“All I wanted to do was write a story about the Tortoise versus the Hare.”
I know but if you write that the tortoise is slow, won’t you be perpetuating a stereotype?
“We’re all just monologues, algorithms whirring, spinning tops bouncing off each other to build an unrivalled ensemble of narcissistic pathologies in skin suits,” he loved that line so much, he stole it. “We need to get back to our source code and dispense with all these other lines of machine code that programmers feed us to modify our thoughts and behavior.”
“We have a duty to be cheerful,” Martin Amis advised his daughters. “Be suspicious of the humorless.”
“We throw this line around a lot, but is anyone humorless? I’ve met some who come close, but I eventually found out their sense of humor was just more dark and cynical. Falling down was humorous to them, they enjoy bruises and blood, but for them to consider a joke hilarious, they want pain. They’re the type we could easily mistake for cheering on the downfall of humanity. Their sense of humor illustrates that the definition of humor is almost as varied as the sense of political identity, and it all boils down to this idea of a source code.”
What is a source code? According to built in “It is the foundation to a computer program and acts as written instructions that guide a program’s execution.” We have a similar code that basically guides our interactions with the nouns (people, places, and things) around us. Some call it our programming, but that word invites cynical speculation. Our definition of programming involves the detailed imprint left by the influential people from our maturation, and the experiences we have had that provide us our methods of dealing with the nouns we encounter. Our source code could be said to be the DNA of our programming. Depending on who we become, our sense of humor and political identity becomes intertwined as we grow into political animals.
The reader might consider this a simplistic approach, but I think some political animals are born in the audience of situation comedies and comedians. It bothers us when we don’t get jokes that reference larger matters. It makes us feel immature and uninformed. It frustrates us when we didn’t get reference jokes, so we study up on politics, until we arrive at this notion that “Everything is political.”
Say “Everything is political” to a large group of people, and most will say, “Well, it’s not to me.” Proponents of this notion will argue that if we drill deep enough into the sedimentary levels of everything, everything is political. I’ve met those who don’t even have to dig to find it. Some of them wish they hadn’t opened their mind’s eye to it, because they can’t turn it off now. They won’t laugh at a joke, unless it funnels appropriately. They hear, read and see it, searching for subtext in their never-ending search for points for their team, and they can only find humor in the vindictive and angry potshots volleyed at the other side.
“How did that happen?” others might ask political animals. We can all offer simplistic and autobiographical guesses, but for most the answer to how we became so political is, “It happens.” We can’t properly source it, but we know it happens. The next logical progression to this question is, “Why would you do that to yourself?” Most of us will experience some semblance of an escalation to politics is everything and everything is political, as we learn more about politics and build a political identity around that knowledge. Our goal, at the peak of this mindset will be to convince everyone around us of the beauty of our newfound philosophy. As we hover around that peak, however, we will see the futility of believing and seeing everything as political. Not to mention the frustration. The frustration arrives when we realize that about 75% will never agree with us. There is political, and there is political. Everyone’s experience with this is different, but the quest for ‘everything is political’ puts us in a downward spiral that can lead to humorlessness and some perpetual sense of dissatisfaction that can lead us to this sense of being unfulfilled, and as Amis warned, we should be suspicious of them.
“I have a friend for whom everything from national to local politics dictates her mood,” he said. “If she greets me with a smile and follows it with a generally pleasant afternoon, I know something happened, usually on a national scale to vindicate, or validate, her worldview. I suspected that my search for her mood, relative to political events, may have been coincidental, until she greeted one of my happy days with suspicion. She and I don’t speak openly of our positions, of course, as it’s all feel and suspicion, but if we did, and I said, “No, I just happen to be very happy today,” something tells me that she would scour her newsfeeds to find the true source of my happiness. The “Everything is political” animals generally believe that everyone is as political as they are, but most of us are afraid to admit it.
***
We all have different codes that we follow, pay allegiance to, and devote our lives, and most codes were written to feed the simple art of pleasing humans. Yet, some part of our innate reactions to their desire to please us leads to our almost instinctual dissatisfaction designed to require further appeasement. When we get our fast-food order, and we don’t find the errors until we get home, we complain, “They really need to slow down to make sure they get it right.” When we run across that fast-food employee who never gets it wrong, because he operates at such a methodical pace that it’s almost impossible for him to make an error, we complain, “I now realize I wouldn’t mind an error or two if that’s the price I have to pay!”
If everything is political to us, we’re almost required to maintain a certain level of dissatisfaction. If we want progress, we can never be satisfied, lest we slip back closer to the status quo. If we want everyone to agree with us, we want them to hear our passionate argument fueled by dissatisfaction, frustration, and anger.
“I note the etymology, the origin of words, and it’s always fascinating,” Martin Amis said. “‘Widow’, for instance means ‘be empty’, ‘torture’ means literally ‘to twist’. You look up a word … and find out more about it, then you feel a little grey cell burst into life in your head, as well as all the millions that are dying.” For Amis, language was a well from which he drew delight – and into which he gleefully, to our great pleasure, emptied sack after sack of melons.”
“You talk about the simple art of pleasing humans. Imagine finding a great word and being happy for a day? That’s a guy with a firm handle on his individual source code.”
“True, but the ‘everything is political’ animal has a firm handle on their source code too, and it makes them miserable.”
“[But] I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me.”— Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis
Why do political animals pursue that which makes them miserable? Why do we enjoy watching and playing sports and video games, when the pain of constant failure far outweighs the temporary satisfaction of accomplishment? It’s a statement that seems contradictory, or absurd, but in reality, it expresses a truth, and the truth about the paradox is that it’s all about us. It’s all about how we hear, see, read, and absorb information. As frustrating as it is, we keep feeding the beast. We’re the problem here, and we always have been. We’re the source of the problem, and the source code tells us that it’s we’re the ones who have been the making all of the mistakes all along.
***
Speaking exclusively to video games, my dad told us to “Just shut it off. If it makes you that angry, just shut it off.” It was so simplistic that we considered it hilarious. Just shut it off? Shut it off and presumably never play video games again? What my dad didn’t understand, and we didn’t either, was that video games became a part of our hard wiring. Following politics, like playing video games, makes us angry and leaves us perpetually unsatisfied, but that’s kind of the allure. Quick question, what do gamers do after achieving the ultimate glory of solving a game? They/we restart the game to do it over again. Temporary losses don’t mean much to either animal, and temporary wins mean almost as little. They might not even take a moment to wallow in the glory. They just start over.
We make mistakes when we chose to follow a source code. When we’re young and making messes where ever we go, they tell us to follow a code, then we see the errors of their code, and we rebel. If we want a reward, they say, we should follow their source code, but machine programmers whisper in our other ear that unless we want eternal strife, we’ll need to reject that particular source code. I didn’t believe those who coded me in my youth, because others helped me see that code for what it was, until I realized that their code required equal amounts of blind fealty. I went back and forth and forth and back, until I accidentally went so far beyond doing a 180 that I found myself turning 360-degrees to try to find what I considered a truth.
Some coders can be quite charming, as they inform us that they, like us, don’t know fecal matter. They’re the “I’m not an expert, but …” crowd. They’re funny, we appreciate their honesty, and we find their presentation compelling and persuasive. When they say they don’t know what they’re talking about, it’s delivered with their clown nose on, and then they take that clown nose off to inform us that no one else knows what they are talking about. Thus, we’re supposed to believe them when they rip apart the foundation of our source code, because at least they’re being honest about it.
“Have you ever tried following a source code?” I ask them. We get it from all corners. Everyone says we’re doing it wrong, even those following our code suggest that we’re doing it wrong, and some programmers tell us that we must be dumb for needing to follow a code in the first place. The only ones who seem to have any confidence in a code are those who don’t have one, and that is so much easier to defend.
“I wish I could believe in something, but I’ve got nothing to believe in,” the unintentionally condescending tell us. “It would be so nice to know as opposed to having to think so much.” The latter is not an exact quote, but the sentiment and inference is that believing in something frees us from having to think and question matters as much as they do, which doesn’t account for those of us who question everything, until we eventually find some code for which we happen to disagree. Those who write code also suggest that other codes exist in an authoritarian realm that require blind fealty, without questioning whether the lines of code might agree our beliefs system as opposed to us agreeing with it. The question we should ask in the face of their certitude is “Are there any nouns (people, places, and things) for whom you express blind fealty?” Most will say no, but if we talk with them long enough, we will eventually find something. We will also find those who don’t believe in anything, and they find that their most admirable quality.
Have you ever considered the idea that the source codes might not be the problem, and that it could be us? Our interpretations could be the problem. I thought I had all of my interpretations down, until someone offered me a new way of looking at what I thought I knew inside and out. It dawned on me that all of my interpretations were flawed, as flawed as I am. I knew everyone else’s interpretations were flawed, don’t we all, but I never considered the idea that I didn’t know squat. This has led me to a new interpretation of the qualifier: “…But that’s just my opinion, man. It’s what we were taught, and what we believe, but it could be wrong for all I know.”
Courage in our convictions leads to comfort, but when we extend that confidence to denounce anyone who deviates from our code as those who will pay, “according to the source code,” it’s not time to denounce the source code, it an opportunity to question ourselves more, and our preferred interpretations.
You have a code, I have a code, and it doesn’t matter what that source code is, it’s as flawed as you are, and as flawed as everyone who taught it to you and influenced you to add and subtract elements to it. Critics will tell us that the problem is not us, it’s our coders. Good for them, I say, you go girl, and all that, because the leader of any movement should welcome criticism, analyze it, and defeat it with performance. We shouldn’t dismiss it either. We should read it to determine if the critique is logical and reasonable. If it is, and it exposes vulnerabilities in our source code, we should adjust accordingly. We’ve all listened to leaders of movements, and some of those leaders have been taken out through irrational and illogical ad hominem attacks. The theme of these attacks is if we cut off the head of a snake, the body dies, but what does a quality leader do more than anything else? They codify the code. The make the complex understandable. They funnel all of the information into a focus that we use to funnel our focus.
I’ve listened to everyone from the crotchety old, traditional professor to the young, emotional, and heartfelt avant garde artists. I’ve mocked both for their pursuits, and I’ve turned my back on each of them at various times, until, as I wrote, I ended up turning 360-degrees to where I am now. I can passionately speak with both sides to a degree they both think I agree with them, but running through it all is a ironclad beliefs system that is steeped in my source code.
Line cooks, bus drivers, and waiters and waitresses have all influenced elements of my source code, almost as much as the great thinkers of history. As with great athletes, great thinkers, leaders of movements, and influencers of a source code, make mistakes. These mistakes, and moments of failure, make them who they are. We won’t see their failures, or most of them, because they’re often committed in the gestation cycle, but they get better, and they learn. When a critic highlights those mistakes and failures, we shouldn’t question the leader or our movement as much as we question ourselves. Leaders and movements come and go, but if we’re doing it right, the critic’s allegations shouldn’t matter to us, even if true. We shouldn’t even have to delete the lines of code the leader influenced, because they’re ours now. Our message to the critic should be, the source code is not the problem, and it never was. It’s as flawed as we are, as flawed as that leader was, and as flawed as we all are. The problem that we’ve never considered before is that it might be us, all of us, and our interpretations.
I had my game all figured out at one point, until Ken dropped a big old, “I never trusted a man who wouldn’t shake your hand, and look you in the eyes while doing it,” on me. I’m not up to something, I wanted to tell Ken, and I never have been. I’m not shady, and I’ll prove that to you over the long haul, but you cannot say that to a man like Ken. Ken is a serious man, a man’s man if you will, and you don’t try to realign a man like Ken to suit your needs in his home. You shake Ken’s hand, and you look him in the eye, because that’s what he considers a respectful greeting from another man. To a man like Ken, handshakes build a connection between men, and as he says, it forms a level of trust that you cannot build with him in any other way in the initial greeting. A man like Ken sees through you when you don’t shake his hand and look him in the eye while doing it, and you won’t like what he sees. 
I’ve heard about power handshakes that involve the lefthand cupping the handshake, a power move. I’ve never experienced a cupper before, but I have to imagine that that would completely 360 Ken’s notion that the cupper was up-to-something shady, and yes, I meant 360 as opposed to 180, as Ken’s suspicions would return tenfold after a cupping. I’ve heard some handshakers move that left hand up to the elbow, and one famous/infamous handshaker went all the way to the shoulder. The higher the lefthand moves up, I’ve heard, the greater the power play. I don’t know how I would address such a handshake, but I can’t imagine a situation in which I didn’t consider that unnecessarily intimate.
The three exceptions to the rule are age, gender, and culture. If you’re in a culture in which the handshake is not the proper greeting, then you respect and follow the rules and traditions of that culture. If the person you meet is female, then you follow her lead. If she’s a hugger, you hug, but most women are big on smiles and eye contact, and some of them flash a wave. Kids aren’t big handshakers either, but I often make a production out of shaking the hand of a young male, because I deem it a sign of respect. “Welcome to the club!” my handshake says. I try to attach some element of silly to it, because I know how uncomfortable those first few steps into this world can be, but I maintain that my handshake is serious. I usually follow their lead on how much seriousness or silliness I attach to it, but I think I’m doing my part to welcome them into this world of respectful first-impressions among men. 
Rilaly 