Monday to Friday Blues

   There is no time I hate more than working hours during the week. Not for the reason you would think though, it’s not that I hate my job and I would rather be anywhere else. Quite the contrary, I hate these hours because I don’t have a job. I haven’t for months since getting back to Canada. I could sit here and victimize myself and claim it’s a recession time or that the “system” doesn’t favour thinkers and dreamers, like in my moments of self indulgence I like to believe I am, but the truth is apathy has surfaced  as a coping mechanism. Pleasures can’t be enjoyed during these hours, because not unlike a person that bought something they felt they shouldn’t, doing things you would normally consider fun creates a feeling of guilt. That is the action of a “normal” mind trying to sanction itself in order to focus itself to the task at hand. However, like a white elephant in the room, trying not to have any “fun” till properly sanctioned times – like the later evening or weekends - is a focus diverter in of itself especially with diversion a click away on a computer.

     Monday to Friday sitting here on the one specific cushion that hasn’t sunk in on our brown, slightly grungy, couch I feel sometimes like my truest job lies before me - keeping the motivation to keep on doing this. The game is layered on thick here in Toronto. Resume creation now involves - as directed by resumes “professionals” –   looking at job requirements for specific jobs and placing those requirements directly inside your resume. I was a bit confused by this at first...  aren’t you supposed to list your skills for employer’s consideration, your real skills that is? As opposed to just saying you have what they want. It actually sort of seems to defeat the purpose of a resume at all. However, the job skills listed are so generic and abstract – things like: superior organization skills; adept people skills; magnificent multi tasking – that there’s always a way to claim that you have them.  It took awhile to get use to this and that was before dealing with the North American interview, which has felt worse than selling yourself during a first date. After five failed interviews already, after a nearly spotless European/ Australian interview success rate, I’ve realized that the interview here is just an extension of the phoniness of the resume.

        As a vehicle for my self esteem I consider myself unique. I’m not alone on that one. You’d probably be depressed if you didn’t consider there to be something special about your own subjective experience. An issue is though - if I, and everyone else for that matter, are unique than wouldn’t we all need unique jobs that befit that status?  At one time or another I have done pretty much every type of job. As a traveler, I had a skill, or I guess you could say penchant, for things just coming to me be it a good job – my first copy writing job came through sheer chance – or a shit one at a necessary time – when I moved to Amsterdam with 500 bucks and somehow got a dish washing job about a day before I was set to join the homeless population. I always felt fortune favoured the brave and for that reason something would always come. And it did, though not always in shimmering form.  I’ve done loads of shit work: fruit picking, sales, warehouse, labour, landscaping, data entry, customer service... I even cleaned a yaught one day in Sydney harbour. The thing is being “home” the feeling is that you should do something that personifies you and this purported “uniqueness”...  The issue with this is that other unique people also feel they should work in media as well and there is a vast sea of competition. Often ten plus interviewees for one position...  

    The hardest is maintaining motivation to play this game. Scanning through want ads, feeling pangs of guilt as the wealth of cyberspace constantly calls me somewhere else... if just for a minute, then another. Maybe that is the writer’s curse, glorifying themselves, but surely I can’t be the only one who has ever suffered the Monday to Friday blues? Having the sense of dread as the weekend comes to a close and knowing that I face another week ahead here on the brown cushion.

Top 20 American Films

 Last week my friend Cody Lang and I sat discussing films. As usual we agree, and disagree, and took glee in expounding on our brilliant film tastes while bashing the others. The question looms though - are our film taste’s brilliant or fool hearted? Needing an audience to address that you be the judge. We decided to create our own top twenty of our “favourite” – not what others would consider the “best” – American films. 

    Some words on my list. I’ve always been pretty high on the thinking man’s film. I watch films to learn more about reality rather than escape it. So with that said there are a lot of films on my lists that have to do with society, time travel, identity, and a dystopian future. A couple luminaries come up a few times too, I definitely love David Lynch, Stanley Kubrik, and the Coen Brothers. Well enough of my chatter. Here is my list, please enjoy, and hopefully comment whether in agreement or disagreement. I’d love to hear what you have to say. My list is in no specific order and I made some effort to grab a title from most genres as to give the list some breadth.

My American Film Top 20 in no specific order:

Pulp Fictionn (1994) : Still my favourite ever theatre experience. Everyone laughed at all the dark comedic moments and I was in stitches both from the dialogue as well as Tarantino’s penchant for the absurd... think the whole Zed story and Vinny Vega accidently blowing a guy’s head off while waving his gun around.  

The Tree of Life (2011) : Not as much a film as a treatise on the essence of existence on a grand cosmological level. Terrence Mallick, coming towards the end of his life, puts this forward as his Opus and has shown us that despite the staggering importance we put on ourselves as individuals that we are so small in the grand scheme of things. A masterpiece!

The Sting (1973) : A close call between this and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, but I felt this Robert Redford/ Paul Newman pairing was just a little more fun. Great comedy mixed in with gangsters, prohibition bootlegging and pulling off the ULTIMATE con.

Aliens (1986) : The sequel to Alien moves the franchise away from space horror into science fiction. The film is big in every scale as you’d expect from James Cameron and creates a mind blowing future that includes a kick ass future army core and aliens that are not to be trifled with. As with Blade Runner I never really get sick of watching this film, it's action with a scientific bent that is worthy of any number of viewings.

China Town (1974) : Grimy film noir that mixes water rationing with the taboos of incest - a bold combination. Jack Nicholson spends half the film with a massive bandage on his nose as he navigates the toughs and delinquents of a James Elroy style underbelly of Los Angeles.

Slacker (1991): Richard Linklater has long been one of my favourites and this homage of everyday life in Austin, Texas  - as much as “Dazed and Confused” – has made me want to visit there. The film follows an eclectic collection of artists, drunks, and miscreants each holding the camera’s attention for five minutes before it follows another person. Experimental film making that is edgy and relevant.

Miller’s Crossing (1990) : The ultimate in film noir dialogue with Gabriel Byrne holding court as a brilliant mafia bootlegger that plays both sides of the fence between rival gangs. The Coen brother’s production as always brings dark comedy and hilariously contrived characters that while slightly over the top do not throw the authenticity of the era being highlighted into question.

Blade Runner (1982) : Rooted with deep existentialist underpinnings this futuristic noir looks at the essence of identity in an era where humanity and machine are getting more and more blurred. As with any great piece of Science Fiction this film is possibly more relevant today than when it originally came out 30 years back. An amazing, brooding looking film that still stands the test of time for the future it presents.  

Pi (1998) : Darren Aronfsky’s first film, made for less than $50,000 dollars, stands above all of his others in terms of the complexity of characterisation. The film looks at the nature of genius and its correlates to madness as a mathematician comes painfully close to an algorithm that could decode not only the stock market, but reality and nature itself. A MUST see...

No Country for Old Men (2007) : Like other Coen Brother’s films this one is existentialist in character looking at the seeming absurdity of life where good and evil do not align with consequence. Great acting -especially from Javier Bardem who plays a psychopath with his own brand of idealism.

Raiders of the Lost Arc (1981) : Fantastic, epic adventure spanning continents as Dr Indiana Jones squares off against the Nazi’s to locate the Arc of the Covenant. By far the best of the series encapsulating both adventure and fun in globe stomping style.

Memento (2000 ): A brain twisting film shot in reverse as an allegory for the lead characters anterograde amnesia. (not being able to encode new memories in short term memory.) A man, played by Guy Pierce, looks to get closure on his final encoded memory: seeing someone murder his wife. An intriguing narrative comes together as well as a philosophical reflection on reality, memory, and the construction and the reconstruction of identity.

Silence of the Lambs (1991) : A seminal thriller and the best of the “serial” killer films, in a close call with Seven, which pits a novice FBI agent Clarise Starling against the brilliant psychopath Dr Hannibal Lector. Though the pursuit of another serial killer is the films chief narrative the dialogue scenes between Lector and Starling are the most memorable and present a tangible, be it creepy, chemistry between the leads.

Mulholland Drive (2001) : A masterpiece from David Lynch as he delves into the question of identity, reality, and agency by looking at a girl’s experience in Hollywood through a long, twisting, lucid dream.  A movie that begs reflection and my all time favourite film.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) : A genuine space opera as man’s first forays into space are motivated by an alien intelligence. Shot in the early 60’s the look of this film is amazing, the score amazing, and the depth of philosophical insight without peer. Viewers are challenged to consider the possibilities of technology reaching too far and other worldly consciousnesses beyond anything conceivable by human experience. Comparable in scope to Mallik’s: “The Tree of Life.”

Dazed and Confused (1993) : Within a list of more or less “heavy” films "Dazed and Confused" lightens things up a bit. An ensemble cast, each representing different personalities around an Austin Texas High School in 1976, enjoy the last day of school by partying and musing about their city and their futures. I’ve always wished I could have hung out with some of these people. Not to mention a load of future stars got their beginnings in this film.

LA Confidential (1997): Brash, brooding noir that high lights Hollywood in an era when film stars, mobsters, and police were interchangeable and there was a real seedy side behind all the Hollywood glitz. Fabulous performances, including a star making performance by Russell Crowe, make this a delightfully entertaining cops and robbers yarn where no one is as they seem.

Dr Strangelove (1964) : Hilarious satire as Stanley Kubrik depicts the possible end of the world with a cast of characters worthy of Joseph Heller’s Catch 22. Constantly laugh out loud funny in particular each time Peter Seller’s graces the screen.

Twelve Monkeys (1995) : A time travel film that intelligently begs the question: if there is one stream of time (which of course is debateable) won’t attempts to change the past using time travel have to lead to a future that has already taken into account that attempt and because of that be unchangeable? That is a Catch 22 ad-infitum... all this with Brad Pitt playing a memorable crazy eyed, seeming psychotic.

Barton Fink (1991) : This Faustian tale looks at a hell in of itself through an unfulfilled writer who will never get to write what he wants and who will forever be under the thumb of Hollywood studio heads who have him writing pictures about professional wrestlers. John Goodman’s role as the devil, and ring master of this Sisyphean world, is brilliant. A film that milks the absurdity of art and it’s seemingly permanent disfunctional marriage with business.  

Put a Little Thought Into It

     Popular culture always has new trends; sometimes the trends are just old trends resurfacing a new. I read an interesting article in the Economist extolling the virtues of NOT thinking. The gist of the article was that a return to instinctual action could yield better results than thinking. For anyone that has sat pondering should I, shouldn’t I ad-infinitum... maybe there is some logic there. I know sometimes just doing something than reacting to what happens works better than thinking about  the "possible" outcome. Later I flipped through a copy of the Atlantic and again the topic of non thinking was front and centre. The featured article was about BF Skinner style behaviorism, the ultimate Psychological paradigm of non thinking and just acting, making a millennial resurgence. All this non thinking discussion struck a chord with me as I fall on the scale of over thinking. Maybe I have been wrong this whole time???

      BF Skinner is one of the most maligned and vilified of the 20^th centuries Psychologists. Most people that have taken Psychology 101 know him as the man who trained pigeons using incentives or what he later called operant conditioning. It’s a simple process: reward pigeons, with say food, the behaviors you want to see more of and punish, with say electric shocks, the behaviors you want to see less. Where he flubbed up, or so say his detractors, (and I was surprised to find out Noam Chomsky was at the lead of them) was by discounting human consciousness and self talk as a vital component in human decision making. He believed that most of our actions were just habitual in their origin and derived from previous learned habit.The Atlantic article I mentioned applied Skinner’s thinking, using new technologies like smart phones, to tackling modern world problems such as weight loss. The idea being that if thinking of the long term gain, a thinner body somewhere down the road, is not enough why not use immediate incentives in the short term to achieve the goal. The program devised was to connect over weight populations by social media using smart phones as a support group. This group would provide instant feedback for each other and give positive reinforcement when you stuck to your eating and exercise goals and negative when you do not.  Positive and negative reinforcement are strong opiates in the mind even having an addictive quality. Apparently the results have been HUGE. Literally, people are training themselves to take on better habits and in time maintain those habits without external incentives. 

         As a person with a seemingly never ending self dialogue the idea of tricking my brain into doing positive things seems interesting. With some thought (there it is again...) though it does seem like a partial band aid to conscious choice. Socrates much used quote: “know thy self” comes into play here.  Shouldn’t people be dissecting the underlying reasons for bad habits and behaviors rather than just trying to deprogram them? Is action all that really matters – and shouldn’t one try be acutely aware of the thoughts and underlying structures that make up those actions? All these musings, and the very concept of behaviorism, makes me wonder if the human animal is not so far off from our genetic primates in that we are just biological vessels looking for the next body high. Even if that high comes from something as seemingly arbitrary as the buzz we get from positive reinforcement. If this is true, can the same programming that works on pigeons and rats be almost as effective on humans? Surely not when taking into account the uniquely human abilities of self reflection and envisioning how present actions will affect us later. Then again, though? Here’s another angle on these issues. A guy takes one look at a girl in a club... two minutes later they’re making out. Now without entering his mind I don’t think there was a lot of mental ping pong going on. Another example - one of the hardest shots in basketball is the totally wide open jump shot where there is time to think about it. The best thing to do is just shoot without a moment’s reflection and let practiced behavior take over. All of us are filled with so many learned behaviors that even the devout thinker has to realize that they are still able to do all their thinking while doing a litany of learned behaviors.  Literally, we are petri dishes of learned behaviors that are both positive and negative.

      Maybe we really are just the accumulation of our habits and it’s these habits that drive what we perceive and our self talk? One thing stopping me from believing this though is my love of the toughest question of them all, and that one that yields the least societal rewards, that of WHY? Even if we can use behaviorism to build a litany of positive habits that only answers the how of living good. The question of why we couldn’t do this on our own still lingers. Existentialism has long been my philosophical creed and it basically runs counter intuitive to behaviorism. The idea is that we are all totally responsible for our choices as we are totally free... our bodies, genes, and personalities can’t stop us from making our own choices and being responsible for the outcomes. Existentialism is a philosophy of ownership for ones actions.With that philosophy backing my position behaviorism sounds to me like the continued medicalization of behavior and another method to escape personal accountability. I’m not saying it’s not a good idea to build positive habits, using these techniques, but if one cannot answer why they didn’t have these habits in the first place than a serious issue remains. Everyone's chooses their epistemological systems of belief, through conscious thought or handed down acceptance, and though new uses for behaviorism are interesting they don't gel completely to me. I have a need to understand, for myself why I act and this stops me from putting my faith in this system, interesting as it is...

   Maybe you see it different than me though? Should one question why good behaviors are adopted or just be happy they are there?