Behavior change

It's strange how difficult it can be to change a behavior, even when it comes to changing a good behavior to a bad one. I work in behavior change, and supposedly understand some ways to make people adopt new behaviors. Yet, I still have a time of it trying to change myself.

Here I stand, post-birthday gifts, with a lovely ipod touch. It's real nice and perdy, and in theory, I think it could be useful if used sparingly. But I just can't get myself to use it. Perhaps it's because I resisted it and felt a strong moral opposition to it, and then finally caved. Perhaps it's a feeling of guilt. I don't know, but it's like a sense of awkwardness creeps over me, like I don't know how to use it, and I just put it aside. It's like I have to alter my whole world view to start making an ipod part of it. I have to make room for the ipod, but I feel ambivalent toward it. It has to be something you consciously think about, and I just don't. I forget completely that I even own it, and it sits on my bedside table. I see it when I go to bed and wonder, what is it I'm supposed to do with this here thing? Strange, isn't it?

Office dweller

I am not made for the office. The office breaks me. Breaks me slowly, but breaks me the same. It shows, perhaps not to the outside world, but to me. Things that used to astonish and grate at integrity become part of the accepted undertone of the office . Things I swore I'd always do, no matter what the circumstance, well. Immune to weather, hands smooth - not calloused, conversations removed from the converser, eyes glazed with computer, limbs unused and wasting, parceled work and play, sunshineless cells, world revolving around a world.

Really, I cannot accept that I am the only one who feels this way. I don't think man is made for the office. Man wants to create, to use hands, to connect with the land, to be part of something larger. And yet so many of us are caught in this fabricated world that is office life. I don't want to find myself old and softened by office living. But what to do?

"I'm off to the subway
I must not be late.
Going to work in tall buildings.

Now when I retire
and my life is my own
I made all the payments
it's time to go home
and wonder what happened
betwixt and between
when I went to work in tall buildings"

-Tall Buildings, John Hartford

Herbal love

All my love is directed in the herbal direction this week. And the proud owner of that love? Tarragon, ladies and gents. Why is it that I am only now learning how amazing tarragon is? How it complements every dish? I think I have hoisted tarragon to the dizzying heights at which I hold Nutella. Even cardboard would taste good with tarragon. So, watch out if you happen to be supping with me in the upcoming weeks; you might get a little more tarragon than you can handle.

Synergistically bad

With this financial crisis, I have - along with millions of others - wondered how we got ourselves into this mess. How did we lose control? How did we blind ourselves to the consequences of our actions? Some of my answers lie in the make-up of the entities we have raised: Created by man, morphing machinery beholden to The Man, growing larger than man, controlled not by man but by some synergistic other. Often, in creating these entities, we cede our agency to something larger than we ourselves can control, something mercurial that does not abide the laws we originally intended. Lackeys of this, our great creation, we run around believing we are fulfilling our desires, only to discover we have been duped by the monster we have been feeding. We may suddenly find ourselves apologetic at the actions we are performing; but, no longer the bosses, we watch in horror. Some grow to accept what they must do to maintain the machine of their own creation, despite the stark differences between intention and actuality. Others may rage against it, but feel confused as to how to stop the engine of something they should - but do not - control.

I think of The Grapes of Wrath, the owners coming to boot the tenants off the land: "We’re sorry. It’s not us. It’s the monster. The bank isn’t like a man."

"Yes, but the bank is only made of men."
"No, you’re wrong there—quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It
happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it.
The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it."

How is it that we can create something and then lose total control over it? Is it possible to create something that builds up the creator, rather than building itself up? Likewise, is it possible to continue unscathed by what we create, continue to see things as they are, and not as this creation views them? Can we continue in our authenticity, doggedly pushing what we believe the entity should be? Can we keep the end user in mind? Or will this new-fangled, evolutionary entity "goggle [our] mind, muzzle [our] speech, goggle [our] perception,

muzzle [our] protest" until we no longer recognize the realities and physicality behind our actions? Will we allow ourselves to reach the point where we "eat what [we] did not raise" because we are so disconnected with the repercussions of our creations? Can we, as insinuated in The Grapes of Wrath passage below, remain intimately involved, wise stewards rather than absentee landlords?

"Funny thing how it is. If a man owns a little property, that property is him, it's part of him, and it's like him. If he owns property only so he can walk on it and handle it and be sad when it isn't doing well, and feel fine when the rain falls on it, that property is him, and some way he's bigger because he owns it. Even if he isn't successful he’s big with his property. That is so.

"But let a man get property he doesn’t see, or can’t take time to get his fingers in, or can’t be there to walk on it—why, then the property is the man. He can't do what he wants, he can't think what he wants. The property is the man, stronger than he is. And he is small, not big. Only his possessions are big—and he's the servant of his property. That is so, too."

Most importantly, do we have the integrity and bravery to admit when we have created a bad thing? Do we possess the courage to forge ahead and try again?

Takin' a lift

The elevator and I spent some gooood quality time today. The first thing you should know about my office is that the only stairs in the building are emergency stairs that set an alarm off if you use them, therefore rendering them virtually unusable. So, after work I unassumingly stepped onto the elevator trying to get to my floor. I pressed "3" and waited. Nothing. Pressed it again. Now that may have been my cue to get off the elevator and wait for another one, but I persisted. After multiple attempts and the best baffled looks I could summon, I finally stepped off the elevator to try and catch another one. But, no matter how many times I tried to convince another elevator to come, I ended up with ELEVATOR #6. So, it's you and me, 6. Let's try this again. This time when I got on, the elevator started going up, which - although my number still didn't light up - I thought was progress. Oh, I am so easily mislead. I rode up to floor 6, picked up a dude, and headed back down, desperately swiping my badge and pressing "3" in a rapid-fire motion the whole way down. When we got to the lobby and I didn't budge, the guy looked at me strangely and reluctantly got off. This time, I made my way back up to 6, picked some more people up who didn't know what a ride they were in for. The elevator strolled up and down; 6, lobby, 6, lobby, 6, lobby... without ever opening its doors. We rode like this, 3 strangers, for an entire 5 minutes, nervously twittering. When we were finally spit out halfway above the lobby, we called it good. Despite my newly forged bonds with Elevator 6, I abandoned her and found another more trustworthy companion.

Pursuit

As we get older, many people's questioning shifts from the what to the how. The looming, nebulous question of what to do with our lives begins to crystallize, and we are left staggering under the weight of how to pursue those passions. What is the venue? Where is the path? What are the channels? For some people, the way seems clear, but for the rest of us, our exposure in life shows us there are multitudinous means to a singular end. We may want to abolish illiteracy, for example, but what is the best way to do it? And not just what is the best way, but what is our best way, given our strengths and capabilities? Should we become teachers, or administrators? Tutors on the side? Politicians? Advocates?

My angst du jour, or perhaps du année is inequities. Life situations lately have left me in tears trying to reconcile why I have so much and others have so little. I suppose juxtaposing the passing of Ted Kennedy - somebody who indefatigably fought to elevate the depressed and abolish inequities - and watching the Pursuit of Happyness only heightened my angst. Senator Kennedy found the channel that, for him, was the best way to make the impact he desired. Yet I am still getting caught in my riling, impassioned over a subject, but feeling helpless to make any difference. Senator Kennedy used his power to help the powerless, a reminder of the nobility possessed by those who refuse to abuse their power. Yet his path is not my path.

I think of an unassuming Bolivian woman who grew up in a mining community and became a strong advocate for miners and Bolivians. The laudability of her efforts, in my mind, comes more from the fact that she never forgot her roots. As she grew in fame and had opportunities to be treated as the high and mighty, she never let her mind wander from her people and purpose. She would ask, "If my people can't stay in a fancy hotel, how can I allow myself such luxury?" "How can I justify having these luxuries when people I love do not enjoy the same?" The solidarity she felt with her people would not allow her to renege on her values, no matter what she was offered. Her philosophy was simple: if they can't have it, then I won't. While her example has always been compelling, I'm not sure that denying ourselves something we have been given is necessarily a long-term solution. But I'm left wondering, what can I do to show my commitment, my passion, to see results I care about? How can I pursue this in a way that complements my natural talents? I feel so lost.

Latest and greatest in contraception

The other day, we were doing a community workshop on women's empowerment. It was the family planning day, so we were talking about what kinds of modern birth control methods were available in their community. Things were going pretty much as expected when one woman spoke up. She started listing some of the usual methods "pills, implants... and of course, one of the most effective methods is a husband's death." Yep, I'm pretty sure that'll do it. Pretty much 100% effective. I can just see the campaign now. Latest and greatest in birth control: death. Pretty novel.