Ayn Rand and Scrabble

Happy Memorial Day weekend! During Saturday's meeting, you could say we had a memorial to Ayn Rand as we listened to Harry Binswanger and Allan Gotthelf's talk on Ayn Rand's character and personality. It was story after story of how she took her values seriously, especially the positive ones, and innumerable instances of her personal warmth, caring and friendship.

I've also transcribed my favorite excerpt from one of Harry Binswanger's recollections, for your referential pleasure:

When I got to know her best, I used to go over to play Scrabble with her. And I just thought you would like to know what kind of Scrabble player this genius, ruthless Egoist was. She played cooperative Scrabble. She said, “Do you want me not to go there?” “Were you planning to go there, because I don’t want to mess up what you’re doing.” She was not competitive – she was cooperative. And I reciprocated.

One time, an opportunity opened up. Now if you know Scrabble, the bottom row was opened up, and there were two columns going down into it, so it was theoretically possible that you could go across one triple-word score all the way to the other triple-word score and get nine-fold of your score. And she’s got some blanks, so she’s looking at her rack, and I say, “let me see what you got,” and she shows me what she’s got, and this is how far things degenerated. And I said, “let me look through the dictionary, because you’ve got a ‘Q’ and if you could get your ‘Q’ on the double-letter score, that already would be 180 points.” …

So she’s sitting there with a ‘Q’, and the logical possibility of the bottom row being filled in for a triple-triple. So I pick up the Scrabble dictionary and within one second I see “seaquake,” an earthquake at sea. And I look down at her tiles, and she has it! … And she puts down “seaquake,” and the ‘Q’ lands on the double-letter score. So she gets 180 points, and I think she got over 300 points, but it was totally phony, because we cheated. I didn’t know “seaquake.” But that was the way she played Scrabble. She played as an act of friendship and cooperation and enjoyment. She was not a cutthroat player at all.

What a wonderful way of looking at a game! I just love it. This is very funny to me, because I've seen Objectivists in the past think that game-playing must be inherently competitive and based on the strict principles of justice -- that it is somehow immoral and unjust to go outside the rules of the game. (Of course this depends of what values and rules both parties agree to in advance.)

What struck me about this story was that Ayn Rand didn't desire to be the winner of this game. She wanted to do the best she could and especially wanted to see Harry do the best he could, and they worked together to produce the best word-plays. She valued seeing the best within her and other's minds regardless of who won the game. There have been many moments when I've read her works or read about her life that I felt the desire to reach out and give her a hug if she were still living, and this is one of them.

(This brings to mind the scene in Atlas Shrugged where Dagny was playing tennis with Francisco. Having first interpreted this scene as Dagny wanting to win for her own achievement, I think she won it so that Francisco could take enjoyment in seeing her do her best, along with the other elements of courtship involved -- no pun intended!)

This pro-learning, pro-effort mentality, regardless of the outcome of a game or who you might impress, is truly the most individualistic, and the most successful method of personal improvement. Comparing yourself to others will not make you better. It's looking at yourself, limits AND strengths, and finding out the best way to be the most productive with what you have. If there is someone better than you at a given task, it's a great opportunity to find out what that person is doing right, and emulate it.

This reminds me of a short news video we watched at the meeting about a 12 year old girl basketball player being kicked off the boy's team because she played too well. This sounds horrible, of course, but listen to what a boy teammate has to say about her effect on the team (about a third of the way through the video). One would hope with that nice story being broadcast nationally that The Hoops team would be pressured to correct their evil ways!

Another Objectivist Adventure on May 24

Our next Robert and Amy Objectivist adventure will take place this coming Saturday, May 24, starting at 530pm with dinner around 630pm. We will be listening to and discussing the audio recording of Harry Binswanger and Allan Gotthelf’s “New York Centenary Reminiscences of Ayn Rand” from the Facets of Ayn Rand site.

There are many anecdotes on this site that illustrate how Ayn Rand was truly a lovely and warm-hearted person. I encourage everyone to read it, or re-read it. It's delightful to know that the one philosopher and artist whom I most respect intellectually had such a charming personality as well.

A funny story from last meeting -- we were sitting in the living room having a studying-good-time, when an older man peered in through the window and knocked at the door. Robert answered, and the man exclaimed that he hoped that he wasn't interrupting our prayer meeting (!), but would we like to sign a petition about something-or-other. Prayer meeting? I think not. We didn't correct him, but said no thank you and politely shooed the poor fellow away. Perhaps he could have told us more about the petition, but you know what they say about assuming. ; - )

Our Objectivist study meeting schedule is set for every fourth Saturday of each month. If you live in southeastern Michigan and would like to know more, please email me. We'd love for you to stop by and sit a spell!

The Remus Lupins and the Young Amy

Have you ever had an experience where some of your highest values and most important memories came to the forefront of the present moment and reoccurred, making it feel like years of your life integrated themselves into an intense focus and came full circle? Well, I have!

It was Monday, March 17, 2008, St. Patrick's Day. My husband, Robert, and I went to see a favorite band of mine at a place called The Modern Exchange in Southgate, Mich. Before I describe the scene, I need to give some back-story.

When I was in high school, I was an artsy punk/goth/Nietschzean existentialist (explicitly!), and even looked the part (pictures coming soon). There was a vintage clothing store called Penny Pinchers that I tried to frequent as much as I could. The owners brought the strangest, most flamboyant clothes from New York, and the owners were rumored to be good friends of the B-52s. Everything was odd about the place, in the best sense of odd.

I loved seeing the other artsy people who dared to go in (the bizarre mannequins in the front windows made good scarecrows). They played the most mysterious music, and there was even a distinct musty spell about the place. It meant a lot to me being there, and took me out of the boring, ugly world that I called home, and gave me a glimpse of what could be, in a life-as-stylistic way. (I’d say similar to how Harry Potter felt when first discovering the wizarding world.)

So one day I was perusing the My Space page of my favorite Wizard Wrock band, The Remus Lupins, and noticed that they were coming to town. Performance night came, and as we were driving up Dix Road in Southgate to find this place, I nearly jumped through the car roof -- to my utter surprise and amazement the ModEx was in the same building as Penny Pinchers! I had no idea. Not a clue. I had known that Penny Pinchers went out of business in the 90s, but no idea still.

After calming down from this exciting revelation, I went inside and learned that they not only sold vintage clothes, they redesigned the back warehouse and built a large stage where they had local bands play most nights and sold their CDs as well! What is really amazing about all this is that many of these local bands were from my hometown, and they were punk bands (!).

When I was a teenager, the dearth of anything new and interesting and weird and romantic and adventurous was palpable and stifling. I was the only one of my kind (which I'll explain in a future post). To find my hometown brimming with alternative bands playing every night of the week at the epicenter of my former oasis was, well, rather amazing. My past as a punk rocker (of the good, philosophical kind) hit straight on with my present as a big fan of The Remus Lupins. It was thrilling!

Here is an audio clip of one of that night's songs -- listening is the only means of understanding the awesomeness of Alex Carpenter of the Lupins on stage with only an acoustic guitar, a mic and dozens of singing and screaming girls (including me!). Brilliant!!!

Objectivist Meeting at My House

Happy Spring-Time...

Robert and I will be hosting an Objectivist meeting this Saturday, April 26, starting at 530pm, and having dinner around 630pm. We hold Objectivist study meetings every fourth Saturday of each month. So if you live in south-eastern Michigan, please email me for more information. We'd love to meet you!

Oh, and don’t forget to celebrate Earth Day by purchasing your very own Carbon Debit.

Gottschalk: The Chopin of the Creoles

I recently discovered some sparklingly beautiful piano music, which I first thought was Chopin. I was surprised and delighted to find out the composer was American, born in 1829 in New Orleans. Here is an excerpt from a NY Sun article:

When he died in 1869, Louis Moreau Gottschalk was the most famous musician in the Western Hemisphere. New Orleans's answer to Europe's great virtuosi - the Chopin of the Creoles, as he was called - Gottschalk enjoyed the kind of popularity that today we associate with rock stars. In the smallest towns of the American West, on isolated Caribbean plantations, in war-torn Latin American capitals, listeners turned out by the hundreds and thousands to hear him. Girls passed him notes before concerts, begging him to play their favorite pieces. He gave command performances for President Lincoln and the emperor of Brazil. His compositions, short and sparkling piano pieces that drew heavily on folk rhythms and popular tunes, sold tens of thousands of copies. During the Civil War, his patriotic fantasia "The Union" and his sentimental "meditation," "The Dying Poet," were some of the best-known pieces of music in America.

This is my kind of music – joyous, hopeful and individualistic. Please listen here and read more from Wiki.

Protest Earth “Cower” – Celebrate Edison Hour

Today at 8pm ET, I will be turning on all the lights in my house to celebrate, what I call, Edison Hour. If Thomas Edison were alive today, I’m sure he would be protesting today’s evil nonsense – what the World Wide Fund for Nature is calling Earth Hour, or Earth Cower, as I prefer to call it. From Wikipedia:

Earth Hour is an international event that asks households and businesses to turn off their lights and non-essential electrical appliances for one hour on the evening of 29 March at 8 pm local time until 9 pm to promote electricity conservation and thus lower carbon emissions. It may also help reduce light pollution, and in 2008, coincides with the beginning of National Dark Sky Week in the USA.

There are around 21 major cities in America participating. Detroit, and Dearborn, Mich., home to Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park buildings, aren’t participating – thank goodness. The cities who are participating are either blinding jumping on this feel-good, public relations bandwagon, or are explicitly conceding that technology, i.e. capitalism and human achievment, are causing global warming by increasing carbon emissions. In response to this outright lie, please watch this video.

So, please celebrate Edison Hour tonight at 8pm. I hope to find every light switch and every means of using electricity – perhaps even a few flashlights – and turn them on! Open your blinds and curtains and let the light shine to the heavens and celebrate technology!

Teens Having Sex – Go Figure

Really, I don't fish around for any URLs that have the word “sex” in them. Honest and for true. However, I was intrigued when I watched a news show a few months ago that interviewed the creators of the Midwest Teen Sex Show.

They explained that they wanted to promote a discussion about sex as it relates to teens. What I found was a very good-natured, yet provocative, Web site that features some amazingly clever videos on a range of very interesting topics. Being that I don't buy into any of the religious sexual culture, it was so refreshing to find that the Midwest Teen Sex Show doesn't either.

I would recommend visiting their site to just about everyone I know, probably over the age of 15. So find yourself a time of day when no one is around, and enjoy this well-written, courageous and educational site!

Kindredist Meaning

Hmmm…I bet you were wondering today what the etymology of “kindredist” is.

First, I wanted a name that no other Web site has used. So I’m happy to have made it up and found that it is a completely new word, and one that is not found in any language, so it is exclusive to my blog. It also has direct connection to my view of life, of justice, and, especially, of praise. So let’s start with the root word.

Although it generally refers to family as in “kin,” "kindred" is a word often used in one of my favorite stories, "Anne of Green Gables," in the phrase "kindred spirit." In the story, it meant being more than a best friend, but not in a sexual way, and had a similar meaning to “soulmate” but within the context of friendship, or a friend whom you truly love who shares an exciting and benevolent view of life with you.

Therefore, "kindredist" means someone who practices loving his or her values and praises similarly-minded people, within a rational, grateful and benevolent context.

Turn Signal Insight

One day, I will learn how to create my own customized bumper stickers (the magnetic kind that you can remove anytime, of course). I have a message that I would love to have displayed on my car for all to see -- please use your turn signal. But in case this might sound too preachy, I've penned a better phrase:

Turn Signal Users Make Better Lovers

Provocative, to-the-point, and nice like me. This phrase implies that those drivers who do not use their turn signals are impotent or sexually-awkward -- which, I think, is true.

I have politely considered the arguments given by people who believe that signaling before changing lanes will only make the other drivers not let you in. I find this to be a weak excuse for lack of courtesy, and an expression of cynicism. It's important to send the message out to other drivers that you are changing lanes. It is not only a courtesy, but most importantly, it indicates that you are a conscientious driver and in control of your car -- and that you are not having a stoke or heart attack, unable to control your car, and therefore weaving between lanes.

So to all turn signal users: I salute you!

Be Proud

To complement my previous post, here is a nice thought from Your Daily Dose of Happiness:

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TODAY'S DOSE
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WINNING

What does it mean to win? We are taught by popular culture, especially the movies and of course all the contests organized from early on in school through lotteries and sporting events, that winning means walking away with the one and only prize, the trophy, the top spot.

But people are winning every day in life, all over the place, and thankfully they are not doing it to earn instant fame and trophies. You win when you give it your all. You win when you give someone else your all. You win when you improve. You win when you make life worth living. And there can be only one judge in this contest - you. Set your sites on winning today.

This is good advice and works well with the virtue of Pride, as Ayn Rand defined it: "Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man's values, it has to be earned..." So after you find yourself doing something good -- don't forget to give yourself all the credit you've earned, and be proud. (Thanks to my husband, Robert, for forwarding!)

Super Bowl Thump

This is one of the reasons sports is just anathema to my mindset. I have never really enjoyed sports (except maybe for a rare basketball game), but this is just pathetic:

"This will always linger," Patriots defensive end Jarvis Green said following his team's 17-14 defeat to the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII at University of Phoenix Stadium. "We can't do anything about it. When we go home, we're going to be the losers of Super Bowl XLII. Whenever we see that Super Bowl, every time we think about it, we're always going to be the losers. We'll have to learn to deal with that."

This really gets to the heart of the psychological gloom of sports competition. Both teams played very well, and they both should be proud. Why is the sport of football (or any sport) so hell-bent on emphasizing loss and defeat? I would have loved to have seen less of the mentally-impeded, testosterone-fueled muscle flexing, air-punching anger; I would have loved to have seen a few well-meaning compliments given to the losing team after the game; I would have loved to have seen the winning team speaker rise above the level of pro-wrestling retardation; I would have loved to have seen the Giants shaking the hands of the second-best team, the Patriots, and congratulating them on a great game. But none of this occurred.

I have heard from avid sports fans that sports holds up an exalted example of human achievement. But in the largest event of American sports, the Super Bowl, half the effort and brilliance and thought and achievement is negated, basically erased, by that sick, self-beating of calling yourself, and being called, a loser. I would much rather have watched a beauty pageant – it’s there that winners and non-winners alike are happy for each other no matter what the outcome, or at least they show it.

In Loving Memory of Bob Karvonen

Our good friend Bob Karvonen passed away in November 2007. I knew him for 12 years. He was a brilliant scientist, biologist, writer and video cameraman (as I later found out!).

For those of you who knew him in Objectivist circles, it was very easy to like him a lot. He stood out for his zaniness, his powerful intelligence, his ability to explain technical science in lucid terms, and his ability to find enjoyment in just about anything. When I found out he passed away, it was very difficult to believe, and it is now, as I’m still able to clearly recall the way he laughed and joked and listened and contemplated. I can hear his laugh even now, and I’m sure I won’t forget it.

I understand that everyone has their own way of dealing with the death of a loved one, but I try to have a different approach. I would call it “remembering that I’ve been enriched” – that my life, my personality, has been positively enhanced by Bob Karvonen. And I also know that his life was enormously enriched by his friends. I am so happy he knew us.

On a side note regarding death, I really have to thank Ayn Rand for helping me obtain a healthy perspective. It’s a long story, but it can be summed up in knowing that I don’t have a primacy of consciousness (or religious) perspective, that I won’t be miserably pining to see Bob in the afterlife, and that I know that this situation is absolute.

Some would think that grieving might be easier to handle if there were a hope that I would “see” him again. But I think the opposite. I know there is no consciousness without a body, and when I die, I won’t have eyes to see anything. Grieving is a form of integration. During each instance without Bob, I have to remind myself that he is not here, which is difficult and sad, but there will come a time when I won’t have to remind myself.

At that time I can stop integrating so much, and I can be free to focus on his memory as a happy thought. If I included in my thoughts the painful, uncertain anticipation of joining him in the afterlife (which many religious people experience), I would not have that moment where I could go on with my happy, but final, memories of him. I guess I would imagine all kinds of weird things like growing wings off my back, and what outfit would I end up with when I’m dead, and being tremendously sad that so many people I love are still down on earth, and wondering if they will make the spiritual grade, etc. Silly stuff, really – but, boy, am I glad I don’t have to deal with it!

So here is a link to the memorial I made for Bob. I hope you enjoy it. I often look at it. And even if you didn’t know him, it’s a pleasant reminder of what wonderful things you can achieve when you’re alive.
LoveYouBob.pdf

Happy Hogmanay!

The Scottish have finally opened their presents. Yesterday and today in Scotland, revelers are celebrating a substitute for Christmas, Hogmanay (hog-muh-NAY). Referenced from a book that I adore reading every year starting late November, "The World Encyclopedia of Christmas," by Gerry Bowler:

Hogmanay is New Year's Eve in Scotland, the focus of most holiday revelry.

"Get up, good wife, and shake your feathers,
And dinna think that we are beggars;
For we are bairns come out to play,
Get up and gie'us our Hogmanay."

When Calvinist governments in the 16th and 17th centuries succeeded in suppressing the celebration of Christmas, seasonal merriment shifted to New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. It is the time for gift-giving, First-Footing, drinking the Het Pint, and numerous customs to bring in good luck for the coming year, such as the Flower of the Well.

From Wikipedia:

Its official date is 31 December (Auld Year's Night). However this is normally only the start of a celebration which lasts through the night until the morning of Ne'erday (1 January) or, in some cases, 2 January which is a Scottish Bank Holiday.

In keeping with the spirit, I did in fact drink too much last night during our New Year's karaoke party.

My first post is short.

Here is a link to a song Robert and I just recorded. It's called
"Jesu, nimm dich deiner Gleider."

Amy_Nasir_Jesu_nimm_dich_deiner_Gleider.mp3