Assuming the Worst

"What should we have for dinner?"

"I assume the wurst.... no pun intended."

Riiight. Whenever people say "no pun intended," I'm pretty incredulous. Most of the time, especially in writing, I assume that puns are intentional. When you read the phrase in a blog post, you can be almost certain that, unless it's a stream-of-consciousness, the pun was noticed and left unchanged during editing. If, as an author, you notice a pun, let the reader find it for him/herself. That's my take on the phrase anyway: I severely dislike its use.
Then I decided to stop assuming intentional annoyance. I came up with a completely unfounded theory that puns are a natural part of language. Since the mind is already thinking of a certain topic, related words and phrases are close at hand for the mind, and they often come out as puns.
Moving away from puns, it turns out that, if you give someone the benefit of the doubt, you'll find that they often have good intentions. Maybe they did something stupid, but the vast majority of the time, people have some form of good in mind. Sometimes it's selfish gain, and sometimes it's entirely unsuccessful, but thus far it is not a crime to be stupid or selfish, per se.
If a friend loses or forgets to return something you lent him/her, don't get angry with them. I doubt it was their intention from the start to steal your possessions. If it was, they're probably not your friend.
If your boyfriend neglects to tell you how beautiful you are, don't assume he doesn't think you are or that he doesn't love you anymore. Assume he forgot it was necessary, or that he believed his emotive responses sufficiently conveyed the message.
So next time you want to get angry with someone, don't assume the wurst. Try forgiving each other for being stupid... er, human. To er is human. Err. To air is human. Two heirs are human. Sorry, now I'm doing it on purpose - no need for the benefit of the doubt on my account.

All that being said, there is an aphorism that says "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." I'll let you interpret that for yourself. Either way, psychologists have found that people are much better at assuming good intentions within themselves than in others. People tend to blame others before they'll blame themselves. This is at once a problem with human nature, and also an opportunity to solve a problem with the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Try to give as much forgiveness as you would give yourself.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that we should be wary of those who do indeed have bad intentions - whether motivated by hatred, jealousy, envy, greed, or revenge. So don't be optimistic beyond reason. I have gotten into a fix or two by excusing people and ignoring their faults. There is a balance between being realistic and assuming the worst. Find that aurea mediocritas.

Foreign Aid

You will often hear Libertarians and libertarian Republicans claiming that we should end foreign aid, which is often countered by their opponents with the claim that foreign aid is such a small and negligible part of the US budget, that it's hardly worth mentioning. Some of the typical libertarian responses may be a) all government waste should be ended, no matter how small or "negligible" [side note: negligible is a fun word], or b) that at the very least we should stop aiding the countries that are openly against us or our allies.

Rand Paul was recently in a bit of hot water when it was claimed that he is for ending aid to Israel. Bill O'Reilly brought up the fact that Rand Paul has in the past called for an end to all foreign aid, claiming that Paul has now gotten softer on his position. Of course, on his show, O'Reilly only showed a few seconds of the video above, in which Paul explains his position more fully. It seems that while Rand Paul still thinks it would be better for all countries to be independent of our aid, for now he has only been working for an end to our aid to Hamas. He's never targeted Israel, which is the implied attack. Now, to a hardcore libertarian, he ought to be calling for an end to all foreign aid, not just aid to Hamas. But I think that's beside the point. The media are trying to paint him as anti-Israel, and O'Reilly is trying to paint him as a wishy-washy politician. I think Paul is being realistic. In the current Congress, it is not realistic to expect an end to all foreign aid, but he can at least work to end the aid we sent to the people attacking Israel. The debate on  whom we should be supporting in that conflict is a longer argument that I won't go into today.

Now, as I said, foreign aid is said to be a very small part of the US federal budget. Nominally, this is true. One percent, they say. Foreign aid is only one percent of the federal budget! So why is it even worth mentioning? Well, I'll put aside the libertarian moralist in me for a moment, and I'll even put aside the fact that aid as a percentage of the budget has dropped from about 3% to about 1% over the last 40 years primarily because federal spending as a total has quintupled in the same amount of time. Let's just recalculate that percentage of our tax dollars going overseas, taking just one cost into account: defense.

The US spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined. The US has also, until recently, served as the police force for the world, tax-free. These governments don't support the US military financially, but they benefit from its defense. Now, I doubt that Kuwait, for instance, neglected to keep a military because they knew the UN and the US would come save them if they were invaded by big neighbors like Iraq, but... it happened. And maybe South Korea is spending less on defense than they would otherwise be spending if America didn't have a hundred thousand troops in the area, maybe they're not. Israel would likely have thousands of civilian deaths from the last few weeks of Hamas rocket fire, if it hadn't been for the military and technological aid that America gives Israel. Furthermore, there's a fair amount of money that goes toward building, supporting, and staffing our overseas military bases, which undoubtedly has an effect on the hosts' economies.

Admittedly, I don't have a lot of numbers on all this, as it's fairly speculative. Nevertheless, I'm tempted to say we're spending more than 1% of our federal budget, directly, indirectly, or in the form of military protection, on international aid.

Also worth noting: our money is not buying us friends. In the UN General Assembly, the countries to whom we've been giving the most aid vote with us less than half the time. These are old numbers, but the new numbers aren't any better.

Buying friends is, of course, not the point of foreign aid, but it would be a nice bonus to go along with satisfying our rich-man guilt complex and our apparent need to manipulate the societies of other countries through cultural programs... Nah, I'm just kidding. And not. Helping the less fortunate is an admirable activity, but I think there are a lot of private international charities that do a better job of it.

In memoriam

In the story Peter Rabbit, I don't remember there being anything about McGregor having a rabbit-killing chihuahua. Apparently that's only in the real-life version. A cute baby bunny had been in our yard eating our flowers, and we finally spotted him. So did Jack, the chihuahua, but when we weren't watching.
Poor Peter.

By the way, did you know that it's "in memoriam," and not "in memorium?" It's the Latin accusative form of "memoria," while memorium is just a misspelling.
Also [moment of humility], misspelling has two esses. I tried spelling it "mispelling," and the computer corrected me. Okay, I'm not perfect. Ah, the irony!

Variety Verbs

I just read an extensive overview of Plato's Symposium, likely written in the 19th century, not because I just do that sort of thing, but because it was the "prologue" in the Kindle version of The Symposium, and I was unwittingly dragged into a longer synopsis than I anticipated or wanted. But, once you're 15 pages into an introduction, you just feel compelled to read the next 12 pages as well. Anyhow, while reading, I noticed the author had a particularly expansive vocabulary to match his verbose synopsis, and the repetition of a word longer than 4 letters on a single page was not common.

Now, I'm not claiming that 19th century philosopher-speak is the best way to write, and I must warn you that it can come across as... pretentious, especially when you're talking about Plato (and ironically when you're saying how Socrates was able to put complex ideas into simple terms). What I would posit, however, is that one's writing can be improved significantly by using the full palette of vocabulary at one's disposal, instead of the same words over and over. There are two sub-points to this I'd like to mention: reusing topic-related words, and reusing multiple-use words.

Hopefully the first one is fairly common-sense. It gets old when you're talking about something and keep using the same word to describe it. For instance, in a paper about dogs, you could say, "Dogs are great. Dogs have helped mankind in many ways, and I love dogs. Dogs provide companionship and every child should grow up with a dog." Now, ignoring the problem of starting every sentence with a subject, one might use canine companion, furry friend, man's best friend, mutt, pup, etc. If you want to see this problem in action, read a research article. Unfortunately, in research papers it becomes almost necessary to use the same term for a concept to prevent confusion and maintain precision in results. So there is an excuse, but it can get tiring to read (and to write, believe me) the term "social networking site" 20 times in a page, so don't do it if you don't have to.

Secondly, and I think more interestingly, modern English is capable of conveying tons of different meanings using very few general-use verbs and your everyday prepositions (e.g. up, down, off, on, in, out). Take "take," "run," and "give," and throw any preposition before or after.

Take out. Take down. Take up. Take in. Take over.

 Run out. Run up. Run down. Run across. 

Run along. Run by. Run off. Run away. 

Give up. Give off. Give in. 

But each of these phrases has a synonym that can be used in its place. For instance:

Take down - defeat

Take up - begin 

Take in - adopt

Run out - abandon

Run away - flee

Give up - capitulate

Give in - concede

Give off - emanate

I'm still not sure if I like this aspect of the English language, but it is really easy to use one of these multipurpose verbs over and over. To make it confusing, even the same phrase can be reused with a second meaning (as in distribute = give out = collapse). However, if you avoid using these phrases, you'll end up using a much greater variety of words. And variety, my friend, is the spice of life.

So, that's my homework for myself. Hopefully it'll help you too.

Goed?

The question you've all been pondering:
www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=went

Okay, I say "you all," but it was actually just a question my brother posed to me, and I lacked an answer. Well, here it is, and I must say it was more interesting than I had expected.

The original past tense was closer to "yode."

went (v.) 

past tense of go; originally the strong past tense and past participle of wend (v.). The original past tense forms of wend were wende, wended, but variants wente, went developed from c.1200 and these then began to replace older past tenses of go. By c.1500 they were fully employed in that function, and wend was given a new past tense form, wended.

Balance

Do yourself justice: find yourself balance

When I was little, the word balance mostly brought to mind the physical type of balance. Indeed, I thought I had pretty good balance, partially a result of a couple years of gymnastics. Well, that's all faded. I'm not little, I'm not a gymnast, and I'm not sure my physical balance is that great. Nevertheless, balance has become one of my favorite words. Nowadays I think of balance in many forms along many continua. God only knows how many times I've said, "There is a balance to be found between X and Y."  I have just a few of them here for you.

Objective ----- Subjective
As a humanities student, I was basically presented with these two options for research. You can be objective and quantitative, or subjective and qualitative. I really like to be somewhere in the middle though. I think there is great value in stepping outside your own opinions and looking at a problem objectively. On the other hand, we can become inhuman and unfeeling by looking at the world purely in numbers and absolutes. I do believe in absolute truth, but I don't think I know what it is.

Artistic ----- Pragmatic
I recently listened to a talk in which the speaker said, "Art is not for anything." It is not a means to an end; it is the end itself. Others will tell you its purpose is to inspire, to communicate, to commemorate, or some other reason. I'm not sure which it is, but art is surely not always pragmatic, especially modern abstract paintings. I place a great deal of value in pragmatism, but I think it's difficult without art. The mind ought to be free to roam occasionally. Sometimes creative art finds new useful things, but it's almost always a great way to rest a pragmatic mind. Artistic recreation is wonderful.

Gentle ----- Firm
It's hard to find this balance for me, and I end up on both extremes depending on the context, but I think it's an important one. I often avoid rebuking what I know is wrong for the sake of gentleness, forgetting that they're not mutually exclusive. Sometimes, however, we stand firm and forget to be empathetic toward each other.

Gullible ----- Skeptical
Critical thought is key here. Don't take everything at face value (especially not statistics, politicians, and news media). At the same time, don't insult a friend with distrust, unless they deserve it. There are really few reasons to be anywhere near gullible on this spectrum, so I lean toward skeptical, but I still believe there's a good middle ground.

Logical ----- Emotional
I used to think I was extremely logical. It turns out I've always been emotional, and I'm just not that good at expressing it. Either way, I tend to put more emphasis on the logical than the emotional. Emotion is a natural and necessary part of mental processing, but I think it's most useful for finding your deeper opinion on things: what you really value, what you're forgetting, who annoys you most, whom you love most, etc. Logic can only do so much for evaluating these things, but I think logic is better at informing your decisions than emotion.
This one could be an entire post by itself.

Open ----- Closed
This one might not sound right. "What value is there in being closed?" you might ask. Well, I really just can't think of a better word for the concept I actually mean here. I am all for being open to new things, new people, new cultures, new genres of art, etc. At the same time, I find a valuable connection to the past through the traditional, and I believe that tradition has an important role in human life. So perhaps traditional is the right term for the concept, but I mostly just mean that we shouldn't forget.

Ignorant ----- Obsessive
You can know nothing important about something important, or you can know everything unimportant about something important. The trick is determining which information is important, and which is not.

Career-oriented ----- Social
This is one form of balance with which most of us are familiar. We have to survive, but work is only an means, not an end. Relationships with friends and family are the end. I don't have much to say on this though, because I've never really been good at it, usually swinging from one extreme to the other.

Proper ----- Free
This is one balance I have never pinpointed. I am simultaneously obsessive over propriety and fully supportive of freedom of choice (within reason). On one hand, I care about spelling, grammar, and punctuation, while on the other hand, I will accept anything that is easily understood, regardless of its adherence to standards. On one hand, I don't care if you have Hello Kitty tattoos, neon green hair, and lip rings. On the other hand, no.
I know a lot of rules, and usually try to follow them. Hats for instance: Men should not wear hats indoors, except in hallways or on the way to their destination within the building. Never sit with a hat on, unless outdoors. Remove your hat for prayers and the pledge of allegiance. Or not. I guess it's a free country.
Just try not to be extreme in your style. You'll offend my sensibilities (that's actually an awful reason, but I do lose some respect for those with a seeming inability to follow rules). I still believe there is benefit in pursuing propriety for propriety's sake.

Optimism ----- Pessimism
I love being an optimist, but I'm usually a pessimist (I call it realism). There's really little value in being a pessimist though. I don't think it's healthy, and I have nothing to back that up at the moment. Still, unfettered optimism can be dangerous. Both extremes will blind you to possibilities. Hoping things will get better can lead to disappointment, but expecting things to get worse will never make you happy. Choose the balance, and lean toward optimism.

Pride ----- Excessive Modesty
Humility is the goal. It is thinking neither too much nor too little of oneself. It is being precisely aware of your skills, talents, and value. And usually that means recognizing when another is equal to or better than you. Love your neighbor as yourself, but love yourself as your neighbor.
If someone compliments you, it does little good to try to argue against it if it's true (or if it's opinion). Nor is it flattering to treat it nonchalantly, as if you knew their good opinion of you previously. A simple and sincere "thank you" will suffice.

Explore other areas of your life that need balance. I know this list isn't exhaustive.

Time, Habits

Summer days go by fast. Well, the few I've had so far did. Days go by pretty fast anyway around here. Although just about everyone will say this regardless of their situation, time is a weird thing here. Days go by quickly. Not only do I find myself surprised at the end of the day that it's over, but at the end of the week, I find I have no idea where it went. I'm currently "unemployed," or in other words working for my parents for room and board. And out on a farm, no matter how small, there's almost always something to do. On the bright side, most of these tasks have visible results (e.g. mowing, building a small building for rabbits, or making a path in the woods with fresh woodchips), so at the end of the week I can say, "Oh yeah, I was actually productive." Meanwhile, I was surprised when June rolled around, but after all these quick days, I feel like it should be gone already.

So, on one hand, I think time has always been odd, but I'm still using it as an excuse for not posting for almost a week. I seriously lack sense of time here. I thought it was Wednesday today (it's Tuesday as I write this), but that would mean it had been an entire week since the last post, which at this point isn't much worse. The real problem probably has more to do with my inability thus far to make a habit of writing for other people. When I forget to journal for a couple weeks, I'm the only person who cares. Here it's noticeable. I come up with the occasional idea for a blog post, and sometimes even write a draft, but most posts tend to lack purpose or end up wandering aimlessly. Perhaps I should be less picky.

In fact, I haven't made a whole lot of habits at all here. As I said earlier, there's always something to do, but it's rarely the same thing as yesterday. Each day starts out about the same - with coffee, but after that it varies wildly. Following dinner and Battlestar Galactica with the family (yes, I know we are), each evening around 9 or 10, when the day really should be over, I do whatever I wanted to do myself, apart from family and family chores. For instance, reading articles, watching TED talks, occasionally writing, etc. It really doesn't feel like enough time, so I'm secretly eager for us to reach the end of Battlestar Galactica so I have more time.

I'm looking forward to when life has a more normal flow, if that's in my future.