Proactive vs. Preemptive

Every self-help book ever is going to encourage you to be proactive in your life. Don't wait to earn the raise, go into your boss's office and ask for it. Don't wait to meet a gifted guitar player, go looking for a teacher. So on, and so on. "Proactive" and "preemptive" both mean, effectively, "to act before something else."

Remember, however, that one of the earliest uses of "proactive" (in a 1946 book by Emil Frankl) was as a deliberate contrast to the word "reactive." He was talking about the world's response to the Holocaust; a proactive mindset could allow for positive, constructive progress and learning, whereas a reactive mindset would simply reset the cycle of hatred and violence for another round. The facts are not the subject of debate for Frankl in this case; the Nazis did indeed do horrible things to all sorts of people, but that was a given. What mattered was not the debate over the exact details but the response to the overall situation. Conspiracy theorists beware.

Now, "preemptive" is a different word entirely. This is an older word from around the 1830s, originally used as an analog to "cancel" or "prevent." To act preemptively, you must foresee a potential threat and take action to forestall or prevent its occurrence. Notice that this is very different from proactive action. To be proactive, you perceive the facts clearly and take constructive action. To be preemptive, you assess facts that you either do not have access to or are not yet facts and act in response to those instead. The Cold War was a huge mess of preemptive actions, both sides playing a huge game of misinformation poker. The point of all these other preemptions was, of course, to prevent the other side from launching a "unilateral (i.e. one-sided, i.e. preemptive) nuclear attack." In my mind, the line between "observant preemption" and paranoia is very thin and sometimes very blurry. "Preemptive" is, as luck would have it, originally an American word. Consider our current status as the self-elected World Gestapo. Preemption: not the best, in all situations.

An example: a football is suddenly thrown in your direction. A total lack of response is unhealthy, because that bugger is about to hit you in your face. The proactive response might be to catch the ball and look around for someone else to toss it to, in the spirit of having a good time. Preemptive responses might include shooting anyone who has a football for fear of their throwing it at you or, in the event of a throw, sprinting away screaming because the ball could potentially be packed with venomous insects. In our infinite universe, an infinite number of things can happen. Most of them, however, won't. There is a percent chance that my atoms and the atoms of my carpet will align for a brief instant and I will phase partially through my floor. It just isn't something I worry about, because it's unlikely in the extreme.

TL;DR There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, but the majority of them aren't actively trying to kill you, and many might actually be opportunities.

Japan vs. The West: FIGHT!

What I mean, of course, is that I'm going to perform a needlessly belabored analysis of how the differences in action scenes between the two cultures reveal things about them. What else could that have meant? I thought I'd just go on about this for a little while, for those who have a lack of experience with such things, have trouble understanding it, or whatever. Also, I wanted to write it, so there.

Action movies in the West (Europe, the U.S.A. and the poor bastards who've had to deal with us) usually go something like this: Person A and Person B walk into the same area, exchange a look and perhaps a sentence or so of dialogue, and then proceed to whale on each other for several minutes. Ordinarily there are guns initially, but when the bullets run out, the only option is (obviously) a face-to-face, eye-to-eye, sweaty and frequently shirt-free grunt- and growl-fest. It's obviously all very well-rehearsed; if you watch closely you can see the actors cue each other. The fight needs to be visually spectacular, but remain "realistic" enough to believe. Remember the fights from the Bourne series: in one, a guy swings through a window to shoot the two main protagonists. The gun lasts for about eight seconds of footage. For the next two minutes, Bourne and the assassin spend a lot of time rolling around on the floor, throwing elbows and knees at each other, and generally getting collectively more sweaty. At one point, Bourne snatches up a pen and stabs it deep into his adversary's hand, prompting him to drop his knife and have a four-second shot of a very grim facial expression and him pulling the offending ink-stick out. 

Other recurring features of Western fight scenes in the modern era are numerous, but I'll only mention some to give the general impression. The combat almost always comes down to a duel of some kind, for one thing, protagonist vs. antagonist. The camera usually cuts around rapidly during the fight and there's lots of blur, increasing the feeling of high pace. The combat also usually "devolves;" the two combatants begin by shooting at one another in suits (highly civilized) and end the scene trying to strangle each other with their ties, or just in the legendary Movie Headlock.

Japan has some different ideas about how their characters go about destroying one another. The loose format of a duel remains, but the impromptu context of Western films is gone. The protagonists figure out the enemy's plan, which the enemy in turn expects, and everyone turns up to the same neutral ground to have it out. Additionally, I do mean everybody; the protagonists of the West are the chosen one, whereas in a lot of Japanese art it tends to be the chosen one and their chosen few. Both duelists bring their entourage of friends and allies rather than trying to single-handedly topple empires and rewrite history. In Bleach, for example, the final confrontation does eventually boil down to a one-on-one duel, but starts as two small armies' worth of characters having it out. For the West, consider Rambo. 

The combat in Japanese media is usually much more restrained than in the West as well. For most of the fight, in fact, there simply isn't any fighting. The vast majority of the confrontation is simply tense dialogue with the potential of great violence looming in the back of the mind. One recurring pattern is provocation; the first person to be taunted into attempting violence usually plays directly into the other's hands and is promptly squashed. Another recurring scene is what I call the Impossible Pause: two opponents, flying together at prodigious speed, somehow have time for a several-sentence exchange of face-to-face dialogue before the clash occurs. When the fight actually does properly begin, the emphasis is placed more on mastery, skill, and sometimes restraint than on power as such. Anime duels, for example, often feature katana as the chosen instrument; the sword itself is a work of art, historically forged with intensive amounts of labor and beautifully decorated, to be wielded delicately with the same control as a painter with his brush. In the West, killing your opponent with a brick is totally acceptable as long as they're dead. For Japan, demonstrating the ease and artistry with which you destroy them is more important.

In the thread of artistry, there's an old anime trope called the Death of a Thousand Cuts. In this event, the two combatants are seen rushing together. The screen cuts to black and is diagonally split by a pair of white or blue slashes. The scene fades back in to show both opponents having passed each other, seemingly untouched and holding their poses, before one or the other almost explodes, split in an impossible number of places. This is just a demonstration of the importance of skill; the fight, rather than a protracted series of clashes, comes down to a single moment of consummate, intense (and impossible) skill.

Another crucial difference: in both Western and Japanese media, the fight naturally escalates. In Japan's combat scenes, however, the fight evolves as it progresses. Where the Western fighters degenerate into headbutting and suplexing each other, the Japanese duelists will simply display increasing levels of their skill and power. To cite Bleach again, the swords the characters wield have several graduated levels of power, increasing in difficulty of performance and general spectacle in addition to raw power. These techniques are accessed through extended periods of meditation wherein the character communes with the sword (which is, in fact, a manifestation of their own spirit). The ancient anime trope of loudly announcing one's attacks exists for a reason. The whole idea is to display the level of your power and skill, for the benefit of both your opponent and the audience. There's no sense using your ultimate technique if it simply kills your opponent immediately; summoning a huge dragon made of ice from within your sword is much more worthwhile.

What I'm essentially trying to get at here is this: the West culturally tends to favor an individual, achieved sort of power in its protagonists. Lift all the weights, crush the bad guys' necks, no assistance required. Japan, conversely, prefers a sort of "power from within." The protagonists of anime are almost universally required to go through more spiritual trials than physical, tapping their own inner potential through reflection and self-understanding. Put another way, Western protagonists will turn to "any means necessary," whereas Japanese media protagonists will have to discover "what it all means" in order to unlock the power that was within all along. 

TL;DR I'm a weeaboo.

Proxies

A note! This post is sort of tangentially connected to the previous one, so if you can't remember it, I recommend a review. If you hated that one, "I am so very sorry."

Another note! I say "you" a lot here. I mean "one," the hypothetical you. I just didn't want to use the term "one," because it gets annoying.

I talked previously about the existence of people's screens of privacy, both at the individual and the group level, the little bubbles of isolation we construct around ourselves instinctively. Today I thought I'd explore one specific way we do this, a mechanism we use.

I think everyone knows that their membrane of privacy is selectively permeable; certain people are allowed access and others are shut off. That's just part of how people work, and nothing to really be ashamed of. After all, not every person you meet becomes a lifelong friend. However, a lot of people experience feelings of discomfort when they have to close their shield off to someone. Some of these are based in guilt or fear that you've hurt someone's feelings. Some are the manifestation of insecurity about your own judgment; after all, who are you to just dismiss anyone else? The source is less important for this post than the steps we take.

As I'm sure you know, feelings of guilt usually manifest as anger or compulsion, or something other than a feeling of guilt per se, because of the mind's tendency to repress the guilt itself. It's a process called projection, where a feeling is disguised and converted into something else, fooling even the person who feels it. The same can be said for the other forms of discomfort as well. In the social setting, this sort of action occurs any time you feel bad about closing your shield off to someone. The effect is something I decided to call social proxies.

A proxy, as the definition has it, is an agent or substitute authorized to act on another's behalf. Assassins are the grim example, where they are hired for "murder by proxy." Their employer is still guilty of the crime, though the assassin acts as a middleman. Less unpleasantly, sending someone to class for you to take notes is an example of proxy action; it's the action you would have taken, performed by someone or something else.

Social proxies are a little different. They're usually not a person, but some mental or physical thing onto which you place the blame for your discomfort. The example that springs immediately to mind is a businessperson's receptionist, whose job it is to filter calls and appointments before they reach their boss. Say the businessperson is intentionally avoiding someone and has the secretary screen all their calls. In the event of a confrontation between these two people, the businessperson has an out in the form of their secretary: "I never got your calls! My receptionist must have messed it up. Sorry!"

On a more casual level, people use a diverse array of things as excuses for the Cold Shoulder. Homework has a due date coming up, you've been suddenly struck with a feeling of malaise, "Facebook chat is so. Weird!", and so on. You just don't want to tell a person straight-up, "Yeah, not really interested in talking to you, so much. At all." So naturally, you find some other mechanism to excuse the screening; your phone died, you just like sitting at different places each day, whatever it is.

Now, importantly, I want to make it very clear that the idea here is not to make you feel guilty about the ways in which you wall people off. Quite the opposite. This behavior is totally normal and natural! Everyone does it, because everyone wants to be polite, or at least subtle about dismissal and such things. I just wanted to remind you that everybody does this, and you're totally normal for doing it. The main point, however, is to bring it to your attention so that you're aware of it. If you shut people out more than you feel you should, or anything like that, awareness of this little trick we use is more than half the battle.

TL;DR It's rude to tell people to go away, but try to resist the urge to prevaricate and lead them on.

Illusory Privacy

People value their privacy, and rightly so. Your mind is your castle, and it doesn't do to have the unwashed masses digging around in your fortress trying to plant radishes. I'm no exception; if minds are private property, mine is an invisible fortress in the sky defended by the Brain Scorcher from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I'm pretty reserved, putting it mildly in the extreme.

What's interesting to me is the various steps people take to preserve that opaque shield of privacy, and how oblivious some people can be to its actual transparency.

Privacy is basically the mental equivalent of one of the earliest steps in the creation of life: having an inside and an outside. A membrane forms; inside the membrane is a cell, outside is everything else in creation. Inside your screen of privacy is you, outside is the entire world.

Take this as an example. You're in a discussion section where you know absolutely no people. The room is silent. At least half the class is pretending to check Facebook and avoiding eye contact. At this moment, everyone's shield is up to the maximum extent possible; you can still see each other, but no one is going to convince you of that. Everyone is trying their best to inhabit a tiny, diamond-hard bubble in the world, like living at the center of a pearl.

Another example. In this one, you're out with a group of good friends, after a movie or getting ice cream or whatever it is you do. At this point, every person's individual shield is rather less intense, but the group as a whole has a collective screen to the outside world. People can't just walk boldly up and be automatically included in your group. That's a grand social faux pas. In this example,  you and your friends have relaxed your own personal screen on the unspoken assumption that you'll all collectively form a larger envelope around yourselves. This is sort of like the Monkey Tribe Effect, where only a certain number of people can exist within your perception at a given moment. I hope that's clear, as I struggle to explain.

The biggest problem with the group screen effect is that, simply put: well, it doesn't work. To your perception, your group has a clearly defined inside and outside, separated as a unit from the rest of the world. Within this little bubble, the things outside become generally blurred and less significant as you focus on your little slice of the world. The rest of the world, however, can see through this membrane completely unimpeded, and is very much aware of you despite your focus.

One way people often maintain this group privacy in the presence of others is by switching to a common language that "outsiders" likely would not speak and continuing their conversation, thus isolating themselves and insuring no one is "droppin' no eaves." In my physics midterm this morning, for instance, I wound up situated between two friends, who changed to a different language and continued their conversation across me. Don't get me wrong, I didn't mind in the slightest; I really enjoy learning languages, and even just listening to them is fun.

What did bother me was when the conversation pretty clearly involved me, without my ability to contribute. This was made obvious to me through subtle cues of body language, including but not limited to: pointing at me, saying something, and laughing with each other. Now that's just plain not nice, and my momma dun raised me better.

The point is this: remember, in your group settings, that others are still aware of the happenings of your group, and you're not insulated from the rest of the world. Your membrane of privacy is not as impermeable as you may think. People can hear you yelling with members of your group on the street. Even if you suddenly switch to Swahili in the middle of Canada, people are sufficiently in tune with body language and gesture-speech to detect the rough gist of what you're talking about.

TL;DR Your group is not an island; be polite.

The Notebook

Sorry for the somewhat shorter post tonight; got some things goin' on. Thought I'd leave some audience involvement on this one. :) 

This movie is really, really popular, especially among a very particular subset of college-age females. Again, I "ain't hatin';" everybody's entitled to their own means of diversion and vicarious experience. I play D&D, so. Can't really talk.

I do want to propose an interesting thought experiment about The Notebook, though. Most of its fans take it totally at face value and get rather indignant at this sort of thing, so I thought I'd cause some people irritable bowel syndrome.

The thought experiment goes like this: conjure up The Notebook in your mind, with its plot line, and its images, your favorite scene, all that stuff. Now do this: reverse the gender of every character. 

Doesn't that just make it a thousand times more _____ (insert: horrible, misogynistic, raunchy, whatever)? Now, Notebook fans, imagine how your insistence that your significant others watch it with you might make them feel.

TL;DR I hate The Notebook.

UC Berkeley Stress Research and Health

A researcher at Berkeley recently found "new evidence that chronic stress predisposes the brain to mental illness."

Now, before I talk further, I want to clarify that I "ain't hatin'," as they say. Research into this sort of thing is important in the extreme, and the article is actually really interesting. It was just the tagline that gave me fits.

This researcher has found evidence that chronic stress increases the chances of developing an adverse mental condition. This is lovely, except for one little point of semantics.

Chronic stress is an adverse mental condition. The S in PTSD does not stand for Serenity, my fine sirs and madames. People cite all kinds of statistics about what kills people the most in the modern era; this study says it's smoking, this firm reports an epidemic of heart disease, that independent researcher has found something in Chicken McNuggets. I'm going to make this very simple for everybody.

It's stress. Whatever compulsive, destructive behavior it is that brings someone down, whatever genetic predisposition they might have had, whatever shape their brain assumed in later life, I will bet you dollars to doughnuts it was related to some sort of stress or pressure.

This feeds into the rest of today's talk.

Health. What an ugly word. In the words (and majestic accent) of Frank Fontaine: "Everybody wants this; everybody needs this." In terms of things people have worried about in recent America, I would rank health about second, following up a close tie between home loans, human rights, and Communist infiltration.

It bears mentioning that I've always been a healthy person habitually, taking care of myself to the best of my ability. Not intending to brag here, it's just an interest of mine.

What I thought I would do, then, is contribute to the huge-and-growing health debate with the following.

Disclaimer: The list is regarding things that "ordinary" people do, meaning people who work long hours and don't necessarily have a lot of gym time, and so seek dietary options.

Health: A List of Things that Unconditionally Do Not Work (in my experience)

1. Crash diets and deprivation-based approaches. If all you do is decide "I am no longer doing x," I can all but guarantee x will be the only thing on your mind until you cave. See also: Lent.
2. Synthetic food. This is conditional, but artificially-generated nutrients are generally no better for your body than the naturally-occurring ones. Also, preservatives are actually genuinely bad for you, despite the insistence of some that that's "hippie liberal pot-smokin' (Berkeley) garbage."
3. The Razzle-Dazzle 10-Minute Program(!!!). Anything that approaches you with a membership form, asking you for money in exchange for some guaranteed miracle, is either a) the seedy guy behind the gym offering you steroids or b) a straight-up, unadulterated scam. There's an entire field of professions designed to prey on your insecurity and sell you things. Have faith in yourself.
4. Any particular variety of berry. No, it does not matter if it was picked fresh on the banks of the Amazon.
5. A number-oriented mindset. I have a whole post's worth of things to say about numbers, but let me summarize: no number you can see on a scale matters. Your body's internal chemistry and composition is the root of physical health, and that's something that can change regardless of some... number. I shudder.
6. Worrying about your health. The above salespeople want you to do this, and in my opinion, almost nothing is worse for you. There's some research that stress regarding your weight actually directly affects your body chemistry (in our ancestral past, stress was associated with times of privation, so the body would naturally increase its fat and sugar retention. Look up evolutionary research about insulin-resistant diabetes in American Indians.). All types of things come at our bodies just by existing. For example, every person living on Earth is hit once per second per square inch of surface area by a high-energy ray from outer space. There are a huge number of phenomena like this that no one bothers to cite, mostly because that wouldn't help them sell yogurt.

TL;DR Stress is bad. Diet: Your body is fine. It can handle it. Relax.

Montague's Gourmet Sandwiches Review

Restaurant: Montague's Gourmet Sandwiches

Location: 2510 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA

Pluses

• Location: It's just off Telegraph, one of the central Avenues of All Things in the town of Berkeley. Right across the street from C.R.E.A.M., and next to a medicinal herb shop and a vintage record dealer. You can have a sandwich, a smoke, a single, and a sweet, with only a block of walking total.
• Quality: AW LAWD. I'm a naturally taciturn person, inclined to outward neutrality and statements of indifference like "yeah, it's okay." So, keep that in mind when I say this is actually the best sandwich shop I've ever experienced. Easily. Every ingredient is fresh, the vegetables are chopped and the meat sliced on the spot, and the bread is delivered freshly baked each day. I've watched them do it, and there's no shenanigans about it. Montague's: eat really really fresh.
• Variety: The number of choices you have is actually a big deal. There are four kinds of bread, six types of cheese, seven or eight meat options (if you count the vegetarian one) and three add-ons. There's math on that involving factorials, in terms of the number of different sandwiches you can create.
• Portion Size: It bears mentioning that these sandwiches are actually massive. The regular size is about 10-12 inches long and 6 inches thickness. My measurement of the sandwich was very precise and scientific ("it's like, two hands long and a hand tall, ish"). My hands are big.
• Quality-to-Cost Ratio: Did I mention all this business comes at a base cost of $6.50? The math on that is insanely in your favor as a customer. Even the Full Monty (seriously) deal, with avocado added, plus a drink and a bag of chips, is still under $9, and at Berkeley rates, that's effectively free.
• Ordering: This is a small plus, but it bears mentioning. The way you order is by checking off a form with the options you want, and handing it to the people, who then confirm it. As somebody with a low voice, who gets misheard about 100% of the time, this is wonderful. Even if you're very clear, it's cool to not have to rely on someone's memory.
• Artistry: Couldn't think of another word for it. The sandwich goes, from top to bottom: bread, mustard and mayonnaise, tomato, lettuce, onions and a little pickle, avocado (if you add it on), meat, a little mustard and mayonnaise, signature garlic spread, bottom bread. It's a beautiful thing to see.
• Atmosphere: It's clean. Employees are happy and remember your name after a few times (a nice touch for us saps). There's a Mario Kart mural painted on one whole wall. You can actually play Mario Kart 64 while you wait for your sandwich. 

Minuses

• It's a specialty sandwich place, and there ain't nothin' else there. Sandwich, chips, soda fountain, mints? Check. Anything else? Nah, homie.
• Avocado is kinda spendy, $1.25 to add it on. Again, that only makes your whole tremendous sandwich $7.75.

Eh

• It is a gourmet sandwich place. What that means for some people is that it's "weird." Not the same sort of sandwich place as Subway, roughly speaking.
• It may actually be too much food for certain people. I'm 6'4" and have the metabolism of a nuclear submarine, so I wouldn't know. However, this is just an excuse to split your sandwich, and the subsequent ice cream trip, with somebody you care about.

TL;DR Overall rating: 9.3/10, upvoted, certified awesome. If you come to Berkeley for any length of time, I'm makin' you go here at some point.

First Impressions

They count for everything, don't they?  Job interviews, advocating a club or cause, introducing yourself to people. The world, especially in its current hyper-accelerated, five-second-sound-byte format, runs on snap decisions and decisive action. Time, after all, is money.

At Berkeley, I notice this especially among people self-listed as "pre-Haas" majors, people intending to go into the field of business. These folks actively try to give the best first impression they can, tailored to whichever person or group they're addressing. Almost all of them are enthusiastic, energetic, and interested in your conversation nearly to the point of rudeness. Outwardly, at least, this is the impression they want to give: driven, decisive, full of creative energy. This first impression is very important, because this may be the only conversation you ever have and they want to leave a positive imprint of themselves on the memories of all the people they can. Business is largely about connections with other people in business, after all.

Lots of other people invest heavily in their first impression, too. Haas just sprang to mind, because it's almost a universal unspoken policy there to be as outwardly charismatic and jovial as possible with people.

First impressions are important, no denying that, but there are also the second and third and eleventh impressions to think about. Certainly, an outward affect of enthusiasm and personability is helpful for leadership and "selling" whatever it is (products, your club, your friendship), and that's fine. It is not, however, the be-all end-all of personality.

Potential does not have to be expressed to be present. The quiet person writing in the little notebook at the back of the room has exactly the same potential for creativity as the hyperactive person jumping up to take over the class. The person in your group sitting back and silently isn't refusing to participate; they're probably observing and gathering information to formulate their own plan of how to proceed. It's also possible they're playing Flappy Bird, but benefit of the doubt for these examples.

First impressions, it must be noted, are also deliberate; people can project whatever they want to. An aura of confidence and charisma can be the visible positive aspect of deeply-seated arrogance or control issues. Outward energy can be the surface manifestation of hyperactivity or compulsive enthusiasm. Especially with people gifted in the area of interaction, first impressions are always, always, always to be taken with a grain of salt. Advertisers rely on your first impression, detached from thought. That's why modern advertisements are all so short. They saturate you with the one-two punch of "bleak grey negative current situation" and then "vibrant colorful positive potential of our product," usually combined with lots of cosmetically attractive people.

A whole ton of social pressure exists, urging everyone to be more "_____" (fill in with: charming, cosmetically pleasing, confident, tall, energetic, unique, further list of adjectives ad nauseam).

To all this, I reply: Y'know who maintained an outward aspect of charming, confident charisma? Ted Bundy.

TL;DR Read people's surfaces with a grain of salt.

Occam's Razor

Occam's Razor, for anybody unfamiliar with it, is a principle of parsimony, an edict of economy, and a statute of succinctness (alliteration is important). Basically, the idea is that, say, for explaining a situation, the simplest explanation is the closest to the truth, based on the notion that the universe is probabilistically opposed to complexity. Similarly, for speaking, the concise version is always better, and so on. "Simple=good," in summary.

Occam's Razor is a handy theory for the more quantitative, material parts of life, like physics problems and the like. Taking fewer steps to solve a math problem, assuming you manage it with the same accuracy, would be regarded by most people to be better. Making fewer trips to the grocery store burns less of your gasoline or joint tissue, spending less time doing dishes makes more for watching Oprah, and so on.

What Occam's Razor is not is a guiding principle for your life in general, especially your relationships with other people. My main issue with the Razor is this: it assumes that not just procedures but the universe at large favors simplicity and concision. This simply isn't true, regardless of your opinions about how things came to be. Just look at the universe's evolution: hydrogen is a colorless, tasteless, one-particle gas inclined to bond insularly with itself that, if you leave it alone, waits fourteen billion years and then turns into humans. Even the most basic forms of life are complex to the point of ridiculousness; atoms form molecules that form bigger molecules that form more kinds of molecules that form structures that form other structures that attach to other structures that form organelles that form one cell. It's insanity to label "simple" life as such; nothing more complex exists than life itself.

So, given that life appears to be a series of structures built upon one another in orders of increasing complexity, in what realm is it reasonable to assume that an interaction between two of us will be simple?

The universe has been ticking for fourteen billion years, random pockets of denser mass collapsing more and more mass into themselves to form galaxies, stars shining and blowing out to synthesize heavy elements, planets smashing and reforming. The seemingly-endless arms race of biology, drawn out in a single line, doesn't even cover a quarter of the paper. All this time and development, all this complexity, all this fundamental drive of creation, in fourteen billion years, has created you, and your friends, and your dog, and everything and everyone you see.

It did not do this so you could leap to conclusions.

Life is complicated, social life most of all; seeing is no longer believing, especially in this age of yellow journalism and misinformation. Every event is only the latest in a vast chain reaction leading back ultimately to the beginning of time itself, one more domino falling on a floor without boundaries. The barista making your coffee did not forget your caramel drizzle because she's stupid; her brother was just arrested and she's distracted. The man who bumped your shoulder on BART this morning is not an "asshole;" he's wearing the uniform of a security guard, and he's working double night shifts to keep his house, and hasn't slept properly in weeks. Fight the temptation to shave away the beautiful complexity of all creation with the mind-narrowing perspective of the Razor; life, especially life as complicated and multidimensional as ours, does not deal in singular sharp lines.

TL;DR Don't react. Respond.

Are you Religious?

Berkeley's an institution with a reputation for being really modern, progressive, and non-traditional (this is another lie, but I'll deal with it later).With that sort of a profile in mind, it shouldn't be surprising that a lot of people at UC Berkeley choose to actively distance themselves from religious denominations in general. The historical associations brought up involve repression, purges, and all those other things that Berkeley is Just Not About. I'll deal with the negative associations of religion later too (I need to be properly mad for that one).

The question I hear in circulation a lot, when people are getting to know one another here, is "Are you religious?" and a common answer is "No." What this means is that the person in question doesn't practice a particular religious tradition's ritual or espouse its doctrines, and so on. What people use it to mean is "I don't believe in (G)god(s)" or "I am an atheist."

Atheism, like every other belief, is a valid belief to have, and I'm not usually in the business of telling people they're wrong about things that are intensely personal and categorically unprovable. For one, I don't care, and for two, it's not something anyone's going to change their mind about. I have a personal issue with the way a lot of atheists behave (see /r/atheism), but that's distinct.

What does irritate me is the notion that not being religious and being an atheist carry the same label. First of all, not following a particular religious tradition and not believing in any sort of spiritual being are not the same. Non-denominational is a legitimate way to be, and deserves recognition as does any other group.

Secondly, who decided that atheism was not itself a religion?

The word religion has roots in Greek that can be interpreted as "connecting consciousness to the source of consciousness." According to atheists, that source is rooted purely in the material, biological realm, but it is a source nonetheless. So by the very definition of the word, atheism is a religion.

In a more cultural sense, atheism just behaves almost exactly like any other religion, whether it's acknowledged or not. What is it that "religious" people do? They go to a location with like-believing people, and basically discuss some aspect of their idea of divinity. With all the ritual boiled away, that's basically collective religion at its base.

So what do atheists do? They go to a location, material or electronic, with like-believing people, and discuss the idea of how there isn't divinity.

I dunno, guys, sounds sorta like a religion to me.

TL;DR Atheism's a religion.

Why You Shouldn't Dismiss Cartoons

I, as a highly-functional and mature member of society, have just finished watching both the original Justice League and the follow-up Justice League Unlimited. Now, these are both cartoons that ran on Toonami and such channels, so obviously there's an element of childish nostalgia. What surprised me was the parts of Unlimited that were distinctly more adult than even most adults probably realized.

Justice League grew up a lot when it entered the Unlimited era in a lot of ways; most obviously, the cast of characters expanded, the episodes left the two-part Threat of the Week format for a more lasting, connected overarching story, social commentary colored almost every episode, etc. More subtly, the tone of the whole thing shifted. In the original Justice League, I think I heard the words "death" or "kill" maybe six times over the whole thing (the stakes were generally more ambiguously in terms of "conquest" or "attaining power" and the like), whereas in Unlimited death was a very real thing that characters discussed and threatened one another with. There were lots of these little changes, and I'd need a proper book to discuss them all. But even more interesting to me was this one particular episode.

The episode titled "Ancient History" opens thus: an archaeologist uncovers relics belonging to an alien race (to which a member of the League belongs). After some deliberation, it is revealed that he touched one, and it transmitted a memory to him of a life he and the League member lived together long ago, before their relationship was disrupted. This leads to a misunderstanding and the murder of the League member and her lover, followed by the suicide of the archaeologist's supposed past-self. Supposedly, the archaeologist and the League member are the latest in a series of reincarnations of themselves, destined for one another. Additionally, throughout this arc, the protagonists are harried by an entity called the Shadow Thief, who constantly stalks them and attempts various mischief (he tries to kill Batman, for example, and that simply is not done). Read that through a few times, because it's pretty heavy on the time-travel and cosmic forces, as well as just plain wonky, as any good comic book-esque plotline is. Now, to dissect.

First of all, the alien race in question has some subtle touches of the hawk about them, including wings sprouting from their back and wearing hawk masks at almost all times, along with a generally dominant attitude. This is not relevant until the "camera" shows the Egyptians venerating the aliens as ruler-gods in the manner of the pharaohs, and the wall paintings created for that purpose. Oh look, it's Ra. That's funny.

Next, the love triangle involving the two aliens and a human interloper. It ends like Romeo and Juliet with a twist. I hate Romeo and Juliet, but the reference bears at least a mention, because it's significant.

This is where I was a little more surprised. First of all, the Shadow Thief is an original character, but he represents a concept present in a lot of ethical theories about the self. The "shadow" is a prettier term for the ugly parts of the unconscious mind, the parts the conscious mind willfully turns away from rather than acknowledge them as part of the composite whole self. Facing parts of your shadow is a core activity in almost all the self-exploration programs and yoga retreats, and all those other things people snort at. At one point in the story arc, it is revealed that the Shadow Thief is actually the archaeologist's unconscious, repressed evil portions, split from him during the trauma of touching the alien device and made into an actual physical entity using Comic Book Plot Logic. Significantly, the Shadow Thief can affect the physical realm but remains deliberately evasive and nearly intangible, creeping up on the protagonists from behind and retreating when they whirl to face him or try to expose him to light. In the ethical theories I mentioned, this is exactly how the mental shadow works; its worst damage to your psyche occurs when you ignore it. I'm sure you can Google up the writings in question if you search for Connie Zweig and J.A. Sanford. They're pretty good, would recommend.

The Shadow Thief's nature itself has grounding in ethical theories of the self, but the complexity continues. In dialogue with the Thief, the archaeologist discovers that while he himself experiences feelings of attraction for the League member, the Thief represents the possessive, covetous part of his desire. This is interesting on its own, but this turns out to be another major reference, this one to the theory of the Having Mode and Being Mode by Erich Fromm (again, Google that business). According to Fromm, love can be centered around Having the other person (and therefore superficial, shakily grounded, and ultimately unhealthy) or Being with them (going through a shared experience and healthy growth together, even if the two ultimately grow apart). In facing the Shadow Thief, the archaeologist is forced to combat the inherently "bad" sides of a positive emotion. However, the combat's end is significant as well.

The protagonists try to deal with the Shadow Thief in all sorts of ways; the League members hit him with an energy-charged mace, explosives, and bright lights, and the archaeologist denounces him verbally the entire time. These means have brief effect, dispersing the Thief's constituency and staving him off, but are ultimately temporary, as the Thief simply re-coalesces anywhere darkness exists and returns. Eventually, the archaeologist confronts the Thief and finally defeats him by physically picking him up and forcing the shadow back into himself. According to all the theories of shadow-facing I mentioned, the only way to defeat the shadow's influence is through acceptance, recognizing that the shadow is part of you and ceasing to deny it. With awareness and consciousness of the darkness in all of us, it loses most of its power over us; something held unconsciously only works if its influence is ignored. In this way, the archaeologist accepts that his mind has a sinister, darker side. He incorporates it as an essential part of himself (as all the theories prescribe). In this case, the metaphor of defeating the shadow by physically pushing it back into his body is just slightly heavy-handed.

Yeah, I mean, cartoons are for kids.

TL;DR Watch Justice League Unlimited while thinking actively.

Gypsy's Trattoria Italiano Review

Here it is, my first restaurant review. Behold!

Restaurant: Gypsy's Trattoria Italiano

Location: 2519 Durant Avenue, Berkeley CA. In the Durant Square, or the "Asian Ghetto" as it's less-officially known. No, I don't know either.

Pluses

• Convenient: especially for dwellers of Unit 3. It's literally down and across the street a block or so. Can't do much to beat that. And, if it's raining locusts or sunlight turns you to ash (or you just live someplace else), there's actually an Asian Ghetto Delivery service you can call, if I'm not mistaken.
• Quality: It's "pretty good," I think is the best way to put it succinctly. 
• Location: it's in the Durant Square, within striking distance of a lot of different dessert places. There's a... serviceable boba place next door, a good doughnut shop across the square, and it's a matter of blocks to C.R.E.A.M.

Minuses

• Service: Not fantastic, from my experience. It's very much "flip flop here's your slop," no frills attached, which, depending on what you're looking for, might be just the thing. Not terrible, just indifferent.
• Speed: This is a subcategory of Service. One issue with Gypsy's, especially around dinnertime, is that it's almost always busy. What this translates to is a pretty formidable wait when you order, especially if it's something involving baking like lasagna or the "famous" calzones. I don't mean a little while, either; I waited half an hour on one occasion, which is fine in a more "sit-down" restaurant, but for food to go not so much. This sounds a little nit-picky, but it's important.
• Quality: Again, it's "pretty good." It's only "pretty good," nothing more. Things tend to be pretty greasy, which is a personal pet peeve. Orange globules on lasagna... yeah, no. This feeds into the next minus:
• Cost-Quality Ratio: For "pretty good" Italian food, it's actually pretty spendy. The entrées are generally around $7.00 a pop, which is a pretty good deal, and you can add a salad on for $2.00. One problem is that they have a service charge for credit cards of around $1.50, and it's charged per item you order in addition to tax, so suddenly your $9.00 meal is more like $13.00 or $15.00. College budget, bear with me. Combine that little trick with the fact of Orange Globule Lasagna and that your added salad is worth exactly two dollars and, well. Yeah.
• General Atmosphere: Gypsy's somehow always manages to be extremely loud and busy, no matter how few people are there. All the kitchen noise resonates directly into the eating area, which is also where people order and so on. There's a huge amount of bustle going on, and the restaurant has very close quarters, making it fairly unpleasant to eat inside. For people waiting outside, there's a loudspeaker announcement system to call out orders, and let me assure you that it's just God-awful, and nothing else needs to be said.

"Eh" (things that didn't affect the experience so much, but might be issues for some people)

• The guy running the counter most nights doesn't speak the best English, which is fine except when it gets really hectic in there and he's tired and can't hear you very well. That's actually less an English thing and more an issue of "It's Bloody Loud in Here," honestly, but an issue nonetheless.

TL;DR Overall rating: 6/10, it's "pretty good."

Creativity and Expression

It's a personal belief of mine that every (normal/healthy) person has some sort of creative impulse. It's a part of what makes us human, the ability to think creatively. Animals don't do this, regardless of how intelligent they are. Ants have the capacity for social structures every bit as insanely complicated as ours, and are very dexterous creatures, and yet no ant has ever painted a picture. The young of other species don't surprise us with tales of spontaneous, uninhibited fantasy. Creative potential, as far as I'm concerned, may actually trump intelligence as the single most important part of being human (I know they're related, don't shoot me).

Knowing I think this way about creativity, it should come as no surprise that I value creative expression in all its forms. Write a story, draw a picture, sing a song. Nobody really cares in the grand scheme of things if it's bad, and if it's good, who knows? Build it and they will come, I think is the expression. People gawk in awe of the achievements of the famous artists and performers, and rightly so, but I think success in the creative disciplines is simply to create something genuine, something uniquely yours. Moreover, I think that's essential for mental health; it's not healthy to try and shut off your creative impulse, and bottling yourself up in the more quantitative arenas of life can cause all sorts of damage. Look at the number of people devoting themselves to "material" fields and the number of people who die of stress-related heart disease and the like. I know a person who's a Mathematics major here at Berkeley (basically as quantitative as you can get) and spends his spare time playing really beautiful pieces on the piano. Good job, Sooshi, keep that up. I'm no exception, either. I started doing this blog (partially) as an exercise to relieve some of the pressure in my mind.

All that being said, there's an important distinction to make here. Creativity and expression are important; it's equally important not to inflict your creativity on people who aren't interested. Play an instrument? This is excellent, practice someplace until you're confident enough to play in public. Write? Good, work and develop your skills at it. Dance? I'm jealous. Just make sure you have an understanding of rhythm and elements. I'm not saying everybody has to be a virtuoso when they express themselves, certainly not. Nobody would ever do anything if that was the requirement. The whole point is to practice and improve your means of expression to more fully express yourself as it evolves.

However, people have a right to privacy, in this sense as well as others. If they want to share in your creative experience, people are more than capable of coming over and making that known, or listening to your songs, or admiring your painting, or whatever. There's no need to spontaneously express yourself in a loud and rambunctious way, either. It's just another case of time and place appropriateness. Everyone has a castle in their head, and it's pretty bad manners to come smashing down the gates of their mental sanctuary to talk about just how great your book is going to be, or how awesome your presentation for your company is. Respect the mental sovereignty of other people, and you'll generate a lot more respect as a result.

TL;DR Don't erratically play the damn bongos on the bus.

Judgment

One of the things the community here at Berkeley is extremely proud of (and correspondingly vocal about) is the university's student body's status as an environment devoid of judgment, where all ethnicities, backgrounds, religious and sexual orientations, majors, walks of life, beliefs regarding lettuce sanitation, etc. are welcome. Here at UC Berkeley, anybody is welcome to carry whatever set of characteristics they want to at that given moment.

Let me start with a little detour reminding everyone that this is a basically complete and almost unconditional lie, and more a useful reputation boost for Berkeley's recruitment than based in any sort of actual fact. Judgment abounds wherever there are people, and there's no magic potion in the water here that suddenly makes everyone a more open-minded person. This is the point in any discussion of the Berkeley campus where a weed joke is made. Ha, ha, four hundred twenty.

Now, it bears mentioning that "judgment" is not a nasty word referring to anything inherently bad. Consider this: you like mint Milanos, and your friend does not. This is a matter of preference and/or personal judgment, judgment in the sense of discernment and taste. Note that there's absolutely nothing wrong with this sort of judgment; a malicious form of judgment would be if you asserted your friend needed to be institutionalized or killed as a result of their insane non-preference for minty Pepperidge Farms dessert cookies. Taste is valid, regardless of whether you agree. That's why it's called taste.

Many members of the student body here whole-heartedly embrace the notion that there is to be no judgment one way or another. Everybody can do what they want, with their body, on their schedule, because they are legal adults operating in their own arena. It's their experience, for them to live out and have as they wish. This is conditionally fine. Every person can mind their own business and do what makes them happy, and I for one will at least make a genuine effort to avoid judging them adversely for it. That's just politeness, plain and simple.

And yet, a strange contradiction arises! Everyone is pretty well free to do what they will (the few rules that do exist are generally not strictly enforced), free of judgment from those around them, and yet... there are people who still feel judged. Their response to this, naturally, is usually to react with fear or anger and yell things like "You can't judge me! You have failings too!" or "I'm a free person, I have a right to privacy!" at the high end and "u don no my lyfe" at the somewhat lower end of the quality spectrum.

The issue is that no one actually is judging them, at least not in any outward way. Just a few evenings ago, two people in a state of formidable intoxication wandered by my door. Being a taciturn but at least polite person, I responded to their slightly-garbled greeting with a "Hi!" and a wave. They wandered off and I returned to my Netflix, nobody better off or worse, and yet later I heard the people in question discussing how they felt I was judging them for their inebriation. Other times, people here have labeled me variously as condescending, judgmental, or pretentious in spite of our never actually having had a proper conversation. Just my silence and conversational non-involvement is enough to make people experience feelings of shame and other forms of discomfort. I'm skinny, and walking by a group of people prompted a conversation about body shaming. It's all very strange.

But the point is this: maybe the source of the discomfort is not actually me. If I'm totally detached from your activity, or group, or whatever, and give no outward sign of judgment, it's because I'm actually not adversely judging you. I don't have any stake in what you're doing as long as I'm not affected, and so I have no emotional investment; I just genuinely am not concerned. So if you're experiencing feelings of shame and feel judged based on something you're doing, consider the possibility that it's because you're doing something you're either not really comfortable with or that you're aware is wrong (for whatever reason, religious beliefs, personal ethics, whatever).

TL;DR The person judging you might not necessarily be me, or anybody else. The person judging you might be you.

Heresy (The Valentine's Day Special)

So here's an interesting fact of etymology I stumbled across while browsing through Wikipedia in a totally normal and non-isolationist way, involving the origins of the word "heresy" or, more specifically, "heretic."

The word, for anybody who doesn't know, is usually used in the context of Judeo-Christian or other religious belief to refer to a person who does not believe the doctrines in question, and usually carries a substantially negative connotation. Think "infidel;" Martin Luther was widely defamed as a heretic for his Theses, which ran contrary to the original Catholic doctrines. Witch hunters during the various Inquisitions searched, among other things including witches and necromancers, for "heretics," notably Muslims and Jews in Spain during the Reconquista, etc. The word is laden with the bile of history, full of judgments about "otherness" (I'll probably talk about otherness in later posts, woohoohoo!).

The word "heresy," interestingly enough, derives from the Greek root "heresthai," meaning essentially "to choose."

Wait, what? "To choose?" Not "to rebel" or "to disagree?" That's weird.

The weirdness continues. The word "heretic" derives from a modification of the same root: "haeretikos," meaning literally "able to choose." So a heretic, in the Classically faithful way, is someone equipped with the faculty of choice.

Now, with all the horrors justified by this word, the terrible feelings of rejection and persecution associated with it, the way it just sounds like somebody coming to sacrifice all your babies, all this word refers to is someone able to choose. All the revulsion encoded into the English word is targeted at a type of person the ancient Greeks would have referred to simply as fully alive and cognizant of their own faculties.

Having discovered all this, I came to the realization that sometimes a heretic is just the right type of person to be. If you don't like what's going on, in a group of friends or at a committee meeting, or wherever, realize it's within your rights to just not be a part of it. The sense of internal conflict you feel is your personal genuine desire butting up against the equally genuine desire to be accepted and respected by those around you, and the first option is almost always more satisfying once you overcome your fear of rejection.

This Valentine's Day, if you're single and uncertain of how you feel about that, my advice is: feel free to be a heretic. If you don't want to go drinking and/or trying to find fleeting, impersonal connection, you're under no obligation. Feel free to do whatever it is that makes you happy; other people will come around or go away, and that's the way life goes, in my limited level of experience.

TL;DR Heresy is cool, don't let our hook-up-fueled culture make you feel bad.

Smart

A common Berkeley phenomenon I've noticed in my wanderings and interactions is the situation of people becoming aware of someone else's success, be it their friend or the friend of a friend or a famous faculty member, doesn't matter especially. When interfacing with this sort of information, the most common response is for the person to proclaim, "Wow! He/she/the person is so smart!"

This is a thing with good motivations, complimentary and positive. No doubt. I just want to raise the possibility that saying someone is "smart" is not strictly a compliment.

I think it's fair to say intelligence is a quality held pretty universally in high esteem. Universities are intended as pooling and boosting grounds for intelligence, where we theoretically get the bright bulbs together and, by their togetherness, make them shine more brightly. Feats of brainpower like eidetic recall and rapid calculation appear on YouTube and the news with some regularity, impressing the general public with how "smart" these people are.

However, from one of my points of view: say your friend presents you with an achievement of theirs, something they've earned, something they've made, anything. This person got a 97 on a math midterm, or some such event, huzzah! Now, your first reaction may be to tell your friend how "smart" or "talented" (depending on what the thing is) they are, in the hopes of communicating that you're impressed with their achievement and bolstering their self-esteem through validation and praise. This is because you're a basically good person and want to accentuate their positive feelings. Essentially, you want your friend to feel good (no, I'm not going to disparage that).

Using the term "smart" to describe a person, however, is problematic if you stop to think about it. Your friend has achieved something, and therefore they are worthy of some amount of praise. The key issue here, for my thinking, is that they achieved something. The use of the term "smart" implies a natural, inborn advantage; that is to say, your friend got a 97 on their test simply because that's the norm for them, because they're "smart." It robs their achievement of value and implies it was an easy thing for them, in some ways.

Imagine examining the Sistine Chapel, with all its beautiful paintings and elaborately detailed frescoes. At the conclusion of your tour, you might come to the conclusion that Michelangelo and Roselli and Botticelli and all the others were "talented" as painters, or "gifted" as artists. Let's be clear; the Sistine Chapel is the result of a marriage between masterful skill in art and a Herculean amount of effort. Nothing about it involves being "gifted" with anything. Every square inch of it is undoubtedly the result of rare brilliance, but it's brilliance combined with work.

TL;DR Consider that a truly "smart" person might consider your assertion of their natural intelligence to, in some ways, devalue the fruits of their committed labor and focus.

Backwards Berkeley

One of the most interesting things I've noticed- while going to a university that prides itself (among a lot of other things) on its history with progress, free speech (we have a café dedicated to this) and such things- is that an attitude of openness and acceptance has still allowed for some extremely closed-off perspectives, though they're closed off in a different way from what you might anticipate.

What I'm talking about is something I've decided to call Reverse Racism, not because it's actually "backwards" or even because it pertains specifically to race. I'm just referring to the reversal of a long-standing situation in American culture. Anybody with any awareness of American history and current affairs knows very well that inequality is a long-standing and institutionalized affair, easy to slip into and slow to dislodge. A significant portion of our cultural attention is dedicated to educating young people about past injustice and, in this way, to prevent it in the future. This is a profoundly worthwhile endeavor; every person ought to have a right to a life of equal potential, and to lose out on such an opportunity due to an accident of birth or locality is absolutely tragic. What is not so great is how certain young people in my generation have processed and interpreted the messages we glean from studies of history and awareness of modern happenings.

Inequality is still very much a real thing, and I have not the least wish to downplay its existence or disparage the efforts to eliminate it, so don't get the wrong impression. I just want to raise awareness of the more sinister side of efforts to eliminate cultural injustice, both regarding race and other aspects of life.

I could go on extensively, but I'mma just make this short and concise to save words.

I am white. I am not inherently racist, nor is my life inherently easier or my problems less serious.
I am a man. I am not a misogynist.
I am slender in construction. I am not weak, nor am I elitist or judgmental as a result.
I am not a member of the LGBTQ community. This does not make me a homophobe.
You do not achieve equality by simply reversing the polarity of unjustified prejudice. Help offered honestly in the endeavor for peace and progress should be accepted, no matter the identity of the benefactor. March in a parade with us, not a crusade against us.

Tardigrades

So there's an animal living in ponds and forests across the world, with eight little stubbly legs and a tiny little round mouth. They're called moss piglets, or waterbears (or tardigrades if you're boring), and they're microscopic but plump and wrinkly. They generally eat plants or bacteria, and just kind of float around not doing a whole lot on the grand stage of ecology.

They're also completely impervious to just about everything, including ionizing radiation, the vacuum of space, extremes of temperature, starvation, and dehydration. They also don't appear to have evolved from anything other than each other. So, yeah, not saying invincible alien vanguard species, but I may be heavily implying it.

Beginning Berkeley

This is my inaugural blog post, in an inaugural fashion! I think what I'll do with this is review classes I've taken and food I've eaten, and talk about situations and things I encounter. Songs I listen to, ads I see because I'm stupid and won't get an adblocker. Important things about me: I'm a guy who goes to UC Berkeley and I like biology/chemistry, hence the title. It's not plagiarism if you roll your eyes while you do it.

I was at the dining hall recently, and I was just sitting in my quiet corner with my friends Salad and Burrito (as I do every day of the week, in a completely non-compulsive way), reclining in my comfy chair and enjoying solifood. I heard a great commotion from the door and glanced up to find one of those Wolf Pack Tank Top assemblies of guys pouring in. The type is known to you, lots of short hair on the sides and competitively raucous speech. I guess they couldn't find a table for a double-digit number of people, I dunno. But, as men do, these guys are talking about the situation at the gym in Berkeley (which is a ten-dollar membership for the entire semester, so... the expectations must be examined).This is all very normal for college, if a little bit annoying to the normal lunch denizens of the back part of Café 3 (that is to say, me and two people who study in there).

The fun bit happened as they all got situated to eat. Our gym has a policy that forbids most of the exercises that can tear tendons and things, like jerks/cleans and stuff like that, for fear of people injuring themselves. This, apparently, was not to the liking of the Tank Top Frat Pack assembling at the central tables. They were making a great plan to go to adventuring together at the gym, as these people do, and this policy was interfering in their exploits. Now, I'mma quote this from memory, because I'm not funny and paraphrasing would make it boring. The only thing I'll say aside from this prefatory blather is: no, they were not kidding, and they said this all completely straight-faced and unaware.

"Bro, I wanna go to the gym."
"Yeah, I wanna get swole... but like, they don't let you jerk there."
"I'm on this circuit training program, like where you trade off jerking with other shit."
"Oh yeah? Can you like, partners?"
"Yeah bro, you can trade off the stations n shit. Like one guy is jerking it while the other flies and shit."
"But if we can't jerk-"
"Yeah, they don't let you jerk there. Gay."
"I wanna go to the gym and get swole... maybe we can like, jerk it while they're not looking?"
"But if we're all there jerking and trading off they'll hella notice."
"Aahh, shit, bros, I wanna jerk it and get swole with you guys. No pecs no sex." [ad infinitum until they left]

And so it was that I discovered that the greatest aspiration of fourteen or so frat brothers at UC Berkeley (bold proponents of heterosexuality all) was to go to a public gym as a group, get swollen, and jerk it in a rotation.