Why Are People Conservatives?

So, I was explaining to someone why I perceive conservativism as genuinely hating women in a Reddit thread. But, I was mostly angry and made my point at the cost of making conservatives look like malicious human beings.

Now, I know that a lot of people I know (including myself) may err on the side that many of them are malicious or that what I'm about to describe is just a manifestation of maliciousness. I don't have much to counter that with, but I want to put forth both the question asked of me and my answer to it from that thread. Just mull it over and see what you think.

Is there some type of sinister ulterior motive here or do they really believe in these extreme puritan values? Do they intentionally want to keep people impoverished? I'm curious as to how they think poverty should be treated because if they against welfare and social safety nets then how in the hell are we supposed to help the underprivileged?

I sat there and thought about that for a good few minutes before the threads in my mind started to knit a coherent response, and it's still very draft-level (much of my reddit writing is)...

"That's a loaded question, and as much as I'm ready and willing to blast conservativism, it doesn't deserve all of the blame. We're actually talking about something more fundamental to human nature and how we think and interact with others in a society.

There's a lot to parse, so I can't really address everything or even most of it, but consider first the Fundamental Attribution Error.[1] 

The basic idea is that we attribute negative and positive outcomes differently depending on whether it happens to us or it happens to someone else. If it's something bad happening to someone else, it's something about them, and if it's us, it was an external or environmental influence. The opposite is the case for good things.

This is where we see simultaneously the "I built that" bootstraps/poor people are leeches mentality, and also the issues like the only moral abortion is mine[2] .

Human beings want their successes to be theirs and they want their failings to be environmental. Likewise, the successes of others are threatening to us, so we attribute them to things like luck or help from others, or other factors that allow us to perceive that success as somehow less legitimate.
So that's one factor that greatly impacts how we empathize (or fail to) with other human beings.
Secondly is the human desire for power. We innately want to have power over others. It feels good; that's where we get competition, violence, greed, rape, etc. etc. It's also part of where we get bigotry and discrimination.

Conjoined with that is our fear of the unknown. We're scared of things we don't understand, and we often compartmentalize[3] the information we have available about the unknown in order to avoid stressing about it or thinking about it too much. It's a psychological method of reducing inner-conflict, and it makes it really fucking easy to think that, for example, all black people are thugs.
So, we want power over people, and we're scared of what we're unfamiliar with. We're threatened by their successes, and their failings are also indicative of something innate and disgusting/bad about them.

Humans are basically a walking recipe for hatred in that way. (There's also a lot of evolutionary traits that we developed for pro-social, happy, peaceful behavior, but that's a topic for another time)
In comes the people who have ambition, another natural human trait, though a bit more rare.
The people with ambition will use the tactics that work for their gains. We see this in marketing, sleazy economic practices, and of course politics. The thing is, one of the tactics that works best is playing into peoples' fear, lack of trust, and the need to blame others for the bad things going on in the world.

All of these psychological traits are now being manipulated (mostly unconsciously) by the people in charge of that political party. They're so lost in fear and hatred that it seems like the only way forward.

Now, the final psychological trait is the kicker:
When we think something long enough, or if we're around an idea long enough (even if we don't believe it), it grows on us. It festers in us and we begin to accept it as fact. (This is obviously not always the case, but it's how the human mind likes to operate)

So, the people who push the fear long enough start to be consumed by it until there's no way out, and they have to keep pushing forward. We don't like to admit that we're wrong; we're stubborn creatures. Turning around publicly and doing the walk of shame to the dreaded "other side" is terrifying, and we're often much more willing to do the mental gymnastics to stay where we are rather than to give the other side a look-see.

Conservativism is just one of the possible natural conclusions of basic human traits. Just some of the nastier ones, in my opinion.

Add onto that anti-intellectualism (since it's perceived as "elite") and a perpetual need to divest ourselves from people we perceive as enemies, and you get austerity (which is based on faulty studies and mostly bad intuition) and things like global warming being a hoax.

The world is super complicated, and if I've learned anything, it's that very few people are actually malicious. We're just scared, and we can lash out, like a snake that feels like it's cornered, even though no one actually wants to harm it.

That's part of why there's such a big movement right now to try to keep white privilege. People are scared that it's being taken away from them. And they're scared that they'll be subjected to the kinds of things that they have subjected others to.

There's a really pointed line that feminists use about homophobia that I think illustrates this perfectly.
Homophobia is the fear that men will treat you the way you treat women.
We're scared of being hunted, so we scramble to stay the hunters, even if no one's actually out to get us."

Let me know what you think. If I've gotten some of the psychology patently incorrect, I would love to be corrected. I have many friends who are much more well-versed in that realm than I.

As an aside, I should note that this is just focusing on conservativism. It is not meant to suggest that liberals are mentally superior and have overcome basic human psychological tendencies. We're just as prone to a lot of the same ones; but we direct them in different ways and have different negative outcomes as a result of them. I may do my next post on the way those manifest in liberals!

Mockery

Hey blogoverse. I've been crunching some thoughtchildren, and I wanted to wordvomit my conclusionstuffs. I keep seeing the same patterns turning up. People in group A mocking people in group B.

Now, mockery is basically telling someone that a facet of them is worthless. It's so bad, you feel like you have the right to make fun of it publicly. Whether it be their looks, their ideas, philosophies, actions, or whatever. People use mockery a lot. Often when someone goes against social norms, or when someone espouses a train of thought that is perhaps hypocritical or illogical.

But we get too used to mockery. It becomes too easy to dismiss someone else outright by laughing and walking away.

Perhaps the worst part of mockery, however, is that you have announced your lack of intent to hold any kind of reasonable conversation about the topic before dismissing your opponent. But, you've made sure to imply that you making fun of them is more important than anyone learning a lesson or understanding each other.

Basically, you've announced that you have the right to be a dismissive asshole.

It's only when we frame mockery as truly disrespectful that we realize how often we do it. I mock conservativism still. I've mostly stopped mocking things outright, and I try to stick to full/explained criticism. Admittedly, I introduce a small bit of mockery into my criticism on certain topics, and I need to cut that shit out. It's bad form, disrespectful, and helps exactly 0%.

We may not agree with or like an idea. In fact, we might find it patently offensive. And those ideas may never go away. Perhaps mockery is the best way to laugh about something absurd without giving it legitimacy. But then, who are we to decide something's legitimacy?

[I go off topic here to a specific example of mockery and why that specific example frustrates me. Feel free to skip to the next brackets if you don't want to read]

The reason I'm thinking about this at the moment is because a week or so ago, I had a number of friends who all mocked a picture of a half-full bookshelf titled "Men's Studies." They derided it both as being indicative of male ego and as something that couldn't even fill a single shelf. They suggested it was all of history and that giving it a separate section was insulting. To the best of my knowledge, all of the posters are feminists, which is why that behavior shocked and angered me. Mockery from a disenfranchised group is already something that saddens me (in the way that bullying by nerds saddens me), but this particular topic is an issue that I thought feminism was largely on board with.

Noting here that the section was not titled "Men's Rights" or anything that might imply it affiliated with Men's Rights Activists (MRAs) for whom there isn't much love from either myself or most feminists I talk to. No, this section was about men's studies. A gender issue that, frankly, isn't super well-represented elsewhere, since it's specifically about gendered problems faced by males (which definitely exist). If there was a separate "Gender Studies" section, I'd want to see them merged, but if there was just a "Women's Studies" section (which there often is), then I don't see a problem with this section existing as is. It's actually really disheartening that they didn't have enough books to fill a full shelf, though there might be a few decent explanations for that. Regardless, the contribution brought forth by mocking the section's existence is that those people think there are no issues that males suffer that are gendered and ought to be talked about separate from "Women's Studies," which I think is ironically egotistical. Seriously, of all the people to be mocking an earnest attempt to collect and analyze gendered problems, I would think feminists would be on the bottom of that list.

[Alright, I'm done with that tangent, sorry]

There's certainly an argument to be made for not recognizing the legitimacy of an argument or an action once it breaches a threshold of logical absurdity or overall harm to society, but the number of things we can be pretty well certain of is surprisingly low. As a result, mockery usually winds up directed towards something that we don't actually understand that well. Mocking it, thus, is just the best way to not have to think about something that we feel strongly about (even if we don't have much/any evidence to back up our position).

I mock sports. I have a strong feeling about sports, but I don't have any data to back up that feeling. In fact, data would probably suggest that sports are an aggregate boon to society. They give citizens something to be passionate about, something to look forward to, to aspire to. They encourage physical activity, teamwork, companionship, competition. They're a non-lethal method of highlight physical human "superiority." Even if I think they're silly, my position is founded on little more than a feeling. Voicing it as mockery without critical analysis is immature at best and harmful at worst.

I think conservativism at least has a few points that we do have overwhelming data on, like casual voter fraud (it almost doesn't exist), or drug testing for welfare recipients (I have a long Facebook post completely dismantling this untenable position). But even with issues that are kinda' patently absurd, out and out mocking it doesn't really help anyone, does it? I reinforce my personal echo chamber a bit (which isn't necessarily bad), but that's it. I haven't educated anyone on why/how it's absurd. I haven't proven to yourself that I actually understand why I dislike it. I haven't changed anyone's mind. I've shouted at the wind and patted myself on the back for being so sociopolitically aware. Congratulations.

Programs like The Daily Show teach us at least how to couch mockery in an understanding of the facts and exactly what makes them absurd, which is better than nothing. But as much as I love The Daily Show, maybe that's a harmful approach? It's certainly divisive. Although there is some educational value in using entertainment to get a point across. It reaches a wider and younger audience. But it also strikes me as potentially breeding a sense of moral/intellectual superiority that I think is more damaging than helpful. Our intellectual and ideological development peaks around the central demographic for The Daily Show. To think that at that time we're mostly learning that mockery is acceptable discourse is at least a bit troubling on the offset, but I don't have any numbers for that (pot, meet kettle).

If you catch yourself doing it, and you'd be upset if someone else did it to you, maybe it's time to start working mockery out of your daily life and out of your argumentation style. If nothing else, you'll probably start noticing your discussions are a little less angry without it. And hey, maybe you'll change someone's mind without it.

Graduate School

So, two and a half years ago, I made an April Fools Day post where I congratulated myself for getting into grad school. It was my most "liked" post ever, for whatever that's worth. It was a total lie. I find myself quickly approaching April 1st again, but I've never been one to make the same joke twice in a row, so instead we'll go another route.

As of March 25, 2015, I was not accepted into NYU's graduate program. This marks my second attempt at grad school, although in reality it was the first serious attempt.

My entire life, I've been able to kick back and coast through life. Even for much of my time at Transy. This was how I approached University of Washington's critical theory program. It didn't work. Two and a half years down the road, when I decided it was time to try again, I went for something I was passionate about; something I actually love and want to make a living from.

It was with that fervor that I wrote, edited, and rewrote personal statements, critiques, and summaries of my accomplishments in the field. I put in real work, something I seldom do. I did it because I genuinely wanted to go learn at NYU. Their program has a breadth and depth like no other program of the dozens I looked at. They're ahead of the curve, looking to study games, not just to design them, but to understand them as cultural artifacts like all media in this day and age. They see something different about games where most see it as a source of entertainment, period.

Despite my zest, I wasn't even a contender. I often wonder just how many people there are who do all the things I do, but better. How many people are there that are simply superior versions of me? Smarter, kinder, funnier, more driven, more experienced, more realistic, more pragmatic, gentler, wiser, happier...

On the one hand, a testament to how low on the intellectual totem pole I am; on the other, a testament to how much more I can grow.

Still, it is undeniably sad to have taken a long break after undergrad to get my head on straight (that... may not have worked either), only to have my efforts prove fruitless for another year.

I do sincerely appreciate and thank everyone who believed in me and pushed me to meet this challenge head on. Maybe next time I won't let you (or myself) down.

The Purpose of an Analogy

This one is just an exercise for me. I use analogies so often, and with fair frequency people come back and say, "but A isn't B!" making me think they've completely missed the point. It occurred to me that describing the point of an analogy in such a way as to explain why A doesn't have to equal B necessarily is actually quite difficult, so I wanted to try it out.

At its heart, an analogy is the comparison of two unlike things. But that alone doesn't really help us out much. Why compare two unlike things when there are plenty of similar things to compare?

Well, a comparison of two unlike things gives you a new perspective in a conversation; a fresh way to view the other person's point that might not be couched in all the same volatile rhetoric or implications that the originating argument might have. They don't have to be the same thing for a particular facet of them to be comparable, and I think there might even be a decent way to explain this with the abstract example we started with (or at least a very similar example):

"B is not C. The two are not equal- this is understood. However, the two share a number of characteristics that we can point to, at least one of which is the latter phoneme in its pronunciation: 'ee.'" Despite being fundamentally different from each other, the two can be compared in such a way that they have a meaningful connection. (Alright, so them ending in the same sound might not be super meaningful, but it's an abstract example. It's probably meaningful to poets or linguists)

A less abstract comparison that I used earlier today is the comparison of unions to welfare (or other social safety nets). These are fundamentally different institutions that have different goals, different structures, different politics, and get their power through different means. However, the two rely on a similar root principle: making conditions better for people who, individually/alone, do not have the power to demand or obtain those better conditions.

An analogy intends to compare an aspect of two things for which the context may be similar, or the intent may be similar, or the consequences may be similar. It is an attempt to find philosophical consistency in the how/why of the world. It's incredibly important to be clear about which similarity you're looking to examine, or else invite your rhetorical opponent to scrutinize the comparison as a 1:1 comparison (hence the counter, "A isn't B!")

The big problem, as I see it, with analogies is that they're a social scientist's source of stress. Analogies attempt to take two things that correlate and suggest that there's a reason they correlate using logic rather than pure statistics. Realistically, the only good reason we use analogies rather than hard statistics is that it's much easier for a brain to draw those connections than it is for a person/group to collect enough meaningful statistics to prove (or show great evidence towards) causation/meaningful correlation.

I personally love analogies. I think they capture and utilize one of the more interesting aspects of human intelligence/reasoning, but it's undeniable that they provide shaky evidence and are argumentatively non-robust. They rely on the human ability to make meaningful connections based on contextual similarities and then assigning relative merit to those specific similarities as compared to the differences of two things. (ie, the important thing about comparing unions to welfare is that they're a net good for society and that the methodology by which they obtain that net good is similar, even though they're otherwise super different.)

Maybe I'm totally off base? I dunno', it was a fascinating experiment to try to break down why I use analogies at least.

This was an extremely abstract post, so I apologize for what I now look back and realize is a rather complicated jumble of words and ideas.

What is "Privilege"?

So, I think I'm finally ready to give this issue a go. It's a complicated one with no small amount of vitriol on both sides of the proverbial field (and I will address why there shouldn't be sides). People are angry at each other, and there are certain things no one wants to admit, partially because there's so much misunderstanding in this topic. So, let's get started.

I wanna' break it down to a thorough, succinct definition.

The word basically amounts to "statistically significant weighting of odds for life circumstances that contribute towards the betterment of life in a traditional sense based on birth context and current social circumstances." But, that's an enormous mouthful. So, it might help to take that chunk-by-chunk.

Privilege is impacted by the way we're born and our current social standing. eg, your race, gender, gender identity, height (even how symmetrical your face is); and your wealth, your religion, your friends, your location. Pretty much everything. The first question you might have (depending on how much sociology/psychology you've studied) is how on earth everything like that matters?

Power. Human society is one big power play, and holding influence or power is a matter of having support- financial, structural, population, etc. If you have the law behind you, or if you have a buncha' money, or if you have the support of crowds of people, you tend to get what you want. Now, because all of those things are human constructs, they're pushed and pulled by factors that humans perceive to be important. How tall you are, for example, is something that is objectively hilariously unimportant. You can reach the top of the fridge easier. The sum total of your capabilities over any other average human being is replaceable by a few chunks of wood nailed together.

So why, then, are tall people happier and richer than their vertically challenged counterparts? That makes no biological sense taken alone. However, it makes a bit more sense when you factor in evolution. Tall people would have had a number of advantages in a more primal state of humanity: speed, flexibility, visibility, and yes- the ability to retrieve things from greater heights, like fruit. Being tall was an evolutionary advantage. Enough of one that societies still prize taller people socially. We trust them more, admire them more, place higher value on their existence as a whole. Not by extraordinary amounts, mind you. Just enough to tip some scales. This effect also feeds into itself as a positive feedback loop; we expect more of taller people, and those expectations go on to color their decisions. Again, not an extraordinary amount alone. But a statistically significant amount.

This same thing applies to many other traits for humans, and far and away, we find that people with success are almost always people who have a certain set of traits from a list. You're more likely to be successful if you're taller, male, white, born affluent, born to a good family, born mentally healthy, physically healthy, cisgendered, no male-pattern-baldness, skinny, married, Christian, etc. Alright, so we've covered where it starts. What do I mean by statistical advantages?

Well, the same thing I hinted at above with tall people. You're more likely to be hired for a job if you're male than female or white than black even if you have identical qualifications. It's not a guarantee, but it's a pretty substantial and statistically significant difference.
How substantial you might ask? Well, this study suggests that white felons were more likely to receive job callbacks than black non-felons with the same experience/education. When comparing non-felons, whites were more than twice as likely to receive a callback. That's fairly substantial. Noting with this study as well, this process is subject to our negative views of people as they compare to the "standard" of society. In this case, women are viewed as less competent at math than men despite equivalent education, experience, and qualifications. So that raises the question, what's the standard? The standard is the generic Joe Everyman that our society has been crafted for. A white, land owning, male. Here's where I'm sure I'll start losing people. Unfortunately, straight, white men (please note that I am definitely one of those) in general.

Why does that demographic shy away from this idea so much? There's a few reasons, but mostly it's because people in this country specifically don't like feeling like they didn't earn what they have. We go to great lengths to assure ourselves that any successes we have are because of something inherent about us. We worked hard and we're smart.

And that's partially true. The person born with the most perfect luck ever- the most privileged person could still wind up a total failure with no money, drowning in cheap booze. Similarly, people from all walks of life can rise to attain the traditional American idea of success. However, it's undeniable how skewed the actual statistics are for millionaires, billionaires, executives, CEOs, presidents, congressmen; people with power in this country. They're mostly white males.

I'll take this opportunity to stress that privilege is not a word meant to cast blame. It is a descriptive word. Taken at its face value, all persons have privilege of various kinds. This idea applies to literally everyone with the exception of those who died before being able to integrate into their family or society at large.

With that in mind, I think the best goal for the idea of privilege is to frame societal inequality in a way that involves everyone. As it stands, even a well-meaning person who acknowledges racism can simply say "well, I'm not racist, so this whole thing doesn't involve me." Thus, distancing themselves from the conversation and any ability to create meaningful change.

To the extent that it applies to everyone, by default, "privilege" brings even people at the "top of the food chain" into the discussion as well. While many would suggest the word is blame-oriented, I would say it's not really throwing anyone under a bus for the same reason that it wouldn't be throwing America under a bus to suggest that our goods and services are, by healthy majority, produced in what amounts to slave labor conditions.

It's perhaps an uncomfortable truth, but either an undeniable truth or the world's greatest coincidence.
Americans as a whole did not get to choose under what conditions our products were made, but we definitely receive the benefit of them, whether we like to accept that fact or not. The only way to rectify the problem is to acknowledge that we're complicit in it, even if we didn't actively choose for it to happen. It's a problem that is specifically set up to benefit us.

 And that's what this comes down to. We have systemic inequality that virtually none of us actively chose or continues to choose. However, many of us benefit from it daily, usually without even realizing it. That's not our fault, per se. However, once we recognize it, I do think it's our responsibility to look for ways to push back against the systems in which it occurs. To that end, privilege, to me, is a word that signifies the sum total of my good fortune and reminds me that others cannot have it through no fault of their own. That's not a system I want to live in, so it's my obligation to try to change it as someone who sits pretty high up on that spectrum.

I often see arguments against the idea of privilege because there exist poor, white males. I see that as a fundamental misunderstanding of the word. Take, for example, a casino where you walk in with your black friend. You two go up to any given table and the dealer tells you the odds of winning before you play. For some reason, almost every game gives you better odds than your friend. Sometimes they're pretty close, but usually, you have far better odds of winning than he does. You won't win every game. Your friend may very well win all of them, but it's statistically less likely than you winning all of them. Taken as a whole phenomenon, however, it's much more likely that you'll win most, and your friend wins far fewer.

That's single-issue privilege. Black vs. white.

Now, of course, because privilege is all-encompassing, it does take poverty into account; and the people who crafted the system over generations wanted impoverished people to have less power and less opportunity, so there's a give and take for anyone who fits into multiple categories like that. Your rich, black friend will actually probably have better odds than you, a poor white person. However, because the system is set up so that fewer black people succeed statistically, it's already an unlikely situation to be presented with, and because it's a positive feedback loop, fewer black people will come out ahead over time, and more white people will, thus keeping the balance of power permanently weighted improperly.

See, I'm straight, white, male, and middle-class, but I also have a mental disorder, so I'm winning on most levels, but then I take X steps backwards because of that last trait. It's a spectrum that everyone fits onto. It just happens that it's a spectrum of societal benefits, and the benefits are aggregated heavily towards just a few very specific traits. Namely, the ones that fit the "standard" for our country. Straight, white, male, tall, land owning, physically able, cis, mentally healthy, skinny, traditionally attractive, etc. And this is largely how it's been in most cultures throughout most of time, though things have always shifted just a bit based on culture; based on what people perceived as making another person trustworthy, powerful, respectable, and so on.

So, you fit into the spectrum of privilege. You're almost certainly not at the tippy top, but if you're reading this, you're probably pretty high up. But what does that mean? Not much except that you have, in addition to whatever hard work/effort you add to your own life, a great deal of systemic luck. Other than that? It's meaningless. It's a descriptive term, meant to represent the sum total of your individual birth circumstances and social contexts that make up who you are and how you're viewed in our culture at any given time.

Having privilege does not mean that your opinion is worth less than anyone else's or that your experiences are incorrect or are not valuable. Having privilege does not mean that your life is without turmoil, strife, repercussions, unfortunate occurrences, or anything else like that. However, it is important to be aware of the benefits one receives from this system of luck. It is important to be reminded of how much context matters, particularly when you're trying to empathize with other human beings. Not every unemployed person is a slacker. Statistically, they might even just be unemployed because of the skin color they were born with.

Everyone has different considerations, worthy of examination. The statistics are meaningful though, and that's what privilege is; a statistically significant advantage. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Love and Learning

It's been a bit of time, and I've been thinking about the topic of love a lot lately. Both for personal reasons and philosophical. I think it's important to reflect on your past romantic endeavors (and really any kind of endeavor) and remind yourself of the things you gained, the lessons you learned, and the problems you faced. I wanted to catalog one major lesson from each romantic pursuit.

I learned a lot outside of relationships too, so I'm including 5 non-relationship romantic pursuits and a respective lesson from each one. I'll list them chronologically just in case it betrays something about the progress of human learning in general.

1. Speak up. Good lesson to learn early, but if you never say something about how you feel, the other person will never know. They can't read your mind. Communicate. This goes for crushing on someone all the way through the end of the relationship.

It was elementary school through middle school, so obviously not the height of maturity, but it was still a lesson well-learned, spending five years childishly flirting with the same person, but never saying anything outright, only to find out one day that they moved on. The idea extends through all walks of life though- when you feel strongly about something, say it. You cannot forgo your emotional/mental health- it builds up and destroys you slowly.

2. Some love never goes the way you want it; you have to accept when someone can't or doesn't want to be with you.

More middle school romance. Sometimes the feelings last a lot longer, but you should consider yourself lucky to wind up with a good friend for life, even if you were looking for a partner for life.

3. Relationships are different from standard friendships. Whether you see it coming or not, you'll have expectations and they'll have expectations- all of which will deviate some from the standard friendship expectations in some regard.

High school romances are, I'm sure, awkward for most of everyone. My first relationship, she wanted something different out of a relationship than me. The expectations were new and difficult to navigate, so we both became awkward and shut things down.

4. Don't ever use another human as a means to an end.

Being lonely is no excuse for enjoying another person's affections when you only half-heartedly return them. Everyone deserves to be treated as their own end- a human being.

              4.5. Don't allow another person to be your consolation prize.

This is super related to #4, but I am cheating by including two lessons in one relationship. Everyone also deserves to be treated like they're the most important person in the world to someone. If you "settle" for someone and you treat the relationship like a settlement, then there's spite, guilt, unhappiness, and jealousy already sewn into the relationship from the beginning. Everyone ought to be treated as a 1st place prize to someone. Whether you marry for passion, stability, fun, love, or whatever- make sure that you're picking that person, not begrudgingly accepting them.

I was young, dumb, and infatuated with someone who was interested in someone else. A friend saw my grief and moved closer to me. We had a lot of fun and there was a good dynamic between us, but I sabotaged it from the moment it started, since I was settling for her. (The irony is that I think, looking back on it, I would have liked her more if I'd had a clear head on)

5. Don't sacrifice your core values for your partner (unless you want to sacrifice them).

Sacrifice- give and take- super important, don't get me wrong. But your core values? I dated a smoker despite knowing that I couldn't stand the stuff. I put too much stock into my ability to ignore those important values in order to pursue romance. It didn't work (and I'm glad it didn't).

6. Don't wait for someone's problems to solve themselves (and don't try to fix them yourself).

The first of three failed or noncommital romantic ventures around the same time period. If they're trying to do right by you and grow/learn/fix themselves, that's one thing, but empty platitudes are cheap to hand out. Don't get caught mistaking them for actual currency. "This would be great if they weren't broken in this one huge way!" I'm sure someone has thought that about me before as I've thought it about at least one person before. It's not wise to wait for that huge problem to just... disappear. You can do it, but unless they're showing good evidence of trying to solve it, it's probably time to move on.

7. Don't forget what infatuation can make you do.

The second venture of the three. Liking someone a lot can persuade you to do stupid things. Sometimes these things are good and simply show your feelings on your sleeve. In my case, making a longish drive every weekend I was able to- just to see someone smile for a few hours. But, it's good to remember that infatuation can make you do bad stupid things as well. Just... be aware of what you're doing in the name of your heart flutters.

8. Don't forget to have fun. All the time.

The last one- a fling I very much enjoyed in its simple pursuit of fun. Don't forget in all the seriousness that is life to have fun with the one person you like being around most. Simple, unadulterated fun. The things that make you giggle, poke, and prod each other. Smile. Each and every day.

9. If one person's not in it all the way, then they're not in it.

First college relationship- if either of you isn't willing to push into the adventure, then it's not gonna' happen. Let it go until the point if/when you're both ready/willing.

10. Figure out what you can and can't live with about your partner.

Second college relationship- Learn what quirks about your partner you don't like. Which can you deal with and which can't you deal with? Are any of them core aspects of their personality that can't be changed? If so, it may be a doomed relationship. Which leads to;

               10.5. Don't let it drag on.

If you've already decided to end things, don't put it off. It's disrespectful, hurtful, and immature. Again, I'm cheating and putting two lessons for one relationship. Come at me!

11. Don't allow another person to be your consolation prize.

Fuck, why did I have to learn this lesson twice? God, I'm dumb and terrible sometimes.

12. Love is a choice.

My most recent relationship. I've seen this idea tossed around a bit, and I think it really hits its mark. Love is the choice to forgive. Love is the choice to hear and be heard. Love is the choice to share the bad times together in an effort to address them as a team. Love is the choice to compromise- the choice to hear what you do that bothers them and then fix it. Love is the choice to stay together, even when it's easy not to.

13. Keep yourself grounded.

Falling crazy hard for someone can be a lot of fun- it's exciting, fluttery, adrenaline-pumping, and you're thinking about the things that could be. It's fun, but keep a foot on the ground. If you don't, you pick up speed and you don't have the control to stop yourself or the control to avoid causing damage. For my part, my over-zealous nature hurt me and scared her. Keep yourself based in reality and the here-and-now. Keep a level head about your infatuation (but don't give up the spark). This may not have been a relationship, but it was definitely a lesson that I needed.

Honorable Mention: Don't let yourself be used.

No single instance, but several pseudo-romantic situations have reminded me individually that you should never give someone that kind of control over you. Don't seek approval by doing their bidding; you'll never get what you're looking for, and you'll just become a tool to be used and discarded. You're more than that. Everyone is more than that.

There are a hundred more lessons I learned, but I tried to keep everything to one core theme. Just trying to get some thoughts out there, you know? Maybe it'll help someone else one day.

ADDENDUM

I thought about it a bit, and while this was primarily a way to categorize my thoughts, it's entirely possible a few people involved in the above romantic endeavors will read this. I think for the vast majority of these cases, I did something stupid and/or hurtful to bring the relationship to an end, and I would like to stress that while I think I'm learning lessons, it shouldn't be at the expense of the happiness of others. So to anyone who has been involved with me, I do want to apologize. I'm growing, little by little, but I'm sure I've left painful marks on the history of many of you. You have always and will always deserve better than that. I hope you have found a more fitting partnership, and thank you for being an important part of my life and my growing experience.

Over the Garden Wall Brief Analysis and Thoughts

So, this post will contain massive spoilers.

If you haven't finished watching, leave now (unless you're okay with knowing beforehand what's up).

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Are you gone?

Okay, good. Also note that the analysis is written as an afterthought to help explain my criticisms.

Wirt and his little half-brother Greg are lost and are trying to find their way home. Over eight mini-sodes (at about 10 minutes each), they meet numerous people and creatures along the way, all while getting bits and pieces of warning about "The Beast," an enigmatic creature who appears to sow despair wherever it goes. The serious and thoughtful Wirt leads his energetic and carefree companion through some of the most surrealistic animation landscapes since The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack. The two solve their problems through dumb luck and sheer willpower time and time again amidst a cast of mostly non-recurring characters except for Beatrice, their bluebird companion (and almost betrayer) and the woodsman, a man who seems to want to protect the two from The Beast while trying to keep alight a mysterious lantern. This leads up to the final act where Greg sacrifices himself to save Wirt from falling into despair and being swallowed by the forest. As it turns out, the woodsman has been serving as The Beast's pawn, keeping his soul alive with the souls of the people in the forest who gave in to despair.

After defiantly refusing to be tricked by The Beast, Wirt takes Greg and heads off, only to exit a dreamstate, where we find that the two had been drowning in a lake. They're rushed to a hospital where Wirt wakes up to find Greg recounting stories of their adventures in the Unknown world. There are a few hints to suggest that their adventures were real rather than just a death-dream, but interpretation is left open to the audience. This is in keeping with the show's general vibe, which is to give just enough information for the audience to make their own guesses as to how the situations of individual characters came about and/or were resolved respectively.

Now, my criticism of the show is a bit more... thought-out, albeit frustrated.

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I genuinely don't know how to feel about this show. The art, music, voice acting, lighting- all gorgeous. Phenomenal. Easy 10/10 on those elements individually. However, the show felt like it was trying hard to be funny, dark, surreal, and teaching lessons of morality all at once, but I never felt that it did any of those particularly well. The only clear feelings of morality I had were the Huntsmen, who didn't understand what he was doing until the final episode, at which point, it was a relatively quick decision for him to blow out the lantern; Wirt not caring about Greg, an ethical issue which he basically solved by virtue of being knocked out and waking up to Greg missing, and Beatrice leading Wirt and Greg to what was effectively a slaver (though she too didn't understand what the request really was until right before they barged in). In every instance, the moral dilemma seemed to clear up on its own without any serious questions about character ethics having time to grow. The lesson was: everyone felt justified in being selfish until a twist showed them the error of their ways, at which time, they quickly corrected their moral problems.

It was an adorable show, and I love what they did with the world building in the last two episodes, but without building any hints as to where they came from, it was just kinda' out of the blue. I realize that one is a personal preference that simply missed the mark for me.

The ending, while certainly a warm and fuzzy one, wasn't at all what I was expecting as far as emotions go. No one made any difficult decisions (except the woodsman sorta'), and yet everyone was able to live happily ever after. At the beginning of the episode, I had started to have a gut feeling that something awful would happen, which is awesome. I love it when a show foreshadows an unhappy truth and then carries through, but this show felt like they just said "nah, no one needs to be unhappy." Not even Jason Funderberger, who wound up holding hands with the girl in the glasses.
The whole somber and surreal mood of the show was underscored by this sense of dread that something wasn't right, and that things were going to get worse before they got better was just shattered by Wirt casually deciding that that was "dumb." I'll admit that I like how he wrecked a cliche, but it was such a crucial cliche to the story that it makes me think the whole thing was irrelevant. The vicious and unsettling cycle of death, despair, loneliness, and darkness is "dumb," so he just got rid of it. Deciding that the concept of death (since that's the metaphor of the show) is dumb and just getting over it isn't how it works, and I feel like that fundamentally threw the show off for me.

I want to love this mini-series like everyone else seems to, but that ending, capping off the weird feeling that the show was trying too hard to be too many different things, and it all just falls apart to me. And maybe that's a problem with being a show on a kids' network, but hell, look at how the third season of Legend of Korra ended- not everything has to end happily, and even when it's sad, it can have a bright spot of hope supporting it. Or, it could be like season 1 of Korra, where even a happy ending has a long shadow of despair running underneath the surface.