Kill Switch

Can you imagine destroying a city with a word?

It’s a trope in works of fantasy, to be sure. The woman who became the White Witch in the Narnia series destroyed her birth world by speaking one terrible magic word in order to win a war against her sister. Author Neal Shusterman expanded this concept in his Scorpion Shards trilogy by granting one of his main characters the ability to find the weakness in anything, human or otherwise. By simply conversing with anyone for a minute or two, this character was able to divine exactly which combination of words would send the entire tentative edifice of his victim’s psyche crumbling into the quicksand of insanity. It would sound innocuous to anyone else. He’d say Your father never meant you to have it or something like that, and the person’s brain would essentially implode.

But Scorpion Shards exist in the real world too, after a fashion. The truth is, many of us can be divided into “people who have kill switches” and “people who look for kill switches.” Sometimes the latter category, the poisonous characters—the White Witches or Scorpion Shards of the real world—self identify as “good with people.” When you meet them, they strike you as deep thinkers; self-effacing philosophers who thrive on cutting past the shell to get to the meat. They value truth, or so they tell you, and appear to be uninterested in conversation that is dishonest or misleading. They seem excitingly anti-establishment, and appear to share many of the same values that you hold dear. These are the people with whom we might sit under the stars and talk for hours, often unveiling our deepest fears and shames, because they are type of listeners who Get It.

Or so we think. Because what we so often fail to realize is that they are probing for a kill switch. Perhaps we can be charitable and provide that they themselves might not know they’re doing this, but that is nonetheless the shape the relationship eventually assumes. Before long, we come to realize that, though these people have spoken with us honestly numerous times, we have no real idea what makes them tick; no knowledge of their kill switches. Conversely, they know us intimately. They know that we live in fear of disappointing Mommy, or that we are determined to conceal that One Secret from our loved ones at any costs. Perhaps we’re petrified that we’ll end up drinking like Daddy, or scared that Older Sister will find out that we don’t believe in God anymore. Perhaps we simply worry that we won’t be liked. Whatever the kill switch, we wake up some morning with the squirming realization that the person we thought of as our best friend/boyfriend/girlfriend has their finger right over that red button.

The relationship changes. You find yourself—perhaps unconsciously at first—placing distance between yourself and Best Friend. No, you can’t come out tonight. You have stuff to do, you know how it is. Sure, you’ll take one of your trademark long walks together, but, you know what, it won’t be very long because you just realized you’re feeling a little dizzy and nauseous. (You also realized that these walks are very often confessionals. For some reason, this format doesn’t feel so comfortable anymore.)

Eventually, after waiting the requisite amount of time, Best Friend begins to chafe at your threatening self-assertion. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. If you’re troubled about something, you’re supposed to be discussing it with them. They can’t let you slip away, and so they pay you a visit. Out of concern, of course. There they confront you, because after all, they are the type of person who doesn’t have time for subterfuge and cover stories. “Why are you avoiding me,” they outright ask.

And then, because this has been the comfortable groove of the relationship until now, you find yourself telling them. Maybe you say that you feel like they have ulterior motives, maybe you admit that you don’t know if you can trust them anymore. They are the very image of shocked dismay at your words. Perhaps their voice chokes up, or their eyes fill. This emotion is unfeigned, because they truly are distressed at the notion of losing their hold on you. They wait for a lull in the confrontation, and then they lean back, sigh heavily, and drop the kill switch.

This paranoia isn’t you. You sound like your father.

I feel like this is just your fear of failure talking.

Why do you sound like someone’s been poisoning you against me? Have you been talking to your brother? You know how his negativity makes you believe ridiculous things.

I expected better from a person who claims to be moral and an atheist. I wonder if rejecting God has caused you to reject empathy and love.

And just like that, you’re theirs again. Because, as you feared, they know how to make you fold. They know the precise tender muscles to jam their fists into when you show signs of shaking their hold on you. It just wouldn’t be right to shrug off someone who knows you so intimately. Someone who’s that close to you must be your best friend, right? It certainly seems like they should be. Probably you’re just being paranoid, like they said. It’s so good to have someone who calls you out on your stupidities, isn’t it? It’s fine.

It’s better this way.

Lifehack: Stop Hacking

We live in what Terry Pratchett might have wryly called “interesting times.”

The world is at once closer together and farther apart than it ever has been, as the ubiquity of the internet and social media forces exposure to all different types of people without any of the background color that gives that exposure context and meaning.

There is this popular sense that we are all just one Wikipedia portal away from understanding anything and everything the world can throw at us–that we are only a lifehack or two away from gliding easily and competently through the world’s most daunting obstacles. I believe that, in many ways, this is one of the most harmful mindsets we are somehow encouraged to sustain.

In a phrase: Life is hard. Some assembly is required. Maybe Buzzfeed can teach us how to maximize our closet space or bake a cake in a mug, but it cannot teach us how to immediately know a person through a series of tweets or Facebook statuses. Social media is a stage, not a lounge. I believe that it’s this very expectation of immediate intimacy that infuses an unmistakable toxicity into our online communication. Consider the (let’s be charitable and call it) dialogue that one finds between men and women on the internet. The dialogue in question is often described as SJW vs MRA (Social Justice Warriors vs Men’s Rights Activists). Now hold that dialogue in your mind and then place it side by side with the sort of conversations one might have in a mixed group of actual humans socializing around a table.

One thing you might immediately notice is a decisive loss of vitriol. Determined third-wave feminists who may scoff online about men feeling persecuted might find themselves listening politely to a man’s story of being shunned and emotionally brutalized and feel her empathy awaken. A staunch “redpiller” might listen to a woman describe her treatment at the hands of an ex-boyfriend and feel shame and horror that another human being should be subjected to such pain. The important thing about socialization is that it opens the door to the full range of context and color that is lost in online communication; in text that may never convey the intended tone no matter which emojis it is riddled with. Though socialization is a form of stage in and of itself, it is a more honest one than the pseudo-humanity of social media.

Perhaps that’s why I’ve found myself tiring lately of the countless anniversaries and memories and meanings that Facebook has been stuffing down my throat. Yes, it’s awesome to be reminded of an adorable photo of one of my daughters from a couple of years ago, but I can also look through an album at my leisure without this sense of obligation and demonstration that comes off as a kind of spray-on surface sheen disguising the cheapness of a gift.

Simply put, we need to stop lifehacking.

You can’t hack a girlfriend or wife. You can’t hack a boyfriend or husband. There are no Six Weird Tricks that make him/her fall in love with you. The complex, deeply bitter schools of philosophical misandry/misogyny that have been proliferating online are doing far more harm than they are good. The breezy shorthand, the vulgar lingo and the knowing sardonicism of these dark spaces all seem to me flimsy covers for deep hurt and disappointment that one cannot, it turns out, +Add Friend in real life.

I will add the disclaimer here that I love social media. I love the opportunities it gives me to engage in interesting discussions, to “meet” new people from so many different walks of life and to stay in touch with those whom I may be too busy or undisciplined to call as regularly as I should. It’s a beautiful way to remain present in the lives of those you know in person and to celebrate their milestones, mourn their sorrows and laugh at their jokes.

But it isn’t real life. Real life is socializing face to face, with all the concurrent, glorious discomforts, anxieties and awkwardness that entails. We do not have the luxury of perfectly formulating an eloquent response to an argument before speaking. We might mistakenly drool or spit out our food from the corners of our mouths while excitedly making a point. We will stutter, blush, fail to make eye contact, fumble our ideas and mispronounce the SAT words we tried to use. We will trip over our traitorous feet as we make our way to a table of people we don’t know very well, and we will swallow and go drymouthed when the entire table looks over at us as we speak. We will stop and start speaking several times as others talk over us, or we will be far louder than we need to be and notice that others have fallen silent.

Real life has an ebb and flow, not a lateral timeline. Real life rarely photographs well. Real life does not involve long fictional stories of you wowing an entire class and an arrogant professor as you conclusively prove the existence or nonexistence of God, the validity of your political party or your superior knowledge of your given field of interest. Real life sucks, and is also beautiful, frightening, mysterious, surprising and sometimes boring as hell. No-one knows all the words to the song at the same time in real life, but everyone has fun trying to sing it. Enjoy that. Enjoy discordant singing because at least you are singing together.

Stop hacking.

 

 

Reign of the Welfare King

Look out, because we’re gonna be talking about money.

Squirming already? Good.

I want you to imagine that you’re meeting an old acquaintance that hasn’t been caught up on your life for, say, two or three years. You lie and tell him that you’re feeling a little under the weather and would rather just meet up and take a walk instead of going out for lunch or even just a coffee. Of course, the story you’re not telling is that you only have a crumpled five-dollar bill to your name, and that’s meant to get bread and milk for your family. Also unspoken is the fact that you even have that bill because a passing stranger was kind enough to hand it to you when you faced him, eyes downcast, and forced the words out of your mouth: “I’m in a bit of a bad situation. Could you possibly spare anything to help me get some food for my family?”

That was me, once. No, not all the time, but it did get that bad.

The exact whys and hows of it aren’t important, because I’m not writing a biography. I’m only addressing the particular window of time wherein life for myself, my wife and our kids was shot through with poverty. I’m addressing it because a certain segment of the US population–almost invariably conservative Trump-supporters–seems to think I should have or likely did use that impoverished era of my life to live a decadent, carefree existence on the working person’s dime. The persistent myth of the welfare-rich.

But before I get into that, I want to return us to the friend you’re about to meet. One of the reasons you’ve concocted a story about being under the weather rather than simply saying “I’m in a bad place financially and I can’t go out to eat with you” is that you know that inevitably, at some point in the conversation you’re about to have, you’re going to ask for money.

Oh, you don’t want to. You’d actually rather curl up next to a sewer grate and experience death cell by cell. But you have priorities. A family to feed. Electricity to keep on. If you’d come right out and spoken of that level of desperation, your acquaintance would absolutely have found some reason to run screaming in the other direction. This way, he’ll at least have to look you in the eyes and say no. Or, if there’s enchantment and impossibility in the air, he might actually be able to help. He might actually want to help.

So by now you’re likely pretty uncomfortable reading this, right? You’re probably asking the screen in front of you the same exact questions I’ve faced too many times to even roughly estimate. But I’ll deal with the most obvious one, phrased as delicately as people have actually phrased it to me: Why aren’t you on welfare, a young guy like you? Aren’t there programs to help people like you?

Why yes. Yes, there are. And those programs are incomprehensibly awful. Let’s start with the WIC (Women, Infants and Children) program. You may have heard it described on Fox News or something as AND THE GOVERNMENT WILL *PAY* FOR THE POOR TO HAVE MORE BABIES AND PAY FOR THEIR FORMULA AND PAY FOR THEIR FOOD AND WHY WORK FOR YOUR MONEY IF THE GOVERNMENT JUST *GIVES IT AWAY* AND RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE.

Well no, it’s not really like that. What it’s actually like is having a government representative following you around as you shop, tsking and removing some items from your cart and adding others. You see, WIC issues checks for three months with the exact items and sizes of those items that the check may be used for. Each check has been tailor-made to the family depending on the mother’s age, weight, nutrition and decision of whether or not to breastfeed. And just to explain further, you must purchase every item on the check or the check cannot be used. They’ve determined you need to get three and a quarter gallons of whole milk only, so that is exactly what you must get. No half gallons. No skim. Have you painstakingly located each of the twenty-odd items on the check (black beans = good, barley = bad) but you can’t find the 64-oz bottle of juice (has to be 100% pure, no decadent juice mixtures, you spoiled brat)? Then the whole check is invalid. Oh, you can’t find a store with the exact brands and sizes of each item on the check? Might as well leave the WIC checks at home so you don’t have to listen to the person in the checkout line behind you siiiiiiigh as they see you whip out the little WIC folder. Because oh yeah, the cashier has to check each and every item to make sure the system approves it for WIC. So no, not discreet, not respectable and definitely not the easy choice. Helpful, yes, but a way of life? Nope.

But in fact, WIC is the kinder and gentler of the programs. There is minimal documentation required, and it does fills your fridge with milk and even pay for a breast pump or formula if necessary. But let’s examine the most famous of those vaunted “gimme programs” that we poor people are supposed ride like a magic carpet through real life: food stamps.

Yes, they’ve changed the name to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, and they can be used semi-discreetly by swiping the benefit card like a debit card. Yes, food stamps can indeed be misused to buy junk food and endless bottles of aerosol cheese if one so desires.If that’s how you choose to feed your family, the decision is not because you’re poor, it’s because you’re stupid. However: One may not purchase alcohol with food stamps, nor prepared hot foods. So no, conservatives, poor people do not spend their monthly allotment of SNAP benefits in a single wild afternoon on booze and Chipotle. If we do that, it’s with our own money and terrible judgment.

But wait, I should probably mention that it’s hard as hell to get on those goddamned benefits. The documentation required is rigorous, extensive and nearly never sufficient the first couple of attempts you make. There’s always something wrong, and it invariably comes to light only once you’ve already waited the two/three hours to speak to a social services rep. If you’re job hunting, prepare to carve out your entire morning or afternoon twice in a row for sitting in a waiting room, cooling your heels as the two representatives available in the ten booths chat with each other and ignore everyone else.

Why yes, you can apply by phone. In fact, the phone interview is the first qualification hurdle you must overcome before even setting foot in that office. Only problem is, they schedule the interview for you and will sometimes simply never call. You’ll be surviving on cereal for a month, wondering why the call never came, until you receive a disqualification notice in the mail on the grounds that you were “unavailable for interview.”

But let’s imagine that it all worked out and, at last, you were approved for SNAP benefits. That first installment comes on time, and just like that, you can remove “food” from your gnawing list of vitals you cannot afford. And now you’re home free, happily feeding your family without worry as you struggle to find a job and meet your bills.

Well, hopefully your nasty financials sort themselves out soon, because before you know it there will be a “time-sensitive questionnaire” sitting in your mailbox. (If they remember to send it, because that has happened, too.) In it you are basically required to note any changes that have or have not occurred in your employment status in order to continue receiving benefits. Seems innocuous, but that’s only because you’re assuming you can just write EVERYTHING STILL SUCKS across the top and that they will even notice you’ve filled it out. Not once, not twice, but three of the times I was disqualified from SNAP were because they claimed never to have received the questionnaire I’d sent back to them the same day I’d gotten it. Unless someone from the USPS has a fetish for specifically burning my questionnaires, I’m going to go ahead and assume that I was one of many victims of inefficient, half-assed bureaucracy that is stacked against the people who need to make use of it.

Another hard truth is, poverty breeds desperation and depression, two terrible things to face when one is trying to stay above water. Desperation distances people. I’ve watched good friends and even family slowly place themselves at a safe car’s length from my troubles, upset and offended that I asked them for help, or having helped already and frightened that I will keep on asking. It’s almost inborn among the species, the instinct to leave behind that slow-moving straggler of the herd with sickness in his eyes. Poor people must be hidden or excised somehow, not countenanced and cared for. And then there’s the depression. Hoo boy, the depression. If you’ve ever suffered from depression, do you remember how hard it was even to get up in the morning? Do you remember how loudly you’d applaud yourself just for finally taking a shower? Now imagine that you were not only required to shower, but to shave, slap on some nice clothes and a novelty smile you bought at Spencer’s and go pretend you’re an alert, confident adult looking for a job instead of a pile of moldering newspapers someone’s cat shit on.

It’s a bit hard to do, you see. Part of the reason the poor tend to stay poor is that they exude poverty and unbalance. You feel it. I felt it in myself. Rare is the hiring manager who will look this despair in the eyes and say “Here’s a guy who just needs a chance at a stable life.” It’s human psychology. We respond to confidence and stability and run the hell away from hunger and desperation. This entire concept is usually pleasantly encapsulated by Fox & Friends as INSTEAD OF FEELING SORRY FOR THEMSELVES, THE POOR SHOULD CANCEL THEIR FOOD STAMPS AND GET A JOB INSTEAD OF MOPING AROUND AND EXPECTING THE *TAXPAYER* TO PICK UP THE BILL.

What I’m trying to say here is that the many, many hours I’ve spent in the social services office has brought me face to face with countless others of the derided poor. All I’ve ever seen were couples, families and individuals trying to turn things around. I’ve smiled and teared up at the cheerful little children who run through the rows of chairs, blissfully unaware that they’re in dire straits. I’ve offered my seat to older moms and dads who looked wearier than I did and I’ve helped a man from Jamaica understand the documentation requirements so that he wouldn’t have to face the frustrations I had. Noticeably absent from the offices were the loud, foulmouthed, entitled welfare kings and queens that we’ve all heard of, flouncing around in expensive clothing, cutting to the front of the line and demanding Uncle Sam’s free money.

Of course, I don’t deny that there are criminals out there who take advantage of the system with calculation and planning. There is a name for that: welfare fraud. I fully support the unmasking and incarcerating of people who do this, just as I support the incarceration of dishonest CEO’s. But to propose that all poor people are handed some kind of golden ticket to the fun factory while driving luxury cars powered by the sweat of the working class’s brow is a harmful and reprehensible position to take. Not all poor people are committing welfare fraud, and not all clowns are Pennywise from “It.”

Perhaps this mentality is so prevalent because the alternative is to directly face all that uncomfortable struggle and pain and to realize that it can be alleviated if we wanted it to be. Sympathy is hard enough, but empathy can just really throw off your groove, right? So we dismiss the poor, or we condemn them if we absolutely must look at them at all.

So now here you are in the park, and there’s that acquaintance of yours, waiting where he said he would. You chitchat for awhile, reviving old jokes and pleasantly revisiting that time you knew each other better–perhaps it was in college or when you lived in a previous apartment. You see him relaxing into the conversation, and you already regret what’s bound to come next.

And here we are. He’s finishing his tale of how he made his way into the job he’d always wanted and how they’re even paying for him to take a business trip to somewhere or other. You’ve made the proper impressed noises and complimented his business acumen. There is a lull in the conversation.

“So…I haven’t heard what you’re up to these days,” he finally says.

You heave a deep breath. “Well, I’m actually kind of unemployed at the moment,” you say with what you hope is a casual tone. Casual doesn’t come as easy to you as it once did. “You know, I’m following up on a couple of leads, but nothing’s for certain yet.”

There’s a pregnant pause. He remembers your family, and he knows he has to ask what comes next. “So…how are you guys managing then? Okay, I hope?”

You see the plea in his eyes. You ignore it. “Well, honestly, no, not really. It’s pretty bad.” You drop your tone of voice to a conspiratorial one. “I didn’t want to mention it, but I’m actually looking for a long term loan to help get us out of the pit, you know? I’d obviously pay back in a year or so, when things have stabilized. If you or anyone you know would like to help, I’d be happy to provide documents, contact info and cosigners.”

The hunted look springs to his face immediately. You see the betrayal there too, the hostility resulting from your decision to suddenly Make Things Real.

“Uh…” he begins. You can already hear the answer. “Truthfully, I’m not a position to help right now. It’s kinda tight for me too, you know. It’s a bad economy for everyone.”

Kind of tight? Wasn’t he just discussing the late model Lexus he’s financing? And yeah, it’s a bad economy for everyone, but not everyone doesn’t know how they’ll do Wednesday’s supper. But all of that remains unsaid, because it wouldn’t help. He’s already withdrawing, closing up, the warmth bleeding out of the air like your hemisphere did a quick revolution to winter. He was betrayed, and he knows it. You can already recite his next lines.

“Look, uh, let’s keep in touch, okay? I’ll let you know if anything crops up. I should probably catch the train though.”

He touches his hand to yours and practically wipes it as he backs away. “Let me know how it works out,” he calls.

“It was nice to see you,” you murmur at his retreating figure.

And the sad part is, it really had been. For a while.

Pemberton J. Periwinkle

For the majority of my life, I was the Weird Kid. I was the kid who blushed and stammered when spoken to directly by nearly anyone of authority, and then later the young adult who blushed and stammered when spoken to directly by anyone of authority and anyone female. The number of people I have ever been completely at my ease with has always been fairly low.

But something changed in high school. Doesn’t it always? Most of what changed in high school was not for the better by any stretch of imagination, but then there were some exceptions. For one thing, I realized I had to stop defining myself by negatives. I was rapidly reaching a point where I had to do the shy, nerdy, weird version of teen acting out in order to try out an identity; to work out a couple of positives to complement all the negatives.

This might have been the era where a more exhibitionist personality would have gone goth or emo. Or, in the Orthodox Jewish world, simply going public with one’s more secular mode of dress, speech or interests would be enough to generate the coveted scandal. Don’t show up to prayer in the morning. Let a “shit” or a “fuck” slip out around a passing rabbi. Engage in a relationship with the Opposite Sex. Hell, just even talk to a girl.  Depending on the yeshiva, any of the above will do.

But not for me. I was a Rebel Without the Claws. I was also a writer–the one thing I positively defined myself as–and so it was only fitting that my acting out be via the written word. It all started in Math Sequential One, when I flipped open the cover of my used textbook and realized that I had never written my name in it. Other names were scrawled above the empty slot for mine, as well as the graffiti of several previous students who had evidently also mindlessly flipped through this same book during past classes. One such scrawl was comprised of the letters P-J-P, written in a sort of flowing script and then adorned with various flowering offshoots. I stared at it for some time, doodling a few additional extensions as I pondered what P-J-P could possibly stand for. Peanut Jelly Peanut? Poor Joseph’s Porridge? Pending Just Pursuit? I batted various ideas around in my head until I came up with the name Pemberton J. Periwinkle. The “J,” in a very Simpsons-esque way, stood for nothing at all.

To this day, I have no idea precisely how I arrived at that particular name. I only know that my brain latched onto it like a lifeboat off a sinking ship, and I made that name my own, my essence, my alter ego. I began leaving strange messages on scraps of paper in a bizarre, loopy handwriting I had invented for the occasion. They would often be nonsensical half-jokes such as Drink your cereal from the bowl, for in the Matrix there is no spoon. –Pemberton J. Periwinkle. (Look, it was 1999 and that was a current movie reference. Shut up.) After a couple of weeks of this, as well as some messages I’d left on the whiteboards of empty classrooms, People Began to Notice. (It wasn’t my original joke, but writing Flush twice, it’s a long way to the kitchen –PJP in one of the dormitory bathrooms proved to be the witticism that finally piqued mass interest. Especially from our cook.)

I was immediately suspected as the person behind PJP because, as we have established, I was the Weird Kid. In response, I really outdid myself by adding some of the best acting I’ve ever done in my life to the layers of my creamy lie cake. I exuded offense at the very idea of having anything to do with this mysterious scribe, and I primly hinted that even I found the behavior of this Pemberton J. Periwinkle to be abhorrent and beyond the pale of acceptable offbeat antics.

Astonishingly, my acting worked. I had drawn the attention of most of the school and quite a few teachers and the best part of it was, I didn’t have to deal with any of that attention myself. My alter ego took the brunt of the scrutiny; Pemberton J. Periwinkle was keenly sought to stand trial for his crimes, and I was simply another interested observer of the chase.

Depending on my mood, PJP’s observations and written messages ran the gamut from silly and harmless to sharp and cynical and were even the subject of classroom discussions and debates. As PJP’s tenure continued, a couple of other students were investigated for being the minds behind PJP, but it remained an unsolved mystery until the conclusion of my high school career. I had succeeded; I had gotten the rebellion I’d wanted, infuriated and maddened scores of people and I’d done it all by acting out via proxy. It was the best of both worlds.

Now here is where there should be a dramatic reveal. Perhaps I should’ve held my diploma up in the air at graduation and declared that they’d put the wrong name on it; it should be (GASP!) Pemberton J. Periwinkle, for IT IS I, ‘TWAS I ALL ALONG. Nothing like that happened. My years in yeshiva high school ended with nary a whisper, and the mystery of PJP ended with it, unsolved but by then unimportant.

It wasn’t until I started a Twitter account that a distant memory from the dusty reaches of my brain cleared its throat meaningfully. I realized that what I wanted out of Twitter was a more adult version of what I’d wanted in high school. I wanted a proxy with which to try things out, an alter ego that today’s young people would call a “brand.” Grinning to myself, I put “Pemberton Periwinkle” as my handle, only mildly annoyed that the “J” wouldn’t fit.

Well, I never could have anticipated the numerous awesome people I’d end up meeting on Twitter (and some in real life!) or that I’d ultimately wind up being mostly my exact self rather than a character. (I mean, everyone is a little more “Twitter-y” on Twitter, right? Not just me? Right? Shut up, you.)  I suddenly realized that the feeling that I needed a proxy was the real problem. My ideas, interests and desires needed to come from me proper, not a fictional character with a stuffy yet colorful name.

And so I remain Pemberton J. Periwinkle, but more as a homage to the name’s history than as an attempted comeback. When the handle is set aside, I am Ari the Red underneath it all, Ari by name and red by hair color. (Though with the passage of time washing out the red somewhat, I will also accept flushing with self-consciousness as a meaning of that moniker. Some things never change.)

After all, discovering what deeds you’d want attached to your actual name is the real battle, is it not?

Remember, Remember…

I suppose a religious upbringing means seeing patterns where there really aren’t any, but to me, November has always been a cursed month. (Sad, considering that my birthday is on the 24th of it.) I am aware that there is probably a healthy degree of confirmation bias here, as I tend to hyperfocus on the bad that occurs during November above any other month.

Still, it was in November that I witnessed the death of 265 human beings in the fiery crash of AA Flight 587. It was in November that my grandfather collapsed dead of a massive heart attack in his kitchen–here one second and gone the next–his own ill health accomplishing what the Nazis had failed to. It was in November that a beloved family member of mine attempted suicide for the first time, and it was in November that a high school friend of mine successfully killed himself in his own dorm room, and November again when a former classmate of mine threw himself to death off the balcony of his hotel on his wedding night.

It’s come to the point where I brace myself once the calendar reaches this ominous month, waiting for the maelstrom of pain that is sure to come. I’ll admit, though, that even my usual gloomy forebodings could not have predicted the unnatural horror that was the attacks in Paris this past weekend. 

/Breathe

One of my favorite quotes from comedian Jim Gaffigan goes as follows (paraphrased): “You wanna know what having a third child is like? Imagine that you’re drowning and someone hands you a baby.”

I have two children, not three, but I can’t help but think to myself sometimes that I’m carrying a third baby in a case of miraculous male gestation, and this one is called Stress. Insofar as it takes up my time, occupies my mind, pulls me away from any thoughts of leisure or relaxation and demands attention when and how it pleases, Stress really is like a demon child of some kind; none of the joys of children and all of the pains.

I’ve heard it said that “worry is simply a misuse of imagination,” but I beg to differ. Worry is not just about dwelling on worst case scenarios and awful possibilities; worry is about the now and the how. And I know this because I’ve lost my full time job, and it sent me into a spiral of shame, deceit, loathing and panic that were hardly imaginary.

I’d initially avoided mentioning it to too many people, and this was mostly out of shame. Anyone who has been following this blog might remember a post entitled “New Job, New Me” in which I rejoiced over finally getting a job with a niche Jewish magazine that provided something I’ve dreamed of for a long while: the ability to make money from writing. Decent money, at that. For a while, it looked like my little family of four would be okay at last. (Financially, it has been a long and difficult journey for us.) My wife was set to begin providing P3 services via a special education agency and I was making money doing something I love. It seemed too good to be true, and that’s exactly what happened.

I won’t go into the little details of how I ended up being downgraded to occasional freelance writer, but suffice it to say that it was a harsh blow. At the same time, my wife ended up not getting the reliable hours in the school she had been told she’d work at, and instead had to scrounge around at the last moment to book as many cases as she could to fill in the time she no longer had.

When the first holes appear in the hull of your ship, you tend to worry, but then to tell yourself that you’ll still make it to shore. Maybe things will be a bit tense until that time, but it’s okay, you’ll make it. But then the torpedoes hit. Unexpected expenses: BOOM. Car issues: BOOM. Then you’re taking on too much water and still trying to deny it’s over. It was in this fraught atmosphere that I made a fatal error: I shot the largest hole in the ship my own damn self.

I lied. I wanted to deny things for a while, to shrug off the gut punch like it was a mosquito. I didn’t inform my wife that I had lost the job, telling myself that I would get another one quickly and I’d be able to admit the truth from a position of strength and thus save her from worry and despair. I make no excuse for this, no justification. It was a lie regardless of why, and a hurtful one. It was something I shouldn’t have done, and it came from a place of insecurity and foolish pride within me that I had told myself I’d moved past. When the inevitable occurred–when there were simply too many holes in my cover-ups to make sense anymore–the resulting explosion almost sank our ship altogether. She was hurt, I was hurt, and there still wasn’t an income. But the shitstorm wasn’t over yet, because the Rule of Three hadn’t yet dropped the third surprise.

It has been a long time since I’ve suffered full blown symptoms of PTSD. The sweaty nightmares, the early morning panics and the hyperventilation were–until these past few weeks–unpleasant relics of a past I try to avoid dwelling on too deeply. But it was a different flavor this time, because you see, I have children now. Perhaps as an expression of my subconscious fear of failing to provide for them, the vengeful return of my PTSD nightmares included vivid experiences of watching helplessly as my four- and two-year-old daughters were hurt in front of me. And then I’d be suddenly awake, breathing rapidly and feeling the sharp pains of what I always think is the start of the heart attack that will kill me. I don’t even realize that my pillow is soaked with sweat and tears until I calm myself. Then I make a beeline for the kids’ room, where of course they are sleeping peacefully and safely.

It has been this way for almost two goddamned months. The little sleep I get is inadequate and riddled with horrors, and the resulting malignant cycle means I do terribly on those job interviews I do get.

I’ll be honest: we’re not out of the water yet. My wife and I have healed, though there is still distance to go. We love each other and support each other’s goals and dreams, and that is the salve that we use to treat the deeper cuts. I’ve been sleeping better, and have recently had a nearly nightmare-free, panic-free week. I will–at long last–be starting a job that will finally pull our heads above water. Even given these steps, it will likely be some time before I can feel as though life has normalized. Now it’s just a matter of taking every day as a minor victory.

I’ve been unable to write this post for a while, and I suppose my doing so is a way to come to terms with the dark wilderness I’ve traversed/am still traversing. It’s not so much a record of the trip as it is a mile marker. Perhaps the time will come when I can use this experience to teach something to others. Perhaps my wife and I will remember this period as a tough lesson to us both. For now, all I want to do is survive. Live.

Breathe.

Fake ID

When I turned eighteen, I wanted to announce it to the world. I was now a legal adult, after all, and it was high time to be treated as one. I’d never had any interest in smoking, so I decided that my vice of choice would be a scratch-off lottery ticket instead. There was an entirely disproportionate amount of worrying on my part, of course. How should I dress when I go to buy the ticket? Should I just saunter up to the counter and ask for a ticket as though I do so every day, or should I be meek and ingratiating, with my ID already out for inspection? Would I look like more of a greenhorn if I asked for the ticket by the number of its compartment or if I called it by the name of the game? What should my attitude be if I’m asked for my ID? Should I roll my eyes and sigh as though I can’t believe this is necessary, or should I casually comply?

In the end, I changed nothing significant. I simply approached the counter and asked for a scratch-off game. The middle-aged Pakistani man on the other side of it looked at me steadily. “Do you have ID?” he asked.

I fished it out and handed it to him, sans any snappy rejoinder.

He squinted at it. “Happy birthday,” he said after a few seconds. Then: “I can’t sell you cigarettes or lottery yet. It has to be the day after you turn eighteen. Sorry.”

I merely shrugged and left the store, trying not to let the anticlimactic nature of my landmark birthday bother me. After all, I told myself as I trudged back to my dorm, it’s a rather arbitrary measure of adulthood, isn’t it? I mean, who decided that yesterday I lacked the know-how to vote and today it had arrived via epiphany? I wasn’t suddenly better informed or more mature; I still felt like a kid. I guess in some way it made sense that I still couldn’t spend a dollar on a lottery ticket. I didn’t feel like I was really mature enough, anyway.

At the time I still believed that there would be some magic threshold I crossed when I really became an adult, some sudden rush of competency and confidence that I had yet to attain. I didn’t grasp that immutable truth that runs deeper than the truth about Santa Claus: There is no adulthood, Victoria…only adults. In a way, my ID will always seem fake to me.

Most “grown-up” knowledge I have acquired has been through experience and nothing more. I learned to drive by backing into a few parked cars and I learned to budget by falling flat on my broke ass enough times to eventually pick myself up and examine how I’d gotten the bruises. I learned to be a husband by getting married and to be a father by having children; sure I had all these great ideas about everything, but nothing brings a person to self-knowledge and adulthood like being compelled to face oneself head on and with no helmet.

Time wore on, and I began to understand the very real wisdom behind the five words I used to hate more than anything: You’ll Understand When You’re Older.

As a somewhat conservative individual who was raised as an Orthodox Jew, I had many growing-up moments that had to do with my realizing how utterly and unforgivably wrong about things I was. Until my late teens, I subscribed to the notion that feminism meant that women wanted to be men, and I thought that was foolish. I was totally sold on the “separate but equal” mentality, which I found fair and, most importantly, not too challenging to my comfortable worldview. It all changed after a conversation I had with a friend of mine, a staunch feminist who was complaining about rabbis’ attitudes towards women at the same time as she was speaking of her desire to find a husband and have children.

I interrupted her irritably. “I don’t get you,” I said. “You keep saying that the rabbis don’t want women to have this or that career, and then you say in the next breath that you want to be a housewife and have lots of children.”

She stared at me in confusion. “What do you mean? What’s the problem? I’m saying that I want a life that is more traditionally feminine, but God save any man who expects it of me!”

We were walking at the time, and I remember literally stopping short. “I’m an idiot,” I marveled after a moment. “A total idiot. I just realized I never really understood feminism until this moment. I though it was about doing what men do. I’m sorry.”

Just like that, I’d grown up a little more.

I guess if there’s one thing I’ve learned that I can safely impart without pedantry, it would be that adulthood is about realizing how much more there is in the world to learn; how fun it can be to have one’s eyes opened anew.

One thing I’ve always liked about Hebrew phraseology is that an accomplished sage is not referred to by the term for “accomplished sage.” The term instead is talmid chacham (pronounced tahl-mid kha-kham), which means “wise student.”

I wholeheartedly agree that the best kind of adult is one who never stops being a student of the world.

He Who Screams Loudest

Cults of personality are ubiquitous in religious culture. Religion itself, at its most basic, is offering promises and assertions that cannot be proven, so the necessity for spokespeople who project confidence and unflappability is enormous.

Interestingly, I have found that many adult Jews who swing rightward from secularism to Orthodoxy are often helped along the way by such personalities. Sometimes they find these personalities on their own, other times someone recommends one to them. But first, a bit about the industry that serves as the mechanism behind that sharp rightward swing.

Umbrage: It’s Sitting Right There, Should We Take It?

So you’re a bloodline liberal with a firm belief in the government’s responsibility to address the failures of capitalism with benefits and basic necessities for the impoverished. Let’s say you’ve been traversing the bulk of your adult life with this belief securely in place, humming merrily and assuming that no one could possibly disagree with common sense.

One day you’re on the internet–as we are wont to do–and you happen across a discussion of some kind. The discussion is about finances, and you find yourself nodding along as you read about how people must be fiscally responsible, must plan for the future, must live below budget whenever possible…good, good, it all makes sense to you. Suddenly, your unbelieving eyes scan the following comment:

Maybe the “Aha” Should’ve Come a Bit Sooner?

I do not define myself as a men’s rights activist. I grew up in a patriarchy, and I do not need to be convinced of the existence of one.

That said, I never have and never will be in favor of misandrist sentiments. Countering a wrong with another wrong may feel gratifying at the time, but it just makes the issue revolve instead of settle. Yes, men can be conniving, abusive monsters, but so can women. In fact, that’s entirely the point: each sex is eminently capable of making the other completely miserable, and neither should ever be allowed to. If ever, in your more vociferous arguments, you find yourself defending the abuse and mistreatment of the other sex, you need to check yourself. No amount of lopsided pro-masculine or pro-feminine theories should ever allow for the mistreatment of the other side. We are all humans, different or similar as we may be on an individual basis.

A post appeared on Reddit recently and was made viral by tickld.com. (For the curious: http://brando.tickld.com/x/woman-realizes-that-shes-been-accidentally-abusing-her-husband-this-whole-time) A wife tells the tale of the “aha” moment when she realized that whoops, she’s been accidentally abusing her husband for 12 years. Turns out that her man might not appreciate everything he does having been micromanaged and hyper-criticized for well over a decade. Turns out he probably resents being treated like an intellectually disabled chihuahua when he gets some minute aspect of his wife’s instructions wrong. Who knew? What a silly thing! She arrived at this realization when she caught herself lighting into him for the crime of having purchased the wrong kind of hamburger meat. She realized, for what was apparently the first time in their marriage, that his posture and facial expression during her scolding mimicked that of their son: a “combination of resignation and demoralization.”

I would first like to give credit to this woman for her realization, however belated, that she is doing harm to her husband. I have witnessed many marriages that have gone on for well over 12 years in which this realization is never achieved by either spouse. The most some couples can hope for is an uneasy alliance that benefits them in some way; anything that could be described as “love” has long since dissipated. Each half of the couple has an old-timey scroll of grievances against the other, compiled over many years, that can be read by the town crier at the slightest provocation. Divorce might be a good idea, but many couples simply settle for a mutually beneficial detente with various sanctions still in place.

However, what this popular article communicated to me is the debilitating narcissism of so many relationships. The “aha” moment that this woman wrote so movingly of has a better name: empathy. For the first time in a long time, she was able to view her husband in an objective rather than subjective manner and see him for a human being in his own right, not a laundry list of faults and disappointments. She was, for that brief moment, able to place herself in another’s shoes, and she didn’t like how she looked from that vantage point at all. Kudos to her for even being able to achieve that; the vast majority of narcissists never will, not truly.

But what does it say to us that twelve years went by before this realization? That’s at least 4,380 separate days of marriage in which she viewed her husband, perhaps in an increasingly negative manner, as a disappointment. How must that have felt to him? Does he still love her? I would say yes, because he’s still there, and he still apologizes for his every error instead of turning it into a battle. But there is damage; it’s impossible that there isn’t. Signs of unhealth are already present: he conceals things from her to avoid the inevitable scolding. A scolding that she has only just realized may not have been necessary in the vast majority of instances. That’s not good, because a couple needs to support each other in their strengths and weaknesses. A man or woman should never be afraid to approach their spouse and admit to weakness or error. (Caveat: Obviously, the more severe the screw up, the more severe the reaction.) For some reason, many marriages seem to contain the corollary of I’ll be supportive only if those weaknesses don’t affect me. As soon as  I get affected, it’s war.

Narcissism, ladies and gentlemen.

Every marriage is going to contain some disappointments, some of them resulting from fair expectations and some of them not. The value of empathy is being able to perceive what your reaction to this disappointment might feel like to the other person. Is it even necessary to voice your disappointment? Is it going to help, or will it be the opening volley of a decades-long battle? If it must be voiced, is it possible to voice it in a way that is as gentle as possible and not an attack?

Let’s stop constantly assessing how well the other person does stuff for you, and start appreciating everything they actually do.

Maybe your “aha” moment will come before any lasting damage has been done.