Stepping in a New River

My lack of posts of late is despicable. Somebody should have yelled at me, but I won't blame you.

Several developments of late: I've begun studying for the LSAT(-an). Again.

Once back in the summer and fall of 2006, I pretended to study enough and horribly underestimated it's difficulty. Granted, I also was really unsure about what to do with my life, had fallen asleep every time I sat in on county criminal court, had 3 roommates who played Madden football 6 hours a day, and it was football season at Notre Dame. Many excuses, and all of them amount to a great big bagel when your sitting in a stadium sized classroom with 500 of your peers who seem to be flipping pages much faster than you, and you start Christmas treeing the answer sheet when you have 2 minutes left but have given up a long time ago.

I made the mistake, and you might say, of not canceling that score. At the time my sub-conscious wanted to prevent me from having any chance to get into law school, so I decided to keep it. I think I also wanted to punish myself for the embarrassment warranted when you commit to something and then bullshit and procrastinate for a few months until you wake up in the middle of the night with rapid heartbeat.

Less than a year later, I made the best, and most unlikely, decision for my future that I could have ever considered.

I came to California.

I loosened up. Went to an acting studio. Got healthy. Lost weight. Engaged my mind. Did Yoga. Made new friends. Found my girl. Lived differently. Grew personally and became more flexible. And best of all, I started to care again.

Oh, I kept drinking, but eventually I chose to avert hangovers. I found other outlets for my energy. And even now, I still don't know exactly what I'll do with my life.

But I found a direction, or maybe more specifically, a collection of philosophy and experiences that I was both very lucky to seek and encounter so quickly, and that I most likely would have never found in law school, or many other places in the US that I might have chosen if I didn't harbor a deep, albeit naive, dream of making it as a Hollywood screenwriter.

So I find myself trying to ford the LSAT river yet again. But this time it feels very different, and I'm a transformed pilgrim.

Annoyances, and A Note of Support for Smart Healthcare

In my recent procrastinations, I've been busy with trying to expand my mind in (hopefully) fruitful ways. Listening to the In Defense of Food audio book until its used book price on Amazon comes down; circularly soul-searching about the future and what career/educational direction to take (which I'm hoping to soon emerge from with a decision); reading some Chomsky; and opening far too many tabs for one sitting on Firefox. I digress.

The other day I reluctantly stopped at Whole Foods for a quick pick up and saw a sign that disproportionately pissed me off. "Come visit us on our Facebook Fan Page."

Wow, I thought. Now there is a way that giant corporations can invite us to do their own advertising for them, by becoming a fan and showing our patronage to all of our "friends," while at the same time doing what Stewie from Family Guy once deemed as, "displaying the creative work of others to personally express myself."

My contempt for how the glutton of marketing in our society makes sheep out of the American consumer -- often unwittingly -- has grown for a number of years. I have phased out most any piece of clothing I have that displays the company or institution's name, and the only shirt that I've bought with writing on it in the past couple years is a used yellow Schlitz Beer T-shirt. Clothing is an area that I shouldn't start talking about, but in short I think the less of it I own and the less I buy from any manufacturer that has labor practices that attempt to stay above the region's laws to the lowest degree possible - as most do - the better.

Before this rant becomes any less organized, let me be coherent for a few sentences on the national health debate. Nurses are marching on Washington and getting arresting during hearing in an attempt to get the attention of senators beholden to their insurance industry lobbyists and campaign contributors.

Bill Moyer's interviews a nurse with the right idea. Single-payer health insurance is a combination of ideas from the right and the left, and answers concerns that each side has. It's a system where private companies administer the care, so no horror stories of poorly state controlled hospitals that take weeks to deliver on surgery, etc (which in countries with nationalized health care like Canada, France, and even Cuba, never happens). The only thing that gets nationalized? THE BILL. Not only does this simply the present and future catastrophes that will no doubt occur if we extend this same system, but it will reduce the amount that people will have to pay in the long run, and protect those who really need the care and can't help it. If we can dump trillions of dollars into failing banks, we should at least be able to give essential care to those who really need it -- and this solution will not change who is giving the medical care.

What America is this?

I've been thoroughly confused over the past few years, so much so that it's hard to reconcile all of the common assumptions and belief about American identity and heroism that I had absorbed all through growing up. We get imagery pumped into us every day through television (woefully ignorant and advertising-beholden advertising pundits), the internet, and even conversation and drive home the ideas of the American ideal, and ridicule, decry, or ignore crucial actions and facts that go against it.

Beyond the fact that listening to a television newscaster about health care, whose advertising is bought by pharmaceutical companies; or about politics, whose bosses have investments tied up in the status quo they have so profited from and have lobbyists to ensure passage of favorable legislation on Capitol Hill; or the financial industry, when they, their peers, or bosses jump back and forth between news and Wall Street and reap the benefits of giving "expert advice" to the masses as a distraction while their money is being swept away in back room inside trading?

This issue isn't about Foxnews, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, etc., though they all have taken a part. This shouldn't be a fight about one side being for Democrats or Republicans, Liberals, or Conservatives, and because "I don't like" or "He said what" or somebody's a Communist. That ship has sailed, and only leads to a bunch of hens clucking at each other.

Question: Why can't each of us look at what is really in our best interest as Americans?

Answer: Because we have so much bad information being shoved in our faces while just trying to relax after a long day at work, and they don't have time to think about what's being done behind the scenes by politicians they elected because he or she seemed to at least be more trustworthy than the other person. We can't fathom all the negative things being done -- and have been done -- in the name of our country, and maybe don't even want to know about all of it.

I don't foresee everyone getting along on all the issues -- it's an impossibility. But certain things, like people being in favor of issues against their own interests and the common interest of the rest of the nation, need to be addressed (perhaps because they are most easily understood).

Number one: realize that the images you see and news you hear are both put in front of you due to systems seeking profit and influence on your opinion. So everything said, done, and shown - even things that might make you say "hey, he looks like he must be a good guy, different, and looking out for my best interests" - are typically done to achieve this end. That doesn't mean that these individuals retreat into their evil lair's and stroke a cat while they laugh at others' demise. They may believe completely in what they are doing, and that it is right and just. For that matter, so did Judas.

Number two: listen, but don't be convinced easily. Choose your opinions with some consideration, and most importantly, compassion. The bottom line: think for yourself. And that DOESN'T mean listen to a fat and/or bald guy, or attractive woman in her thirties, who acts like/says that they think for themselves. Since, as we know from above, of course they'd say that. And they'd compliment you on the same.

Lastly, please, please, please, don't forget that you can get angry and be civilized at the same time. Of course, power in numbers can possibly make your voice better heard. But throughout the whole endeavor of speaking out for injustice and those who are being mistreated, don't forget to be humble, and to listen. Not only will you gain much by learning how the other side feels, it will also strengthen, if not your argument, then the argument for a better solution.

Critical judgment.
Humility.
Compassion.
Willingness to take action.

With all this in mind, revolution can and should be a positive word for long-overdue change.

Buy Local

I've been engrossed in reading about health and sustainability as of the past several days, which will be a subject frequently commented on in upcoming posts. The more I read, the more it ties into thoughts on political, social, and economic history, mistakes, successes, and opportunity. Americans are facing many problems that aren't so new but get increasingly worse, while the developing world could only wish they could face similar problems with the relative comfort that we enjoy in a society mostly without violence, fear of not being able to make the next meal, or get necessary care and medicine for an ailing loved one or child.

You can't attack the broad issues all at once, so let's pick a bunch of little ones to gain momentum. Start supporting your local economies again. Forego chains and go back to the locally owned shop or restaurant. Keep money circulating and accumulating within your community, and as this notion spreads throughout a small town or rural village and everyone takes part, we won't need to worry about the worldwide corporations following tortuous distribution chains and come in to undersell local businesses. Start seeing your neighbor as a necessary ally and build relationships instead of equating the cheapest product or meal as the best choice regardless of how it got on your plate or into your shopping bag.

With the exposure of why we shouldn't trust big business and big financial institutions, the time is ripe to gain independence from them while the wool has been removed from our eyes.

And if your interested in what I've been reading, check out everything Michael Pollan has to say about food, health, and the social and moral implications of bad agribusiness practices, as well as Greg Horn's comprehensive Living Green: A Practical Guide to Sustainability.

Also, Pollan has a great TED talk which can be viewed here.

Renaming the Recession

In tearing through research on different graduate programs, I came across this passage about the dire state of the academic job market: "So it's not simply "the economy" that has given us a job crisis, as if the economy were our inexorable and monolithic fate; it's a host of social, political, and cultural forces, values, and constituencies that can be acted upon, that can be influenced and modified." (Nelson & Watt, Academic Keywords, 1999)
It struck me how thoroughly relevant this idea is to this long, unpunished series of supremely selfish and horrible choices that resulted in a worldwide meltdown which we call our current economic crisis.
We all accept the term "economic crisis" because we don't know much about it, except for that it's obvious and blaring consequences involve money: shriveled up retirement funds, wall street busting, repossessed homes, fallen financial giants (read: the dirty needle that infected the whole system), and inability to easily gain financing or find a job after getting pink slipped.
Yes, it involves money now. That money has mysteriously vanished, or in other cases, been given as government approved aid to financial institutions that are somehow legally protected from their gambling with others' chopped up investments because they know that they can push their political buddies to make the uninformed masses pay for it and blame themselves.
Regardless of your affiliation, be it R or D, Liberal or Conservative, I really don't care. Can we just come to agree on some basic facts? This should not be considered a problem caused by a faceless force. Our problems today are because of decades of mismanagement by both sides of the party line (of which there is no economic distinction between those who were making the decisions). No top-level person involved in the financial meltdown that occurred, publicly or privately employed, should be spared from forced reparations. Not like this kind of behavior is unprecedented, but how long must it go before some kind of justice is served when the general public gets screwed because of corporate shrewdness and greed? When can we stop arguing against or in defense of political leaders because we like or dislike their public persona, and start educating ourselves for collective action as a people?

It takes four and a half hours to travel 3,000 miles. I guess I'm still getting used to the 1970s. I ate a Pat's cheese steak at 8:30 AM eastern tie after landing in Philly, which also equates to 5:30 AM according to my body's west coast chronology. My intestines are still paying the price.

I've been reading a lot of Jiddu Krishnamurti lately, an 20th century philosopher that blows my mind. Trying to single out one quote is futile. Of the several topics that hit home with me, he speaks of how one can be addicted to knowledge, and in this addiction a person can become deadened to their experience and, in the human need to qualify and identify with traditions and ways of thought, avoid what is unknown. To my understanding, the unknown can only be reached through risk and action. Intention or latent ability cannot jump off the cliff to see how the water feels below.

Every time I come home I wait for something profound to happen or reveal itself to me. I think lately the problem has been that I've left my eyes closed to experience, thinking and trying to take connections too much. Profundity doesn't linger, as it shouldn't - there are more surprises ahead. Waiting for it is a blindfold, even if you often only catch it as it speeds past.

Mama, Mama I'm comin' home

Tomorrow night I’ll take a flight back home to where I spent my youth. It’s a town that calls itself a city due to its bloated population in the 1940s or earlier when it applied for a city charter. It only makes the mainstream news for some quirky oddity or for some things more radical that have smeared its name in the polarizing acts of its mayor, who, seeking political notoriety, and despite decades of decline caused by everything from the post-industrial exodus of jobs to bad luck and extremely poor management and foresight, chose to blame illegal immigrants for causing all of the local issues of lack of funding, lack of jobs, an incapability to retain most of it’s college educated youth, crime, and drug traffic (which, I might add, had been in existence there since the 70’s at least).

I knew since I was young I couldn’t stay there. Streets I roamed as a kid into the late hours of the night are now places where, partly due to fear mongering, I need to keep scanning with a watchful eye. It’s unfortunate, but change is always inevitable. I grew up among people who thought that things in my town shouldn’t have changed since mid century, and indeed many things didn’t – I cherish many of them. The joke was that our town was a great place to be when the world came to an end, since everything always arrived or happened there twenty-thirty years late.

Arriving into the time warp is evident even on the drive into town on 2 lane “highways,” where the absence of Los Angeles freeways does nothing short of delight my eyes. I’m lucky enough to go to visit a dozen or two older relatives, many now octogenarians and children of the Depression era. My grandmother is 80, and still cooks twice a week for family dinners. In a rare act among other locals her age, she recently took up Tai Chi. Some things do change.

She’ll sit us down and have to be told that we can get our own drinks, that she needn’t need to serve us. The kitchen is always warm, the warmth that comes from over 4 decades of use and bringing family together around her table. Time and again I’ll sneak back to where she keeps the family photo albums to hear stories about people I can barely remember, and some that I’m not able to stop inquiring about.

Her husband of 50 years died 6 years ago this Sunday. Besides being the man who gave the inspiration for the name of this blog, he was one of my biggest role models. Much as he has become mythologized in my mind over the past 6 years, coming to see his humanity has brought me to understand and appreciate his example even more. Abandoned by his parents, raised by his immigrant grandparents, working from the bottom to VP of his company. The night before he died, he asked my great uncle -- his brother-in-law – what he thought about a person’s chances in the afterlife. When he took his second heart attack, we shook hands with those who dropped by the funeral home to offer their condolences through a line down the block for two and a half hours straight. I’m inclined to think that what caused that was quite a special, genuine magnanimity, and a selflessness that he shared with my grandmother and their children, as well as many of those I’m lucky to call family.

The town I grew up in is now more a narrative about the past, but I'll visit what's left, and everyone who remembers it. "And so it goes, and so it goes, and as the Book says, 'We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.'"

Update

If you want a insightful, trenchant, highly entertaining addendum of what's below, watch this.

Hit Me, Part 2

In The Last Professors, Frank Donoghue excavates the nature of the long standoff between the academic and corporate world, dating back to the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, when industrial capitalists (or when you’re from the anthracite coal region: robber barons) began to attack higher education as useless. Academics, then, go on the defensive: The humanities and liberal arts have immeasurable value, if not immediately economically apparent, and need to be fought for. With the heartless nature of corporate mentally, this is absolutely correct, but there is a deeper issue here that I’m not sure will be discussed.

Growing up, my generation was told: get to college, you’re set for life. Maybe your parents and very likely your grandparents didn’t have that chance, so our generation is the time to make it right, taking that step beyond the blue collar that was always dreamed about. Social waves generally hit my small home town 20-30 years after their rise, so while Mad Men made millions at mid-century, our families were hoping that their factory didn’t lay them off. But I digress.

Truth is, at the turn of the century, Carnegie’s assessment of higher education may very well have been right. This doesn’t mean he wasn’t a cold-hearted prick, but we’re all subject to the influences of our environment, and Carnegie was a self made man from humble beginnings. Universities back then were only for the wealthy (where now, they’re only for those who don’t mind being slowly milked for interest on their never-ending student loans). It was the “old boy” network, where wealthy sons could go off to college to waste time as if they were living at a country club and come out with a Bachelor of bacchanalia. They could then go on to their life of aristocracy and maybe politics, and for all those without the money for college? Well, with enough social skill, ambition, and intellect they could still have a good shot at landing a good job without a college education.

Now that a college education is so widespread as to be expected for most careers, it’s a necessary rite of passage, whether or not one learns – or rather, remembers – anything. Don’t get me wrong, the more education for the masses, the better. I wish that every person would have the time, energy, and desire to keep educating themselves and read just as many books -- maybe ones that are even more practical -- once they are out of college. But nowadays we don’t even see how the business mind of universities has us as sitting duck-customers. For a middle class income, we must to go to college. Why? The shitty job market is one reason, but there is a much bigger one: We’re a huge revenue source. For example, when did the switch get flipped (or maybe its just been a steady transition) that post-graduate studies were a necessity to stay competitive in the job market?

Unfortunately, I’m speaking in terms more vague than I’d like. I’ve been reading non-stop of the underbelly of higher education, and my will to become a man of letters has waned as a result. How does this relate to yesterday’s post at all? Shit… what was it again…
Ah yes.

It is an unavoidable fact that most of us will have to take it on the chin numerous times in our life. Hopes will be dashed at the expense of current need, and long-term goals will appear too far to grasp. Refusal to submit may be our only source of fuel. But search for alternatives – they are out there. The collective unconscious becomes richer the more you try to access it, and while stories of others who have carved their own path may not be completely applicable to everyone, they prove that there are other ways. We can aspire to them if we are creative, innovative, and persistent enough to find them.

Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself. Double down on 11, beautiful babies.

Hit Me, Part 1

In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell addresses a case study of teenage smoking, that baffling and enduring cultural epidemic. Fitting into his overall theory of the Law of the Few, he talks about the strength of personality of certain individuals who, when picking up the habit, are able to influence and give social “permission” to their peers to adopt smoking as well. He also notes, according to his second theory of Stickiness, what everyone knows: nicotine is addictive, and some people are drawn to it more than others. These long known factors have been elusive to the anti-smoking movement, because they have always focused their campaigns on issues that either tell people what they already know or that miss the driving socio-cultural factors that attract youth to try it out.

Smoking preference is a personal matter. My thoughts, rather, were stuck on Gladwell’s mentioning of adults (or parents) being so much less influential on a young persons’ decision to smoke than the youth’s peers –in particular, those who embody the traits of, “defiance, sexual precocity, honesty, impulsiveness, indifference to the opinion of others, [and] sensation seeking.” (238)

It’s a concept we all know. Parents are less influential of their adolescents – always has been, and likely always will be. They exist in different social circles; people relate to their own age group; every child must prove his or her independence, etc. The Wild One, James Dean, “Parent’s Just Don’t Understand,” every coming of age film in the past 60 years, punk rock, and now, unfortunately, even complete morons can symbolize the youth ideal (Paris Hilton et al.) – though I suppose every generation has had their idols.

Joseph Campbell speaks about how when parental lessons and imparted wisdom fail to apply to a youth’s social experience and obstacles, and this becomes the start of a major loss of credibility, even if only unconscious. That’s why people often don’t (and probably, shouldn’t) believe regular praise from their parents. Mainstream culture changes too rapidly, and for most of us who are only passive participants and observers, navigating a new labyrinth of current trends isn’t worthwhile if you aren’t absolutely terrified of getting picked on.

American youth go through rites of passage dictated by bureaucracies intent on producing conforming, if not outstanding, workers to fill in new spots in the system. Score high on SATs, get into college, do well enough in college to find a job despite possible residual alcoholic tendencies, try to put money away from retirement and not blow too much dough on personal indulgences. Most people hate their jobs. Most youths hope they won’t be one of that majority, if they think about it at all. But once you’re locked in, it’s very hard to make a switch. Comfort is often an enemy to risk, and by our 30s, when all of our being tested and struggling -- like we were told by those selling us education -- should be behind us, most everyone can settle with what they have if they’re comfortable. This is the personality change that occurs: a general lessening of ambition due to fatigue.

Now this certainly isn’t a castigation of the average guy (or girl)– I wish empathize more than criticize. The point is, why be surprised by the disconnect between parents and youth? With full lives ahead of them, why wouldn’t an adolescent choose defiance over letting their lives get sucked out by routine, bills, and authority, let alone listen to someone who has submitted to this, regardless of the person’s amount of choice in the matter?

To sum up, this rant was a impromptu sampling of the odds stacked against so many, but its real purpose is as the first step in an effort to brainstorm. The question: How can anyone take real agency in preventing the need to submit to the hand we were dealt? Or maybe I'll just offer some encouragement to do, and praise for doing so.

But at least in the worst case scenario, once our kids hit their 20s, they’ll start realizing the same thing, plop down on the neighboring chair, and share a silent drink over our newly shared circumstance. Unless we, and they, are lucky enough to buck the trend.

Use the Schwartz

I’ve developed a recent addiction to the TED talks, where the TED (which stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design) organization invites “he world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).” In 2 and a half days I have watched about a dozen of them, never failing to be riveted. One of my favorites is by psychologist Barry Schwartz, entitled “The Real Crisis? We stopped being wise,” and covers a range of topics all centered around 2 ideas:

1. How rules, convention, and mindlessly conforming (read: meeting the minimum required standards) erodes moral skill and will, as well as original thought.
and
2. How focusing on when people become addicted to and dependent on incentives (ie. Wall Street hustlers), “they stop asking what is right.”

He calls for the need to re-moralize our society by celebrating moral heroes and strive to be moral exemplars to others. Schwartz’s speech is definitely worth a view, not only for it’s content but for how great a speaker he is.

It lays out a simple and impenetrable argument that few can argue against. This, however, is because hardly anybody wants to look like a jerk that is screwing others over, nor appear as the rabid dog whose crusade disregards the need for compassion. Every religious tradition follows some form of the Golden Rule and teaches selflessness. It’s no mystery that this is both the ideal form of conduct and a really taxing way to try to live, conscious of the consequences of every action we take and aware of how leaders, ourselves or others, should uphold this level of morality in order to have the right to lead.

But society is complex, and its great ills can’t be solved by a blog post. So watch the TEDtalks - besides wisdom, you'll gain some really cool knowledge and be entertained.

PS. The audio and video from the TEDtalks can be downloaded free as podcasts for iTunes as well. I've also posted the TED website under Links on the left.

Seeking a Literary Life

In trying to figure out my future, I’ve come to a crossroads – a paradox, even. I have read many books on writing, and story construction, and character, and theme, and so many levels of criticism of film and society, how it might or should or does fit into our lives. For those to try to create, there is often a personal intimacy that develops with your subject matter, to the point that pieces of the creator of a work or his/her experiences and emotions are embodied within what is created.

So many successful writers – myself not being one of them – have taken the (sometimes) noble and (sometimes) fulfilling challenge to pursue what is deemed a “literary life,” meaning, a life worth writing about. It’s common advice to common writers to “write what you know,” so changing your life to be exciting enough to fill your stories with exciting things, your imagination adding to real experience. This is a formidable task, and it seems like writing stories about not being able to write a story only works when you have the creative genius of Charlie Kaufman. And even then without enough confidence (your own or others’) in your work, and a great deal of luck, you won’t be getting a film made.

Shouldn’t everyone try to live a literary life? Not settle and take chances like the hero of our own narrative?

Yes, but it’s complicated. Because even when everything boils down to personal choice to act or to not act, everyone’s situation is different, and those differences can mean drastically different outcomes for the person who thinks they can copy another writer’s path to success.

As I was perennially trying to rework a semi-autobiographical feature film idea, I realized how every new element added was somehow related to new developments in my own life. Consequently, once I fell in love 9 months ago it became incredibly hard to include a realistic, anti-romantic element with my story. Though I plodded on in an attempt to get that missing piece that would solve all of my problems and write the screenplay for me, I asked the question: maybe my attachment and desire to write this story – and my inability to do the same – has to do with the need to psychoanalyze myself from a slight distance and discover how I – or my story’s hero – was going to find fulfillment and happiness.

But was I living a literary life? No – I was standing still in the muck of my own confusion. Write characters that you can relate to, and create a life worthy of a cinematic hero. Those two things started to appear as opposites to me, especially as I learned more about what the actual life of a screenwriter is like, not to mention the inevitable changes to the industry (read: corporate philosophy and solely bottom-line driven motives) that are squeezing the opportunity for artists who don’t want to starve until the hereditarily rich and untalented bestow their praises.

So, what now? Adapt. I’ll continue to love quality films and great stories, but I’m moving in a direction that can’t involve submitting to a broken and dying system.

It involves writing my new story through action, and not behind the protection of that ingenious screenplay that I just might finish someday.

Drink Your Breakfast, & May Your First Task, Be a Multitask

These are the musings of a guy still trying to figure out what to do with his life, and fearing that he might love the figuring a bit too much.

I was told recently that I might be attracted to questing endlessly toward far-off goals before abandoning them as their requisite commitment approaches. She might be right, but I’ll apply my hope for a different reason through argument.

Years ago I thought that I might be subject to a “two-year” rule. That every 2 years, I was ready to change my location and circumstance to some degree in order to stave off cabin fever. I transferred after 2 years of high school, studied abroad after 2 years of college, and moved from the east coast to Los Angeles, where now, after 2 years and change, I am waiting to break out into a new incarnation. Before it became a self-fulfilling prophecy, I figured that if 2 years in Walden were good enough for Thoreau, maybe constantly changing my path in a similar way could bring out my genius that has both shown itself as scurried away accordingly to its own whims for years.

Yet increasingly over my time in the West, a time marked by unforeseen personal growth and happiness with income and “professional” experience that amounts to nil, I have come to wonder if the search for my perfect livelihood has been a forever shifting mirage. I came to La-La Land to try my hand at writing for film, learning much about the craft of story and the workings of the industry but becoming so cynical about it so as to abandon writing altogether for months. This marks my first attempt to return to the written word, if for nothing else but to feel some kind of obligation to get my ideas beyond my thick skull.

And so begins my blog: Cup a’ Toast. My Italian grandfather used to call me a hard head – “cappo rozzo” – which in the southern Italian pronunciation sounded like “cup a toast” to my 4 year old ears, and remained so ever since.

What I’ve always been stubborn about: my curiosity in seeking the answers to the questions that keep me up at night or lead to excessive Googling, and an obstinate drive to pursue my intellectual passions while trying to get over self-consciousness and uncertainty.

Here I will air everything that teases my brain in the hope that any wisdom accumulated will not equal useless forgotten knowledge.