As I’ve allowed ideas for this paper to bounce through the neuron tangles in my brain, I’ve found that every relevant point ends with the same conclusion. I’ve realized that that entire experience, the past sixteen weeks, all of English 221, can be summed up in a single phrase… “I did not sign up for this”.

I did not sign up for this Tipping.

In late January, as a cute cashier swiped my worn out credit card, I thought the same thing that comes to mind every time I buy a book. “I wonder if I’ll even read this thing”. I figured I probably wouldn’t. I was into survival guides, math books, and magazines. I was into reading for application; I wanted writing that still had relevance outside of its own pages. Books and novels didn’t translate into real life. My application of Frankenstein had proved messy, and I was done with best sellers. It only took one chapter of The Tipping Point to realize I was a jackass. To see the principles in action with the Danforth Park project, and to feel the sensation of a living and growing tipping point was fantastic. It was reinforcing, and you can bet it was relevant. In every chapter of The Tipping Point I felt like I gained an insight into a principle that I could apply to my family’s sign business; maven’s, salesmen, connectors, context. I fully plan on employing those concepts the moment I get back to work.

I did not sign up to be terrified.

There are a few moments in every person’s life when the analysis of seemingly unrelated information comes together to form a startling deduction. This deduction is often met with the common and well understood verbal expression, “Oh no”. These are the moments at the climax of nearly every Hollywood blockbuster; when the protagonist realizes his neighbor was the killer all along, or that an asteroid has changed course and is now barreling towards his grandmother’s house, or that he really is in love. …All horrifying revelations. Although my conclusion was far less dramatic, it did retain a similar semblance of terror. The grim evidence, gathered from Gladwell’s Tipping Point and Levitt’s Freakonomic, explains the basis for the entirety of all human behavior. Both Gladwell and Levitt believe heavily in the influence of one’s environment. As Gladwell says, “We are exquisitely sensitive to changes in context”. One calls it context, the other incentive, but neither seems to support the thought that humans hold much control over their decisions. I’m afraid they may be onto something. I’m not sure if he realized what he was doing, but in addition to incentive, Levitt indirectly makes a case for genetics in human behavior. In his chapter on parenting he claims what a parent does is drastically offset by who a parent is. Essentially, a parent’s job is not to raise a child, it’s just to pass on some DNA. So if these two guys are right, we aren’t much different than a bowl of vinegar and baking soda; just molecules reacting to an environment, nothing more than a double helix continually driven by context and incentive. On one hand, Gladwell and Levitt are exploring the familiar scientific debate between genetics and environment; on the other hand, they’re completely bumming me out. Complete acceptance of the thought would mean that as humans we have little to no free will, only the illusion that we’re making our own choices …it can’t be true, those ideas are reserved for stoned hippies and schizophrenics. I am certain that there’s more to it all, and I honestly do not believe that we are just some complex and perpetually reacting chemistry experiment …Levitt might tell you that’s just my DNA talking.

I did not sign up to fall back in love with writing.

When it comes to romance, my affection seems to be on a time table that is heavily affected by the wake up call programmed into my cell phone. The sound of an alarm is a powerful thing. The bliss and passion of five a.m. has a sad tendency to spiral into annoyance and resentment just a few hours later. My romance with writing has proved no different, but this time, it’s been worth it.

Up until I took this class it had been years since I’d written much more than a lab report, and a lab report doesn’t offer much in terms of creativity. On days that I felt like pushing the limits of acceptable engineering practices, I might insert a witty opener.

“Man has made use of compressed air since he first pursed his lips and breathed life into the embers of a smoldering fire.”

It wasn’t much, but this small effort did bewilder my TA’s. For better or for worse, it made my labs stand out, and that was enough for me. But, as the pursuit of an engineering degree was in its final stages, I began tossing around thoughts of medical school, and I found myself signing up for an English class. Soon there were Insight Journals and eventually blogs. It was completely unexpected. I often didn’t know I had insight or an opinion on a topic until I forced myself to write about it, and I didn’t know how much I had missed writing until I was immersed in it again. Sometimes I was wrote over 3000 words each week, other times I struggled to write a single sentence, but it was all part of rekindling a romance I had suffocated years earlier. I was surprised that I still had a knack for this stuff. Often, I loved the things I was writing, other times I just embarrassed myself. My feelings on the matter are well documented in “A Blog About Blogging”. On a much smaller scale than his, I fully relate to Hemmingway’s quote on the subject.

“For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.”

Expectations are a strange thing. When I signed up for this class I expected to write a few papers, keep my mouth shut, and get out of the class with little consequence. Obviously I was wrong.

Jill, your English 221 is an exceptional class. It is rare English class where students are given the tools to become an agent of change and encouraged to discuss ideas beyond the poisons of social pressure. More than anything else, I felt like I was part of a class where students were more than just an ID number that begins with a dash. Your class reminded me that I was going to school with some terrifically outstanding people. I wish I had taken this class when I started college, but I’m truly thankful that I got to take it at all.

I’ve found that truly cool people don’t care what other people think about them. Unfortunately, I have never been cool. Therefore, I am exquisitely concerned with the way I am perceived. I can often hide this reality, but my concern undergoes a drastic metastasis when it comes to posting my thoughts online. The heavy weight of these first blogs has a way of aggravating the situation. Look at it this way. If the second blog I write isn’t received well, it doesn’t matter how good the first one was, because suddenly half of my posts are garbage…It’s kind of a bummer. I suppose that’s why these blogs seem to be inherently linked to a stress cycle that leaves me horribly uncomfortable. I’ll elaborate.

Stress state one: I have nothing to write about. Blank. No wit or insight…ever again. I spend several hours watching a cursor bounce on a blank page. Several cups of coffee later, I find that trying to write creatively while in the wrong mindset is like cooking bacon with a cigarette lighter. It takes forever and will never turn out the way you’d like. It also makes you look stupid.

Stress state two: I have a topic. Shortly after I’ve begun writing, I hate every word that falls from my idiotic brain. I am actually surprised that I have the mental capacity to open a Microsoft Word document. My mind is failing me. I must have a tumor.

Stress state three: After several dozen revisions, and the type of insight that only surfaces at 3:30 a.m., I have a final product and I almost like the bastard. It becomes apparent that my tumor has gone into remission. Despite my elation over a dramatic recovery, my mood quickly turns, and I become terribly depressed that only my mother will be reading my latest work.

Stress state four: I promote my blog, begging people to read it. My closest friends have heard my pitch so many times they begin to loathe my company. I’m suddenly embarrassed. I’ve selfishly asked people to endure my latest sermon when they could be watching “Rock of Love” or looking at pictures of their drunken friends on facebook. Who reads anymore anyway? What was I thinking?

Stress State Five: Someone read my blog. I’m not sure if I should look them in the eye next time we meet. Maybe I’ve offended them. They might have realized I’m retarded. This is weird. At least I got it done. Another blog awaits…Ugh, I have nothing to write about.

I’ve been re-reading Freakonomics for the same English class that got me started blogging, and the book has remained intriguing the second time around. Even before Freakonomics was required reading, I was enamored by the sheer political incorrectness of it all. Far too often, in today’s ultra sensitive feeling driven culture, we sacrifice truth for political correctness…but not Levitt. That’s not to say he narrates a right wing discourse or that he puts together a left wing oration, in fact Levitt manages to write from a very wingless viewpoint. It’s refreshing, unusually refreshing, to read a piercing and unapologetic opinion without the subtle chant of “Four more years” or “Yes we can”.

In the customary book review fashion, I do feel a need to offer a criticism of the book. My sentiment is shared among most critics of Freakonomics, and it’s Levitt’s disregard for the distinction between causation and correlation. If you’re unfamiliar perhaps breast implants will clarify.

There was a time in recent history, when some ignorant psychologists and a few misguided lawmakers claimed that breast implants actually caused suicide. There was even a push to make the surgery illegal, although it’s still up for debate whether these people had a concern for humanity or if they just wanted their name on a bill about boobs. Breast implants and suicide did show a notable correlation, but so do ice cream sales and swimming deaths. I’m still not sure why it was a surprise, but women with store bought cleavage are not a random sample of the female sex. The experts were dealing with a group of girls who arrived with a disproportionate occurrence of self worth issues. They overlooked a tragic set of women who, sadly, were baffled by the fact that happiness and self esteem were not packaged in the blocks of silicone surgically implanted behind their nipples. Sometime before any laws were passed, someone with a brain explained causation and correlation to the appropriate people as strip club owners and fifteen year old boys breathed a sigh of relief. .

Levitt’s most flawed chapter is his chapter on abortion. It’s also the chapter that made him famous. In short, he claims that legalized abortion was responsible for the drop in crime rate in the early 90’s. He opens his argument with the tale of Romanian ruler Nicolae Ceasescu. Ceausescu took over Romania in 1966 and made abortion illegal in the country. Levitt explains that the children born after the abortion ban did worse than those who preceded them in “every measurable way”. How conclusive. How encompassing. I wonder if that included a heightened affinity for music by The Carpenters. Levitt also explained that the abortion ban doubled the birth rate in Romania. He should have left that out. Any population is weakened by an increase in numbers when competing for limited resources. Think about a generation of children under a brutal Communist dictator who are already forced to live with limited educational opportunities, of course they’re going to do worse than generations with half as many members. It doesn’t take a lack of abortion to produce those results.

Following a similar argument, Levitt attributes the drop in US crime rate to the legalization of abortion in America. He explains that a woman likely to have an abortion would be a poor, unmarried, and in her teens. He then asserts that poverty and a single-parent household are among the strongest predictors of a child’s criminal future.

At this point another digression is necessary. In the next chapter, a child’s performance in school was used as a means of quantifying good parenting, and Levitt presents data that shows an intact family has no correlation to a child’s grades. Now it’s time to connect some logic. If you’re born in a single parent household, you’re as likely as anyone to experience “good parenting”. Now, bear in mind, “good parenting” means you’ll likely do some jail time, but don’t worry…you will do well in fifth grade.

Moving on. Levit next correlates varied statistics on crime rates and abortion rates in multiple states, but he’s forgotten an important incentive. What he leaves out is that the states with the highest crime rates have the largest cities, and therefore the largest number of career driven women who arguably have a stronger financial motivation to pursue abortion than poor single mothers who are given welfare credits for every child they have. Under this sentiment one could imagine a state where the wealthy are having a heavy share of the abortions and crime rates are simultaneously falling for some unrelated reason. Another misstep in the chapter is that Levitt never shows statistically, or even claims that the number of children born to poor, single, teen mothers has dropped or that the population of “high risk individuals” has been lowered. Realistically, there does not appear to be a shortage of people in that socioeconomic category, so before we buy the abortion theory, let us remember why we didn’t buy the breast implants.

As this entry rapidly approaches 900 words, my obligation to the common attention span, has led me to turn this into a two part blog. Freakonomics Part II will likely move back to the story of reading Freakonomics…expect drug abuse, incentives,and the infamous Octomom.

“ Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. “
-Winston Churchill–

The day after downtown Bozeman exploded, I was sitting in class when a friend of mine came stumbling into the room. Two thoughts immediately struck me. One: he arrived after I showed up; this meant he was late, remarkably late. Two: He looked goofy. When I say he “stumbled in” I literally mean his gait was unsteady. I think he was trying to limp, but there was no consistency to his step, and the awkward contortions of his body revealed no discernable malady. I was tempted to believe he had contracted a form of mutating injury… but that was irrational. He was probably just possessed. Or, maybe he should have gone to the bathroom before class. No. There it was. This was a deficiency I’d seen before; he was suffering from an acute shortage of attention. Typically I feel this syndrome is best left untreated, but I offered him an opening. An act that deliberate surely had a story behind it.

“Dude, you’re later than I am.”

“Yeah, I got blown up in that explosion yesterday.”

He didn’t appear to be blown up, but poor kid had endured a blast that leveled buildings. I figured I could allow him some hyperbole.

“What?” …it was the only logical reply.

“Yeah, Dude…I was like fifteen feet away.

Apparently he had been knocked to the ground while chunks of concrete “this freaking big” (imagine hands spread just enough hold a microwave… or a large pumpkin) missiled past his cranium. He was miraculously intact. He was a lucky dude. I was jealous. What guy wouldn’t want to survive an explosion unharmed? It was cooler than a bullet wound. What a stud…I’d be sure not to mess with him. My investigation was cut short as we were hastily persuaded to “get back to work”. Oh, and the reason he was so late this particular day…he’d been at the chiropractor.

I wondered if it was on the chiropractor’s business card: Car wrecks, sports injuries, and EXPLOSIONS!!! All caps. Stencil font. Three exclamation marks. The formula guarantees attention.
It was also comforting to know that explosion related injuries could be reversed with a simple chiropractic adjustment. Those guys really do work miracles. I suppose it will change modern warfare as we know it.

A few days later, as an uninterrupted column of ash and particulate sustained its climb from Bozeman’s main street, the blast remained the conversation starter of choice. A chance run-in with the father of my fireproof buddy allowed me to utilize the two day’s cliché opener.

“Your son was telling me he was in that explosion downtown.”

“What?”

“Yeah, he said he was about fifteen feet away when it happened.”

“What…no way. Nah, he was nowhere near there, but his mother… his mother was about three blocks away and….”

“A little integrity is better than any career.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson–

Blood doping, steroids in baseball…regurgitated …I’m bored with them too. But, when a recent presentation demanded research on human growth hormone, I came across a much more arousing spin on high profile cheating. To further solidify their stereotype as the filthiest athletes in sports, cyclists are now using Viagra to enhance performance. I refuse to elaborate on the visual …but I don’t think it will take a blood test to find out who’s using. With the money at stake in athletics today, I suppose it’s no surprise that professional competition has digressed into degenerate struggle between the best cheaters, but personally, I just feel sorry for the poor guy who requires a prescription for a long hard ride.

“Integrity is what we do, what we say, and what we say we do.”
-Don Galer-

I like to think about the things we can truly control, and there isn’t much. There is a pompous sermon I tend to give on the subject. I often spew it at innocent bystanders in the midst of a moral dilemma. “What’s your integrity worth? There isn’t much in this life we have control over, but we do have control over our integrity. You can’t put a price on your integrity.” It annoys me to see it in print. I’m surprised I haven’t been punched.

A few weeks ago I was in the architecture building printing a poster. I was splitting the cost with another engineer. The kid orchestrating the transaction managed to remain wholly focused on his computer while simultaneously giving me a bill. He was studying an early 90’s horror film with the intensity and concentration required to diffuse a bomb. Clearly, it was a movie I should have seen. As I was heading out I noticed a price chart on the wall. Architecture students were to pay about twenty dollars. That’s what I paid. I was not an architecture student. I should have paid double…but the kid was clearly busy and I was clearly late.

As I crossed the street, hustling to make deadlines, thoughts of neglect for crummy ninety’s cinema were interrupted by an all too familiar sermon. Let’s see, an extra twenty dollars…divided between two people. Hmmm. My integrity…well, it’s worth about ten bucks.

This condition of stress should not be confused with the pathetic and overwhelmed state of someone who is simply too lazy to work. Long hours of studying and a heavy investment in the Folgers Company had resulted in a surge of stress hormones and toxic doses of caffeine. It was a familiar blood serum concentration. It was something to be proud of. But it had come at a price…

It reminded me of an ironic conversation I’d had earlier that week. “You know,” Sara complained, “people file lawsuits over this kind of pain and suffering.” She was right, and we invite it into our lives; even pay for it by the credit.

I think it starts with the contemptible propaganda that spews from the mouths of high school guidance counselors, “Now that you’re out of high school, it’s time you know what you’ll be doing FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.” College is weird. Four years before you enter, you’re not allowed to drive a car, and four years after you’ve begun, you’re supposed to start a career. It’s just not right.

But we study like lunatics, to the point of exhaustion, to try and fulfill the prophecies and promises of college life. Make a mistake here and you’re sure to end up a shameful stereotype…any stereotype will do, just as long as it defines failure…it’s all explained in a pamphlet outside the Dean’s office.

As I walked across campus last week, pondering stress, and stressed out, I noticed others like me: a sleep deprived army of textbook wielding zombies…the studying dead. I had to ask, “Who are we?”

My answer had arrived in disturbing fashion, months earlier during a 9 AM math class. “Proof: an introduction to higher mathematics”. I was sitting towards the back of the class, working out some logic, when I noticed suspicious movements a few rows to my left. The activity came from a lanky blonde kid. I’d never talked with him, but I could tell he had just walked off the pages of a Scooby-doo comic strip. Apparently forgetting he was in a classroom with twenty other people, he had opted to plunge his finger deep into his nasal cavity.

There is a familiar look, a universal mask that fully distorts the face of someone prepared to commit a heinous act. The face issues a guarantee; a confirmation that the deed has been committed before it’s ever happened. No turning back now. Destiny.

He gazed at the tip of his finger with an interest I didn’t understand, it was as if he didn’t know what he’d done, like he wondered what was wedged behind his fingernail. His eyes scanned the room for onlookers as he craned his neck forward just enough for his teeth to meet his finger. I stared across the room, petrified in disgust… why couldn’t I catch his eye, “Don’t do it, man!”… maybe I could hit him in the head with a pencil… but then it was too late his lips closed, his jaw clenched, and his Adam’s apple shifted on the front of his neck. The sick SOB. Then… somehow satisfied with his act of juvenile filth, he relaxed, slouched back in his seat, and went back to the number theory he’d left behind moments earlier.

It didn’t mean anything to me at the time, just an act of grade school disgrace, but in the end, it turned out to be the seed of a sinus born revelation.

You see, we show up to college expecting to have the most epic years of our lives, and it’s easy to get caught up in it all. Resumes, tests, research, and …saving the world. I suppose that’s a good thing… but, as we’re slowly transformed into another legion of zombies, staggering under heavy backpacks, and murmuring the eerie acronym “Gee” “Pee” “Aye”, we begin to forget who we really are. The answer lies in the moral of a nose picking math major. It hits me like a spit-wad, and I have to laugh. Who are we? …it’s funny…we’re just a bunch of kids.