighteenth birthday that there was some intrinsic difference between so-called “children” and these “adults”, where the latter categorically knew something the former didn’t and never the other way around.

I was never quite positive what it was that gave adults this intrinsic knowledge of how the world worked. I assumed it was something covered in a particular school class, or perhaps the secret was contained within those late night broadcasts only over-eighteens were permitted to watch. Whatever it was, I was confident that by the time I reached that mystical age of eighteen, I too would have the world figured out. After all, how else would I be able to consider myself qualified for such important duties as voting, paying taxes, and jury duty.

While I am still open to the fact that one of these days I shall wake up in bed and find myself suddenly equipped with all the knowledge and skills necessary to make my way in the world, I am becoming increasingly convinced that this is, in fact, not how it works. Rather the growing body of evidence is pointing towards the conclusion that all of my intrinsic abilities, which in truth I do not feel have grown significantly since about six years old, are the only toolset with which I will ever be equipped to deal with the world.

This quite terrifying conclusion has been cemented by the relative ease (compared with what I might have imagined) of registering to vote. There was no IQ test, barely any cross-examination of my identity papers, and most shockingly, no SWAT team descending from the heavens to inform me that, no, sorry, there must’ve been some mistake because I can’t possibly be qualified to genuinely help decide the future of our country and the world at large.

Despite being nominally an adult, I still have this habit of basically assuming that every other adult still knows something I don’t. So when, for example, my brother gets into the car to drive to Florida without sunglasses and wearing wool clothing, I broadly assume that he is aware of all these issues, and has some plan to combat them. It is then frustrating when he realizes later that he left his sunglasses on the counter and asks to borrow my backup pair.

This habit also makes it annoyingly easy to believe that anyone acting with confidence must have some grounds for acting so. While I have come to accept that I am merely faking this whole adulthood thing, it is a whole other matter entirely to convince myself that not only am I flying by the seat of my pants, but so is everyone else.

There has been one minor silver lining in this otherwise terrifying revelation. Namely, it is the realization that, with no intrinsic confidence to distinguish those who genuinely know what they’re doing from those who haven’t the foggiest clue, nine times out of ten one can get away with whatever one desires provided one can act sufficiently confident while doing so. That is to say that with few exceptions, it is fairly easy to convince others that you know better than they do what needs to be done.

Overall, while I wish it were true that adulthood brought with it some intrinsic wisdom of how to make it in the world, I also recognize that, this not being the case, I should at least try to work on my ability to look like I know what I’m doing. Because that is the secret of adulthood. It is all an act, and how you act determines whether people treat you as a know-nothing little boy or a wise young man.

Automatism

I’m not sure what exactly the nightmares was that stuck with me for a solid twenty minutes after I got out of bed and before I woke up. Whatever it was, it had me utterly convinced that I was in mortal peril from my bed linens. And so I spent a solid twenty minutes trying desperately to remove them from me, before the cold woke me up enough to realize what I was doing, and had the presence of mind to stop.

This isn’t the first time I’ve woken up in the middle of doing something in an absentminded panic. Most of those times, however, I was either in a hospital, or would be soon. There have been a handful of isolated incidents in which I have woken up, so to speak, at the tail end of a random black-out. That is, I will suddenly realize that I’m most of the way through the day, without any memory of events for some indeterminate time prior. But this isn’t waking up per se; more like my memory is suddenly snapping back into function, like a recording skipping and resuming at a random point later on.

I suppose it is strictly preferable to learn that my brain has evidently delegated its powers to operate my body such that I need not be conscious to perform tasks, as opposed to being caught unawares by whatever danger my linens posed to me that required me to get up and dismantle them from my bed with such urgency that I could not wake up first. Nevertheless I am forced to question the judgement of whatever fragment of my unconscious mind took it upon its own initiative to operate my body without following the usual channels and getting my conscious consent.

The terminology, I recognize, is somewhat vague and confusing, as I have difficulty summoning words to express what has happened and the state it has left me in.

These episodes, both these more recent ones, and my longer history of breaks in consciousness, are a reminder of a fact that I try to put out of mind on a day to day basis, and yet which I forget at my own peril. Namely, the acuity of my own mortality and fragility of my self.

After all, who, or perhaps what, am I outside of the mind which commands me? What, or who, gives orders in my absence? Are they still orders if given by a what rather than a who, or am I projecting personhood onto a collection of patterns executed by the simple physics of my anatomy? Whatever my (his? Its?) goal was in disassembling my bed, I did a thorough job of it, stripping the bed far more efficiently and thoroughly than I could have by accident.

I might not ever find serious reason to ask these questions, except that every time so far, it has been me that has succeeded it. That is, whatever it does, it is I who has to contend with the results when I come back to full consciousness. I have to re-make the bed so that both of us can sleep. I have to explain why one of us saw fit to make a huge scuffle in the middle of the night, waking others up.

I am lucky that I live with my family, who are willing to tolerate the answer of “actually, I have no idea why I did that, because, in point of fact, it wasn’t me who did that, but rather some other being by whom I was possessed, or possibly I have started to exhibit symptoms of sleepwalking.” Or at least, they accept this answer now, for this situation, and dismiss it as harmless, because it is, at least so far. Yet I am moved to wonder where the line is.

After all, actions will have consequences, even if those actions aren’t mine. Let’s suppose for the sake of simplicity that these latest episodes are sleepwalking. If I sleepwalk, and knock over a lamp, that lamp is no more or less broken than if I’d thrown it to the ground in a rage. Moreover, the lamp has to be dealt with; its shards have to be cleaned up and disposed of, and the lamp will have to be replaced, so someone will have to pay for it. I might get away with saying I was sleepwalking, but more likely I would be compelled to help in the cleanup and replacement of the lamp.

But what if there had been witnesses who had seen me at the time, and said that they saw my eyes were open? It is certainly possible for a sleepwalker to have their eyes open, even to speak. And what if this witness believes that I was in fact awake, and fully conscious when I tipped over the lamp?

There is a relevant legal term and concept here: Automatism. It pertains to a debate surrounding medical conditions and culpability that is still ongoing and is unlikely to end any time soon. Courts and juries go back and forth on what precisely constitutes automatism, and to what degree it constitutes a legal defence, an excuse, or merely an avenue to plead down charges (e.g. manslaughter instead of murder). As near as I can tell, and without delving too deeply into the tangled web of case law, automatism is when a person is not acting as their own person, but rather like an automaton. Or, to quote Arlo Guthrie: “I’m not even here right now, man.”

This is different from insanity, even temporary insanity, or unconsciousness, for reasons that are complex and contested, and have more to do with the minutiae of law than I care to get into. But to summarize: unconsciousness and insanity have to do with denying criminal intent, which is required in most, though not all, crimes. Automatism, by subtle contrast, denies the criminal act itself, by arguing that there is not an actor by whom an act can be committed.

As an illustration, suppose an anvil falls out of the sky, cartoon style, and clobbers innocent bystander George Madison as he is standing on the corner, minding his own business, killing him instantly. Even though something pretty much objectively bad has happened; something which the law would generally seek to prevent, no criminal act per se has occurred. After all, who would be charged? The anvil? Gravity? God?

Now, if there is a human actor somewhere down the chain of causality; if the reason the anvil had been airborne was because village idiot Jay Quincy had pushed a big red button, which happened to be connected to an anvil-railgun being prepared by a group of local high schoolers for the google science fair; then maybe there is a crime. Whether or not Jay Quincy acted with malice aforethought, or was merely negligent, or reckless, or really couldn’t have been expected to know better, would be a matter for a court to decide. But there is an actor, so there is an act, so there might be a crime.

There are many caveats to this defence. The most obvious is that automatism, like (most) insanity is something that has to be proven by the defence, rather than the prosecution. So, to go back to our earlier example of the lamp, I would have to prove that during the episode, that I was sleepwalking. Merely saying that I don’t recall being myself at the time is not enough. For automatism to stick, it has to be proven, with hard evidence. Having a medical diagnosis of somnambulance and a history of sleepwalking episodes might be useful here, although it could also be used as evidence that I should have known better to prevent this in the first place (I’ll get to this point in a minute).

Whether or not this setup is fair, forcing the defence to prove that they weren’t responsible and assuming guilt otherwise, this is the only way that the system can work. The human sense of justice demands that crimes be committed, to some degree or another, voluntarily and of free will. Either there must be an act committed that oughtn’t have been, or something that ought have been prevented that wasn’t. Both of these, however, imply choices, and some degree of conscious free will.

Humans might have a special kind of free will, at least on our good days, that engenders us these rights and responsibilities, but science has yet to prove how this mechanism operates discretely from the physical (automatic) processes that make up our bodies. Without assuming free will, prosecutors would have to contend with proving something that has never even been proven in the abstract for each and every case. So the justice system makes a perhaps unreasonable assumption that people have free will unless there is something really obvious (and easily provable) that impedes it, like a gun to one’s head, or a provable case of sleepwalking.

There is a second caveat here that’s also been hinted at: while a person may not be responsible for their actions while in a state of automatism, they can still be responsible for putting themselves into such a state, either intentionally or negligently, which discounts the defence of automatism. So, while sleeping behind the wheel might happen in an automatic state, the law takes the view that you should have known better than to allow yourself to be behind the wheel if you were at risk of being asleep, and therefore you can still be charged. Sleepwalking does not work if, say, there was an unsecured weapon that one should’ve stowed away while conscious. Intoxication, even involuntary intoxication, whether from alcohol or some other drug, is almost never accepted.

This makes a kind of sense, after all. You don’t want to let people orchestrate crimes beforehand and then disclaim responsibility because they were asleep or what have you when the act occurred. On the other hand, this creates a strange kind of paradox for people with medical conditions that might result in a state of automatism at some point, and who are concerned about being liable for their actions and avoiding harm to others. After all, taking action beforehand shows that you knew something might have happened and should have been prepared for it, and are therefore liable. And not taking action is obviously negligent, and makes it difficult to prove that you weren’t acting under your own volition in the first place.

Incidentally, this notion of being held responsible; in some sense, of being responsible; for actions taken by a force other than my own free will, is one of my greatest fears. The idea that I might hurt someone, not even accidentally, but as an involuntary consequence of my medical situation; that is to say, the condition of the same body that makes me myself; I find absolutely petrifying. This has already happened before, as I have accidentally hurt people while flailing passing in and out of a coma, and there is no reason to believe that the same thing couldn’t happen again.

So, what to do? I was hoping that delving into the law might find me some solace from this fear; that I might encounter some landmark argument that would satisfy not just some legal liability, but which I would be able to use as a means of self-assurance. Instead it has done the opposite, and I am less confident now than when I started.