RE-ELECT EDDIE

In her commentary on Works of Love, Amy Laura Hall describes Kierkegaard’s goal as elaborating the ways that we fail to love. Here is a good one:

In this story, a father commands two sons to go to work in his vineyard. The first son refuses to go but then changes his mind. The second son agrees to go but then does not. …

Kierkegaard’s readers are to identify with the brother who, in saying yes to his father’s request, inadvertently trapped himself within a context of judgment. In his lengthy exposition of this parable, Kierkegaard explains that the son who eagerly promises but does not recognize the import of his promise is “facing the direction of the good” but “is moving backward further away from it” (WL, 94). The better way is actually that of the first son, who interprets soberly the stark demands of an affirmative answer and thus says no: “The yes of the promise is sleep-inducing, but the no, spoken and therefore audible to oneself, is awakening, and repentance is usually not far away” (WL, 93).

“The yes of the promise is sleep-inducing, but the no… is awakening, and repentance is usually not far away.”

Oof

That guy

I asked one guy if he had any chronic illnesses and he started laughing and said, “Like CHRONIC… ill-ness?” Then he put his head down on my desk because he was super high.

In the mornings I have been working at a homeless outreach center that helps people get state IDs, doctor referrals, food stamps, glasses, whatever. It’s unlike other places where I’ve worked with people experiencing homelessness because no one bothers to spin you a long yarn; there are strict limits to what we can give and to whom we can give it, so there is no point to arousing my sympathy. It spares me stories like the fictional daughter’s first period or the fictional cheating ex-wife who gave the dude AIDS so he got teardrop tattoos since he is now eternally sad. (Still mad about that one—like, give me credit, dickhead, I know about teardrop tattoos.) (Bookmark this idea: the particular self-centeredness of chronically homeless people.)

Anyway today this woman with Madonna arms came in with her adult son, and she is the first person who’s given me a long wash of details about her life. I had to verify her employment, and it took 30 minutes and involved too many phone numbers. She asked if we could give her money to move from a shelter into a hotel room with her son. I looked over to the next office to see him, and he didn’t look much younger than her. They both requested transit cards, which are resellable. Is she a grifter? Was that really her son? Was that even a business I called?

The instructive thing about working here is that none of those answers matter; you give to people anyway, you accept getting scammed as a cost of helping people. For a nation that frets about earning and deserving, that stance counts as countercultural.

A lot of people have expressed impatience or eye-rolling about Obama’s statement on same-sex marriage. I keep wondering: what would it have looked like for him to do justice on this issue this week? What actions would you have had him do? What is he legislatively capable of changing in the near term? These aren’t rhetorical questions.

I have low expectations for presidents, both because of how government works and because of the personality traits necessary to become a president; their power seems tightly constrained and their will to do good faint. So even though I know it is misplaced, some part of me still wants a president to be a moral leader. That part felt proud this week. I am unconcerned about being manipulated for political gain. To have truth spoken—that LGBT people should be treated equally by law—is good.

But we don’t elect presidents to be moral leaders, not if we’re sane. We look to more fitting sources. Also, presidents are bad at effecting cultural change, and we hope that our moral leaders will be good at it.

The obstacle in front of same-sex marriage is not Obama but fellow citizens, and the responsibility of changing minds falls democratically to us. We have to be moral leaders of people.

“Let me be clear,” I do not think that changing culture involves haranguing people on the Internet.

Go, my hair, to the lonely and the unsatisfied,
I have cut you off.
Go also to the Locks of Love Foundation,
Who told me they may give my hair to some spiteful children whom they hate,
Who have made doctors’ and foster parents’ lives a hell.
Bear to them my contempt for their oppressors.
Go as a great wave of cool water,
Bear my contempt of oppressors.

Go to the bourgeoisie who is dying of her ennui,
Go to the ex-girlfriend in a lackluster relationship,
Thinking fondly of the times she touched my hair.
Go to those whose delicate desires are thwarted,
Go to the two women on Tumblr
On whom I had crushes in 2009.
Go to the unluckily mated,
Go to the woman entailed.

Go like a blight upon the dullness of the world;
Go with your edge against this,
Strengthen the subtle cords,
Because when I cut off all my hair tonight,
I didn’t feel like Richie Tenenbaum trying to kill himself
But like Jean Claude Van Damme shaving his head in a movie I never saw,
Becoming stronger,
Against all forms of oppression,
Against those who are thickened with middle age,
Against those who have lost their interest,
Ready to be a real motherfucker.

Go in a friendly manner,
Go with an open speech.
Be eager to find new evils and new good
And probably make out with one of the Coathangers
At their show at Southern Comfort tomorrow night.

Go against this vegetable bondage of the blood.
Be against all sorts of mortmain.

Last night we were talking about mutual acquaintances. One of the acquaintances has Asperger’s with strong symptoms.

M., a scientist by training, created a scale to gauge peoples’ sensitivity that ranged from the Asperger’s sufferer (least) to me (most). He named the units of measure “ESUs.”

I enjoyed the moment because, while I think of myself as sensitive, sometimes I lose track of how much I have performed being sensitive in public. I have wondered if people in this social circle think of me as harsh or a cold fish. But it feels good to be known and even better to be known for a trait that one appreciates about himself.