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March 28, 1997
Tonight I heard on the radio that the 39 people who killed themselves in San Diego were "mostly middle-aged computer programmers". Yesterday I heard they were young men between the ages of 18 and 24.
Whenever folks discuss cults in the media, they always talk about the alienation of the young people. Young people are spiritual seekers looking for community. In theory, middle-aged people already have that. Do you ever hear about alienation among the middle-aged? I once heard middle age characterized as "slowly coasting toward retirement from an active life".
It's probably neither youth nor middle age that makes people vulnerable to lethal belief systems. It's that inner emptiness we carry. As St. Augustine of Hippo put it in his Confessions, published in 401:
"I carried inside me a cut and bleeding soul, and how to get rid of it I just didn't know. I sought every pleasure - the countryside, sports, fooling around, the peace of a garden, friends and good company, sex, reading. My soul floundered in the void- and came back upon me. For where could I flee from my heart? Where could I escape from myself?"
This is the human condition!
Are Americans more vulnerable to the promise of relief from the human condition? Are those at midlife more vulnerable to the promise of relief from the human condition? Are computer programmers more vulnerable to the promise of relief from the human condition? Does the sense of control we get from making circuits do what we tell them to lead us to crave that kind of control over our real lives in messy, fleshy bodies?
This has nothing to do with youthful alienation or middle-aged despair at approaching the end of our useful lives. It has to do with the inability to accept the human condition.
On a whim, I took a personality test this afternoon. My personality du jour came out ISXJ.
Extrovert/Introvert: 7 out of 10: 70%
Sensation/ iNtuition : 8 out of 20: 40%
Thinking/ Feeling : 10 out of 20: 50%
Judging/ Perceiving : 6 out of 20: 30%
The analysis says:
Because your answers in one or more categories were split 50/50,your personality type, ISXJ, (an 'X' represents a split), is not perfectly defined.
and recommends reading both ISFJ and ISTJ. Heck, I got a better analysis from Nancy: "You have the mind of a woman with the underpants of a man."
I'd be interested to know if any of these personality type weenies have done a correlation between type and gender or better yet type and gender identity/expression. Gee, another thesis topic for somebody out there in grad school land.
With nothing better to do than take on-line personality tests, I needed a dose of reality. I drove down to Watchemocket Cove and counted birds:
swans: 15
mallards: 17
widgeons: 2
Canada geese: 3 (including Igor)
herring gull: 1
black ducks: 4
red breasted mergansers: 2
ring billed gulls: countless
My guess is that a lot of the wintering ducks have gone back to wherever they winter there from. I was surprised to see the two widgeons, a male and a female, still there. Did they drop out of the flock? Come to think of it, the male looked a little different from an American widgeon but I checked my book and he doesn't look like a Eurasian widgeon exactly either. Either he's strange or I need to work on my skills. Probably both.
So, like, why am I not writing up my California adventure? Beats me. I am procrastinating. Maybe I'm saving it to have something to do the next time I feel bored.
I have a fridge magnet that says:
I used to run with the wolves. Now I nap with the cats.
That's me today. I napped unexpectedly through all of All Things Considered and woke up to a repeat of this morning's The Connection (a very good local talk show on one of the local NPR stations). What's with this napping thing?
And, no, I still haven't bought a towel rack or towels but I did ransom my laundry from the local cleaners...