OK. Time to take another crack at the question of people’s relationship with math and numbers.

I keep coming back to his subject because it puzzles me. I find it hard to understand why so many people have this strong mental aversion to things involving math, even very basic math. So I suppose I am looking for answers.

The root of my puzzlement is that the sort of math I am talking about is very simple math. We’re not talking about strange mathematics involving bizarre sounding things like “n-space” and “asymptotic variables”. We’re not even talking about algebra, the bete noire of many.

We are talking about extremely simple math : add, multiply, subtract, divide. If you graduated from elementary school, you know how to do these thing. And you don’t even need to do these things yourself. That’s what calculators (or, more likely, calculator apps) are for. You only have to understand them.

So it is clear that it’s not that people can’t do or understand the math. They are perfectly capable of it. And yet they avoid math like it’s the worst mental torture known to mankind.

Ergo, it must be something deeper. Something about the nature of one’s experience with math, perhaps.

One possibility is that it’s entirely random. If your first experience with math is easy and fun, you form a good opinion of it, and said opinion leads you to be open to more math, and hence you become good at it and comfortable with it.

If the first experience is bad, the opposite happens. The mind closes down on the subject because math is now treated as a threat imposed upon one from above, and the scenario is set for a person to learn only the absolute minimum required in order to get through school and then to cleanse the mind of all math once school is done.

This phenomenon is greatly enhanced by the nearly universal belief that some people are just naturally good at math, like they have the “math gene”, and for everyone else, it’s nothing but mystery and misery.

I don’t believe it, and I think belief in this “math gene” is very destructive. It gives people an out that seems like a relief at the time (guess I am just not one of those math people) but which, in my opinion, leads to people being unnecessarily subnumerate and hence open to manipulation, not to mention unable to exert the control over their lives that a comfort level with math brings, especially when it comes to finance.

Money is numbers. And numbers are power.

I don’t think it’s a gene and I don’t think it is random chance either. I think it goes yet deeper than that, into the deeper layers of human psychology. I think people become afraid of numbers and math because they understand that numbers are binding, and do not want to be bound by them.

The amount of money you have is a number. As such, it cannot be changed to fit better with your emotional needs. That’s why people think numbers are “cold”. They are not alive. They are finite. They are limited. And some people, right-brained people, simply cannot accept that kind of truth.

So they rebel against it. They do everything they can to minimize contact with the cold, finite, divided, “uncaring” world of numbers. They prefer to operate from an expansive worldview that is not tied down by numbers. They try, in a sense, to pretend numbers do not exist or do not represent truth in any meaningful way.

But the numbers of a situation do represent truth. Hard, unyielding, unwavering truth. And if the numbers don’t add up, nothing works. No amount of soul-searching, contemplation, examination from different perspectives, or prayer is going to change that.

If something costs $1200, that’s it. You either have that much money or not. If a bridge can only hold 1000 pounds, then there is no amount of negotiation that can convince it to hold more. If your child’s temperature is 104, then it’s time to take them to the doctor no matter how inconvenient it might be.

Numbers can represent truth that absolutely cannot be denied. No wonder so many people don’t like them.

Some people even give in to the feeling that the numbers somehow change when they are not looking, and it can certainly seem like that sometimes when you are dealing with numbers on a large scale.

But you know they didn’t. The idea is absurd on the face of it. What, did magical number gremlins change the numbers while you blinked? Of course the numbers haven’t changed. How could they? And armed with this irrefutable fact, you can go back to what you are doing and figure out where you went wrong.

Perhaps the difference is one of the qualitative versus the quantitative. Or pragmatism versus idealism. The idealist wants to remain in the world of untarnished ideals. The pragmatist accepts the limitations and imperfections of the world because they wish to get things done.

Being a pragmatist myself, as well as someone who is quite comfortable working with numbers, I might be biased. But to me, people’s refusal to do even the most basic kind of mathematical reasoning strikes me as childish and absurd.

And that’s what it boils down to. Once you strip away the things that a calculator can do and the belief that math is a “you got it or you don’t” proposition, all you have left is mathematical reasoning. People are unable or unwilling to think in numbers.

And these are not stupid people, necessarily. That’s why I think it has something to do with psychology or temperament. Some people inherently reject the cold hard inflexible truth of numbers, and will tell themselves whatever it takes to discredit mathematical truth so they don’t have to face their own refusal to accept reality.

“Oh, surely such a complicated thing as this can’t be reduced to mere numbers!”

Why the hell not?

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Welcome to what is probably the last installment of the video roundup for now, at least.

I sort of miss talking about stuff.

Anyhow, on with the show!

Of course, we start with music.

In case you missed it, and I doubt you did, the reverse echoing stuff near the beginning and the excellent Peter Lorre quote at the end are the exact same clip.

I originally had the clip at the end of the song, by itself, but then I decided it would be much funnier if the music cut out right before he said “HE’S MARRYING A CHICKEN!”

And now, I confuse people by talking :

Well I had been listening to a very erudite female men’s rights advocate and I was sort of hot for the cause. And I was trying to illustrate a point. But I think I got a little carried away. I wanted to illustrate the different ways people think about different genders and how bizarre that is, and tilted against men it can be.

That was all I was saying.

Blah blah blah, more music :

Meh. No… that’s not strong enough. Bleh.

Some okay ideas but as a whole, it’s uneven, off balance, and clumsy. Kind of ashamed of it really. But it is, perversely, not in my nature to take something down just because I don’t think it’s my best work.

Logically speaking, that’s exactly what I should do. But that’s sane thinking, and I am not, in any sense, sane.

Not sure I want to be, honestly. It seems like such a drag.

And speaking of things I am not totally proud of :

It wasn’t originally called Test Footage, but I was unhappy enough to want some weasel words in there. I mean, it’s not horrible or anything, but it ended up falling a long way sort of what I was trying to do and that’s always depressing for us fragile and sensitive artistic types.

Love that ending, though. Almost makes up for the rest of it. I need to tap into my uber wacky side more often.

And now, part three of my self-abuse trilogy.

Man I was bummed. Now, after talking to my therapist about it and having him talk me down from mt tree so I could bounce back, it all seems almost silly. But at the time, I really did feel like I had fucked up big time and I was in deep doodoo because of it.

It’s sad how depression can keep you from seeing the solution to your problems. It makes your horizons so damn small.

This next piece is a companion video to this blog entry :

Not a lot to say here. I am not saying that it’s some major cross to bear to be a person who doesn’t have a lot of strict preferences. But it has been a issue in my life, not severe, but pesky. That’s why, like I say in the blog entry, I express preferences when asked even if deep down I don’t really give a shit.

That way, things go more smoothly and I don’t end up arguing with people who are trying to help me.

More of me just talkin’ :

It says something about my general level of impatience that I am already tired of talking CPAP. I went back to the place yesterday. My sleep apnea tests at just past the line between “mild” and “moderate”, like it did before, and things went pretty well with the CPAP machine once I a) remembered to get distilled (oh sorry, “demineralized” water for it and b) had a few nights to get back into the habit.

It’s still a pain to have to strap in just to sleep, but that will fade with time as well.

Oh look, I’m talking in natural light again :

And yeah, like I say, I am probably repeating stuff I said before in various venues. It was what was on my mind right before I made the video, and so I went with it, and realized partway through that I had already talking about this stuff.

But at least I eventually staggered into new territory.

The way I do things is so crazy!

But hey, check out those production values!

Well, if it’s not talking, it must be music :

Bleh. Bordering on blek. Volume balance is way off, and the whole thing seems lumpy, uneven, and sudden. I must have been really messed up that night and hence even sloppier than usual.

Honestly, sometimes it amazes me that anything I do turns out well. Just goes to show that method, reason, and careful scrutiny is one way to get things done.

But it’s not the only way. There’s a lot to be said for the joy of creation and the freedom of mind it requires.

And now, for something completely different :

Great fun doing this, although the sort of listening required is surprisingly draining. You have to listen very intently and yet in a very specific way. It makes me tired just thinking about it, to be honest.

I hope the results are funny to people, or at least entertaining. It’s a fine line between “LOL random” and just plain random. it seems funny to me, but I made the darn thing. I just might be biased.

That’s the thing with comedy, as least from where I am sitting. Sometimes I create stuff that feels right to me, but at the same time, I have absolutely no idea if anyone would find it funny at all.

So it’s not always the comedy writer sniggering at their own wit as they type out their gems of hilarity.

Sometimes it’s as abstract and intuitive as tone poetry.

Finally, we have this video of me being silly in my CPAP mask.

Sorry about the low volume. I guess you have to be Ron Perlman to be able to project through a mask like that.

Well, that’s it for now folks. We’re not totally caught up, but the rest can go into the roundup for next Sunday.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

And the hits just keep on coming.

Here’s me being weird and ranting about things nobody else gives a shit about.

I look good in natural light.

I grew up drinking unsoftened water… in other words, water that had a little fluoride added and that was it. All minerals intact. My first experience with softened (in other words, demineralized) water, on a family vacation when I was 5, was quite a shock. It tasted so… wimpy. And insubstantial.

It was the Wonder Bread of water, more or less.

Next up, for those of you who don’t like music, there’s music :

A truly top notch piece from me, in my opinion. Simple, gentle, relaxing, and very pretty. I am especially proud of it because I actually overcame my urge to add elaboration and left well enough alone. The result speaks for itself.

Oh, and I also stepped outside the box in that I used a sound editor to do the fade in and fade out, which means I stretched my mind and my process enough to include an extra step.

Yay for me!

In our next piece, I vent a neurosis :

That whole business is the sort of thing that has been haunting my head for as long as I can remember. I have known I was extraordinary since I was three years old. And well-meaning adults told me that I had a lot of potential.

But because I am fucked up in the head, that just seemed like a looming, crushing obligation to me. The subtle oppression of high expectations, I suppose.

Why am I so afraid of leaving the middle?

More freaking music :

Another delicate, dreamy piece.

I don’t know why I beat myself up over doing so much music. It’s not like it’s low density content that I can just toss off. Each piece takes at least an hour of steady work.

But I will admit, it’s my default thing to do if I don’t feel ambitious enough to do more production=heavy content like some Interpretive Subbing or a Sarcastic Slideshow, but can’t think of anything to talk about either.

So to my overweaning superego, that means I must SUFFER.

Man, I hate that guy.

And the next thing is me talking about the theatre bug :

That time, I had just had the revelations and was able to put them to vid immediately. And I think they are pretty sharp, honestly. I am sure that this purpose gap in the modern world, the inability to feel the meaning of what you do for a living, reaches deep into man areas of our modern civilizations.

Marx called it alienation.

Back to music :

Not everything in this totally works, but I am still pretty happy with it. I am especially glad that I was able to do such a long stretch of solo melody without it being a total nightmare. Most of my pieces are low on that. I don’t know what else to call it… the parts where, if it was being played by an orchestra, it would be a solo.

Sometimes, I really hate being musically subliterate.

Yup. It’s more music!

That’s a pretty rockin’ piece, if I do say so myself. Maybe the flute bits could have been a little quieter, and that ending is pretty weak. But you gotta love that kickass bassline and the way the flute contrasts with it.

You know, I might just be getting good at this music thing. Maybe I should start working on a symphony. Knowing me, my symphony would be like, eight minutes long, tops.

Or maybe even…. dare we say it… NINE.

Up next : Yet more music!

Wow, that part where the sax cuts in is pretty rough. That definitely needs work. I mean, things go more or less okay from that point on, but in the future, I should work on being more critical of these moments before I throw my work up on the web for every Tom whose Dick is Harry on the Internet to see.

But what can I say. Some learn by study, others learn by just doing it a lot.

I do it a lot.

And the next piece of music is… not music! Psych! :

The title is stolen from a trivia book my friend Chris had when I was in college. Today, that type of book would take the form of a “fun facts you might not know” list article, or a site like Mental Floss. But way back when I was a callow youth and dinosaurs roamed the open malls, there was a big market for those sorts of books.

I was quite fond of them myself. I love info-snacking like that. I have a big appetite for knowledge.

Trivia books like those are like a big bowl of popcorn for the mind.

Well, enough verbal content. Time for more goddamned music.

That strings loop always gets stuck in my head.

And it still amazes me that I put this piece of music together without consciously realizing that the string part and the vibraphone parts are playing more or less the same notes.

I just knew they sounded right together. How thrillingly right brained of me!

And for our next selection, you get a nice thick piece of Sarcastic Slideshow :

Gah, I should not be this sleepy at 1:12 pm, especially after drinking a liter of Diet Coke. But sometimes caffiene actually makes me sleepy. That’s just how fucked up my sleep system is.

Maybe when I feel sleepy, I should drink alcohol instead.

Anyhow, where was I? Oh right. I love how snappy the audio captions are in that one. I hope it didn’t go too fast for people. That’s always a worry when someone has to read what’s on the screen while also taking in what you are saying.

And finally, we have…. um…. part 2 of the same thing? :

Oh right! I had so many awesome “bad English” pics that I decided to split them between two videos.

Thank goodness I will never have so much content that I have to split it up ever again.

See you for Part 3, dear readers!

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

As promised, today I will start to “catch you up” on my video output.

First of all, we have this little wee rant of mine.

That was the night when I had finally gotten so fed up with the wayward and wastrel ways of our cousins to the south that I just had to vent. So out came a lot of things that had been in my mind for a long long time.

I mean, Jesus Christ, America…. for a country with so much pride, you have very little shame.

Maybe that’s what you need.

Oh, and is anyone else nostalgic for the time when the mass shootings were months apart?

Next up, the usual blurb of music.

My self-judgment : it almost works. It’s almost good. But not quite. The two samples are both awesome, but combined, they are just a little too cacophonous. Maybe if I had lowered the volume on them it would not have been so bad. But there’s a lot of areas where they just don’t meld.

It’s so easy for me to fall in love with a really cool sample.

Up next, we have another in a long line of Sarcastic Slideshows :

That’s Eric Clapton (who IS GOD) playing Classical Gas in the background. I really should do music credits for these sorts of things. It’s the least I can do.

Except when it’s my own music. Or wait…. maybe ESPECIALLY when it’s my own music. Hmmmm.

I assume the “All Employees Must Wash Genitals” is someone’s idea of a joke. Unless it’s from the set of a porno.

Then there is this one :

I’m not going to talk about it.

This next one is a little low on content :

Man, that was a shitty day. I am glad it happened, though, because I feel like I burned through a lot of the crap that clogs up my brain in the process of dealing with it. Especially the stuff about my childhood. That needed to happen.

Catharsis is freedom.

Next up : Music AND slides! Really, I spoil you people.

The slides come, of course, from the internet, but more specifically a site called Heroes in Situations that collects all kinds of comic panels that are hilariously “off” when viewed out of context.

The music, of course, is my own composition. So many of this tunelets of mine seem really promising, then they end. I have defeat my “one minute only” compulsion and stop being in such a hurry to be “done”.

Insert premature ejaculation joke HERE.

Note how the color of the text matches the color of the shirt of the person speaking.

That’s what I call quality workmanship. For a change.

Making those little re-subs is a lot of fun and a lot of work. I can never be sure if they are funny or not.

Once I pluck up the courage to have my voice acting appear in things, I will try dubbing.

Next : more music!

That is one of my favorite pieces that I have done recently. To me, it sounds professional, slick, and very cool, as well as interesting and somewhat unexpected.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

Oh, and a word on titles : Like a lot (but by no means all) of writers, I hate coming up with titles. So I tend to go with the first thing that pops into my head that isn’t totally stupid.

Why is it called “Sunrise In Neon City”? Don’t ask me. I just work here.

Next, me talking.

As you can see, Joe is my saviour and he solved both of my reasons to be stressed out and I can’t possibly thank him enough for that. Honestly, I owe him a ton of thanks for a lot of things, but I am pretty sure that, while he appreciates appreciation, were I to totally give in to my effusive nature, it would make him highly uncomfortable.

So I get it done in one sincere, heartfelt, hearty “Thank you so much!”.

More of my happy shining face making words :

I have no idea why I didn’t just turn off the tablet that was making the spooky blue glow. I suppose I thought it would add texture in my inimically wacky ass style. I do remember that I was feeling pretty strung out that night from my various madical conditions and running on blind determination, so perhaps my mental faculties were on spring break that night.

I think the video evidence bears this theory out.

Next up, more of my ponderous pontifications :

Video suitable for thinkers only! Everyone else will probably start wishing there was more visual content.

And yeah, I should totally get on that shit. At the very least, spend some time with Google Image Search in order to get appropriate pictures, or do those cute lil Stephen Colbert’s “The Word” style text comments again.

Well, every day I get a little stronger. I am more open to effort lately. The idea that I am happier when I am busy is finally penetrating my crosswired cranium.

Yup, the next one is me talking as well :

Erf. Not my best work. I am even more incoherent and all over the place than usual. I remember it was jeezly hot that day, and knowing me, I was probably dehydrated. Plus, to be honest, I was probably also really sleepy. My sleep has been all over the damned place this summer.

But that is a subject for another time.

And finally, some more music, this time downright silly :

I love that piece because, despite the semi-dubious decision to use that very low-octave bassline that some people might not even be able to hear, the end result is so lighthearted and pleasant and just a trifle silly that it really feels like I stretched myself as a composer on that one.

Feels weird calling myself a composer. But that’s what I am, or at least, that’s the only word I know to describe what I do, with the samples and music and such.

Well, that’s all for today, dear readers. There will be two more parts of this exercise that are more or less just like this one. That’s how big the backload of unshared video has gotten.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Recently, I learned a very interesting fact. It seems that up until the 1970’s, all prominent sociologists and other social thinkers were positive, absolutely positive, that religion was on its way out and, given the steady march of progress, science, and reason, would soon fade away as everyone realized how silly the whole thing was and how they didn’t need it any more now that science had better answers and reliable miracles.

Clearly, this has not happen.

Instead, starting in the 1980’s, religion came roaring back all across the board. Religious fundamentalism caught on like wildfire, and suddenly secular governments were being overthrown all over the world by forces backed by religion.

And whether it was Falwell’s fundamentalists putting Reagan in the White House or jihadi militias kicking out the Shah of Iran, one thing was abundantly clear :

Atheism had failed. Religion was here to stay.

And why were those prominent sociologists so very wrong when it came to their predictions of religion’s end? Because once more, the liberal intelligentsia had allowed themselves to believe that through peace, love, harmony, and enlightenment, everyone would eventually see the light and become liberal intellectuals just like them.

And they did this without once glancing in the direction of the average person whom they were so sure was on the cusp of leaving the warmth ans safety of their churches for the chilly embrace of scientism and the ice cold scalpel of reason.

History says otherwise.

And just why, pray tell, did atheism fail so spectacularly to replace religion? Because it was, and still is, led by people who were raised with religion and thus still have within their psyche the structures and islands of stability such an upbringing brings, and thus were free to leave the actual dogma behind once their minds became mature enough to start questioning things.

But most people never get to that point because it requires a certain kind of certainty in one’s ability to figure things out for themselves that only occurs natively in people in the higher range of intelligence.

For everyone else, religion does the job.

And what a job! Atheism never stood a chance against the vast suite of benefits religion brings to the individual believer.

Atheism provides no comfort in times of pain and distress. It offers no sense of community, no social hub, no connection with something larger than oneself, no sense of being loved and cared for by the ultimate parent, no deeply satisfying regular group ritual which synchronizes and enhances the communal mood. It offers no deeply resonating symbols, no rich and colorful narrative filled with stories both interesting and education, no help when you are down, no counsel when you are confused. It provides neither someone to beseech when we fear powerless nor someone to thank when things go well, nor does it provide someone to blame when good triumphs over evil.

It doesn’t even provide someplace to play ping pong.

All atheism can provide is the cold comfort of knowing that you are “right” on a level so obscure as to be meaningless to the average person as it has absolutely no bearing on their everyday life.

Not everyone is a philosopher. Not everyone is inclined to worry about what is “really really” true. Most people are just trying to get through life in a way that works for them. If belief in God, their religious leader, and their church provides them all the things I listed above and more, they have no reason to change. They have no reason, in fact, to even think about it, and all public atheism and its attacks on religion does is provide the exact kind of sense of community under attack that forges such deep and strong ties between people during times of war.

You’ve given their story a villain. Congratulations.

It was true that religion was declining very slowly in the Seventies, but that trend was purely the result of the Baby Boomers rejecting the religion of their parents and seeking their own way.

But then the Boomers who had rejected bourgeoisie institutions like marriage and work got married and had kids anyway, and got old enough to feel their mortality thus start needing real answers, answers that satisfied them instead of merely glibly deflecting the issue, and atheism could not provide these answers.

At the same time, as they aged, the Boomers’ minds became less and less able to adapt to change, and that feeling that the world is spinning out of control and becoming something they could no longer recognize crept up on them, and the rebel hippies became more and more conservative as time went by.

Then the Eighties comes along and almost all of those tie-dyed revolutionaries voted Reagan (or Thatcher, or Mulroney, or..), went right back to the church of their birth or something a hell of a lot like it, and atheism’s smug and lofty predictions of its own effortless victory was revealed to be as ludicrous, unreasoned, and blatantly self-serving and short-sighted as any scrap of dogma from any of the religions it thought was ripe for the scrap pile of history.

And the same will happen with the current crop of atheist bigots and religion bashers. Just like most people don’t think they will marry and have kids when they’re young but most people actually do, the current generation of Dawkinites will swear they will never go back to church again…. and most of them will.

And this will happen over and over again until public atheism stops strengthening religion by attacking it and focuses instead on replacing religion’s many levels of benefit with someone that works as well for people.

It has always been easier to complain than act. To attack instead of consider. To join in the fun of a public hate rather than stay apart by insisting we should love and respect even those with whom we disagree.

But the entire thrust of historical humanist liberalism demands that we restrain our worse instincts and strive to be better human beings by embracing the better angels of our nature.

Atheism has failed precisely because that is one thing it cannot do : inspire humanity to be better people.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.