Nancy's Musings

I have no more keys. A startling admission for an adult woman. My life should be full of privileges and secrets. Keys are the power to access a place or thing that is restricted. Locks are designed to keep somebody out, and keys are permission to cross that proscription. We choose what information we let into our brains, what people we let into our hearts, and who knows our own information. We need a key to move about in a car, to earn money in secure buildings or offices, to access computer hardware and software. I feel like all of my special permissions have been revoked and I've been set back to "default" status. Books and keys are a fascinating combination. Because of literary and critical theories, there are maybe twenty different keys to every text, but instead of allowing any person with any of the keys to access the text, the book is more like the door than the room behind it. Anybody can open the door and get to the world of the text, but if you have a k...

Humans universally possess some measure of intelligence and agency. We’re supposed to use both. But like most of the best superpowers, there are rules about when, and with whom we use them. Our judgment is no different. Is it ever appropriate to stop using our intelligence? Even if it were possible, I suggest that it’s unwise. So how does intelligence differ from judgment? We measure, estimate, and anticipate nearly constantly. We guess how long it will take to get from A to B in rush hour traffic. We round up our grocery spending. We try to fit other people into our plans. . . See, it’s when we start adding people to our physics that things get ethically strained. We need to understand whom to trust, when to be suspicious, when to be self-reliant, or when to let someone else help us. Understanding others, and anticipating how they will act or react is a lifetime’s study for anyone with ambitions for peacemaking, for safety, or for showing love. But sizing someone up – isn’t that ...

It's difficult when you've been hurt in any number of common social ways, to want anything but the other person to understand your pain. It can take superhuman strength to overcome the need to strike back. You want so badly to be understood, validated, and sympathized with. And yet, as we mature, we learn how sometimes how RIGHT it is to swallow your pain and for the sake of peace, pretend it never happened. As part of the grown-up social graces, we learn that justice is not always in our best interests. And we don't always have to act in our own best interests even if it is. We can take the burden on ourselves of overlooking another person's errors. And that's difficult, and it's what it means to be an adult. How often, though, do we digest these mistakes - an unkind or thoughtless word here and a thoughtless gesture there - take in these stupidities and cruelties and use them as a mounting pile of evidence that we are better than that person who hurt us? I...

Everyone ages. Okay, everybody but [insert your favorite male celebrity here] ages. Our culture values youth. If the media is any judge, women are most attractive at somewhere between 18 and 22 (well, 14-18 with heavy makeup and air-brushing), with some variation for individual preferences. I suspect that men are probably at their best between 27 and 35. According to this article by Discovery, the difference is much broader between the sexes. Where men continue to favor women under 21, women's favored age ages with them. I have a slightly less cynical theory. It might be wishful thinking. My theory is that there is a difference between men who age while they are in love and men who age while they are single. Because I believe - I hope, I guess - that real love can overcome that desire for the barely legal. When you age with a person, when they see you every day and when you know where each of the lines on their face came from, and what each silver hair means. When you s...

Agency I define as our ability and responsibility to make decisions. Or the decision not to make a decision. My personality type especially holds Agency as a key concept, but I also find it essential for my theological worldview. The other side of this value is the demonization of anything that attempts or appears to infringe on agency. This makes life as a human and citizen very complicated, because Law* and Agency are an uncomfortable pairing. Legislative theory is not my problem today. For once. Several years ago I attended what turned out to be an extended and insidious sales pitch. For three days I sat and listened to a motivational speaker, trying desperately to glean some kind of solid or useful information while filtering out the unbearable weight of marketing nonsense. Have you ever read Going Postal ? The main character, Moist von Lipwig, is a grifter, forger, and all-around criminal, and the thing that makes him most upset as the plot (and he) progresses is that he t...

My prefered curse phrase, "holy hells," is some combination of the Canadian Captain Carter (from Stargate SG1 ) who says "Holy Hannah" and my favorite swear word, which is "hell." The semi-consonant sounds are soothing, and in German those same letters mean "light." The irony appeals to me. But I watched this Mormon Video the other day, and suddenly my casual curse meant something completely different. This world is not comfy. We live in our own holy hells. Every life has its allotment of misery, struggle, adversity, and care. Even my abundant privileges don't exempt me. A friend pointed me recently to a blog expressing the fallacies in the "everything happens for a reason" philosophy. Sometimes things happen just because this is our hell. (Whee!) But there are forces, there are friends, who can sanctify it. My holy hells are not the protestant, the Calvinist hell, but a time set aside and from which we shall be lifted. I...

I am looking for a job. I am actually looking to use some of the skills I have been teaching to college students for nearly ten years: copy editing, technical writing, proofreading. But the past sixteen semesters have been bound up in academia. It's a cheap duvet, is academia - warm, but full of sharp feathers: uncomfortable, and designed to undermine your confidence - but it is pain and fear in familiar terms. It has become my primary discourse: my first language. I know where I fit, and what I can expect, and sometimes I even know what is expected of me. I have been working with some amazing professionals to find a place for myself in what my rhet/comp friends call "alt-ac," or "alternatives to academia." These people I work with are impressive; men, for the most part. They have sharp resumes, dark tidy suits, and a familiarity with business discourse that I absolutely lack. And they are all facing the same thing I am: joblessness. We swirl around a maelst...