A Public Response to an E-Mail Query by Val

As for the question of what my days are like, the simple answer is irregular. My school isn't a school so much as a production house with a lot of apprentices; we have the occasional film history class, and each term there's a focus on the films of a particular director (right now, it's Fritz Lang films every Wednesday morning), and the occasional "right, here's now to use this new piece of equipment," but most of the time my schedule is dictated by what stage of production my term film is in.

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Get with the program, Neo-Freudians

My main trouble with Freudianism is that it ignores evolution in favor of solipsism: all motivations and experiences are internal and tied to early individual ego formation, not the result of thousands of years of species development. I forgive Freud himself; given the time in which he was working, his oversight is excusable, and given his patients, it's reasonable that he'd view human beings as basically not functioning - whereas evolution says the opposite, says that on balance we're the most successful way for us to be.

For instance, if we enjoy sex, it's not an attempt to ingest the other and in so doing own them, or a means of replacing the oral satisfaction of nursing (regardless of whether we used a bottle instead of a breast) - it's because our nerves and brain chemistry are arranged in a way that encourages us through pleasure to have more sex. Sex = procreation chance = evolutionary advantage and the continuation of the human race.

I mean, jeeze, guys. There are nerves in places other than the brain, and we didn't individually decide to put them there.




Ciro and I have kind of a [somewhere between a competition, an inside joke, and a hobby] going on where we try to find the most impenetrable or unncessary example of gradspeak. My current lead example is "his inedia is doubled by an even more intransigent aphonia*." Anybody out there have a favorite academic convolution?

*Translation: He is starving and won't talk.

Downward

I'm having one of those awful days where I feel like some kind of inhuman troll and dwell on everything I've ever misstated or misunderstood and every time somebody has looked at me funny and assume that I'm a terrible person who people find compelling but ultimately horrifying and alien. I've tried going to the cartoon museum and buying myself funny badges, but it hasn't helped. Nor has chocolate cake. I'll be going to a BBC comedy taping in a few minutes (about Blechley Park, no less), which might make a difference, but, really, what I could use right now is my friends.

I know this is stupid, but if you can, please say something nice about me in the comments - some time I helped you out or we had a fun time together. It can be little. Please, nothing clever and backhandedly nice about me being likeable despite something, or being powerful and evil; I couldn't handle it right now.

Thanks, guys

This is what it sounds like when I'm walking:

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This is what it sounds like when you're walking:

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This is what it sounds like when we walk together:

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