Recently I came across a phrase, and although I can’t remember it exactly, went something like "I don’t find my identity in that."  That phrase seems odd to me because it is more often than not, completely false.  No one "finds" their identity.  Identity is something that is "put".  For instance, I put my identity in being a Mennonite, living in Winnipeg, enjoying Woody Allen movies, etc.  It seems to me that meaning is far more often the result of investment than it is discovery.  That anything can be meaningful as long as one is willing put something into it.  And it isn’t always conscious, but even so it exists.  Another personal example is my fandom regarding the Blue Bombers.  In reality, the winning or losing of a professional sports team in my city matters very little.  It might be argued that there is some cultural or social capital that is developed by the Bombers successes (or lack thereof), but if I was fired from my job or expecting a child or something that would inarguably mean more to any sane person, the prospective season of football means little.  And yet, disappointments in November are crushing to my psyche only because for some reason I have tied myself to this team.  Because part of my identity is also put in name-dropping, it bears mentioning that this may be something similar to Nietzsche’s notion of "will to power", consciously deciding what’s up.  If I had the will, I could sever my connection to the Bombers and their pitiful quarterback situation would not matter to me.

To get back to what I was talking about it the last entry, seriousness includes investing meaning in things that aren’t ridiculous.  It doesn’t mean you can’t invest in something ridiculous (like the history of cotton candy or whatever), but there should be serious investments made in things that matter.  And while what constitutes "things that matter" is certainly up for debate, I do not think it is presumptuous to exclude some things.  It would be smart to exclude, for example, the bullshit on this or any other blog.  Most of the internet, and the blogosphere in particular, is useless buffoonery.  The only ones I think that are worth reading are ones in which I have invested a real life relationship with.

With all this being said, it should be noted that the word "find" in the phrase that started this entry, could be defined differently, but I don’t think people use it differently than the way they say "I found the green olives in the condiment aisle".  It is dangerous to float around the supermarket of meaning plucking what tickles your fancy.  Chances are high that if you are in this situation, you are shopping while hungry, leading to bad decisions.  Decisions like worrying about celebrity relationships, the marshmallow spread of identity investment.  I propose we take what we choose to care about more seriously, so that it will inevitably lead to crushing existential guilt and anguish.  Of course I am being somewhat facetious, but also not.  So next week:  Existential Guilt - is it fake? or is it annoying?

Currently Listening And Their Refinement of the Decline By Stars of the Lid Does anyone read this blog anymore? Are you just waiting for more Will Cooke stories? see related

It was foolish to think I could keep the Handlers at bay with my friend’s stories and links to great pop songs, and now I must blog lest I be shuffled off this mortal by one hundred twenty-one fanatical medieval cult recreationists.  They told me not to cheat or shortcut this time.  Five hundred words of original thought for May 18, or else it’s a shiv in my liver while I sleep.  Not that I am left without a choice, but I am nothing if not cautiously prudent and if extending my life by typing some bunkum is all it takes… well, let’s just say it seems worth it.

Although there are some big news items regarding things I like and advocate for on the site (new season of Radiolab starts today, MD Matheson recording music again, among others), this needs to be a special entry to make up for time wasted.  While this is not a diary, these blog entries tend to be inward looking, and this is no different.  Lately I am really concerned with seriousness.  Clearly someone who believes their blogging is motivated by serial threats from a retro-cult cannot be serious, but I assure you that I am.  So let me invoke the most serious icon that I can to provoke some thought.  Here is Allen Konigsberg writing about perspective:

We are a people who lack defined goals.  We have never learned to love.  We lack leaders and coherent programs.  We have no spiritual center.  We are adrift in the cosmos wreaking monstrous violence on one another out of frustration and pain.  Fortunately, we have not lost our sense of proportion.

I would consider that passage serious, even though if you read it correctly it’s funny.  Seriousness and humour are not mutually exclusive.  But I don’t think it’s just smart and funny.  The Colbert Report is not serious, but Woody Allen can be.  Someone like Thomas Friedman has the appearance of seriousness, but utterly lacks in this quality.  I think I will come back to making distinctions later.

The whole concept was inspired by an interview with Marilynne Robinson, and if you read this with any regularity then you know how powerfully unsurprising that is.  Here she is talking about how Barth and Bonhoeffer were serious people, and she elaborates on the concept:

I have a feeling that there has been a pressure away from seriousness in much modern thought, as if we could sort of scale reality down to a size that we are more comfortable dealing with… The loss of seriousness seems to me to be, in effect, a loss of hope. I think that the thing that made people rise to real ambition, real gravity was the sense of posterity, for example -- a word that I can remember hearing quite often when I was a child and I never hear anymore.

So, to my mind, seriousness has two main qualities:  honesty; and the ability to attribute to things an appropriate weight.  The problem with either of these is that they can be difficult, but are more so because things like celebrity relationships or weekend movie openings are given so much weight.  Another difficulty is the lack of pith in this entry.  Let the concept boil another week.

Currently Listening Dream House/Dedications to Flea By Windy & Carl see related