Mathematics After The Fall

I’ve been thinking about beauty as well recently, particularly on lovely days like this one. Music, at least the best songs, can be part of the beautiful. Plus it’s almost a rite of Internet passage to write about one’s favorite songs, and far be it from me to neglect the rites. Here are ten of my iTunes five star songs, ordered (roughly) chronologically.

• Enter Sandman, Metallica. I grew up with very little music, as neither of my parents listened to much, even during car trips. My father played violin as a child, up to the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony. He could have played with the Johnstown Symphony, back when the town was bigger and even small cities had public orchestras, but he put it away when he started teaching. Things were quiet in my house. Thus, the little music I heard came from my buddies, the 80s big hair metal bands. Of those songs, this is my favorite, though it’s still very hard not to sing along to November Rain.
• Shiny Happy People, REM. Perhaps the first band I personally liked, very innovative to a rural Pennsylvanian. This was the theme song for the scholastic quiz team one year. Describing the malaise of 1970s and 80s western Pennsylvania back then is difficult, and I won’t try; I’ll just say this was a completely ironic-bitter and never hopeful song for us nerds.
• Crucify, Tori Amos. I had heard Silent All these Years on the radio one night my senior year of high school, and was intrigued enough to get the CD eventually, a big step given I only bought four or five CDs per year. I was not disappointed. As someone who still does a good job of punishing himself, it’s a question I haven’t yet answered.
• Mamma Said Knock You Out, LL Cool J. As an undergrad, I prepared for exams by listening to very aggressive speed metal type songs, assuming that getting the pulse racing and enraged would help me think and write faster. I’m not sure if it helped, but it did amuse my roommates. Anyway, this was one of the songs in the playlist, as I’d imagine myself getting into the ring with my pencils. As a tune, it’s put together really well.
• One of Us, Joan Osborne. I used this as part of a retreat meditation in college, as it’s an interesting question. The sensory part of my brain likes the emphasis on God (Jesus) as human, against the philosopher’s divine. This is a good representative of whiny chick-folk; I might also put Paula Cole’s Where Have all the Cowboys Gone as another question-song.
• Salvation, Cranberries. Sort of an impulse purchase right after college, when I had money for the first time, I really liked this song, with the upbeat music. I might instead put Switchblade 327 by the Brian Setzer Orchestra here as also representative of my taste for positive songs with limited angst.
• An Apple a Day, Aqua. Many people listen to music for relaxation, but I am not one of them; I listen for energy. I first heard Aqua’s Barbie Girl through NPR, as they did a piece about Mattel’s displeasure. Are they brilliant experimentalists? Likely not. They make cheery, slightly catchy tunes to keep my energy high, and I need pep sometimes.
• Opening Theme, Chrono Cross. A lot of people like the music from Chrono Trigger more, but I disagree; the sounds and string quality of the sequel are much better. I often use a mix of songs from the game at dinner parties, which gets a lot of positive comments. I’ve often called this my theme song; you have to see the video sequence to know exactly why, but a hint is that I use Lucca as an online avatar. I wonder if I ever get a stage entrance if the woodwinds would work?
• Hurt, Johnny Cash. This version trounces the original of Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails. Reznor was in his late twenties, enough to speak of despair (aided by the fact that he grew up in Western Pennsylvania), but not life longing. This was Cash’s last single; the longing is obvious; it is the voice of a man going to die. Technically, Reznor pollutes the words with industrial electronica; Cash’s acoustic recording does not distract. To quote from of all places a Pakistani fashion magazine, “Maybe this is what art is really supposed to be like, pure, unrestrained and distinctly moral.” And the video, oh, the video! Honestly, I’m too young to fully appreciate the images, but it took me seven or eight tries to watch the four minutes without crying. One of the travesties of modernity was Hurt losing MTV Best Video to Missy Elliott and “Work It”. It did win Country Music Video of the Year, and I guess I should just be amazed about the MTV nomination.
• Broken, Seether with Amy Lee. I could have chosen Tourniquet or My Immortal from Evanescence just as easily, but this song captures last year better than the others. The video puts this to the top, with angel wings on a desert wasteland. Like Hurt, it’s a song of wishful longing, and I can’t sing this song yet; it’s a tune for the end of Happily Ever After, which I have yet to begin.

Although sexual love is an important part of Catholic thought, it’s not the single overriding issue that some people make it to be. So it’s time to shift to another happy circumstance, friendship. I’ve been reading C. S. Lewis, and The Four Loves, really for the first time. And it’s a wonderful book, full of cheer and practicality, like the joy of the door marked with “Gentlemen”, and it does not take God’s world as evil. His chapter rehabilitating Friendship as love, philia in the Greek, correlates highly with a conversation I was having a few weeks ago, about what defines a Friend. For that person’s benefit, and others, here’s my list.

1. Shared Activity. Pretty much anything can be the common connection: school, work, gardening, walking the neighborhood, softball, church, dance, Mah-jongg. There needs to be something to bring people together. I’ve found friends through school, work, church, and cards myself. Of course, this isn’t enough for philia. Lewis calls the people we interact with Companions, a fine term. I’ve used Acquaintance before to describe the same situation. Modern American society, like The Facebook, will often call these people Friends, but that’s a little cavalier. The Australians use “mate”, which works better. The majority of people we meet here remain separated from our small circle of Friends.
2. Values. Companions tend towards deeper relationships when they find that they share an outlook, a vision, something more than participating in the activity. Lewis states this well: “Do you see the same truth? Or at least, do you care about the same truth?” Sometimes this isn’t a positive belief; I once bonded with someone over our shared dislike of a teacher. People that share our values, but nothing else, are political allies or, as Lewis notes, Fellow-Travellers. This might be the trickiest of the four qualities to find, because it comes from outside ourselves, and thus the scariest. I can take up all the activities I want, but unless someone else shares my view and communicates that, I won’t find a friend. Fortunately for me, this has been not impossible.
3. Trust. The Counselor is Trust without activity or value. Trust is the respect to listen and provide advice, and to believe the inherent good intent of the other in those suggestions. It makes it easy to speak about the shared values. We of the Don’t Talk to Strangers generation often have trouble here, as our upbringing makes trust challenging. We can spread emotions publicly like on TV, unlike the older generations, but intimate confession is difficult. We often wind up with lots of decent Mates.
4. Power Equality. Finally, friendship is shared between people of equal standing. Lewis wonders why Scripture doesn’t represent the relationship between God and Man as Friendship, when it does use Affection (storge) and Eroticism (eros, like in some way the Song of Songs). He misses this point; since we should never consider ourselves equal to God, we cannot use the language of togetherness. The sharing, the belief, the trust of this type of love are extremely difficult when one person has responsibility or power over the other. The temptation is to distrust, to hold back, to consider how the information might become used. This is hard enough when of the same rank, and I think unfeasible with power. Instead, we can have a Mentor, or a trusted Boss, or a Student, or a TA. Although those relationships can convert once the power is removed, they’re not Friend-love.

As you might suspect, the bar for full Friendship is pretty high. And this state can be lost as the relationship changes. In my transient school-based life, Friendship is generally lost because one party graduates and moves away, losing the common activity. Then I get another Old Friend, or Friend Emeritus. So I don’t consider it unusual that I would call just four people Friends right now, and I don’t think I’ve ever had more than six. (I also have two current relationships that may become Friendships.) My current active Emeritus count is five. Actually, I would suspect that this total is higher than most Americans’, when they truly searched under the definition. And as such, I take this kind of love seriously. I’m still pained by my error sixteen months ago, when in the start of my latest severe depression, I confused the signs of friendship with romantic friendship and hurt someone. Pain is always a potential consequence of any type of love, it seems. But like all the loves, there are great benefits.

• Let him kiss me with kisses of his mouth!
• Ah, you are beautiful, my beloved, ah, you are beautiful! Your eyes are doves behind your veil.
• I have come to my garden, my sister, my bride; I gather my myrrh and my spices, I eat my honey and my sweetmeats, I drink my wine and my milk. Eat, friends; drink! Drink freely of love!
• His arms are rods of gold covered with chrysolites. His body is a work of ivory covered with sapphires. His legs are columns of marble resting on golden bases.
• Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the handiwork of an artist. Your navel is a round bowl that should never lack for mixed wine. Your body is a heap of wheat encircled with lilies. Your breasts are like twin fawns, the young of a gazelle.
• Come, my lover, let us go forth to the fields and spend the night among the villages. Let us go early to the vineyards, and see if the vines are in bloom; if the buds have opened, if the pomegranates have blossomed; there will I give you my love.

Where did I get such words? I wonder what the Parents Television Council would say about them. I have a suspicion that the sexual innuendo, with an outright offer of sex (even married), would make this not a green light show. Where, again? The Bible, silly! More specifically, The Song of Songs. (The exact passages are chapter 1: verse 2, 4:1, 5:1, 5:14-15, 7:2-4, and 7:12-13.)

In a world with great consternation about love and sexual acts, Christians have this entire book of Holy Scripture with a bride and bridesmaids and groom, thinking about male and female, and passages like the ones above. A logical person might conclude that the words would be part of the schedule of readings. I am generally a logical person, so I used this really good
lectionary website to search for the Song of Songs in the lectionary. How many times does it appear in the Sunday schedule? NONE! Habakkuk is read once, on the 27th Sunday of year C. Paul’s advice about submissive wives gets in there, but there’s no room for the poem. Still, there are a lot of texts not on the Sunday schedule. What about the standard daily readings? As far as I can tell, NONE! Even the letter of Philemon gets one day, Thursday of Week 32 of year II. Yet there is no room in a two-year schedule, over 400 options, for one about Solomon’s bride and groom. It is said that Martin Luther wanted to remove the book of James from the Bible. The Song of Songs appears to be Catholicism’s James.

At least the Catholic church doesn’t go as far as Joseph Smith, who expunged the poem from his Inspired Version, used by Mormons. But how does the commentary to the Catholic translation of the Bible, the New American, explain the book? From the introduction, “The author of the Song, using the same literary figure, paints a beautiful picture of the ideal Israel, the chosen people of the Old and New Testaments, whom the Lord led by degrees to an exalted spiritual union with himself in the bond of perfect love.” Thus, the bridegroom is God and the bride is the Jewish people Israel. Another allegorical concept developed throughout the centuries, placing Christ as the groom, bringing the church as bride. A third approach developed with God and the Virgin Mary as the actors. Reading the text literally is also mentioned, but only as a secondary possibility: “While the Song is thus commonly understood by most Catholic scholars, it is also possible to see in it an inspired portrayal of ideal human love. Here we would have from God a description of the sacredness and the depth of married union.”

The problem with all this allegory is found through Occam’s Razor, named after the theory’s populist, medieval Franciscan monk William of Ockham. (He was excommunicated, actually, which makes him an interesting choice for this series.) William’s exact phrase was Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate; in English, Plurality should not be posited without necessity. We generally use it to summarize parsimony, that of two equivalent explanations, the simpler one is to be preferred. It’s very Bayesian, like me. The complicated explanation for the appearance of this Canticle we’ve done, as allegory. What’s the simpler choice? Romantic love was a subject important enough to include writings about. The Hebrew Scriptures include laws and rules, like most of Leviticus. They include historical notes. They include practical advice for living, the Proverbs. Why wouldn’t there be a description of married love?

It took a while for Hebrew authorities to agree upon the books in their scriptures. Even in the 2nd century AD, there was some question about the Song of Songs. It is a little different; it doesn’t mention the name of God explicitly, unlike pretty much everything else. Thus, it’s not surprising that as the Christian churches developed, they struggled with the difference. It got harder, since strong Stoic influences infiltrated the church, with disdain of pleasure and joy. Then there were the Manicheans, who were taught to avoid the “evil” material, passionate, and emotional, to become fully “good”, spiritual and rational. Obviously, sex and love were far too passionate. Manicheanism, popular in the third and fourth centuries, was condemned as a theology, based on an incorrect understanding of good and evil, which doesn’t involve salvation through Christ. On the other hand, the negativity around sex, and promotion of celibacy, was very popular. While a little one-sided, this student page does a decent job of describing parts of fourth century male theologians John Chrysostom, Augustine, Athanasius, and Jerome. Extrapolating wildly from a short passage, in this case Pauline advice in 1 Corinthians, has happened, is happening, and will happen again. The problem is when it leads to messes. I’ve written before about the consequences, in the Benedict bit and elsewhere, including the jumping off point for this series. I’m not sure Manicheanism lost. The razor of Occam was defeated, as the purpose of the Song became increasingly complicated, stories and allegories proposed and advanced.
It’s not surprising, since most of the people in charge were celibate males, conditioned against the beauty and happiness of sex.

The last century has brought back to religion, partially and reluctantly, the idea of unity and sexuality. We need more. A positive Christianity must take God’s world as not evil; it cannot be Manichean, or even approach those ranks. Recovering the lost meaning of the Song of Songs will help greatly. Placing more emphasis (or should I say any emphasis) on the book in the Lectionary would lead to more discussion, more instruction, and greater knowledge. Plus, there’d be more joy. Catholic christianity is currently a movement that has confused respect with emotionlessness. Even allegorically, the canticle reverses that sense, flowing with poetic emotional language. We learn about God through a means other than suffering. Taken properly, we see the inherent goodness of love, kisses and beautiful descriptions and hints of gifts and happy circumstance.

Television teaches me things about love. In a world with “Beauty and the Geek”, a U of C undergrad will compete. You shouldn’t need to click the link to discern beauty or geek. I have seen the show, but it’s not the jumping off point. Instead, I’ll start from a classic of dating advice, Elimidate. I see the show pretty often, since it’s on late at night when I’m coding, nights like tonight. The show is popular with college students and males of my age group, due substantially to having lots of hot girls. The producers know their market, and make sure to have more male pickers, lots of female selectees, and plenty of bikinis. There are a few basic rules which one picks up. The least attractive female gets cut first, and in general one can identify the two finalists from the four starting pictures; just pick the prettiest. Also, typically the most aggressive female finishes second, no matter how much she grinds on the dance floor (and there are lots of dance floors on Elimidate). But I’m not bringing this up to comment on the women; instead, it’s about what I as a single guy learn about dating. Who is the Elimidate man?

First, there’s the physical aspect. The body is our first impression of another. Elimidate is a pretty shallow show, admittedly less intellectual than my life. Nevertheless, the physical impression matters; it gets people started. I try to look at the market, compare myself to the shirtless hunks on the screen, and not surprisingly fail. It’s revealing to see impression in action. For instance, today I was at the department picnic. A pretty female roommate of a female statistician attended. Her reaction to me was decent and nonnegative, but to compare her body language around the extremely attractive male statistician was just remarkable. Even in a closed controlled environment of relative nerds, it shows the gap. In my optimistic times, I can compare myself to last year or the photos from my birthday four months ago. Improvement is a process that takes time. After all, it took me years to become a good analyst. In my pessimism, nevertheless, I still believe myself substantially below average, almost repulsive, eternally stuck, and there’s the despair of inadequacy, of being lacking and thus doomed to loneliness. Ever notice how the fairy tale heroes are always handsome?

More damaging is my problem with another part of the Elimidate ethos: confidence, belief in self. When the first woman or man gets cut, he talks about his good qualities, or how the picker is missing out. This occurs even when she is a plain size 10 against three hot size fours. That strength, belief that oneself is attractive, I don’t have. It’s possible, in good times, to be confident about my objective strengths. I know how to read a dataset, program good graphs, and organize a dinner party for 40. Yes, in depression even this objective confidence disintegrates, but depression is disordered. Unfortunately, the depression state of worthlessness has insinuated my psyche, and I’m constantly looking for my flaws, the ones that others obviously perceive which I cannot find. I compare myself to markers, the men in my building and workplace; taller, stronger, funnier, better mathematicians, better liked, and so forth. I don’t win the comparison often at all.

Maybe if I applied for Elimidate they would tell me where I fail; then, like the body, I could work. Or they might confirm that I stand low enough to fall into the small percentage of men that will never marry. Based on a friend’s request, I recently read Chesterton’s Orthodoxy. Although barely a side note, this sentence from the third page of “The Ethics of Elfland” startled me. “There is the great lesson of Beauty and the Beast; that a thing must be loved BEFORE it is loveable.” Taken literally, that sentence is terrifying. Thus failure comes from outside myself, the lack of instances of confidence. Is it pre-ordained? Or punishment from God for my sins, my fundamental flaw?

Of course, more likely my handicap, my fundamental flaw, is that I think I have a fundamental flaw. It might seem a little strange to interrupt a series developing positive Christianity to talk about lack of self-confidence. It’s the rule of the journal. It takes a little narcissism to write about oneself, hoping lots of people will read your public website. Part of the trade, the enticement, is that the journal, the musings, are more than intellectual exercises. I make no claim that my struggles are particularly newsworthy, or that I lead the suffering league. (The depression is pretty severe, but I have warm shelter and electricity and no physical abuse, for instance.) They’re what I think about, and so what goes to the journal, good and bad. But now, I’m going to look at a source about love the Escrivites tend to appreciate more than Elimidate.