Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Another aphorism
Blaming corporations for the evils of society is like blaming the bush that hides a sniper.
Monday, November 24, 2008
A quick note on rhyming and the English language.
A man I admire very much indeed has said that any work which claims to be poetry and does not rhyme makes a liar out of its clasier. I happen to agree in part, and yet disagree quite completely.
I said that this would be a quick note, and I don't feel like doing a bunch of research. As much as I'd like to make a historical argument, it would be pretty time-consuming, especially for me. So I'm going to make up imaginary examples, along with imaginary etymologies, and you'll have to follow along with my argument suspending your disbelief, until you get to the end, at which time you can accept my conclusion as valid, or discard it, according to your preference.
So, let us take a pair of rhyming words. Let's say, neighbour and tabor. Tabor is a good example, because I don't recall having heard it spoken aloud, though there is a Tabor Arms Pub in the city of Prince George, and I think I might have remembered it if I had heard it pronounced differently in a radio advertisement. Neighbour is a good word too, because I'm reminded of a white comedian who used it as a substitute for another n-word whenever he sang his favorite black rap songs aloud in public.
Anyways, according to my friend, if you were to put neighbour at the end of one line, and tabor at the end of a subsequent line, you'd have a rhyme, and therefore, you've gone most of the way toward making a poem. If you're me, and you speak like me, then that's fine. These words do indeed have the same ending sound in English. However, historically, they emerged from totally different sounds. (I'm assuming they are unrelated; if they turn out to be related, suspend your disbelief.)
I have a number of problems with the principle that rhyming is a good thing for poetry. Many times it is argued that rhyming makes a poem satisfying to the ear. What rhyming does is it creates a sense of closure in a series of lines. When we end the first line, we're opening a door. When we rhyme it in a subsequent line, we're gently closing the door. Do you notice how I just rhymed "door" with "door"? That was the kind of thing that rhyme was originally supposed to do. Rhyming creates the illusion, the deception, that a logical connection has been made.
In the beginning of language, there were no rhymes. Every word had a different ending. Over time, speakers began to combine words, and some words became nothing more than common endings. For example, "ing" lost its status as an individual word, and in exchange, the Devil gave him a place among all the verbs in all the language. A fair bargain, I would say, and I have no quibble with the Devil on this point.
*Aside: Even to this day, bad poets who claim not to like rhyming will still continue to use "ing" in their poems. Falling, scintillating, gasperating, fulmingating (two ings!), turning, smiling, illuminating. Ing is the new invisible rhyme.
At this point though, you might be objecting. You might say "The English language is so vast, and there are only so many sounds you can end a word with." Well, I explained one part of it already, but there are some other parts of the reason here. (I should also note that I'm not talking about an English that was ever physically spoken, but more of a primordial English spoken in the time before time.) One other reason is simply that the language had a smaller number of concepts to convey per speaker. That is to say, the average English speaker came across a smaller number of things for which he needed words. People travelled less in those days. And what about the few who travelled more and further? Well, these people had other languages. For in those days too, there were a lot more languages around in a relatively smaller area. Not only that, but there was a lot more variation on what might be called a single language today. So much so that some clasiers describe, say, the border between linguistic regions as more of a continuum, in which the transformation is virtually seemless. The only thing that later set down language barriers was the rise of nationalism, or possibly the rise of the state.
And so, any given speaker had a relatively small vocabulary from which to draw possible rhymes. And because of his accent, combined with the accents of the people that brought new words to the region, even words that sort of sounded the same were quite different. In other words, in this time before time, neighbour and tabor did not rhyme. Everyone knew the word "neighbour" although each town had its own special way of pronouncing it. But only a few people knew a "tabor" as such. They had much more varying ways of expressing the concept of a certain kind of drum, usually referring to whatever their local model was called.
The one exception of there not being any rhymes was the fact that words with a common origin, meaning the same thing, and containing the same "sub-words" or lexemes, tended to sound alike. This gave rise to the quite correct belief that rhyming expressed truth. To rhyme was to close a topic off from discussion. A pear is a pear is a pear. A rhyme was an indication of completeness. A rhyme indicated the equivalence of two lines.
Enter the bards. The poets. The wordsmiths. These people realized that some words sounded the same despite being completely unrelated. They also discovered (those of them who could write) that the spelling of words could be altered to be the same or different from that of other words, while the sound of them would remain unaltered, except by the accent of the speaker. Thus, neighbour and tabor, it was realized, could be made to relate in a poem.
The first poet to realize this was an idiot, and he made very crappy poetry. A few other idiots followed, but then one or two poetic geniuses realized that rhyme could be judiciously used to relate heretofore unrelated concepts to each other, and yet still attain some level of profundity. That is, an unknown truth became unearthed when two unrelated concepts were made related. Thus was born the power of rhyme.
But soon after this, rhyme came to be seen as an end in itself. The idiots returned, and built fenceposts out of elephant tusks. Rhyming became nothing more than an address for the librarians at the Libary of Congress to file each work.
I said that this would be a quick note, and I don't feel like doing a bunch of research. As much as I'd like to make a historical argument, it would be pretty time-consuming, especially for me. So I'm going to make up imaginary examples, along with imaginary etymologies, and you'll have to follow along with my argument suspending your disbelief, until you get to the end, at which time you can accept my conclusion as valid, or discard it, according to your preference.
So, let us take a pair of rhyming words. Let's say, neighbour and tabor. Tabor is a good example, because I don't recall having heard it spoken aloud, though there is a Tabor Arms Pub in the city of Prince George, and I think I might have remembered it if I had heard it pronounced differently in a radio advertisement. Neighbour is a good word too, because I'm reminded of a white comedian who used it as a substitute for another n-word whenever he sang his favorite black rap songs aloud in public.
Anyways, according to my friend, if you were to put neighbour at the end of one line, and tabor at the end of a subsequent line, you'd have a rhyme, and therefore, you've gone most of the way toward making a poem. If you're me, and you speak like me, then that's fine. These words do indeed have the same ending sound in English. However, historically, they emerged from totally different sounds. (I'm assuming they are unrelated; if they turn out to be related, suspend your disbelief.)
I have a number of problems with the principle that rhyming is a good thing for poetry. Many times it is argued that rhyming makes a poem satisfying to the ear. What rhyming does is it creates a sense of closure in a series of lines. When we end the first line, we're opening a door. When we rhyme it in a subsequent line, we're gently closing the door. Do you notice how I just rhymed "door" with "door"? That was the kind of thing that rhyme was originally supposed to do. Rhyming creates the illusion, the deception, that a logical connection has been made.
In the beginning of language, there were no rhymes. Every word had a different ending. Over time, speakers began to combine words, and some words became nothing more than common endings. For example, "ing" lost its status as an individual word, and in exchange, the Devil gave him a place among all the verbs in all the language. A fair bargain, I would say, and I have no quibble with the Devil on this point.
*Aside: Even to this day, bad poets who claim not to like rhyming will still continue to use "ing" in their poems. Falling, scintillating, gasperating, fulmingating (two ings!), turning, smiling, illuminating. Ing is the new invisible rhyme.
At this point though, you might be objecting. You might say "The English language is so vast, and there are only so many sounds you can end a word with." Well, I explained one part of it already, but there are some other parts of the reason here. (I should also note that I'm not talking about an English that was ever physically spoken, but more of a primordial English spoken in the time before time.) One other reason is simply that the language had a smaller number of concepts to convey per speaker. That is to say, the average English speaker came across a smaller number of things for which he needed words. People travelled less in those days. And what about the few who travelled more and further? Well, these people had other languages. For in those days too, there were a lot more languages around in a relatively smaller area. Not only that, but there was a lot more variation on what might be called a single language today. So much so that some clasiers describe, say, the border between linguistic regions as more of a continuum, in which the transformation is virtually seemless. The only thing that later set down language barriers was the rise of nationalism, or possibly the rise of the state.
And so, any given speaker had a relatively small vocabulary from which to draw possible rhymes. And because of his accent, combined with the accents of the people that brought new words to the region, even words that sort of sounded the same were quite different. In other words, in this time before time, neighbour and tabor did not rhyme. Everyone knew the word "neighbour" although each town had its own special way of pronouncing it. But only a few people knew a "tabor" as such. They had much more varying ways of expressing the concept of a certain kind of drum, usually referring to whatever their local model was called.
The one exception of there not being any rhymes was the fact that words with a common origin, meaning the same thing, and containing the same "sub-words" or lexemes, tended to sound alike. This gave rise to the quite correct belief that rhyming expressed truth. To rhyme was to close a topic off from discussion. A pear is a pear is a pear. A rhyme was an indication of completeness. A rhyme indicated the equivalence of two lines.
Enter the bards. The poets. The wordsmiths. These people realized that some words sounded the same despite being completely unrelated. They also discovered (those of them who could write) that the spelling of words could be altered to be the same or different from that of other words, while the sound of them would remain unaltered, except by the accent of the speaker. Thus, neighbour and tabor, it was realized, could be made to relate in a poem.
The first poet to realize this was an idiot, and he made very crappy poetry. A few other idiots followed, but then one or two poetic geniuses realized that rhyme could be judiciously used to relate heretofore unrelated concepts to each other, and yet still attain some level of profundity. That is, an unknown truth became unearthed when two unrelated concepts were made related. Thus was born the power of rhyme.
But soon after this, rhyme came to be seen as an end in itself. The idiots returned, and built fenceposts out of elephant tusks. Rhyming became nothing more than an address for the librarians at the Libary of Congress to file each work.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Rejection
I don't deal particularly well with rejection. So you can imagine how I might have felt the other morning when I woke up from a dream in which I was being consistently and systematically being rejected by a series of recruiters from various agencies, including the government and the armed forces. Everything about me was inadequate. I hadn't studied the field sufficiently. I needed more experience. I didn't know the answers to basic questions. I didn't know the history of each field. I couldn't do basic calculations because I didn't have the formulas memorized. I didn't know the people I needed to know. I didn't have references. All of this was enormously frustrating in my dream.
However, if I may attempt to comfort myself, I also noticed, while dreaming, that there were thousands of other applicants to the same positions (there were several dozen jobs I was trying out for) and many of them received a zero in most, if not all, of their aptitude tests. My average score was around 20% on every test. The successful applicants scored at or near 100%.
What is wrong with me? Well, there's nothing wrong with me. The reasons for scoring low on tests and failing criteria was that I simply had not had the exposure to the right factors. I could have had all the knowledge, if I had been arsed to go out and learn it. I could have met the people involved, got to know them, and got references from them. They were listed in directories for that purpose. And yet, for some reason, I had never done any of these things. I had never wanted any of these jobs badly enough to go out and actually learn anything about them. This is why I was rejected 100% of the time.
So what is the lesson that I need to learn? Well, people aren't ready to just take a chance on someone who has no knowledge of what it is they're getting themselves into. I know I'll be a great asset, but they don't, and I don't have any evidence beyond my word to go by. And these days, no one's word is worth anything. Especially the word of a stranger. The word of someone who nobody knows, who just showed up out of the blue.
After all, how have things gotten done throughout history? People did what their parents did. And why can't I do that? Well, it is an option. It's not something I want to do, but I could go work for my dad, doing exactly what he's doing.
Except in my dad's case, he didn't do what his dad did. My dad created his own niche in the world, and I suppose that is why I have such a hard time occupying the niche that he carved. He's a niche-carver, an entrepreneur, and if I want to follow in his footsteps, what I have to do is not follow in anyone's footsteps. Which makes life difficult for me. But maybe if I am mindful of this, I can watch out for the pitfalls. And yes, I can call him up and ask him for advice about treading in untrodden territory.
Well, that out of the way, I have this problem of rejection. The other aspect of it, which I was hinting at earlier, is that a lot of people get rejected before they even get in the door. So obviously I have something special. I am somehow unique, and I do have the skills to at least get a good deal of momentum going and get my career rolling. If only I could convince someone to take a chance on me.
Ugh, but I hate that language. As if I'm begging. I'm special, dammit! Why can't anyone see that? Why do I have to go with my hands wringing?
Well, I guess I don't. All I need is solid evidence that I am the perfect asset for the job. And this will take some education. It will take digging, and hand-shaking. I will have to get to know some of the people who are in this industry. It'll take reading whatever there is to read about it. And it will take me trying not to get bored, or bogged down in my own thing.
Speaking of getting bogged down, I think my attitude toward my current work could use an adjustment. One option I have is to just accept the job I have now as a good job, and just keep on doing it, saving money until the end. There's nothing wrong with that. Lots of people work crappy, low-paying jobs their entire lives.
But am I lots of people? Well, I thought I wasn't, but part of the problem is that a lot of people in the world of job opportunities are going to want to classify me as one of the many who don't deserve anything better than a Joe-job. At least, as far as their sphere is concerned. You see, I take things too personal. To the vast majority of people in the world, I'm of absolutely no consequence. I might as well just die. I'm taking up space in their busy schedule. But why should I take this personally? I shouldn't. I know my own value, and that's enough for me. And every once in a while, if I should happen to encounter someone who seems to take an unwarranted interest in me, I should be ecstatic. I know this can happen, because it has happened.
Mind you, I find that the people who are most interested in me as a person are the people I'm paying to do so. For example, my college professors. They're working for me. And so they exhibit this degree of care that I don't see elsewhere. I seem to get the same treatment from my doctor, the hairdresser, people at the clothing store, counsellors, therapists, and the people at the blood donor clinic (although I'm paying them in blood, not money).
But to go back a little bit in my thoughts, my theory on rejection, the lesson I got from the dream I had last night, is that rejection is avoidable. And every time I was rejected in my dream, there was a pretty clear reason for it. Mainly, it is a lack of concrete evidence that I am capable of doing this job which I claim to want to do, or a lack of concrete evidence that I am capable and willing to learn the workings of this job which I want to do.
After all, I am struck every day by images of things going wrong because people didn't do their jobs. The very computer I'm working on is full of bugs and imperfections because someone didn't take their job seriously enough. I am amazed that Intel's processors actually work after hearing about all the bugs built into the physical structure of their chips. I'm amazed that Windows Vista runs anything at all. And these are the best of the best, building these computers. These are the smartest people with the best, most prestigious jobs.
And what about when the stakes are even higher, or rather, when the stakes are of a human nature? What about doctors, surgeons, policemen, and the military? When a policeman makes a mistake, not only is he guilty of not taking his job seriously enough, but he undermines the legitimacy of the state that he represents. When a policeman unintentionally kills someone with a taser, the entire government is accused of fascism.
Our world is riddled with incompetence, and here I am asking for potential employers to give me a chance? Without solid evidence?
This is what makes me glad that we go through hard times. Economically, I'm thinking, though it could also apply to things like wartime, and natural disasters. What a recession does for us, is make it harder to succeed as an incompetent. Either you smarten up, or your whole company, industry, or country, goes down the drain. The theory goes: someone else will rise up to replace you. And that someone will, at least in the beginning, be smarter than you, more competent, more efficient.
But what does this mean for me? Well, it means going in there without evidence and asking them to "give me a chance, I can learn" is not going to cut it. I'm going to have to learn a heck of a lot first, and then approach them. I'm going to have to make myself irresistable.
What else does this mean? Well, it means every time I consider a company, I'm going to have to ask myself tough questions about whether I really want to go there. This is no longer just my vetting process, or the vetting process of myself. This is a vetting process for both parties. I have to examine them, and recognize how much I approve of their activities, and whether I think they deserve me as a member. And I'm going to have to reject a few organizations myself.
However, if I may attempt to comfort myself, I also noticed, while dreaming, that there were thousands of other applicants to the same positions (there were several dozen jobs I was trying out for) and many of them received a zero in most, if not all, of their aptitude tests. My average score was around 20% on every test. The successful applicants scored at or near 100%.
What is wrong with me? Well, there's nothing wrong with me. The reasons for scoring low on tests and failing criteria was that I simply had not had the exposure to the right factors. I could have had all the knowledge, if I had been arsed to go out and learn it. I could have met the people involved, got to know them, and got references from them. They were listed in directories for that purpose. And yet, for some reason, I had never done any of these things. I had never wanted any of these jobs badly enough to go out and actually learn anything about them. This is why I was rejected 100% of the time.
So what is the lesson that I need to learn? Well, people aren't ready to just take a chance on someone who has no knowledge of what it is they're getting themselves into. I know I'll be a great asset, but they don't, and I don't have any evidence beyond my word to go by. And these days, no one's word is worth anything. Especially the word of a stranger. The word of someone who nobody knows, who just showed up out of the blue.
After all, how have things gotten done throughout history? People did what their parents did. And why can't I do that? Well, it is an option. It's not something I want to do, but I could go work for my dad, doing exactly what he's doing.
Except in my dad's case, he didn't do what his dad did. My dad created his own niche in the world, and I suppose that is why I have such a hard time occupying the niche that he carved. He's a niche-carver, an entrepreneur, and if I want to follow in his footsteps, what I have to do is not follow in anyone's footsteps. Which makes life difficult for me. But maybe if I am mindful of this, I can watch out for the pitfalls. And yes, I can call him up and ask him for advice about treading in untrodden territory.
Well, that out of the way, I have this problem of rejection. The other aspect of it, which I was hinting at earlier, is that a lot of people get rejected before they even get in the door. So obviously I have something special. I am somehow unique, and I do have the skills to at least get a good deal of momentum going and get my career rolling. If only I could convince someone to take a chance on me.
Ugh, but I hate that language. As if I'm begging. I'm special, dammit! Why can't anyone see that? Why do I have to go with my hands wringing?
Well, I guess I don't. All I need is solid evidence that I am the perfect asset for the job. And this will take some education. It will take digging, and hand-shaking. I will have to get to know some of the people who are in this industry. It'll take reading whatever there is to read about it. And it will take me trying not to get bored, or bogged down in my own thing.
Speaking of getting bogged down, I think my attitude toward my current work could use an adjustment. One option I have is to just accept the job I have now as a good job, and just keep on doing it, saving money until the end. There's nothing wrong with that. Lots of people work crappy, low-paying jobs their entire lives.
But am I lots of people? Well, I thought I wasn't, but part of the problem is that a lot of people in the world of job opportunities are going to want to classify me as one of the many who don't deserve anything better than a Joe-job. At least, as far as their sphere is concerned. You see, I take things too personal. To the vast majority of people in the world, I'm of absolutely no consequence. I might as well just die. I'm taking up space in their busy schedule. But why should I take this personally? I shouldn't. I know my own value, and that's enough for me. And every once in a while, if I should happen to encounter someone who seems to take an unwarranted interest in me, I should be ecstatic. I know this can happen, because it has happened.
Mind you, I find that the people who are most interested in me as a person are the people I'm paying to do so. For example, my college professors. They're working for me. And so they exhibit this degree of care that I don't see elsewhere. I seem to get the same treatment from my doctor, the hairdresser, people at the clothing store, counsellors, therapists, and the people at the blood donor clinic (although I'm paying them in blood, not money).
But to go back a little bit in my thoughts, my theory on rejection, the lesson I got from the dream I had last night, is that rejection is avoidable. And every time I was rejected in my dream, there was a pretty clear reason for it. Mainly, it is a lack of concrete evidence that I am capable of doing this job which I claim to want to do, or a lack of concrete evidence that I am capable and willing to learn the workings of this job which I want to do.
After all, I am struck every day by images of things going wrong because people didn't do their jobs. The very computer I'm working on is full of bugs and imperfections because someone didn't take their job seriously enough. I am amazed that Intel's processors actually work after hearing about all the bugs built into the physical structure of their chips. I'm amazed that Windows Vista runs anything at all. And these are the best of the best, building these computers. These are the smartest people with the best, most prestigious jobs.
And what about when the stakes are even higher, or rather, when the stakes are of a human nature? What about doctors, surgeons, policemen, and the military? When a policeman makes a mistake, not only is he guilty of not taking his job seriously enough, but he undermines the legitimacy of the state that he represents. When a policeman unintentionally kills someone with a taser, the entire government is accused of fascism.
Our world is riddled with incompetence, and here I am asking for potential employers to give me a chance? Without solid evidence?
This is what makes me glad that we go through hard times. Economically, I'm thinking, though it could also apply to things like wartime, and natural disasters. What a recession does for us, is make it harder to succeed as an incompetent. Either you smarten up, or your whole company, industry, or country, goes down the drain. The theory goes: someone else will rise up to replace you. And that someone will, at least in the beginning, be smarter than you, more competent, more efficient.
But what does this mean for me? Well, it means going in there without evidence and asking them to "give me a chance, I can learn" is not going to cut it. I'm going to have to learn a heck of a lot first, and then approach them. I'm going to have to make myself irresistable.
What else does this mean? Well, it means every time I consider a company, I'm going to have to ask myself tough questions about whether I really want to go there. This is no longer just my vetting process, or the vetting process of myself. This is a vetting process for both parties. I have to examine them, and recognize how much I approve of their activities, and whether I think they deserve me as a member. And I'm going to have to reject a few organizations myself.
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