I fear that I'm losing my ability to socialize. I've never been a very good socializer, but now in my 50s I've become more impatient in social situations, and as the conversation wanders here and there superficially, my mind disappears into its burrow and I even resent others for pulling me away from my thoughts.
There are a few causes of this. I'm naturally an introvert. I didn't know this for most of my life and tried to fake being the life of the party. (I often made people uncomfortable.) In recent years I've come to accept this. I'm not a recluse, but I find resonance in Thoreau's statement, in Solitude, that friends force the "musty cheese" of their personalities on one another at too short an interval, not having allowed the friend to acquire "new value."
More importantly, I've become a little bit serious in the last few years. I have urgent thoughts that I've had to break off to get into the car and go out, lately thoughts about the Middle East and Obama and Lincoln. At a dinner party I don't have the ability to express those ideas. Or I do, and someone says something ill-informed or tedious in response. I don't want to lecture friends about anything (my wife has explained that that's rude); so I tend to shut up and go off into my head and then resent my dinner companion for insisting on talking to me and preventing me from talking to myself. I get into a foul mood.
The other night I was at a party where someone spoke about being fluent in Italian. For the next few minutes I tried to figure out all the words of 4 letters or more that you could make from fluent. tune, felt, left, lute, fuel, flute, etc.
I admit that there are class and religious issues here, too. A lot of the people I know are much wealthier than I am, or are even a little entitled. My household is in income freefall, due to the collapse of the media business; and I feel that every spare minute should be going into building my new brand, this website. Also a lot of my friends are Jewish and inculcated in Zionism to one degree or another. They think I'm crazy, or monomaniacal; we can't talk about what I care about, except using tongs.
My wife has long worked with me on these issues. She is more social than I am, and better-bred. She believes in the art of conversation and the principle that you have to sing for your supper; and she's right. A dinner party is just a couple of hours long. Company is a nice thing: you give one another support and you also learn about reality, the world. She is afraid that I am becoming withdrawn, and abstracted from the real world, inside my own head. You're the man from the Planet Mambo, another friend of mine once pronounced. My wife wants me to keep one foot on planet earth.
I try. I met my parents the other night at a Chinese restaurant. My father is involved in malaria research and he went on about his work, what he's discovered. He quoted Einstein on the idea that scientists are creatures of fashion, that when a new modality of research comes along--say, molecular biology--the old approaches, like his own work in cell morphology, all go out the window, even if they still have things to teach us.
Well when my father said Einstein, my mind wandered. I thought of a forthcoming book that Adam Horowitz had told me about, that reveals the depth of Einstein's opposition to political Zionism. He even testified to Congress against it.
So my mind left the conversation right there, and went somewhere else.
We weren't at the restaurant long. We went on to my parents' house. My mother served tea and schnecken, a Jewish sweet, and my father talked to me about a grant proposal he's writing. I haven't seen my parents for a couple months. I offered my father advice about writing, but as he went on in his way, my mind strayed. I wanted to ramble the house looking through my mother's million books for Lincoln books, and get a half hour with one in bed. Then I heard my father say, "But you know what Einstein said--"
I broke in.
"Yes. He said that there should not be a Jewish state in Palestine."
My father sat up straight and looked at me coolly. My father knows how to think. "Yes, I can understand why he would have said that."
For once my inner world and outer world converged in clarity and sympathy. I love company.
Lovely, Phil. Thanks for telling us about your process in moving from planet Mambo to earth: lots of us drift back and forth in that way, and hearing about your efforts to connect with friends helps me with mine.
Trying to work for justice and to do the hardest of all things, help others see beyond prejudice, is rough on our psyches–especially when we're feeling fragile. But that difficulty only makes your quest more admirable.
What I admire about you is your modesty: I regard you as a great success, yet am continually moved by your charming unconsciousness of your own influence–as well as the originality of your perspective.
After nearly 30 years of caring helplessly about equal rights for the Palestinian people, I'm grateful that your exertions are helping to create change at last.
Meanwhile, I learn more every day from you and the many brilliant contributors you've attracted to this site.
How about just crazy. That must be a ball of laughs. The "Pig Weiss" household.
Phil,
You've got hold of a basic truth about our society, but it is still nascent in the collective conscious, not everyone sees it, and you are like a kid in junior high cafeteria who has become an object of curiousity – different, unusual – and everyone is looking at you, not knowing whether the crowd is going to laugh at you, beat you up, or burst into applause. It's like you're the first kid to put a lot of gel in your hair, then not comb it.
Only, in the world of the fashion of ideas, this awkward moment of uncertainty gets drawn out for years, and you are perpetually being laughed at, beaten up, and applauded, all at once. You are being forced to live your life while a part of you is ready for fight or flight, and you must judge the person nearest in the crowd from this primitive perspective. So when you realize the person next to you just wants to talk about his new video game, your mind moves to the next nearest threat. You're paying the price for doggedly pursuing truth, come whence it may, cost what it will. May God give you the courage and patience and wisdom you need.
Yes, Doppler, and Susie, we are not brilliant, merely have a good dose of moral and intellectual integrity–just like you. We thank you for your sharing of same.
Ignore Sword. He's infantile in every way. Same for chris berel, and Suzanne.
Sword,
You should shut up about what you imagine Phil's household is like. You are wrong the vast majority of the time.
When Phil and I were kids, one interest we shared was sailing. It is as reflective as you get, hours alone or with a single friend floating on an ocean. All you get to do is accept, the world and your friend.
At the same time, when the wind picks up, it requires your complete attention. Daydreaming ends very quickly, very naturally.
My criticism of Phil is that in the name of opposing an official story or impression of Israel or Israeli politics, he instead IMPOSES an official story that denies that individuals and history itself has MANY varying perspectives and interpretations.
To pick one, from a particular pro or anti perspective, or time scale, is a FALSE imposition on reality. Especially to the degree that Phil is speculating.
Phil,
I remember your father loving his solitude. Perhaps you are a great deal like him.
phil, don't beat yourself up too much. You are merely experiencing what passion can do. Quite a drug, isn't it?
Besides, you now know how some prophets of old must have felt. Not that they – or you – ever had any choice.
It is strange that Phil did not get that his father considered Einstein to be relatively insane, and that outside of physics, most of his ideas were totally impracticle. What Phil's father did was merely acquiese for peace in the family.
@ witty
"My criticism of Phil is that in the name of opposing an official story or impression of Israel or Israeli politics, he instead IMPOSES an official story that denies that individuals and history itself has MANY varying perspectives and interpretations.
To pick one, from a particular pro or anti perspective, or time scale, is a FALSE imposition on reality. Especially to the degree that Phil is speculating."
No. Although Phil does oppose the official narrrative of Israel, Hollywood, the MSM, the US government as
it pertains to the I-P history, this does NOT translate into some other (opposing) official narrative, except in sailor boy witty's mind. Witty-boy's mental defect is inscribed in his either/or reception of
Phil's free speech. The point ALWAYS IGNORED by witty is that one narrative has long had all the power, and this is not good, for the USA, or long-term Israel. The sailing goes on, the sailboat is going somewhere. Phil thinks it's going to hit some bad rocks, and has already bumped them a lot. witty
sails along, oblivious, impervious to the wind's nuance.
Phil wants to rescue his country and humanity. witty wants to save the jews–he never knows when
the anti-semites will come pounding at his door–a door protected mostly by goy soldiers who can't find another job.
Phil does not do walnut shell games. witty does. It's in his nature.
Both are jews.
Take your pick.
Who would you rather sail with?
Thank you very much Phil for sharing this glimpse of your inner workings. My take is that you are undergoing a major life change, a metamorphosis in your 50's, that will define who you are for the next 15 or 20 years. I think this is exciting and a sign of good mental and spiritual health. As a result your inner dialog is more interesting to you that the usual outside goings-on, but your wife is right you must tend to the outer world too. When you emerge from this transition, shedding your old husk, people will see and respond to the new you that you already see on the inside, and your relationship with the outer world will seem more back in balance.
It's like you're the first kid to put a lot of gel in your hair, then not comb it.
What a great line. So descriptive. Nails it.
You're on a mission, Phil, and your innards know it. It's the Figure-8 of existence: inner and outer. You should cherish this desire to traverse this. AND. Your wife will keep you centered.
Thanks for showing Planet Mambo (in me)- – - -
And the stream of consciousness
That Phil's father is still involved in research in his 80's (or close to it) is something.
The problem with the Israel/Palestine discussion is that BOTH major narratives are accurate and TRUE.
To be anti-Zionist or anti-Palestinian is to express a position about the future.
You've got to pick one proposal, to work FOR something. And, your goal and manner that you pursue that goal have to be coherent in some way.
Phil: "She is more social than I am and also better-bred. She believes in the art of conversation and the principle that you have to sing for your supper; and I know she is right. A dinner party is just a couple of hours long. Company is a nice thing: you give one another support and you also learn about reality."
Your wife is very wise in this. Part of being well bred is an attention to the social protocols that make it possible to have agreeable, if not necessarily exciting, relations with people of different social classes, education, background, and intellect.
At best, you may find a friend in an unexpected place, and at worst you will have the respect and self-respect that goes with courtesy and good breeding.
I have to talk about sports, otherwise it is politics, foreign policy, economics, philosophy, current events or religion that occupies my consciousness, which bores most people, mostly because most of my views do not adhere to the well accepted platitudes that inform their views.
Phil, once again, you remind me of me.
STIGMA: A process by which the reaction of others spoils normal identity. – Erving Goffman
"The problem with the Israel/Palestine discussion is that BOTH major narratives are accurate and TRUE."–Witty
The problem for average Americans, most of us by definition, is that, although we as taxpayers and voters
are enablers, our MSM and government leaders only give us the Israeli narrative.
tommy, it's the same here. My brother says it's the same by him, way across the (USA) nation.