Venus im Pelz

Titian, Venus with a Mirror, ca. 1555

Venus in Furs receives her slave. I see that you are no ordinary dreamer. You at least don't lag behind your dreams. You are the sort of man who carries out whatever he imagines, no matter how insane. I must confess I like that, I am impressed. It shows strength, and only strength is respected. I even believe that in unusual circumsances, in an era of greatness, you would reveal your seeming weakness as a wonderful strength. Under the first emperors you would have been a martyr, at the time of the Reformation an Anabaptist, during the French Revoluations one of those inspired Girondists who mounted the guillotine with the Marseillaise on their lips.

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Venus in Furs, 1870

Upon recommendation, I just finished reading Venus in Furs, a novella written by von Sacher-Masoch as part of the larger work Testament of Cain (sometimes Legacy of Cain). It was a short, strong whirlwind of a narrative--utterly insane and passionate, a story that makes one believe that love is more important than going into work.

I find that I spend much of my time with friends who are immersed and believe fully in the complete, unquestionable nobility and truth of the sciences--in biology and physics, in chemistry and medicine, in the engineering of new technologies housed in aluminum, enlivened by electricity, powerful with their capacity of language and memory--commands and digits writing new worlds in mesmerizing high definition. They find ultimate meaning in prolonging life, in growing cells that will one day cure breast cancer, uncloud the brains of Alzheimer's patients, or bring back hearts that are intent on stopping.

Another large majority spends a good deal of time and zeal analyzing and reimagining society, laws, management, business-- they patiently and carefully pick apart the complicated mesh of a million-word world of contract and currency either in order to climb the structure or else to bring the whole thing down or else to make it more sustainable.

I often tell people, when they ask me how Harvard is, that there is one common characteristic of the students I meet here--it is as close as a generalization can get to encompassing everyone here--it's one that bores and saddens me at times and utterly fascinates and humbles me at others: everyone has something about which they are very, very serious. And I don't mean that everyone has a talent. Whether its music, or sports, or cooking, or academics, or romantic obsession, or just keeping a daily, disciplined routine, there is, hardwired into the system of almost every person, a very serious streak. It didn't exist in everyone I knew in San Diego. It doesn't exist in all the people I meet elsewhere. And so now I find myself writing, in the flowery way that I do when I've just read something very moving, and wondering where the dreamers have gone.

It's been a long time since I've read something about humans. I've taken to reading non-fiction about architecture, textbooks on engineering, and reports about army technology. Venus in Furs is recognized as one of the seminal literary expressions of sadomasochism (it contributed to the introduction of "masochism" as a clinical category in the book on sexual psychopathologies and is often cited in writings on the subject). But though it is fiction, von Sacher-Masoch himself subscribed to this sort of life--he and his lover played out the dramatized story in the novella, of a mistress and her love slave who live by alternately struggling against and riding on the throes of pain and love, both physical and emotional. There is little significant consideration or analysis of society and/or historical events of any kind, it is focused completely on two lovers, out of time, out of place.

I have met people here who dream about ways to save the world, ways to hike all the Presidentials in one day, ways to live their lives fully and well and maybe even recklessly, and yet, I don't think I've really heard anything or experienced anyone who lives life appealing completely and solely to emotion. I hear successful classmates poo-poo their black sheep younger siblings who smoke and drink and do stupid things. I hear rebels in blueblood clothing assert their repression by counting their inebriated and incapacitated nights. But that's disdain of recklessness and that's recklessness for the sake of rebellion or revenge. I know no one who is so completely true only to passion, who is obligated to no one but themselves, who cares always and only to dream and realize dreams--I don't miss recklessness or rebellion, I miss honesty to desire. I don't think it's that true dreamers don't exist in the world--I know they do, I've met at least one.

So now I suppose I am also wondering if that's the kind of life I care to live. It is hard to really, totally indulge and really be a hedonist. I just wonder if I could do it. It's an intriguing idea. I don't mean to drop out of school, or quit jobs or drop out of society, I just mean to live for myself. To be wild, and to be a lover, always. It's all crazytalk, I know. But I do wonder if I could live like that. I wonder how it would suit me to really live in furs.

Integration... that's an MIT thing right?

A few weeks ago, my boss/professor friended me on the Facebook. Okay, weird, but you can't refuse, right?

Yesterday, in response to my email about the flexible spider couplings arriving, he replied:

MMmmmm, spider couplings.

Spider Couplings!
Spider Couplings!
Does what ever a spider coupling does!

Spins a web? No it doesn't. It's a coupling.
Look out! Here comes the spider coupling.

(I just had my first half cup of coffee in 4 days)

Good thing I saw the Simpsons movie last night or I wouldn't have been able to come up with a properly hilarious response.

Today, he sent an email to the group with no body and the subject line: "ouch. hard drive crash. my life sucks. I blame leeann."

(For context, earlier this week my hard drive crashed for the second time this summer. Dell, I hate you. I hate you so much.)

Generally, I would say it's a bad thing when your boss/professor blames the suckiness of his life on you, but I think this may just be a sign that I'm finally being integrated into the group. The Harvard jokes have decreased drastically, and I proved myself a few weeks ago by helping lift the 135-lb. battery we got for the kayak. I may not be an engineer, but perhaps I can find a niche at MIT as resident book-appreciator and weight lifter.

(Oh, and for more context, his fiancee was my tutorial leader this past semester and he basically took me upon her recommendation. And he went to UCSD for his MFA. And his father was one of the leading scientists in the positive psychology movement, and wrote a book that my other boss at Harvard adores and gave to me as recommended reading.)

Humility, Forgiveness, Hospitality

I think that people mistake humility for a lack of pride, forgiveness for weakness, and hospitality for prostitution. I think people mistake acceptance for copping out.

I think that love doesn't last because people have learned that they should fend for themselves and that they shouldn't tolerate anything less than what they deserve.

I think that sometimes you will be treated badly, and sometimes you will make mistakes; I think that no matter how much you really care or really love or really want something you are going to mess up and be a bad person, a bad friend, and a bad lover, and that you should always try, even if you aren't forgiven. I think you should take the lessons given you, even if they tell you you are unwise, you are petty, you are lacking, you are wanting. You should take the lessons given you, and try again. And try to be better.

I think you should always forgive. You should always be able to forgive, no matter what's been done to you.

Ultimate Post

I am making a new calendar.

I love making new calendars, new schedules, new plans. There is so much potential I can just feel it; I could work it and squeeze it like meat through a grinder. (What a weird simile. I was thinking something juicy and mushy and a little bit gross but powerful. Did I tell you guys that I'm a vegetarian now?)

I am making a calendar for Quasar. A list of skills, a schedule for fitness, some ideas for parties, some hopes for new tournaments. I wonder if everyone feels this way before the start of the season: excited without reserve, cruising full speed in no direction without the drag of frustration because nothing has actually begun or failed. It's much faster to type out a list of skills you'd want to see by December than it is to teach a rookie to throw a accurate, flat forehand with enough spin. But I can't see any downside to excessive buoyancy of spirit at this point. I've got further to fall, yes, but I also have that much more resistance to the downward pull. Besides, our crowd is so social this year (my own class alone can carry a raucous party or a 12-hour car ride: Harvard's ultimate frisbee class of 2009 is not only large, but diverse, friendly, and good-humored) that even if the technical things don't pan out quite right, it's going to be a lot of great camaraderie, stupid inside jokes, and very good mix CDs.

Copy, Red Dog.

So I work in a cubicle during the day and a building called the "Cube" in the afternoon and evening, but once in a every long while, we do fantastic things like kayak on the Mystic River while waiting for the battery to charge from the prof's car battery before remote controlling a rudder & motor attached to another kayak (unmanned water vehicle!). So maybe I just watched the little high school computer programming intern control it, but I will soon be controlling the unmanned ground vehicle. The UWV and UGV and the UAV (air) are all going to be employed in protest against such looming injustice and/or promotion of inhumanity as military use of robots like SWORDS and the Minutemen patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border.

Permissions

Facebook allows a user to set all kinds of different levels of privacy for every part of the profile in order to ensure a sense of safety and degree of restraint (as false as it may be--but I'm not actually interested in debating that here). That's something that makes people so much more open on the Internet; it's like lacking the inhibitions that are similarly dispelled with alcohol, but being able to set parameters that say, "Creepy Joe Shmoe can't see my phone number and photos, but BFF Lindsey Mindsey can," and to have that be so. (Again, let's ignore the fact that entering your phone number anywhere online means that it's out there for CyberStalker Joe Hacker to find.)

Real life is decidedly less simple. There's a variably fine wall that separates hospitality from "come hither," and sometimes, depending on the guest-cum-invader, the stakes are pretty high if one missteps. College is such a strange time and place; the combination of living, working, and playing with your classmates makes for a volatile foundation, especially when additives like alcohol and manipulative (if well-meaning) friends come into play. Setting boundaries requires one to strike some balance between definition and delicacy; too harsh, and you lose or hurt friends; too delicate, and some people just don't get the hint. You end up stiffly spooning with a well-meaning young lad and counting the hours until he leaves.

People are such an easy commodity right now; I've heard many stories about the terrifyingly stagnant pool that is the social scene post-college (one defined by the boundaries of the office and the apartment building), but sometimes I think that the ease by which college folks can meet and dump each other makes us take each other for granted.

Since when did an invitation to dinner translate to an invitation to my room? My door needs privacy settings. Maybe I should be more detailed in my facebook profile. "About me: Prone to hospitality. Eager to cook for numbers and lend couch space to temporarily homeless friends. Disclaimer: helping me make dinner and revealing feelings while drunk does not grant permission to enter my bedroom after I excuse myself for bed. Uncomfortable with confrontation, so just... don't go there."

Oh, dear!

Yesterday morning as I ran errands in the square, a scruffy man walking half-asleep past the Gap window display jumped and sputtered a very audible, "JEEZ-us!" He shook his head quickly like a dog shaking off uncouth fleas and pulled on his red, grease-stained shirt to recompose before he continued on.

As I walked past, I saw the display, three sets of bras and panties neatly displayed on wooden hangers, asking, "What's in your top drawer?"

The whole event was incredibly adorable.