MOMENTS IN TIME : JANUARY 1, 2000

A REFLECTION

Sometimes memories return to me with uncanny clarity. It is not just the clarity that strikes me. More often I wonder why certain memories return to me so long after the event. After all, of all the things I have experienced in my life, why would one day's details suddenly reemerge? What triggered it? And then a more vexing thought crosses my mind: As clear as my memory seems to me, perhaps reality was very different from what I remember? Who can say now? That is one reason why memory fascinates me so much. It is exquisitely subjective. It seems real, but only to ourselves.

I got up this morning and suddenly remembered December 31, 1999. On that day, I worked from morning to night and beyond. Back then, I was a 22-year-old kid with a "bowl haircut" and a jean jacket. I wore ripped $30 pants for days at a time. I was a college senior who memorized Nietzsche quotes without fully comprehending them. I basically had no money; my mother gave me about $20 a week to spend. So starting in 1997 I worked as a DJ to make a few extra bucks. Much to my good fortune, I met a much older guy named Joe who had been DJ'ing parties around the city for decades. He used to tell me stories about going home with women after disco parties in the 1970s. He was a Vietnam veteran and--to be kind--rather eccentric. He lived alone in a food-strewn apartment on 122nd Street brimming with records and 5 or 6 yappy Chihuahuas (one or two died over the years; but a few more were born, so I can't remember the exact number). Basically, the place was squalid. But somehow Joe kept getting gigs and holding his life together really well. He kept a zillion post-it notes all over his bedroom to remind him to do this and that each day--and he always got it done. For years, we worked really well together. He farmed me out to jobs he couldn't do and I gave him a cut of what I made. Plus we became really good friends.

Both Joe and I knew that New Year's Eve on Y2K would be a gangbuster night for DJ's. After all, everyone was partying that night. Some people thought the world was going to end. I knew it wouldn't. But it was an unprecedented atmosphere. And most importantly, entertainers like us were in demand that night. So we could charge huge fees and we knew people would pay. We could name our price for a change.

Joe wound up scheduling a $2000 job. At the same time, he booked me a job for $1800. We agreed I would get $1500. He would take a $300 commission. That seemed fair to me; in fact, I was thrilled. For a kid who wore torn pants and got $20 a week to spend, $1500 was a treasure trove. I could live the whole semester on that--and all for just one night's work.

I remember the job exactly. We did it in a brand new loft apartment on 21st Street near 6th Avenue. Some nouveau riche woman and her husband were throwing a party. Joe and I drove down to the apartment the morning before the gig to set up. Joe drove a virtually unroadworthy mid-80s Chevy station wagon. It had no muffler and a pretty disgusting, food-like crust clung like a glaze all over the interior. The car had roaches. And Joe stuffed in so many speakers, wires, amps and record crates into it that I was amazed the bumper didn't scrape the pavement as we drove. In short, despite all appearances, Joe was a master of limited space management. The cops never pulled the jalopy over, either.

I remember schlepping all our equipment two flights up to the apartment. The woman and her husband were frantically decorating the place and setting up long tables for the hors d'oeuvres. I had a few words with her. She said she liked hip-hop and R&B. I said that was great because "that was my specialty." She seemed to like me. She didn't seem to like Joe too much, though. After all, at first glance he looked really gruff and he spent his time hauling speakers and wires all over the place. He was always polite and even charming. But he just didn't look the part. Some customers really used to treat him badly, and that hurt me.

After we set up the equipment, Joe and I sat in the car for a few minutes and talked about the plan for the evening. I would show up at the gig and do my thing. He would go to his gig and do his. Then he would pick me up from my gig and I would give him his cut. We would drive back uptown together and call it a night around 4 AM. It was a good plan. We then went our separate ways.

I remember the party went very smoothly. I got to play the music I wanted. The crowd was easy and did not complain. My DJ station faced east; the crowd looked west out the windows over 6th Avenue. Joe set up the lights and I controlled them with a little hand console. It took a while for the alcohol to get the party moving; eventually it did. I started off playing 70s funk and rare grooves. That gave a nice ambiance to the early part. Later, people started asking me to play hip-hop and assorted Top Ten pop. I obliged. I remember one Asian chick kept asking me to play Lauren Hill's "That Thing" over and over again. That tune always generated a huge crowd response, so I waited to play it until the place was really hopping. I kept telling her "it was in the pipe." She never quarreled with me; she just kept going back to her friends and dancing.

Before midnight, nervous excitement came over the room. People started wondering aloud whether the world would end at 12:01. I remember people throwing their drinks and hooting in the minutes leading up to midnight. I also remember looking outside and seeing helicopters flying low over the city with spotlights on. There was a lot of honking and yelling on the street below. I could hear it even over the music. Finally, 12:01 came. Nothing happened. A huge cheer went up on the dancefloor. Then the party went into overdrive. "Hypnotize," "Walking on the Sun" and "Backstreet's Back" were particularly popular that night. Oh, and of course "Groove is in the Heart" and "It Takes Two" made everyone move, too, even otherwise respectable-looking bourgeois with jobs: I always laughed when I saw white bankers singing along to rap songs. But by that point at the party, the alcohol was guaranteed to make everyone dance, no matter what was playing. Even so, as a DJ, I felt like I had accomplished something. Lots of drunk, happy people profusely thanked me for "all the great tunes" as the evening approached its end. It was always a nice perk to get compliments, even if the partygoers were fall-down drunk and virtually incoherent.

At about 3 AM, Joe showed up from his party. People had already started to leave. Beer and broken plastic cups littered the dancefloor, along with squashed finger foods and dirty napkins. Everyone was shouting, hugging, hooting, caressing and laughing. The mood was very good. Almost all the food was gone and the wine was running low. Joe went over to the hostess and whispered to her. She then came over to me and told me it was OK to start wrapping up.

Within 30 minutes, almost everyone had left and I stopped the music. The house lights came up. Joe started breaking down the lights and sound equipment. I chatted with the hostess for a while. She complimented me in the highest terms, even though she was utterly shitfaced. I still felt like I had done a good job; for my part, I did not touch a drink that evening. I had a few Sprites and some ice water. Finally, the hostess pulled out an enormous wad of $20 bills and handed it to me. I thanked her. She went away and I started helping Joe move all our stuff downstairs. Meanwhile, the hostess and her husband started brushing trash off the floor with two big push brooms.

It took us a good 30 minutes to haul all our stuff downstairs. We loaded it into the car and--once again--got it all to fit. After that, Joe and I shook hands and congratulated each other on a job well done. I handed him his $300 commission. Then he headed back uptown and he dropped me off at my dorm on 114th Street and Riverside. I wished Joe a happy new year and thanked him for being so generous to me. He said no problem and drove off into the predawn darkness.

I went upstairs to my room on the fourth floor. There was no way I could sleep after the night's toils. It was about quarter to five in the morning, January 1, 2000. I walked over to my single-size mattress. I took the enormous cash wad from my pocket and laid all the money out on the bedspread. I was in awe: $1500 in cash, all for me. I never thought I could ever make that much in one night. It was unbelievable. What a way to start the new year, the new decade, the new millennium. I felt like life could not get any better than this. I even felt that time had suddenly stopped, as if I could never get older, that this moment would last forever. After all, it was the year 2000! To that point in my life--indeed, in everyone's life--it had always been the 20th Century. I couldn't really fathom that life would go on as it always did. On that night, time froze as I sat there ogling my massive money pile. For a few hours, I felt utterly invincible. I felt that I controlled time and that I would never age.

I was hungry. I went out to get some food at Tom's Diner. It was extremely quiet. All the partying was over. A few stragglers appeared here and there, but that was it. I saw a few "2000" party eyeglasses in a trash can. It was still dark. As I headed down Broadway, a New York Times truck pulled up and a man tossed out the morning edition. I bought one. It had an unforgettably bold headline: 1/1/00. Underneath, in typeface almost as big, was a headline saying that Russia's President Yeltsin had resigned. A new man, Putin, was taking over.

Wow, I thought, everything was looking up! It was a fresh new morning in a fresh new millennium. I had $1500 in cash and there was a new Russian President. One era ended. Another was dawning. Time stood still and I was in control.

Then I went to Tom's and ordered a shake and fries. I stayed there for a while. I let myself get tired. Finally, I headed back to my dorm to go to sleep. It was dawning. Time for bed. It was a good night.

I still have never made that much money in one night as I did on January 1, 2000. I think that's why I remember it so vividly. It felt really good.

Too bad life got harder after that. But on that night, I didn't think anything could ever go wrong.

HOW TO BREAK UNHEALTHY ATTACHMENTS TO PEOPLE

OESTERHOUDT ON RELATIONSHIPS

People often approach me for relationship advice. I don't like to flatter myself, but I'm good at it. I know a thing or two about human beings and their capacity to live with each other. I have credentials. I have been in a committed relationship for eleven years and I have endured every emotional, physical and sanity-damaging challenge you can possibly imagine. Along the way, I have coped with jealousy, envy, longing, lust, passion, disappointment, infidelity, vanity, heartache, reconciliation, misunderstanding, rage, sleeplessness, abuse, frustration, ecstasy, contentment, simple joy, tension and anxiety. I have even weathered trying health troubles at my partner's side, like unforeseeable life-changing accidents and mental illness.

When it comes to living with another person, I've been around the block. I'm not a boy anymore. I'm a man. That's not a boast. That's a fact.

In many cases, people ask me whether they should transform pleasant acquaintances into lasting relationships. Others ask me how to overcome consumptive attachments they develop to people, then the terrible disappointment that flows when their love interests do not reciprocate their devotion.

These are related situations. They arise frequently. When a person tries to force a relationship onto another level, a power struggle ensues. One person wants something the other might not. This leads to a disparity in desire, as well as wishful thinking and blind faith that the other person is acting in accordance with your fantasies. In short, it is emotionally dangerous. When you start expecting another person to act the way you imagine they will, you are setting yourself up for heartbreak or worse.

I did this in my first love. I became very close friends with someone when I was just a teenager. I loved our time together. We had a very special friendship and I felt respected whenever we met. Eventually, my feelings grew stronger. I wanted a romantic relationship. I started believing that he did, too. He really didn't. I wanted him to love me the same way I loved him. I turned it over in my mind all the time; it kept me up at night. I wanted to talk to him all the time, but I didn't want it to seem that I was the only one making the phone calls. So I would wait around for days at a time wishing that he would call me; and of course he didn't. When he finally did call, my heart would race and I would stumble on my words. I felt that I was speaking to my savior; he had all the power over me. It was just pathetic. I was slavishly dedicated to him even though he never gave me the reciprocation I craved.

It took me several years to break my attachment to this person. I wasted so much psychic energy on an illusion. I will never do it again.

Now I see clearly what I did wrong. I created a whole mental patchwork of fantasies about my friend. Those fantasies overwhelmed my mind. I expected my friend to act in accordance with them. It was unrealistic, of course, but when you're craving a person's love, you do not think reasonably. My mistake was this: I fell in love with a subjective fantasy image, not a real person. And when the real person did not act according to the fantasy script in my mind, I felt crushed. I expected too much; and I learned that people are basically inscrutable: They rarely act the way you really want them to.

My youthful attachment to my friend was unhealthy for another reason: It led me into slavishness. I hung on his every word. I followed his every action with total devotion. I delivered my fate into his hands. Whatever he did, I followed. I gave him all the power because I wanted him to give me what I wanted. I wanted him to love me so much that I sacrificed my own dignity and spirit to win his affections. I stumbled on my words when I was around him because he was my mental master. I wanted too much. That made me slavish.

I did not break my attachment to this person until I stopped wanting what he had to offer. And that is the lesson: If you have an unhealthy attachment to a person and they are not showing you the love you want, you must convince yourself that they have nothing you want. Once you do that, you will stop obsessing about them. You will regain your peace of mind and dignity. You will reorder your desires and think clearly again. True, it is hard to do. But you will thank yourself if you can pull it off.

Let us try to understand how this works. We develop unhealthy attachments to people when we WANT something they have. "Want" is the most important word in our mental lives. It expresses our truest desires. It honestly discloses who we are. No one controls what we want; our personality dictates it. We are never so happy as when we get what we want because it satisfies our deepest, most personal yearnings.

Problems arise when we want something that only another person can give. In this case, we cannot easily address our wants because we cannot directly slake them. And because the other person has what we want, we make concessions in order to entice him to give us what we crave. We indulge him far more than we should. We bow, scrape, flatter and stumble on our words. We make our love interest our master; he has power over us because he has the discretion whether to grant us what we want. That is unhealthy. It leads us into despair because we willingly enslave ourselves to his will. Disappointment and frustration become our dominant emotions. We never get what we want. And we are crestfallen every time our love interest does not act the way we expect--which is much more often than we'd like.

But there is a way to overcome this cycle. To break the attachment, you must engage your reason. You must take control over your own desire again. You must convince yourself that the other person has nothing you want. If you can do that, the other person loses his authority over you. He becomes indifferent to you. You get to say what you want, not him. You can pursue your own desire again without a fickle middleman. That is freedom in the purest sense.

I know it is difficult to do this when you are caught in an unhealthy attachment. It is hard to engage your reason when you are contorted with unrequited desire. But it is worth the effort. It helps to have a distraction that breaks your incessant attention to your love interest. In my case, I met someone else who took my mind off my obsession. It helped me turn my mind away from its destructive focus on unattainable affection. Within a few weeks, I felt free again. It was wonderful.

If you ever find yourself with an unhealthy attachment to another person, think about why you feel the way you do: You want what the other person has. You put your happiness in his hands. You heap unrealistic expectations on the other person and you disappoint yourself every time he acts some other way. You give him total power over the way you feel. Conceptually, it is easy to understand. To break the attachment, you must simply stop wanting what he has to offer. Once you control your own wants again, no one will ever tyrannize you with frustration and disappointment. And life feels much better when you're not frustrated.

COMMERCE VERSUS JUSTICE : A REAL LIFE EXAMPLE

A REFLECTION

It took me a while to name this blog. I wanted to make it memorable. At the same time, I wanted it to reflect my life philosophy. I didn't want to sound pretentious; rather, I wanted to alert the reader to the big questions that animate me. And I also wanted to hint that I am at heart a "satirical rogue." That's why I added "free beer" at the end.

I chose "Reason," "Commerce" and "Justice" because those subjects focus my critical energy. Everything I write in some way relates to those three concepts. No matter what style I choose, those concepts unite my work.

Reason interests me because it encapsulates the human capacity for thought. Reason allegedly separates human beings from other animals. I write about reason's limitations, as well as its less-than-reasonable corollaries: Emotions, reflections, memories, impressions. My fixation on language also involves "reasoned" analysis. No matter the specific subject, however, I cast a critical eye on reason. I do not praise it as an inexorable pathway to truth. Indeed, I maintain a healthy skepticism for reason. I am a qualified empiricist: Reason is just one tool to help me understand existence. But I certainly don't put all my money on it. Too much unreasonable stuff happens in life. In that light, putting full trust in reason is not only unadvisable; it's also really disappointing.

Commerce offers me plentiful material for both satire and commentary. I define myself against commerce. Its values repel me. I do not like promoting myself. I do not like circulating resumes or kissing ass in interviews. I don't like wearing little costumes and going to work for private employers. I also don't like unfairness, inequality and hypocrisy. Commerce is rife with all three. Commerce also interests me because it is all about instrumentalism; and that clashes with my steadfast respect for the individual. In commerce, people play roles to make money: Master, servant, employer, employee, officer, director, customer, client…the list goes on. In the process, they lose their humanity. They also tend to exploit one another for crass personal gain. Commerce is the stage upon which to showcase my ruthless cynicism. It allows me to ironically brandish my own colors while criticizing things I fundamentally don't like.

Moreover, commerce is the perfect context in which to explore the tension between flexibility and principle. I often write about principles and honor. Commerce weighs against both. And sadly, my satires take doubled strength from the unfortunate truth that most people live for commerce rather than honor. Just listen to the radio or watch television. You will see and hear a lot more commercial messages than honorable ones.

Finally, justice draws me because it represents something larger than commerce. Justice has obsessed philosophers for millennia. I am just continuing down the road. In my work, justice stands as something hopeful, something better than ourselves, something transcendent, something to achieve. Justice is that great, intuitive feeling that something is right, not wrong. I do not identify a source for it. It just "is." I am no theologian. But in my heart I know when a situation is just. And I know when a situation is unjust. Injustice reeks. It seems to revolt against nature.

Justice is about ideals. It is about striving for something more than mere convenience or comfort. In that light, I use justice to champion my zeal for principle, honor, equality and "better" things. I use it to underline the key distinction between subjectivity and objectivity, because justice is largely subjective and cannot be objectively measured.

I also use justice as a backdrop to criticize the law. My fascination with ethics relates to my suspicion toward law. Justice and ethics go hand in hand. Ethics clashes with law. Therefore, law and justice clash, too. If you've spent any time studying my writing, you will know that I have very little respect for the law. If anything, I relegate law to the "commercial" category. And that it is ultimate insult, because law claims to advance justice. I make a few exceptions in my criticism for law, especially in cases where the law protects individual rights and enforces principles that restrain commerce. But I castigate everything else. In fact, law in most cases does not serve justice at all. To the contrary, in most cases it serves commerce--my perpetual theoretical foe.

In essence, then, my writing boils down to a battle between justice and commerce. I even thought about renaming my blog "Commerce Versus Justice," because that dichotomy really dominates my arguments. Something is either "just" or "just commercial." No matter what subject I address, chances are good that it involves hopeful ideals and crass realities. I lament the crass realities and wish for the hopeful ideals. The hopeful ideals are "justice." The crass realities are "commerce." In the "real world," commerce usually wins. In my eyes, it is usually an "unjust victory." And that "injustice" provides me fuel for criticism, commentary and satire.

But I decided against renaming my blog. Although I consistently allude to the struggle between commerce and justice, I refuse to abandon my commitment to "reason." There is a significant self-exploratory element to my writing. I write about people, their motivations, thoughts, dreams, hopes, happiness, unhappiness and machinations. While these things often involve commerce, they also implicate reason. I need to retain my focus on "reason" in order to continue writing about human beings--myself included. That is why I am going to keep my original three-part title. Well, four-part when you drink the free beer.

I sketch my thoughts about my blog's title in order to provide background for an important story. After all, one of the reasons I opened this blog was to therapeutically resolve difficulties that began to arise in my mind around 2006. In 2006, three critical events occurred in my life: (1) I finished my legal education; (2) My father died; and (3) I rejected law practice on principle. In essence, my life expectations completely changed. For one, I began thinking about death more than I ever had before. Second, after spending three years submerged in legal study, I recognized that I had no place in legal practice. That forced me to reevaluate my life in a very basic way. Beginning in 2006, I started to understand the distinction between commerce and justice. And when my father died, I used my reason to reflect on life. My philosophical fixation on reason, commerce and justice had begun.

I was not a child anymore. I was suddenly an adult. And life was full of trouble. Wrenching, inscrutable trouble.

In 2007, my focus on reason, commerce and justice sharpened even more. As I have written in several other contexts over the years, 2007 was the year in which my life partner, Steve, suffered a life-altering accident. I have not gone into great detail about the event. Neither has Steve. Yet I am painfully aware of it because I lived through its aftermath. And in truth, Steve's story perfectly illustrates the tension between commerce and justice. In this sense, Steve's story cemented my theoretical focus with a real life example.

Late on August 1, 2007, Steve went to work out at an all-night gym in Chicago. Back in those days, we used to go our own ways. We stayed out late alone sometimes and it never mattered. I went to bed about midnight. At about 2:15 AM, I got a phone call from the Illinois Masonic Hospital. "Are you Steve's partner?" someone asked. Half-asleep, I replied: "Yes. What is it?" "Steve has been badly burned. He wants you to visit him." I could not really understand what that meant, but I was stunned. "I'll be right over," I think I said. Then I hung up. I sat on the edge of the bed for a minute or two thinking. Then I got up and pulled on my jeans. I had no idea what was in store.

I got to the emergency room about 3:00 AM. Steve was laying on a cot, incoherent, drenched in sweat. They had wrapped a huge bulky bandage on his right arm. I could see dark-red bloodstains on the upper part. It looked like his skin had peeled right off midshoulder. Steve managed to tell me that he had been burned in the gym's steam room. He said he had just walked in when suddenly a jet of steam burst from the wall and scorched his arm.

I did not really know what to make of his story at the time. He was delirious. He must have been in shock. He talked about our dog and his clothes. I stayed with him in the emergency room for about two hours while the hospital arranged a transfer to a burn center outside town. I dozed for a while on a folding chair. I remember when the emergency room staff wheeled him away and put him in the back of the ambulance. He was smiling. He said he would be fine. He told me to go home and get some sleep. He told me to meet him at the hospital the next day. Then they closed the ambulance doors. The ambulance rolled off into the brightening summer dawn.

I had a meeting with my law school dean later that morning. I think I wanted to talk to him about getting a job with a federal judge. I somehow managed to attend the meeting with a straight face. At the time, I thought Steve would be all right, so I don't think the meeting went badly. The dean told me he would "put a word in" for me with several judges. I was out within an hour. I immediately hopped in the car and went to visit Steve.

Steve was fine when I arrived. They had his arm suspended above him in a sling. The doctors said they were going to perform skin graft surgery on him at 9 AM the next day, August 3. I spent about 8 hours in Steve's hospital room, assuring him that everything would be all right. Steve was cheery that day. He was happy that I was at his side. I went home about 8 PM. At 9:30 PM, he called me and thanked me for being at the hospital during the day. I told him I wouldn't abandon him for the world. I also told him I would be there as soon as he came out of the recovery room after his surgery. He cried when I said that.

I went to bed that night confident that Steve would be fine. I thought they would just do the surgery, then he would be home in a week or so. I was tired, sure, but I did not think life would be much different after that day.

I got up on August 3 waiting for a phone call to let me know I could visit Steve after his surgery. At about 11:00 AM, I got a call from a nurse who told me the surgeon needed to speak with me. I figured the surgeon was just going to tell me that the surgery had gone well and I could visit. So I called the surgeon back. I didn't reach him. After two more tries, I did reach him. He told me to come to the hospital right away. That was all he said.

I was a little nervous at this point. I had never really spent much time around hospitals. I did not know the procedure for getting news about surgeries. I thought maybe the surgeon could only tell me details about the surgery in person, not on the phone. So I headed back over to the hospital. It was about a 40-minute drive. I remember George Benson's "Affirmation" was on the radio during the trip.

I made it to the hospital and parked my car. First I went to the gift shop. I bought Steve a "Get Well Soon" balloon and a teddy bear. Then, holding the balloon in one hand, I went to the main desk. I said I was here I visit Steve. The guard tapped the keyboard and said: "Burn ICU. Seventh floor."

Now I was getting more nervous: Why is he in the ICU? Why isn't he in the recovery room?

I followed the signs to the Burn ICU. I went through a few automatic double doors into a large room with a nurse's station in the middle. Patient rooms lined the walls in a big circle around the station. I asked one nurse: "I'm here to see Steve."

She pointed to a room on my left. It was full of doctors, nurses, interns, even executives in suits. I pushed my way in. Steve was unconscious on a bed, angled up. He was on a respirator. A thick silver tube stretched from the respirator into a hole punched through his throat. There were two tubes lined into his nostrils. More tubes funneled out from his arms. Wires were tacked on to his chest and legs. There must have been about twenty wires and tubes attached to his body. His mouth was wide open and his eyes were as if glued shut. His tongue was protruding from his mouth slightly and it looked completely parched. There was blood caked on the edges of his lips. Bleeping, whirring machines and monitors ringed his bed.

I let go of the balloon and covered my mouth with my hands. I left the room for minute to reflect on what I was seeing. At that moment, the anesthesiologist approached me and explained nervously that something went horribly wrong during the surgery. Apparently, Steve had a strong reaction to a particular anesthesia and it stopped his heart. He told me that he had jumped on top of Steve to perform CPR and that he finally got his pulse back after 53 seconds. After reviving him, they stabilized his blood pressure and rushed him to the ICU. He told me he was in an induced coma. They wanted to keep him motionless until they could place a stent in his heart. Apparently, his body had convulsed uncontrollably after his heart stopped.

I could not believe what I was hearing and seeing. Here was the man I had loved for seven years, reduced before me to a motionless vegetable. Here was the man who just two days before was strong, enterprising and courageous; and now he was on the verge of death. I felt utterly broken. I immediately thought about my father. Was I going to lose Steve, too, just a year later? What was this life? What was the point? Was I doomed to lose everyone I loved?

At that moment, I thought that Steve would die. At the very least, I thought he would never recover his brain function. The doctors were all very grave. They said: "We have no idea what will happen with him. But he did go without oxygen to the brain for over a minute." I just paced around the ICU all day. I made phone calls. Our best friend was flying in from New York that day. I took a break and picked him up at the airport. That was a good distraction; I needed support that day, and he gave it to me. We spent the rest of the day staring hopelessly at Steve on the respirator. We worried every time a machine made a noise. Finally, we left at about 8 PM.

Over the next two days, Steve was in critical condition. He could not open his eyes. I just sat at his side for hours at a time listening to the respirator and the other beeping machines that kept him alive.

On the third day, however, Steve suddenly opened his eyes. The paralytic had worn off. He looked around as if in a panic. Then he turned and saw me. His face glowed for an instant, then it crumpled into tears. He grabbed for my hand as the nurses struggled to keep all the tubes attached to his body. Tears streamed down my face. I clenched his hand and told him everything would be all right. I tried to explain what had happened, but it was obvious he could not comprehend what was wrong. He could not speak. He could mouth words, but the tracheal tube blocked his throat. Still, as pitiful as he appeared that day, I knew he would survive. It was a huge relief.

Ultimately, Steve stayed 33 more days in the hospital. I was there every day from morning to night. He got the stent he needed in his heart. He underwent three more skin graft surgeries to repair the arm. They had to shear skin off his thighs to replant it on his arm. At one point, the graft did not take; so they had to put cadaver skin on his arm as a "bedding." Toward the end of his stay, they took out the tracheal tube and he could speak again. His voice had changed and he lisped, but he could speak. There had been no brain damage. He was handicapped and slower, but he had survived. He went home September 5, 2007. The hospital bill came to something around $2,000,000.

In the months that followed, Steve pursued a legal case against the gym that caused his injuries. We hired a law firm to investigate and prosecute the claim. As a former trial lawyer, the case seemed a winner to me. There was nothing wrong with his arm before he went into the steam room on August 2. When he came out, he was permanently injured. His "special damages" amounted to at least $2,000,000, not to mention the "loss of a normal life," "disfigurement," "pain and suffering" and "mental anguish." There was no quarrel that the gym's facilities caused these injuries and Steve had no control over those facilities. Based on my experience, I estimated Steve's case at around $7,000,000.

Despite these compelling facts, the case went poorly. For its part, the gym denied it had done anything wrong. It actually came forward with some questionable "incident reports" that said that Steve "laid down in front of the steam vent" and "caused his own injury." The gym manager--who was not there on August 2--claimed that Steve must have "passed out in the steam room," then fallen in front of the vent for a long time. Yet the medical records all corroborated Steve's story. And the emergency responders who took him from the gym said nothing about "fainting" or "falling." They did not treat him as they would have treated someone who had just fainted. Steve's surgeon even said there was no evidence of a fall.

Still, our lawyers found the gym's self-serving reports troublesome. For some reason, they thought that if the gym's story were true, then Steve could not win the case. Yet Steve always told the same story about how he was injured: He walked into the steam room and a jet of steam suddenly burst from the wall. The gym did not provide warnings anywhere about steam vents. It was a very big steam room with several blind corners and crannies. I had been in it myself and often found it difficult to determine where steam was coming from. That is why it did not surprise me when Steve said the steam took him by surprise.

And no matter what story people believed, the logic of the case seemed obvious to me: You shouldn't allow access to something on your property that can cause an injury as bad as Steve's. It's almost like letting a wild animal loose in your house during a dinner party.

But our lawyers did not see it that way. They said they could never sell Steve's story to a jury. They said they could not convince people that steam could emanate from the wall when the pictures showed the vents were only at ankle level. They did not acknowledge the fact, however, that they took the pictures almost a year after the event. Who knows what "improvements" the gym had made in the intervening time.

Yet all these rationalizations took a back seat to an even more compelling problem for our lawyers: They discovered that the gym did not have any liability insurance. Liability insurance means that an insurance company pays if someone gets injured on your land. If you don't have liability insurance, an injured person can go directly after your assets. But if you have no assets--or if the assets are insufficient to cover the injury--it makes little sense for an injured person to pursue you. After all, it takes years to win a judgment, let alone collect on one. Insurance companies shorten the time needed to get money from an accident. Without insurance, most injury lawyers don't waste their time on cases, even if they are meritorious. After all, they don't get paid until they win. If they spend 5 years working a case, then discover no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, they will have wasted 5 years for nothing. That is a terrifying prospect for a lawyer trying to pay his rent.

So our lawyers fired us. They never said that the gym's insurance situation was the reason they turned us away. But it was obvious to me. The gym got away scot-free because it strategically decided not to buy liability insurance. The gym knew that no personal injury lawyer would waste his time pursuing an entity without insurance, so it just did not buy insurance. In essence, it insured itself against lawsuits by refusing to insure. It understood that civil litigation is a time-consuming, expensive business. So it correctly guessed that most lawyers would avoid a case that does not promise a quick insurance payout.

In short, the gym acted in a commercially prudent manner. It minimized its liabilities. It saved money.

But Steve suffered injustice for it. Steve's life changed because of the gym's conduct. It offered its facilities to the public for a fee. Those facilities nearly killed Steve and gutted his entire existence, not to mention mine. And due to the gym's strategic failure to buy liability insurance, Steve will not even receive the psychic satisfaction that the law avenged the hurt he endured. Put simply, Steve did not get justice. The law failed him.

Or did it? Steve's case confirms me that the law does not serve justice. If it did, lawyers would have flocked to represent him. Yet none did. From an intuitive perspective, Steve suffered a gross injustice due to another's negligence. No one should ever have to endure such clear wrongs in life.

But the lawyers did not flock to his aid because justice does not motivate them. Avenging injustice, after all, does not necessarily pay the bills. Paying the bills is a quintessentially commercial function. And lawyers did not take Steve's case because they could not assure themselves that it would be "worth the investment." It did not matter that he suffered injustice. Rather, his case was not "commercially viable" because the gym did not have insurance.

In Steve's case, commerce won out over justice. That's a lesson in law for you.

I have no more illusions about the law. It is a business like any other. If a case doesn’t promise a quick profit, no lawyer will take it, even if a person has suffered obvious injustice.

SEEING, HEARING AND REMEMBERING : PATHWAYS TO UNDERSTANDING

AN ESSAY

In ancient China, Confucius allegedly said: "Tell me and I will forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I will understand." I had never heard this proverb before. It captivated me because it encapsulates many of my views about sense, speech, memory, experience and empathy. All these things relate to each other. And they all aim for one thing: Understanding.

What does it take to understand another person? Is it enough to hear a person describe problems with words? How about observing something firsthand? What is the most effective way to find understanding and empathy?

I have often written that we humans are subjective creatures. We know only what we sense. Unfortunately, we must also depend on language because our senses have a limited range. After all, we only feel certain about something when we perceive it directly. We would prefer to see something with our own eyes rather than hear about it in words from someone who saw it. We want to understand our surroundings and the people in our lives. And the only pathway to understanding is sense.

But it is a troubled pathway. For what can we really know, let alone understand? Knowledge is not the same as understanding. Knowledge is more banal than understanding. Knowledge means that we merely manifest a subjective belief that something is true because we perceived it. Yet understanding is more subtle. Understanding means that we not only know things, but we intuitively arrange our knowledge to tell a larger story. Knowledge is about details. Understanding is about narrative. Knowledge is just an actor. Understanding is the whole play. And we don't feel truly fulfilled until we really understand something: What good are isolated facts unless they tell us something more significant?

Confucius recognized that human sense opens the door to both knowledge and understanding. Yet he also recognized that there is a hierarchy in human sense. He says: "Tell me and I will forget," implying that hearing is a weak sense. How right he is. How often do we hear language and immediately forget what we just heard? It is difficult to glean knowledge from language, let alone understanding. It is incredibly easy to forget words. After all, words are a poor substitute for actual perception. But in many cases they are all we have to reconstruct our perceptions.

Sight is better than hearing. Confucius confirms this when he says: "Show me and I may remember." Here, he does not say he "will forget." If he perceives something visually, he says he "may remember" it. Again, Confucius is right. Sight links intimately to memory. Our eyes leave "visual impressions" on our minds long after images leave our present view. When we reminisce, we engage our "mind's eye." We attempt to re-see images that have long since disappeared from sight. We may not precisely remember what we see; indeed, with time, memory weakens. So in that way, Confucius correctly points out that we only "may" remember something after we see it.

And we see all the time. It is simply impossible to recall every single thing we visually perceive every day. Our memory works best only after we see something worth remembering, namely, something exciting, unusual, captivating or appealing. To a large extent, our own subjective desires color what we remember. If we are infatuated with someone, we remember how they look with great detail. We hang on their words and even remember what they say. Yet those subjective desires obscure other details. We don't remember many things we see because we are distracted with our love interest. We are not paying attention; our emotions cloud our perceptions. Thus, while sight may be a better way to acquire knowledge than hearing, we will never remember everything we see. There is just too much going on. We cannot know everything because our senses are imperfect.

But Confucius does not end his proverb with knowledge. He goes beyond. He ends with "understanding:" "Involve me and I will understand." Understanding is the ultimate goal; the proverb builds up to it. He does not equivocate here, either. He says: "I will understand."

What is going on here? And why is understanding better than knowledge?

Anyone can know facts. You must merely have functioning sensory organs to know whether something is hot, cold, smelly, coarse, green or blue. Some facts require complex sensory deductions and inferences, but deductions and inferences are just mechanical mental conclusions. Anyone with rudimentary reasoning power can infer one fact from another.

But understanding is more transcendent than that. Understanding combines knowledge with experience and intuition. It is one thing to know whether another person is sick, obligated, depressed or happy. It is quite another to understand a person who experiences those circumstances. Understanding requires a person not only to listen, observe and infer facts about another. It also requires him to put that knowledge in the light of his own experience and honestly try to feel what the other person feels. That is no easy endeavor. It takes time to assemble experience. That is why we tell young people: "When you're older, you'll understand." After all, how can you understand a complicated emotional problem if you've never experienced the emotions that make it a problem in the first place? If you do not have experience, you cannot truly understand. You can know, but you cannot understand.

Confucius was right to extol understanding as the "higher result" of knowledge. Why do we learn? Simple: So that we can understand. And why do we want to understand? Because understanding enlightens us. It makes the world more comprehensible. Understanding equips us to help others. Understanding counteracts prejudice and shortsightedness. Violence springs from misunderstanding and ignorance. It is hard to go to war with someone if you actually understand them.

Yet the fact that human beings constantly make war on each other bespeaks a sad truth: Understanding is not common. It is hard enough to acquire reliable knowledge through hearing and sight, let alone to understand larger implications about life. Most people never even acquire the knowledge they need to understand others. Understanding is impossible without knowledge. And only a patient person takes the time to obtain the knowledge needed to find understanding.

Who has time for that in our society? Who has time to listen? And most importantly, who has time to get involved with others in order to understand them? Confucius' proverb said that involvement results in understanding. That means living with others and experiencing their lives first hand. That means living with their problems, too. Involvement is not just a pervasive sensory journey; it also is an emotional one. When you involve yourself in another person's life, you eat, drink, sleep and breathe their problems. You sense what they sense. You obtain knowledge at an astronomical rate. And because you combine your experience with theirs, you necessarily will understand them. Once you understand them, you can empathize and comfort. Or you can turn away. In either event, you are enlightened. You are no longer ignorant.

But that takes a very long time. It takes a lot of energy. To achieve understanding, then, a person must not only have experience and knowledge. He must also be patient enough to involve himself in others' lives in a compassionate way.

Sadly, neither patience nor understanding are highly prized virtues in modern American society. Yet people yearn to be understood. In most cases, they must pay others to understand them. After all, time is money in the United States. No one has time to sit down and listen to another person's deepest thoughts, let alone get involved in their lives in a meaningful way. This is one reason why people are desperately unhappy in this country. They want to be understood, but no one has the time, patience or intellectual capacity to "learn" their woes. This leaves many people feeling isolated and forgotten. Even married couples never take the time to really understand each other.

I venture that understanding offers its own rewards. It is satisfying to understand others and to understand yourself. True, it takes time, learning and effort. But it feels so good to know another person understands you. By the same token, it feels good to give back by understanding others. It is an enlightened and compassionate way to live. Despite all the impulsions to the contrary, sometimes it is good to be patient in our society.

MY TEETH ARE DOOMED

AN ESSAY

I am getting older. Every day, time leaves new marks on my body. When the light shines a certain way, I notice time's inscriptions. Lines emanate away from my eyes, especially when I smile. I have more wrinkles on my forehead. My hands are starting to look cracked, crooked and worn. Hair is sprouting up in places I'd rather not discuss. And my teeth aren't so pearly white anymore; in fact, I can feel them getting weaker by the week.

Our bodies doomed to decay. That's the problem with bodies. Beauty and youth please us. But we understand how fleeting they are. We understand that time is never on our side. When we see a beautiful person, we know they won't be so forever. It's all just a matter of time before remorseless months and years erode even the supplest beauties.

Aging is a natural process. But that doesn't make it any more appealing to us. Death is a natural process too; and very few people like death, either. Still, natural processes can be both scary and reassuring. They are scary because no one wants to get old and die. On the other hand, they are reassuring because everyone reliably knows they will happen. Just as everyone knows a flower will wilt and turn brown, so too does everyone know that we all will die one day. That is just what happens in nature. You can see it. And you can apply it to your own life. It is rhythmic. You can count on it.

But let's get back to the scary part. While nature might provide us analogies to understand what will happen to us in the end, it is no less unpleasant to consider. We are, after all, rather vain creatures. We do not like the idea that our youth and appeal may one day fade. We do not like the idea that our beauty will wilt like the flowers in the garden. We experience so many pleasures in youth. And God forbid that time will steal them from us. It is not a pleasant thought.

Still, we must confront it. I confront it a little bit every day when I notice the new little injuries time has left upon me. In a strange way, it makes me reflective. When I notice something going wrong with my body, it makes me remember how long I've been here. It makes me remember how much I've seen and experienced. I go back through the years and I remember the times when my body did not ache the way it does now. I remember when there was no hair in the places it grows now. Our bodies are like fossils; and our memory confirms to us how long we have been here. Although I do not like the idea that I am decaying, I can at least take some pride in the idea that I have made it this far.

Having said all this, my teeth are doomed. I think they are even more doomed than the rest of my body. My constant coffee abuse, advancing age, lack of insurance and insufficient funds portend a dental disaster of unspeakable magnitude. Last year, I managed to scrape up enough money to get an examination, along with a cleaning and whitening (I am still paying interest on the visits). The dentist scraped unbelievable amounts of plaque from places in my mouth I barely knew existed. Then she flossed mysterious cracks in those unknown regions. She drew blood almost every time she hit the gum.

Toward the end, she said: "It's been a while since your last visit, hasn't it?" Then she offered me some Tylenol.

My poor, doomed teeth. It does not help that I have English ancestry. Genetically, the English have bad teeth. My own circumstances make my naturally bad genetic situation even worse. Every day, I notice my gums getting whiter. There are stains between a couple teeth that were not there before. And I can feel my teeth moving in my gumline in a way I have never felt before. Plus, they tell me I have impacted molars that must be removed before they burrow into my nerves. Put simply, I am in dire dental trouble.

But this is what happens when you get older. Time brutally flogs our bodies. There is little we can do about it. It just happens. Sure, we can live as healthy as we possibly can. We can eat right, exercise and even think positively about the future. But these are mere salves: Nothing can stop time's slow, steady, corrosive assault on our flesh.

It would be nice to escape our bodies for a while. While our bodies might offer numerous ways to experience the world's pleasures, they are also enormously restrictive. They can produce as much pain as pleasure. Time's corrosion is just another terror our bodies must confront. Still, it is so easy to put trust in our bodies. It is banal in the truest sense. We know our bodies better than anything else in our lives. We are stuck with them. We see them every day. We monitor them and scrutinize them. We must endure their chemical tempests and painful discomforts. They matter to us because they place insistent demands on us: Feed me; relieve me; give me rest; make me comfortable; make me feel pleasure. If we ignore them, we suffer pain for it. And we learn from earliest memory that pain is not good. So we slavishly pander to our bodies.

It is no accident that the law targets the body. Almost everyone cares about his own body. If there is something no man wants to experience, it is bodily discomfort. So the law threatens to inflict bodily discomfort on anyone who transgresses its commands. While some exceptional people hold their bodies in contempt, they are too rare to make a difference. The law concerns itself with efficacy: It knows that almost everyone fears bodily punishment, so that is what it threatens to maintain order.

So we spend our lives worrying about our bodies until time slowly eradicates them. It is quite a pathetic lot if you think about it. Still, it is completely natural. As living organisms, we want to stay alive. To stay alive, we must preserve our bodies. We fear death largely because it means we can no longer enjoy what life has to offer our bodies. We know that we will die in time because we see what time does to others' bodies. So we fear aging, because we know what it leads to.

But what about life beyond the body? Is it possible to achieve some mental satisfaction without worrying about the body's inevitable decay? Throughout history, we find examples of men who did not put all their faith in bodily comfort. There have been men who lived for something beyond placating their bodies and avoiding death. In fact, we tend to revere men who lived beyond their bodies because they are so rare. It is no accident that Jesus Christ is the central hero in Western Civilization: He gave up his body so that others could enjoy theirs. There is a nobility in life beyond the body because so few people can effectively ignore their bodies. Most people fear aging and death. Most people simply live to experience the pleasures the body can give. Love it or hate it, that is just how we are.

I am no martyr. I am just as worried about my body as the next man. But I fear pain more than I fear death. I wish I could hold my body in contempt. Yet the body is rapaciously insistent; it is difficult to ignore its demands for long. No matter how strongly I believe in abstract principles and ideas, I cannot say whether I could maintain my commitment to them in the face of torture, hunger or agony. I am worried about my hair and my teeth, for goodness' sake; imagine how I would feel if confronted with genuine bodily scourges?

But death is different than pain. Pain is about the body and its limitations. Death is about existence and non-existence. Death rules out the body altogether. In that light, it is easier to romanticize non-existence than pain. In fact, non-existence lends itself much more to abstract principles than mere contempt for the body. Death frees us from concern about the body. Death liberates us from the body's incessant demands and penalties. True, death might cut short our ability to experience the body's joys. But it also forecloses the body's ability to torment us any longer. There is some objective, rational appeal to that possibility. If bodily life--on the whole-- appears to offer more pain than pleasure, why go on living at all? It is better to cease to exist in order to avoid pain than to exist for nothing more than pain.

Yet this broaches another conundrum: What if death does not end our pain? After all, no one has ever reported to us what death is like. No one has come back from that "undiscover'd country from whose bourn/ No traveler returns." Hamlet, Act III, sc. i, lines 80-81. We have all seen aging and pain because living people experience aging and pain. We see what happens to them. They can tell us how bad they feel.

But no one has experienced death and lived to tell about it. Who knows what awaits us there. That is what makes people fear death: Unknowability. Maybe something dreadful happens once we die. No one knows. No one can know. No one can sense anything once they die, let alone communicate what they sense. And that is why death continues to terrify us. So as bad as bodily life may be, we choose to "bear what ills we have,/ [rather] Than fly to others that we know not of." Hamlet, Act III, sc. i, lines 82-83.

I have argued before that it is unreasonable to fear death because death cuts short our bodily ability to sense anything. http://reasoncommercejustice.blogspot.com/2009/05/why-we-fear-death.html. But once again, we see that humans are not invariably reasonable. They fear death even though death eliminates their sensory capacities--including the capacity to experience pain--because they fear the unknown. That fear is not reasonable because reason is based in human sense. Death obliterates sense, so it is not reasonable to fear it.

It is actually more reasonable to fear aging than death. We can sense our bodies aging. We can feel our bodies weakening. We know that aging will bring us more pain and less bodily satisfaction. We can sense all these things. Our reason has something to grasp in that situation.

I reasonably worry about my teeth. I have every reason to believe they are doomed. And I know it's going to hurt.

But with death: Who knows what I'll feel? That is strangely reassuring.

GAMBLING ON HAPPINESS : LOVE, KNOWLEDGE AND RISK

AN ESSAY

For three years, my close friend Joe Simeone composed an operatic adaptation to the 1952 play "Dial M For Murder." Last week, I attended an opening in which he presented several passages from his work. In brief, the opera follows the same intricate plot as the play: A man named Tony blackmails both his wealthy wife, Margot, and another man named Lesgate; Tony exploits the blackmail to entice Lesgate to murder his wife; the plan goes wrong and Margot kills Lesgate in self-defense; Tony manipulates the evidence to pin the murder on Margot; the police arrest Margot and she is sentenced to death; an enterprising police detective worries about the verdict and discovers that Tony orchestrated the result; Margot goes free and discovers her husband's betrayal.

Through the operatic form, Joe Simeone tells the story with a keener eye for emotion than plot. He did not compose an "operatic thriller;" he composed an opera. As such, he explores the emotional relationship between Tony and Margot with greater detail than the play. At the outset, Simeone tells us that Tony's and Margot's marriage was "loveless," but that Tony had recently begun to shower affections on his wife. To make that point, the opera begins with a sweeping aria in which Margot reveals that she has "rediscovered" her love for her husband. This is ironic, of course, because Tony has already betrayed her; he is even planning to kill her. During the aria, Margot sings a remarkable line: "It's a risk to believe love is real."

Margot may seem naïve for daring to believe that her devious husband actually loves her. But she is not alone. We all want love in our lives because love is a tantalizing pathway to happiness. Yet love is a troublesome thing because it cuts in two directions. We can love and we can be loved. Real happiness exists only when both elements find expression in a relationship. When only one person loves, the result is unrequited disappointment because the other does not return the feeling. And when only one person receives love, the result is awkward discomfort. Put another way, love only really "works" when there is no disparity between the emotions on both sides.

Sigmund Freud said as much. In Civilization and its Discontents, Freud explained that human beings generally "strive after happiness; they want to become happy and remain so." Civilization and its Discontents (Strachey, trans. p. 25). He went on to explain that happiness has both a "positive and negative aim," namely: "[the] absence of pain and unpleasure and the experiencing of strong feelings of pleasure." Id. Additionally, Freud noted that happiness cannot arise as long as unhappiness exists in a person's life. And unhappiness is "much less difficult to experience" than happiness. Id. at 26.

Freud identified three main sources for unhappiness: (1) our own bodies, which are doomed to aging, pain, discomfort and decay; (2) the external world, which can "rage against us with unimaginable forces of destruction;" and (3) our relations to other men. Civilization and its Discontents at p.26. He went on to say that unhappiness flowing from our "relations to other men" represents the worst possible unhappiness: It is the unhappiness of betrayal, deception, unfaithfulness, personal disappointment, spurned love, heartbreak, frustrated yearning and all the other bitter emotions that arise when our relations with others do not follow the path we wanted.

If so much unhappiness can flow from relationships with others, why do people bother with them? Freud posed the same question. He offered one surefire way to avoid "relationship unhappiness:" "Against the suffering which may come upon one from human relationships the readiest safeguard is voluntary isolation." Civilization and its Discontents at p. 27. He called this the "happiness of quietness." By eliminating a source for unhappiness, a person makes it easier to experience happiness.

But Freud acknowledged that "voluntary isolation" is not very satisfying. After all, mere freedom from unhappiness is nowhere near as fulfilling as experiencing positive happiness. For that reason, Freud explained that human beings constantly gamble on love to satisfy their "passionate striving for a positive fulfillment of happiness." Civilization and its Discontents at p. 32.

Put another way, freedom from unhappiness and pain is not enough. People want the ecstasy and joy that flows from real, positive happiness. And positive happiness flows most strongly from that most dangerous category: Relations with other men. Still, the potential emotional payout from love is so great that people all too willingly take their chances with it. Nonetheless, Freud warned: "The weak side of this technique is easy to see; otherwise no human being would have thought of abandoning this path to happiness for any other. It is that we are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love, never so helplessly unhappy as when we have lost our loved object or its love." Id. at 33.

Against this background, Margot sang more than she knew when she observed: "It's a risk to believe love is real." Love is an extremely dangerous risk. When a person dares to abandon himself to love, he makes himself "defenseless against suffering;" he even risks "helpless unhappiness" if he does not get the emotional payout he expects from the relationship. Worse, these unhappy results depend exclusively on "relations to other men." Specifically, the "love pathway to happiness" depends on how another person acts and feels. We humans are subjective creatures. We know only what we sense. Facts exist only to the extent that we manifest a subjective belief in their reliability. In that light, it is very difficult to gauge whether another person feels any emotion as we do, let alone love.

Beyond risk, love is about knowledge. Freud said that love has two components: Loving and being loved. We only feel love's joy when we know another person feels strongly about us, too. It is not enough to feel strongly about another person. Rather, love's intoxicating pleasure only really arises when we are satisfied that another person feels as strongly about us as we do about them.

But how do we know that? It is hard enough to know what exists in anyone else's mind. Yet when we risk our happiness on love, we force ourselves to decipher what another person feels and thinks. This is extremely difficult; in fact, it is nearly impossible. There is no way to know for certain whether another person loves us, because we cannot literally step into that person's mind. Rather, we must examine secondary facts to make inferences about the other person's beliefs. This is an imperfect method at best, but it is the only one we have. Even direct statements from our love interest are not definitive proof of what he feels. Humans are, after all, infamously dishonest.

In this light, it is easy to see that love is no easy thing. It does not just a risk; it demands some faith, too, because the facts necessary to establish love are unknowable.

Again, the question arises: With these thematic difficulties in mind, why bother with love? Consider just how much is at stake. By daring to love, a person opens himself to boundless unhappiness and pain flowing from "relations to other men." True, if his love pans out, he feels overwhelmingly positive emotions: That is the potential payout from the "risk." But in order to experience love, a person must satisfy himself that another person feels a certain way. It is impossible to certainly know what another person feels, so love actually involves a double risk: (1) Risking the relationship in the first place; and (2) Risking that a person will feel the way you expect. Disappointment can arise from either risk. There is nothing you can really do to stop it; you can't control how another person thinks or feels. In this sense, love is also a risk because a person must entrust his happiness to the subjective whim of another person over whom he has no control. And because human beings are notoriously untrustworthy and inconstant, it almost seems an unreasonable risk.

If love is so unreasonable, then why do so many people pursue it? The fact that human beings--like Margot--blindly risk love is testament to the assertion that reason does not rule us. If human beings were entirely rational, they would probably never love. After all, rational thinking involves balancing risks against benefits. A rational mind analyzes the potential pain that could result from a transaction and queries whether the potential pleasure is worth the chance. As Freud explained, love can yield immeasurable pain. And because that pain flows from forces largely beyond our control (i.e., the whims of others), it really makes no rational sense to take the risk. Although love offers a huge benefit in pleasure, a reasonable man would immediately see that it always presents an intolerable risk in pain. That risk would invariably outweigh the benefit in pleasure.

But we know that human beings live to love. They cast reason aside. They take the risk, even though it is unreasonable. Put simply, love's emotional payout in happiness is so intoxicating that it overwhelms human reason. Love's pleasure is so hypnotic that it submerges all potential pitfalls. Among those pitfalls is the dangerous need to place individual emotional well-being in the hands of another person--and that person is probably not trustworthy. Men ignore those risks when they love because it just feels so, so good. If reason held men in check, they would never allow themselves to remain blind to the dangers. But blind they remain; they dive headlong into the risks because it just feels so damn good.

"It's a risk to believe love is real." In one line, Margot expressed the timeless--yet perilously uncertain-- human quest for love. She hinted at the risks. She knew there was a danger. But love made her feel so good that she willingly blinded herself to it. She suspended her reason. Objectively, that might appear foolish. But we all have done it. And we probably always will. Love is never objective.

In short, we all desperately want positive happiness. We are not content with the "happiness of quietness." No, we crave "relations with other men." We gamble on positive happiness by playing familiar games. Those games are rarely reasonable. In fact, most are extremely dangerous.

Love is probably the most dangerous game of all: Enticing, risky, unknowable, unverifiable, tempestuous, fickle, maddening; yet offering pleasure beyond imagination. It is a recipe for unreasonable risk every time.

MOMENTS I'M NOT PROUD OF

A REFLECTION

We remember moments in life. It is hard to remember particular days, or even particular eras in our lives. But certain moments inscribe themselves in us with uncanny detail. I think that's interesting, because moments are much shorter than days or eras.

On the other hand, it makes sense that we remember moments because they are sensory. Memory is little more than "stored sense" that fades over time. In a particular moment, we see, hear, feel or taste particular things. Sometimes our senses leave an impression. Most times, they do not. After all, we need to sense to survive; we can't possibly remember every little thing we sense. No, we only remember moments that are, well, worth remembering.

I have a lot of really good memories. My good memories generally fall into two categories: Moments when I felt inwardly good about a situation without external recognition; and moments when I overcame some external obstacle or achieved some popular reward.

I can give examples. First, I remember a night in November 1994 when my best friend and I frolicked shirtless through a school field in rural Connecticut. No one was there but us. The moon was shining. We laughed and screamed all night. We fell in the grass and just looked up at the stars. I talked about whatever came in my head and everything I said just seemed to be right. It was unusually warm for that time of year. Then we got into my car and just went home.

That was a "good memory" that did not involve any external recognition. I remember the things I saw, heard and felt. No one else witnessed what my friend and I did that night; yet it remains a cherished memory. I did not win any accolades for it. I just remember feeling so, so good. And I can relate that feeling to the things I saw, heard and felt that night in 1994.

Second, I remember several days in January 2004, during my first year in law school. I had just taken my first law exams and I was extremely nervous. I felt as if my entire future depended on how I did on those tests. For the previous four months, I had worked harder than at any other time in my life to that point.

New York Law School published exam results through a computer system. Every day, I nervously logged in to my account to see whether they had posted my results. I had to type in an ID code to access my information. There was always a brief delay between the time I entered my code and the time the webpage came up. I always held my breath during that moment. I remember that my heart even raced. I remember that I perspired a lot then, too. I remember feeling droplets of sweat fall from the top of my armpit onto my side.

After about a week of nervous checking, I finally saw results. I had gotten mostly A's on my exams and wound up with a Grade Point Average of 3.79, which placed me in the Top 10 of my class of 400. I felt a bizarre mix of relief, exultation and new confidence. Professors and friends congratulated me after the yearly rankings went public. I relished my success. It felt really good. I had overcome a huge barrier and received external praise for it.

Unlike the nocturnal moment in the field with my boyhood friend, this was a "good memory" that depended exclusively on official judgments. It was still "good," but for entirely different reasons. And I remember it differently, too.

But I am not ashamed to admit that I remember bad experiences as much as I remember good ones. In fact, I think I have learned more about myself by reliving my less-than-heroic moments and understanding why they were so bad. Our failures defines us as much--if not more--than our successes. After all, just as we can succeed in many ways, so too can we fail in many ways. We can fail externally, as through school grades or critical condemnation for "poor work." Others can tell us we have failed to reach an "acceptable" standard, and that feels bad. Or we can fail internally, as when we lose our composure or sacrifice our beliefs. We don't need other people to tell us we've failed when we fail internally.

I have suffered both kinds of failure. But I find external failure much easier to bear than internal failure. After all, you can always blame your judge or your critic if you fail externally. Maybe they just didn't like you. Maybe the test was unfair. It's easier to justify external failure.

But you can't run from yourself: When you fail internally, you've failed to meet your own standards. And you can't point your finger at some test-grader or theater critic for that.

I'm far, far, far from perfect. I have failed so much in life. In most cases, I can move beyond my failures. But I never forget them. I try to learn from them. Still, they sting me when I recall them, especially when I failed myself.

Here's a moment I'm not proud of. Last October, my partner, Steve, went to the hospital after suffering an acute manic episode. For several weeks before that, his condition had steadily worsened. He did not sleep for 60 hours straight at one point. He constantly busied himself with "tasks;" he woke me from bed every 15 minutes every night to help him re-clean the apartment or find some random webpage. He drew up long, detailed lists every day and tried to accomplish every little thing on the list, like buying a gurtel at some far-away store he found on the internet. He became angry when he did not complete everything on the list each day. Then he became hostile and profligate. He picked fights with random people on the street. He spent thousands on useless things, like Christmas ornaments and big rolls of fancy platinum ribbons for Thank You cards.

By the time Steve went to the hospital, I was ready to strangle him. Yet this was the man I had loved for ten years. I could not believe I was feeling the way I was. But I was so exhausted and so emotionally battered that I just wanted relief; and it seemed the only way to find relief was to cast him off. I felt better when I recognized that he had a serious disease. I tried not to take his abuse personally. The words still hurt, though. I was happy that he got the medical attention he needed. I was even happier to get a three-week break alone to rebuild my mental constitution.

I remember feeling somewhat disappointed when the doctor called to tell me that Steve was ready to come home. I felt a swirling mix of fear, resentment, childish selfishness and fatigue. I did not want to endure the same problems that arose when Steve fell ill. I didn't want to be woken up again every 15 minutes. Plus, I felt as if I had just caught my breath after a grueling bout, and now I would have to grit my teeth and start fighting all over again. Still, I tried to put on my most positive face when I went to pick Steve up at the hospital. I could not deny that I still loved him. I thought: "Maybe he'll be better now." I allowed myself to hope, even though my overall mood was dark and frustrated.

Steve was in surprisingly good shape when I brought him home. His doctors had found the medication he needed to achieve emotional stability, and he was on the path to a "new normalcy." I was glad to see that. We even went out to lunch late that afternoon. Steve moved very slowly. His eyes looked exhausted and glazed over. He was heavily medicated. One medication made him drool and he had to wear a bib. I had to help him walk from place to place. He used a cane because he was unsteady on his feet. Naturally, all these things aroused my pity. Steve cut a pathetic picture now. It hurt me deeply.

And I still felt past resentments. My temper was short. I was in no mood for any additional challenges. But sure enough, while we walked home from the restaurant, a challenge arose. As we crossed 4th Avenue at 12th Street, we tried to hail a cab. When the cabbie saw Steve's cane, he made a dismissive gesture and said: "No, no, no," then drove off. That made me angry. It also cost us time; the light was about to change. Steve was too slow to make it across 4th Avenue before the oncoming traffic got a green signal. It was around 5 o'clock. As we passed in front of a guy on a motorcycle, the horns started blowing. The guy on the motorcycle rolled his eyes at me and Steve as if to say: "Get going, will you?"

It touched a nerve. I completely lost my temper. I stopped right in the middle of the street and said: "What the fuck are you looking at? Can't you see I'm trying to help this man?" In the meantime, Steve made his way to the other side of the street. But I stayed. My voice rose and my heart pounded hard. I continued yelling. I remember saying: "So you think you're special because you're wearing that fucking hat, huh?" As I stood there cursing, the traffic started moving at full speed all around me. I was so enraged that I did not even recognize how much danger I faced. The guy on the motorcycle didn't say a word. He just smiled at me and shook his head as if to say: "What a fucking nut." He drove right past me. Another guy in a car almost rolled over my right foot. I remember feeling the tire graze the front of my sneaker. I was too livid to comprehend what was going on.

Ultimately we got a cab and headed home. Steve told me that my voice changed and that my eyes had bulged while I was out yelling in the street. After a few minutes, the adrenaline passed from my body and I started to feel extremely bad about what had just happened. I felt that I had made a fool of myself. Steve just shook his head. I tried to explain that I lost my temper because I was upset that people were so insensitive about his condition. That was partially true; I was also just really angry about having him back in the house again. Thankfully, the subsequent weeks proved that anger moot; Steve never went manic again.

I recount that story because it's a moment I'm not proud of. I take pride in my reason. I like to feel that I can coolly handle any situation with dignity. But on that day in October 2009, I completely abandoned my reason and fell headlong into dangerous emotion. Make no mistake: I do not flee from emotion; in most situations, I even relish it. But extreme emotion is dangerous. It undermines everything. I felt uncontrollable rage that day. It was as if I stepped from my own skin and became a wild beast. In addition, I reproached myself for the petty selfishness I felt that whole day. I knew that selfishness fanned my underlying anger, and that anger exploded into fury. That was out of character for me. I failed myself.

Still, I learned a lot from that moment. I learned that human reason hangs by a thread. Despite all our claims to rational intelligence and equanimity, pressures can drive the human mind straight back to animal depths in an instant. It is just a question of circumstance, mood and stimulus. After all, we are but sensory creatures. Sense might lead to science and discovery. But it can also lead to wrath and destruction.

Having said all this, I can still find some justification for my outburst. I truly feel anger toward people who are callous about Steve. I won't deny that. I love Steve. He is handicapped; it is obvious. When people look at him funny or rush him on the street, it really bothers me. For the most part, he stays indoors now because he knows that he can't handle the barbarians outside.

Most people just don't understand. I can't expect them to, either. But that doesn't stop me from feeling anger about it. I wish I didn't. I'm not proud of it. Yet I can learn a lot about others--and myself--when I reflect on it.

WELCOME TO THE PROBLEM SHOP

A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS

COME ON DOWN !!!!

By : Mr. G. William Elender, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Problem Shop Cooperative Ltd. (a Delaware Corporation).

Isn't it about time that you stopped living a stress-free life? Haven't you had enough tranquility and happiness? Are you bored with contentment? Do your friends make you feel like an outcast because you don't have any problems? Do people ridicule you for having it too easy?

It's a New Year. It's your time to change. Here at the Problem Shop, you can complicate your life as much as you want for the lowest prices in town. No matter how much difficulty you want, we sell it. We offer convenient financing and easy-to-find retail locations. If you want a problem, look no further: Come to the Problem Shop TODAY!

Don't be afraid to get some problems. Many people think that it is smart to avoid problems. They are wrong. Problems make us stronger. They make us react more quickly to unfamiliar situations. And that sharpness translates into success in family, careers and money. Ask any successful man and he'll tell you the same thing: You need to face adversity before you make it to the top. Life is not a bowl of cherries. You need to have problems to really distinguish yourself.

We understand that it is difficult to know where to begin. Purchasing your first problem is a major life decision. You can't just rush into a problem, nor can you buy a problem that is too big. You need a problem to suit your needs and your personality. True, some people are born with problems. Some people have problems the moment they leave the womb, like deformed children. But not all of us can be so lucky. For those who need problems later in life, you can exercise your own judgment before deciding what problem you want. It's an individual choice. And we're here to help.

Before buying a problem, you must ask yourself what you hope to gain from it. Do you want to learn financial discipline? Do you want to make yourself into an honorable person? Do you want to understand others? Do you want to evolve as a person? Do you want to learn how to be kind or cruel? Every problem will shape you in ways you never thought possible. When choosing a problem, it's all in your hands. Our trained staff is ready to help you make the best choice for your needs--and your budget.

First-time problem buyers should start slow. Here at the Problem Shop, we want our customers to get only the problems they want--and only the problems they can handle. Although it would benefit us to sell you the biggest, most expensive problem on the shelf, we know it would not benefit you. In that light, we care about you. We do not want to sell heroin addiction, mental illness or terminal disease to a bright-faced young college student. Nor do we want to sell paraplegia to a 15-year-old. These are expensive problems. They are hard to handle. We would prefer to sell them to older folks who already have some experience dealing with problems.

So come on in for a free consultation. If you've never had a problem before, talk to us. We can offer you heartbreak following a kiddie crush for only $19.95. Or perhaps debt collection letters for a small bill, again for only $19.95. Parental abuse is a bit more expensive at $24.95, but you might learn more from a parent's fists than a debt collector's incessant phone calls. But that's why we are here: We are here to provide information to help you make the most intelligent decision you can about the problems you want in your life.

Once you've experimented with minor emotional and financial problems, you can graduate to more serious ones. Our "second-tier" problems will really build your character. Your friends will never ridicule you again if you purchase a home foreclosure for $49.95 or an eviction for $54.95. They might even have pity on you. If you are really feeling adventurous, you might even buy a moderately-severe health problem, such as Crohn's Disease, for just $59.99. Or you could try a serious emotional problem, such as divorce, starting at just $74.99. Acrimonious divorces--complete with court battles, custody fights, mutual recriminations, physical abuse and death threats--are more expensive; we recommend purchasing a simple divorce before experimenting with an acrimonious one.

We run the best problem retail outlet in town. We are so certain that our problems are better than our competitors' that we will match anyone's price. If you buy a stalker for $12.99 at any of our competitors' stores, we will match that price. PLUS we'll throw in an additional problem. With us, you will not just get a stalker for your money. You will get heartache following a child's death--a $9.99 value--ABSOLUTELY FREE. That's right, you heard it. ABSOLUTELY FREE. Here at the problem shop, we will not be undersold. We take problems seriously. To show you how much we care, we even GIVE AWAY free problems. We are committed to our customers.

At the Problem Shop, we not only offer the lowest prices. We also sell only top-quality problems. Sure, our competitors might sell bargain paternity suits for $49.99. But our paternity suits are much better. With us, you not only get the agony of court process, wage garnishment, arguments with your former lover and wrangling with police officers over money. You also get the added difficulty of having to prove that you are not the child's father--and failing in that quest. Our competitors offer simpler problems. Their paternity suit is too easy. With us, you get the basic problem PLUS emotional, financial and health complications. Who else can offer that? When you're buying a problem, you deserve all the little problems that come along with it. Don't settle for less.

So what are you waiting for? Haven't you had enough ease in your life? Step up to the plate and buy some problems. Be a man. Stop living for enjoyment and comfort. Show that you can handle adversity, too. Grow as a person, will you? Get off that couch and buy a debilitating accident for just $149.99. Show that you can get over the emotional turmoil that flows from losing a limb for just $159.99. Lose a parent for a special introductory price of only $99.99. Suffer unjust persecution and racial hatred for $199.99. Get some real problems and grow as a person.

No one will remember the guy who sits around in comfort. They will remember the guy who faced unimaginable difficulty and survived. If you act NOW we will even sell you a DOUBLE PROBLEM for one low price, such as our special Marital Betrayal/Homicide package or Sexual Dysfunction/Suicidal Depression combo.

Stop waiting. Buy some problems TODAY. Don't let our pricing scare you away. We offer competitive financing to all those who apply. There are no credit checks. There are no hidden fees. There are no contracts. There is no obligation. There is no "catch."

At the Problem Shop, we have a simple philosophy: Everyone who wants a problem should get one, regardless of their ability to pay. If you act NOW we will sweeten the deal even more. Starting TODAY, we offer zero-percent interest financing through 2014. That means you can buy sudden spousal disability with a lifetime homecare commitment TODAY for NO MONEY DOWN. No, you didn't imagine it. We meant what we said: NO MONEY DOWN. You won't owe us a dime for your problem until 2014. This is not a joke. Act TODAY and we'll even throw in a collector's edition coffee mug featuring the words "YOU THINK YOU GOT PROBLEMS?" ABSOLUTELY FREE (that's an $8.99 value).

So do yourself a favor. Start thinking about yourself for once. Don't be afraid. Come on down to the Problem Shop and pick out the problem that is right for you. Our friendly, professional sales team is ready to assist you. You can do so much with your life; we have a problem to match every lifestyle. It is never too early to complicate your existence. It is never too early to start worrying and suffering. Here at the Problem Shop, we can guide you in the right direction. We offer every imaginable life problem. If you want to be un-friended by a love interest on a dating website, we've got you covered. If you want to find out you have cancer, we've got you covered. You name the problem; we deliver.

At the Problem Shop, no problem is too little. We can sell it to you at an affordable price, every time. We even offer FREE SHIPPING!

Stop making excuses. Stop being happy. It's time for some problems. It's time for some challenges. You need adversity in your life. You want to grow as a person, don't you? And you want that free coffee mug, don't you?

WHOM WOULD YOU RATHER KILL? A MAN OR A DOG?

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

We learn from earliest childhood that "killing is bad." We have a natural moral sense that ending lives is generally not a good (and certainly not a nice) thing to do. Along the same lines, we learn that "life is valuable." We especially learn this when it comes to human lives. Animal lives are, well, not as valuable.

Some people genuinely take these lessons to heart. Abortion opponents, for instance, say that "all potential life is valuable." That means that not just full-grown adults do not deserve to die, but also tiny cell clusters that might one day develop into fetuses. Some even think that any potential life is valuable. But this reaches into absurdity. After all, every ejaculation and ovulation cycle represents "potential life." Surely it is neither sin nor murder to have a period or to ejaculate without an intention to procreate.

But all "life rhetoric" is vexingly biased. After all, who speaks up for non-human life? All cellular organisms are "alive." They all "die" when their necessary cellular functions cease. Is it somehow distressing, then, when a cow dies? How about a cockroach? Or a tree? These things are all "life." Yet no one marches to stop "tree murder," and no one wails when a raccoon dies in the wilderness. Put simply, when people say they "believe in life," they really mean that they believe in "human life." After all, people have an interest in staying alive. From a biological perspective, no living creature wants to die. A few people, of course, want to kill themselves. In the aggregate, however, most living humans want to stay alive.

Despite all this, even those who feverishly "defend human life" are not absolutists. Even people who fight tooth and nail to defend the unborn--or lament wasted sperm--have exceptions to their rule. After all, many people think that some human life is not worth preserving. When a man "deserves" to die, even the staunchest life defenders do not intervene to save him. I always found it amusing that most abortion defenders support capital punishment. I find it even more amusing that some particularly fiery abortion defenders murder doctors in order to prevent abortions. How's that for a problematic principle? All life is precious; but some people deserve to be killed. It's enough to boggle one's mind--or even laugh, if it weren't so serious.

Perhaps it is not so surprising after all. In fact, I venture that most people actually have little problem killing their fellow man. In fact, I think most people would have an easier time killing a man than a "lesser life form," like a dog or a deer. Despite all the things we learn about killing others, I think most people just need to be pushed far enough in order to kill another human being. And not just kill--gleefully kill.

And that's the difference: Men must be pushed to kill another person. Only human beings have the capacity to taunt, insult, degrade, abuse and denigrate their fellows. They can cause untold misery to one another, both physically and psychologically. The urge to kill builds in proportion to the misery a person endures at another's hands. Sometimes it does not even take that much to push a person over the edge. Think about road rage killings and drunken barroom squabbles. Men exchange words. Their emotions fly off the handle. Next thing you know, someone is dead. In other cases, a person suffers chronic abuse and finally snaps. Consider the beaten wife who just can't take it any more and slits her husband's throat while he sleeps.

In short, people kill each other for comparatively little. Maybe life is not that sacred after all.

But the same people who gladly kill their fellow man might have trouble killing a puppy dog. After all, people who kill over abuse or petty arguments do so because humans have a unique ability to arouse enmity in one another. In the moment before a man stabs a rival who insulted his girlfriend, he thinks: "I'm gonna kill this fucking asshole." In other words, the human capacity for intent leads men to kill each other. It even makes killing easy in the right circumstances.

Not so with a dog. Why would anyone want to kill an innocent little puppy? Everyone knows that a puppy can't cause any harm. It can't lie, deceive, insult, connive, abuse, beat, torture or tyrannize. It can do none of the things that arouse homicidal rage in human beings. If it came between an innocent puppy dog and a hated tormentor who slaps and insults you all day for weeks on end, I don't think I'm stretching to suggest that most people would much rather kill the man than the dog.

In a word, it is facetious to claim that "all human life is sacred." Our own behavior proves us wrong when we do. The truth is that human beings drive us crazy from time to time. They drive us so crazy, in fact, that we become all too willing to kill them if the circumstances impel us. Only humans have the capacity to arouse such furious, homicidal rages. Puppies have no such capacity. That is why-- if given the choice--I think most people would rather kill a detested, tyrannical person than an innocent dog.