Gordon’s Big Ego

I’m starving but I love My Gentle Readers so much that I’m going to write first. I didn’t write yesterday; I always feel bad when that happens. I’ll blame my therapist as she had to cancel our session for health reasons. She almost gave me a session anyway when she called to cancel. I had to insist that I would cope with it even if there were things I wanted to work on with her. The big issues are related to procrastination, so putting off writing was all her fault. I’ll make sure to tell her that next week. Do other people try and make their therapists feel guilty? Is that a Jewish thing? It should be a Jewish thing, even if it’s not.

On the culinary front I made my first ever homemade mac & cheese. I just used the white sauce I make for gnocchi and added cheese. Next time I might use less flour and more cheese, but it was excellent. Part of me misses the easy of making it out of a box but there are some health concerns with that. My own tastes better and there is not that much extra work, so the cost-benefit ratio says to keep doing it. Cost-benefits is the proper way to make decisions, but it gets a bad rap because people manipulate the cost and benefit data. Climate change is a great example, the benefits are extremely sensitive to the discount rate; that is how much do you value a cost of $100 twenty years from now? The climate deniers use high discount rates so that the future costs never seem to be worth ameliorating today. If you say that saving $100 in twenty years is only worth it if it costs less than $1 today, it’s rarely worth preparing for the future. The problem is they start with that result, then work backward to figure out the discount rate that fits their desired outcome. One thing to beware is “I told you so syndrome.” Sometimes doing the right thing will not work out because something unlikely happened. If the decision was based on a sound assessment of the risks, the fact that the unlikely thing happened doesn’t change the soundness of the decision. This comes up in every controversial sports decision. You pull a pitcher, and the reliever gives up a home run, and everyone says, “terrible managing.” You keep the pitcher in, and he gives up a home run, and everyone will say, “Terrible managing.” Nobody can get it right every time, that’s how randomness works.

The most famous line from the Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno Incredible Hulk was Bill as David Banner saying, “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.” An irony is that I get angry when thinking about them changing the character’s name from Bruce to David because the producers felt that Bruce sounded too effeminate. In the first episode you see it’s really Bruce David Banner or David Bruce Banner, but nobody called him Bruce. I rarely watched the show because I had lots of issues with it, so don’t jump on me by saying that in the third episode of the 4^th season they called him Bruce. Now I’m totally off the track. Where was I. I didn’t like the show, but I did love the line and there’s a reason I’m discussing it. I don’t like me when I’m angry. I don’t like other people when they are angry. Anger makes me anxious. Anger makes me sad.

That doesn’t mean that I never get angry. I have a temper. I can’t scroll through Facebook or a newspaper without finding things that make me angry. When that happens, my preferred response is to try and see things from the other person’s point of view, or to at least empathize. When that doesn’t work, my second choice is to move on to other things. My least favorite response is feeding the anger, and especially not expressing my anger at the poster. What I’ll often do make a post on my own timeline where I try to respond rationally, not emotionally. Sometimes I’ll just say that I’m frustrated.

I know that many people are the exact opposite. They doom-scroll, looking for things to get angry about and the respond directly, or if it is a new story, posting it and urging others to get angry. They often complain about those, like me, with a more Zen. Some people get addicted to anger. They enjoy the flood of fight or flight hormones. I don’t know if they are aware of it, my guess is that some are and some aren’t. It’s respondent conditioning. You find something that angers you, get the hit of hormones, enjoy it, and that reinforces the behavior. Then when you post about it and people respond agreeing with you, you get more reinforcement. People associate that cycle with the internet, but it has always existed. The internet just gives more opportunities. That’s not always a bad thing. I was just realizing that one of my favorite things about streaming concerts is when I can make the artist laugh or smile. Thanks to the pandemic I so rarely get to do that in person. I get a shot of endorphins every time it does. This is why I’ve always been the class clown. I have no objection to enjoying making people laugh or happy.

I have to fight getting angry at people trying to get other people angry. I don’t ignore it; I simply try to respond rationally. Anger has a terrible effect on decision making. That should not be encouraged. Thinking about it, so much of what the Trump/Rush right does is wallow in owning the Libs. People on the left then give Trump and the late Mr. Limbaugh the most sincere form of flattery by imitating their behavior. I never want to act like Trump. Yet I see progressives that not only imitate him but enjoy imitating him and urge others to do so. I’ll stick with my Zen approach and work on not judging others that do otherwise. I do not always succeed.

Some confuse my desire to not act out of anger, as acceptance of terrible behavior. It’s not. It’s not even turning the other cheek. It’s thinking that reacting with anger is counterproductive. I don’t want to release the Hulk when there isn’t a cosmic threat.

I can watch that every day and enjoy it. Joss Whedon might be a terrible person but he’s a great director and writer.

I’m really starving now. I’m going to make Buffalo wings but can’t start cooking until Jim Infantino finishes his streaming show. Jim is a favorite, he’s played he Budgiedome, he’s played my house, but I always miss him streaming. I put it on my Google calendar so I would remember. He sang a song about Tycho Brahe. <sarcasm>Not that he’s a nerd. No more than I am. </sarcasm> He’s now singing that white skin is an adaptation for producing more vitamin D. Whites are mutants! I’d rather be Magneto. Shouldn’t it be XY Men and XX Women? I’m not channeling Jim, making random associations about nerdy things. Nah, I’m older than Jim, he’s channeling me. Jim, you need a new album so I can spotlight you on Gord’s Gold. Jim would be easy to write about. This paragraph has become a drunkard’s walk. All editions of Gord’s Gold fall into three categories. I always start with being excited about an artist. I wouldn’t choose them if I weren’t excited. When I start to write is when the trifurcation happens. Sometimes I get more excited and inspired and a torrent of words pour forth. Sometimes I get excited but don’t have a clear idea why. I will usually fall back to writing about my emotional experience listening, as opposed to objectively discussing the music. On a few occasions I’ll start writing and not feel the initial excitement. If I have a ready backup I’ll switch subjects for that week, but more often I’ll think back to the listen which made me excitement and remember what I was thinking at the time. It’s more difficult to make the words flow then. I’m relistening to old shows as I archive them and often regret what I said. I wasn’t as good at it then as I am now and feel that I didn’t give the artists their due. That’s unfair to the artist and even more to My Gentle Listeners, yes I call them that. They might not check out an artist they would love.

Jim is theoretically the worst kind of musician for me to listen to while writing. He’s lyric driven and clever. I need to be an active, not a passive listener. Yet somehow it is working. He gets my mind racing and I manage to multi-task. See how easy he is to write about? I’m going to post this, do a zoom with Jim and friends, even though I look like hell, then I’ll make my dinner. If I die of starvation before I eat I’ll write about that tomorrow.