I'm glad it's not just me.

I was going to write a post about this but I kept putting it off.

Oh well - maybe tomorrow.

The holidays, and other unrelated thoughts.

I haven’t had time to write - it’s been a strange, and frantic time. Had a mini Christmas gift-exchange with my kids, and a departing houseguest, on the 23rd. Spent Christmas alone with my son – my daughter was with her mom. Christmas Eve, I let him open two presents early: first, a DVD – Southpark’s “Passion of the Jew” and two others (alas, they didn’t include the Mormon episode in this religious-themed selection), then, the fourth season of Family Guy. Twice during the latter he and I couldn’t stop laughing. First time, “I say, are those two pigs vomiting up there?” Second, an elaborate, pantomimed workup by Quagmire, ending in the spoken punch line; “…and that’s the hand that started all the trouble. Got your nose!” [the last to Stewie].

Christmas day, I watched him play with his new videogame system (a wii – he’s going to have to wait a little while for the PS-3), wearing my new sheepskin slippers (oh, you should be so lucky…) and robe. Southpark, Family Guy, Zelda, and new slippers – the stuff of Christmas. Someday I’ll buy an ebelskiver pan and complete the scene. Two days later, I was off (again) to New York for a few frantic workdays.

I was alone for New Year’s. It’s going to be a big year.

Mitt’s going to announce today formation of a “study group” examining a potential run on the presidency. I’m still saying a little agnostic prayer for a strong Democrat to emerge from the wings. The beauty of being agnostic is that you can still pray, to whomever or whatever strikes your fancy, if it suits you at that moment.

Congratulations to Boise State – the “U” is no longer the only mid-major to crack the BCS. These guys get to finish the season undefeated. Wouldn’t it be fun to watch them take on Florida? Or even Ohio State?

I still peruse the Fray occasionally – sometimes from my PDA, if I’m out and about. Ghost asked a seemingly superficial question that sparked a good discussion – about why the quest for immortality is portrayed as a villainous goal. My take (from deep within the bowels of the theoretical framework in which I’m trapped. Trapped, I say!): from the moment of birth, we are at our peak of adaptive potential. We spend the rest of our lives sacrificing adaptive potential for economical adaptation. In order to achieve immortality, we would have to artificially (perpetually) increase our cognitive potential, or become cognitively static – incapable of further adaptation (including memory formation).

This is a psychologically repugnant scenario – attempts to maintain an unnatural stasis are one way of defining or describing psychopathology. One component of characterological disorders is incorporation of other people into one’s psychological economy in the service of circumventing adaptive ego change (portrayed in metaphorical form by the various human-morphed monsters from literature and increasingly popular movies). Delusional thinking reflects cognitive stasis. Dementia reflects mnemonic stasis. Once a psychological or neurological mechanism becomes immune to external influence, the resulting molar behavior is pathological. Or, evil. So, the quest for immortality being invariably associated with villains reflects the pathology associated with psychological stasis. The other explanations offered involving resources etc. are all metaphors for the above (the manner in which stasis is perpetuated at the expense of others).

Oh, and I see the term “sociopath” is being misused (again). Diagnostic criteria (which completely suck anyway) aside, there is only one character I’m aware of that one could convincingly argue is sociopathic, and he hasn’t been actively contributing since before I came onto BOTF (though I was accused of being him, more than once). The looniest of the rest are variously narcissists or histrionic* (the latter indiscriminately attention-seeking, usually in an irritatingly dramatic way). Frankly, nobody should object to narcissists anyway – one of the paths to narcissism involves, in part, realization that you really do know more than the people around you. Narcissists are fun to debate with, and usually have interesting things to say. They’re nearly impossible to persuade, however, independent of the strength of your argument - which can be vexing. But what fun the Fray without curmudgeonly characters barking on in their superior tone about the various topics posed by articles (hah!) or presented on one of the “non-topical” boards?

On the other hand, on a board full of narcissists, people with more pedestrian neuroses feel like a breath of fresh air…

There are ways, some quite dramatic, one can effectively challenge a narcissist. Seems there are a couple players here and there who’ve got it down. They will never be forgiven for it.

Maybe I’ll write something some time about the difference between primary and secondary (compensatory) narcissism, or “hard” and “soft” narcissists.

Last thought (speaking of narcissists…): Christopher Hitchens was dead-on in his article against Saddam’s execution (potentially questionable motives aside). The death penalty dehumanizes all who participate, even passively. Besides, if one removes all of the colorful attributions and looks purely at behavior, intent and outcome, the man bears a distressing resemblance to some of our own, lauded leaders – something we should all be alarmed by, were we not so busily trying not to notice.


*Note - Fray personnae only. Not intended to reflect on the person behind the personnae. Usually.