no, · you're · a · sophist

I think this is my first entry since moving to Japan, right?

I've ended up using a lot of Facebook lately in spite of myself. It's pretty much how people here talk to each other, so it's become a social necessity. I guess I only have room for one social platform at a time?

Anyways, I love my job here. I basically teach kids all day, then come home exhausted.

(I really need a job that doesn't leave me exhausted at the end of the day. One of these years, I'll get to that.)

Also, thanks to hazliya's fangirling, I ended up doing another run of Mass Effect 2 and am now playing Mass Effect 3. It makes her happy. WHICH IS WHY SHE IS ANGRY AT ME NOW FOR TYPING TO YOU INSTEAD OF PLAYING THAT GAME.

(she makes angry faces)

Also, I am writing a ghost story larp set in Oak Ridge Tennessee.

I can tell a lot from dancing with somebody. How they feel about their bodies and how comfortable they are with them; how they perceive their relationship to me; how they approach an intimate relationship. Whether they are actually dominant or submissive; what they think they want from other people, and whether they actually get it; what they think about gender. Some other... more salacious details.

So if you've danced with me ever and would like to see what I gathered, ask and I shall tell you. Naturally, the more recent it has been, the more accurate I'll be--and do feel free to tell me if you think I'm totally wrong!

Comments are screened to protect the terminally shy. But I'm happy to unscreen them at your request and my discretion.

Like any sort of writing, I'm mostly writing for my own sake. Although I hope some of you will read these entries with interest, I wouldn't expect very many people to care too terribly much about dance in general, much less my thoughts on it, and if my hope were to reach out far and wide with this, I'd do more than scribble into my LJ. But although my focus will be on dance, I should hope you readers would know me well enough to know that's not where I'm going to confine myself. Even if I weren't interested in making strange connections by nature, dance lends itself to discussions that range far and wide due to its nature. It's a strange beast that awakens curious fancies and weird desires with just the word alone, to say nothing of the physical act.

I will be honest: many people think I am a terrible dancer. Some believe I am a really great dancer. Some wouldn't bother to notice me at all. I'd like you to believe that I know what I'm talking about, such that you put stock in my words and think about what I'm trying to say. But it would be presumptuous of me to write so much without giving you the proper context that some people believe my dancing is worthless, and find my ideas offensive.

It's nearly impossible to dispute, however, that I'm a fantastic dance teacher, and the team of hazliya and I far exceed my skills alone.

I've been dancing for maybe ten years or so. Like in many fields, I'm mostly an auto-didact. I've learned from many different instructors, but have always lacked either the opportunity or desire to learn from a single teacher exclusively for a long period of time, and there are plenty of periods where I've had no instructor at all. Many times, a teacher has left me dissatisfied or made me uncomfortable, which is a large part of what drove me to start teaching: dance teachers didn't teach what I wanted to learn, so I started teaching other people partially to figure things out for myself. People seemed to like it, so I've kept doing it.

When talking about dance here, I'll generally be talking about social dances that require a partner and a solid connection between the two of you. I tend to bill myself as a tango teacher, but that's not entirely accurate. Still, if you imagine most of what I talk about in the context of tango, you wouldn't be too far off. While ballet and belly dancing and barynya are all fine art forms, they're outside my expertise. So while some of what I'll say applies to them as well, some simply wouldn't make sense.

The scope will range pretty far afield. I'll talk about how to learn dance and how to teach it, some interesting stumbling blocks and unusual perspectives gained through dance, how to move and how to want to move, some music history, some culture stuff, how we think about dance and what we're looking for by dancing. Maybe more stuff, too. We'll see.

There are some subjects that I could only really talk about by writing a book about them, and one reason keeping me from doing so is that the process would be tedious. I really only want to make one point, but there is so much context that needs to be given for the point to be meaningful that it almost makes it seem not worth it.

I admire the writers who have the fortitude for that sort of thing. Not every book is like that, but you can tell when it is: that everything in it is really just setting the stage for one single, simple thing that only makes sense when you come at it with a book's worth of context.

I might start writing about dance. I'll start from the beginning, and maybe years later I'll get to the point I want to make. We'll see.

Any science that is easily explained isn't science; it's storytelling. If there is a causal chain that doesn't require a couple of books and a host of journal articles to understand, it doesn't actually work the way that's being claimed. Even if it does require all that crap, it's *still* probably inaccurate, if not outright wrong.

Economics, psychology, neuroscience, educational research (my field, mind you): these are fuzzy areas of inquiry used to justify all sorts of ridiculous nonsense. Worse, many people nominally in those fields make up all kinds of crap and use the stamp of science to give them an air of verisimilitude. I used to wonder why such sciences didn't get respect when good work was being done in them. Now, given that charlatans use warped results of these fields to peddle their nonsense, it makes less sense to me that these fields have garnered so much respect amongst the public-at-large.

I just get so aggravated when I see people drawing upon science to make all sorts of ridiculous arguments the science doesn't support. Or, worse, when I see really crappy scientists trying to tell stories that aren't justified by the research--and there are plenty of crappy scientists, just like there are crappy doctors, soldiers, and electricians.

Elegance is a requirement of mathematics. Parsimony is nice when you can get it, but the objective truth is that science is messy.


(fyi: global warming is real, y'all. Also, men and women are different, but a lot of those differences are socially constructed and yet can still be investigated; money has gravity; children learn best when taught one-on-one from someone who is both knowledgeable in the subject matter and knows how to teach. Just so we're clear that I'm not saying that science is a bunch of bs or something. I am a scientist. It works. Just not the way most people think it does.)

Same distance at the same speed. This time, it was no more painful than a run should be, and rather than being in immense pain afterwards, I had the usual runner's high. The world was clearer, more in focus. It was lovely.

The last run must have jump-started my system. I'm quite happy to have done this now, when my young body is still capable of not just doing it, but handling the shock of doing so. I have a runner's body. Why have I not kept it up until now?

I will try to do another run by or on Monday.

From Hagakure, Ch. 5 by Yamamoto Tsunetomo (trans. by William Scott William):

Lord Katsushige always used to say that there are four kinds of retainers. They are the "quick, then lagging," the "lagging, then quick," the "continually quick," and the "continually lagging."

The "continually quick" are men who when given orders will undertake their execution quickly and settle the matter well...

The "lagging, then quick" are men who, though lacking in understanding when given orders, prepare quickly and bring the matter to a conclusion...

The "quick, then lagging" are men who when given orders seem to be going to settle things but in their preparation take time and procrastinate. There are many people like this.

Other than these, one could say that the rest are "continually lagging."

Most people would fancy themselves the "continually quick" type in the same way everyone believes they are above average at everything. I have to reluctantly admit that I am the "quick, then lagging" type when it comes to most things. This comes from a behavioral misunderstanding of a value I hold dear: a good person is one who finishes that they start.

Throughout my life, I've taken on tasks and work on them with single-minded drive until I either burn out or they're finished. When I write, it's many thousands of words in one sitting. When I'm sciencing, I cram many painstaking hours into a single day, pausing to sleep and then do it again. And if I get interrupted, I lose focus and it can take me hours to get it back. Naturally, I work at my best when I only have one thing to do at a time--but I like the idea of having many things to do, and the world prefers that I do as many as possible. So I take on many little things, and although I complete most of them, it's very slowly. And if I get behind at all, it's incredibly demotivating, and I tend to avoid things that stress me out. So when I start sucking at work, I avoid it. Which only makes the situation worse.

This creates a rhythm to my life: I focus on something that is of dire importance, and then I work incredibly hard to see it done, burning myself out in the process. If I have reserves afterwards, I go through the painful refocusing process and jump on the next thing. But if I don't, I drift around aimlessly until I am forced to go back into high burn mode because of external necessity. I don't have the energy to do anything for a while, and when I get it back, the idea of how behind I am in everything stresses me out and I avoid work more.

This, I think, has contributed substantially to my biological rhythm issues of late.

Every once in a while, I think of some variation on this (usually when it's kicking me in the ass) and try to figure out some way to fix it, because it sucks. Most of the time it's something like, "I should do less." But that doesn't really work out. When I have very few things to do, I become unhappy, and it's easier to change my workload than it is my desire to do a lot of things.

So here are my thoughts: rather than trying to do less or more or continue in this cycle of burn crazy and do nothing, I'd like to learn the way of being slow but implacable, of the semi-scheduled, of the hour-every-day for a few certain tasks, to be satisfied with something incomplete but closer to done, rather than pushing myself until a task is finished no matter the cost.

I feel that if I have a reasonable number of tasks and work on them all in some controlled measure, even though it may feel as if I'm doing nothing, I'll make more efficient progress than I am now with my current manic way of doing things. It's my hope that an semi-regular exercise routine will help with bring this way of doing things into my life.

Perhaps that will make me a "continually lagging" type, but that doesn't seem to be too bad, to be honest.

We'll see if it works.

Human life is truly a short affair. It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things you do not like. But it is important never to tell this to young people as it is something that would be harmful if incorrectly understood.