Broken Filter -- Signing Off

It’s been said that all great television series last one season longer than they should have. Perhaps the same can be said of blogs. When I began Broken Filter a few years ago, it was just a hobby – a means by which to vet my writing skills against public exposure, and hopefully mature and grow as a writer. Quickly, blogging became a passion and came along at a time in my life when it was likely filling other voids. It made me happy.

Time, however, has a funny way of taking those things that bring us the most joy and placing them stubbornly just beyond our reach. After a year of blogging, I found my passion for it had withered, my material was weakening, and the ambition was quickly fading. I couldn’t even get through a few posts on my trip to Greece without falling off the proverbial wagon and procrastinating beyond the point when it didn’t make sense anymore.

Writing, for me, is a double edged sword. I love it, and to an extent, I believe I am good at it. But it’s funny how quickly we become beholden to that which we love most. Somewhere along the way, I simply ran out of things to say, and I lost my edge for finding catchy ways to say them.

So, with this final post, I am retiring Broken Filter, to slip away into the depths of the World Wide Web and be stumbled across by random Googling or online picture thieving. But I’m not through writing... Not yet.

Instead of searching in vain for a topic to write on, and trying to make it entertaining, I’m charting a new course and delving into my other true passion – history. Each day in 2010 I’ll take a moment to reflect on that given day in history, and post a historical fact from the day, and my thoughts on it. I don’t foresee this project becoming an episode in textbook casework, but more a year-long statement of my passion for history, and my belief that its study should hold a pinnacle place in modern society, politics, and the planning of the future. I invite you to drop by my new blog at http://whytodaymatters.blogspot.com beginning January 1, 2010 for a daily lesson in everything and nothing – the footprints of time against the backdrop of knowledge.

For everyone who has followed Broken Filter for the last two years – trekked with me across all 50 states, watched my skills as a writer wobble and mature, tolerated my attempts at humor, and smiled at my sometimes-offensive liberalism – thank you! I hope our paths will cross again.

Best Regards,

Brian

An open letter to Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah

Rep. Jason Chaffetz
1032 Longworth HOB
Washington, D.C. 20515

December 17, 2009

Dear Rep. Chaffetz:

Although I do not live in your district and am not among those voters who elected you, I am a former resident of Utah and I share a common religious heritage with you and the majority of your state’s citizens. It stands to reason, therefore, that I feel a sense of obligation to discuss with you the concerns I have over your publicly stated intention to lead an attempted overturn of same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia.

To be sure, I am keenly aware that Article I Section 8 of the Constitution vests in the Congress authority to exercise exclusive legislation over the District of Columbia, and that all regulation passed by District residents and elected officials is subject to Congressional review. I also trust that you understand the difference between public policy and the law. While the law provides you the option of District governance, good public policy indicates that Congressional authority to override should not be used except in extreme cases.

Less than a year into your first term as a legislator, I can understand the temptation to make a name for yourself by taking a firm stand on a publicly divisive issue that speaks to the conservative base of those who elected you. I also recognize that the “House Subcommittee on the District of Columbia” is not likely the most prestigious committee on which to serve, and as a freshman representative, the temptation to make a name for yourself must be great. I would, however, appeal to your sense of humanity that you are inflicting the views of an electorate that is literally 2000 miles removed from the citizens your legislation threatens to impact.

I am well aware that you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, as are most of the people who voted for you. Therefore, having a strong knowledge of my own LDS roots, I’d like to share with you some facts from the annals of Church history which you may find particularly relevant in relation to the District’s predicament. History, after all, is the lens through which all legislative activity should be viewed.

The Mormons, a minority in all places except Utah, first began to experience discrimination at the hands of the majority in June of 1830 when their prophet, Joseph Smith, was arrested in Palmyra, New York, and charged with “being a disorderly person” simply because he was preaching non-traditional Christian views. Although Smith was acquitted of the charges, the persecution continued and eventually prompted Smith to leave New York and settle in Kirtland, Ohio where his small band of followers began to grow.

But the non-Mormon residents of Kirtland (the vast majority) also saw ill in Smith’s teachings. They believed that what he and his followers were doing in the privacy of their own homes was immoral, unnatural, and an abomination. In 1832 a resentful mob of “God-fearing” locals tarred and feathered Smith in front of his own home.

And so the Mormons left Ohio, just as they had left New York. They migrated first to Missouri, and then to Illinois in search of a place where their neighbors would understand that they were good and decent citizens, who worked hard, cared for their families, and simply wanted rights equivalent to those in the community who saw them as “different.” In both Missouri and Illinois, the non-Mormon majorities in town won out. Rights and privileges were withheld from the Mormons because of who they were. Pressure was brought to bear against their organization, and their leaders were imprisoned on multiple occasions. Joseph Smith would be assassinated at the hands of an angry mob – cut down in the prime of his life, and leaving several widows – all because he lived his life a little differently than his neighbors.

In March of 1839 Smith was imprisoned on false charges at Liberty, Missouri. It is worth noting that during this and other episodes behind bars, Smith and his brethren were subjected to the dangerous consequence of large-scale group-think, state-approved human rights violations, and a gross misuse of the legislative system to persecute and withhold rights from the minority that Smith represented. Hence, Smith had good reason to pray and to write. Much of his writing from this period in his life can be found throughout Mormon scripture, including the passage which would later become the 121st Section of the Mormon Doctrine & Covenants: "We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion" (D&C 121:39).

On behalf of the voters of Utah, and the residents of the District of Columbia, I ask you to deeply consider the consequences of unrighteous dominion as you prepare to take on same-sex marriage in Washington.

I also ask that as you enjoy the Christmas and New Year’s holidays your wife, Julie, that you prayerfully consider other families in Utah, Minnesota, the District of Columbia, and across the nation. Families who are different than yours, whose background and values stand apart from those who wish their rights to be put before a public vote. And as you prayerfully consider the plight of these families – and yes, Mr. Chaffetz, gay Americans do have families – I ask that you consider the consequences of placing one minority’s legislated rights before the public vote of the non-minority. Show the good people of our nation’s capital a sense of compassion that was not offered to our ancestors (both yours and mine).

The legislation you are proposing, while it may fall within the guidelines of your subcommittee’s constitutional privilege, cannot be justified in good conscience. While your plan may not be illegal it is unethical, and immoral. Based on the history of your own people, and an understanding of how badly a minority can be persecuted as a consequence of unrighteous dominion, I trust you will reconsider.

Kind Regards,

Brian Harper

john_q_public@gullible.com

It’s one of those unfortunate consequences of the information age: politically charged email. I had hoped it would reach its ugly peak during last year’s presidential election but lately I find no signs of it stopping.

You know the kind of emails I’m talking about. They hit your inbox with titles like “FW: EVERY AMERICAN MUST READ THIS!!!!” Open up an email with a title like that and you can expect to find about as much intelligence as you would in a teenager’s text message that starts with “OMG.” You’ll usually find them written in point-size 85 in one of those fonts that no respectable person uses. The most shocking lines of the email will be in an even bigger font, double-underlined, and likely in red. Assuming you can get past the aesthetics, you’ll probably be greeted by a first line which begs the reader to forward this to absolutely every human that they know and a few they don’t.

On the occasions where I actually take the time to read through one of these emails (rare), I’m always surprised by the tone, the structure (or lack thereof), and the general insensitivity that they tend to espouse. It’s as though they were written to shock or scare people into believing the agenda that they promote. More importantly, I tend to doubt that the arguments made in the email are ones that the sender wouldn’t likely discuss in my living room because frankly, the sender is much more polite than that.

The big question lurking in my mind is: When did email become the political tool of idiots?

I’m not attacking a specific political party because they’re both guilty of it. Being an extremely left-wing liberal, I tend to find the majority of these emails coming from my extremely right-wing family and friends – probably because my liberal friends already understand and agree with my politics and don’t see the need to attempt to persuade me otherwise. Even when I agree with the arguments in these emails I don’t pass them on because I don’t want everyone in my address book thinking that I am so gullible as to get my political views from random junk email.

I’d be willing to place money on the fact that no American voter has ever had their political mind changed or their ideologies altered by an email blast in its 49th degree of “forward.” To be quite honest, I don’t think most Americans are that ignorant, regardless of political affiliation. Imagine if I were so inspired by one of these political email forwards that I actually chose to take action. I might write a letter to my elected official that goes something like this:

Dear Senator Franken:

I’m sure you have lots to do these days up on Capitol Hill, but I just got an email from a Republican in North Dakota which informed me that President Obama is both a Muslim and an atheist. Then I found a group on facebook which says he wasn’t born in the US, but on some island somewhere… Owyhee I think? This clearly makes him anti-American and means that every single thing that comes out of his mouth is a big fat lie. Because of this, his health care motives must be completely unworthy and voting for them would be just plain stupid. Would you please be so kind as to oppose absolutely everything he does over the next four years? I know you have the whole “fellow-Democrat” thing going on with him, but how ‘bout taking one for the team, huh? I know my sources can’t be wrong on this one because all things on the internet are honest.

Kind regards,

Brian

PS - Sorry for the whole “recount” thing – hope you’re not bitter!

Worse yet, this emailing of political rhetoric is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a bigger problem here. As mass communication has gotten easier, we as a citizenry have become more persuadable, far too amicable, and we’ve developed an ugly sense of “groupthink.” Why develop your own ideals when you have a facebook following to garner your opinions from? Frankly, it’s a treacherous road which breeds ignorance and fires ill-informed passion over untested facts. There are few things in this world as dangerous as an idiot with a cause.

And then of course there’s the whole idea that we have to agree on everything, and that each of us must always come away smiling. We give trophies to every kid on the team regardless of effort, because we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. We teach that politics and religion can never be spoken of, because we might disagree on something, and that would just be wrong. Is it any wonder that we have a country full of people who email baseless political stories as a scare tactic? We’ll join a facebook group of like-minded thinkers, but we’ll never review a dissenting opinion in the New York Times.

If you have something to say on the political front, do it in a venue that fosters respect, understanding, and informed deliberation. Write a book, teach a class, get a degree, caucus, campaign, volunteer, knock on a door or two, or have intelligent discussions with friends on both sides of the aisle – you might just learn something. Have the courage to speak your own convictions, tempered with the skill to make a point and back it up with fact. Read things that matter, and find reputable role models from which to develop your arguments.

And whatever you do, STOP pressing the forward button every time you find someone with thinking similar to yours. When it comes to political emails, the action speaks louder than the voice.

"Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

Optimism haunts me. So do the people who thrive on it.

Frankly, my glass is not half full. It is always at least half empty and often it’s emptier than that. And you know what? I don’t feel bad about that in the least! Humans are not programmed for optimism and those who attempt it come across as fake and annoying, and leave me with the false sense that I too must put on my happy face and ignore reality.

You know the type I’m talking about. It’s the old lady from the church down the road (which you never attend) who shows up on your doorstep when you’re sick or someone has died, and shoves a casserole at you, as though her random act of kindness will somehow advance her a step in the higher order of things. It’s a nice sentiment, but the reality is that you probably didn’t feel like company, her casserole gave you diarrhea, and in the end you have to clean her serving dish and then hunt her down to give it back. Of course you won’t actually expend the effort to give it back, and now you’re cursed with it. You can never use it because someone might see it and know you’re a thief. After a while, the dish has been in your possession so long that you could never return it because it would simply bring to light the obvious: you stole it! So, the damn thing just it sits in your cabinet mocking you each time you open the cupboard and reminding you that you are indeed going to hell. Gladys should have kept her casserole at home!!

I don’t mean for it to sound like I’m a life-hating naysayer who thrives on opportunities to destroy hope. Quite the contrary. But no one can be happy all the time, and sometimes it feels good to feel bad. When something bad happens (especially if it’s my fault) I don’t want to be happy. I want to go home alone and feel sorry for myself, listen to music that will make me even sadder, and create in my mind the absolute worst-case scenario. A few hours later when I surface (or sober up) I’m over it. I’ve chewed on the “badness” for as long as I needed to and swallowed… Case closed… On to the next screw-up! It’s an important pattern in human behavior that gets unnaturally altered when we try to see the world through rose-colored glasses.

And there’s a deeper issue here that I think needs to be dug into here. The fact is that it’s very much within everyone’s nature to be mean and nasty. We don’t intend to be, but we can’t help ourselves. It’s that nasty streak which makes us do things like stick our gum under the table, or pass gas in crowded areas where someone else is sure to be blamed. And then of course there’s schadenfreude – the act of taking pleasure in other peoples’ misery. We watch NASCAR to see the wrecks, and we laugh at home videos where someone takes a nose dive into concrete. Think about figure skating for a moment. When the boy-in-tights with granite-like abs comes out of a triple-axel, you know the entire world (except maybe his mother) secretly wants him to fall flat on his ass. With all that negative energy flowing about, it’s a wonder the skaters can even stand upright.

Optimists invented terms like “you’re half-right,” “those were planned losses,” or “she’s just big-boned.” There’s something to be said for telling it like it is: You’re as wrong as you can be; you lost a bundle of money thanks to your own stupidity; and she’s never met a Twinkie she didn’t like.

Bad things happen to good people, just like good things happen to bad people (which is even more annoying). You can’t appreciate a good day unless you’ve had a few that were down-right shitty. In some karmic way it all balances out in the end and a little regret to carry through life never hurt anyone.

Somewhere along the line we’ve been programmed to believe that regret is inherently bad, but I disagree. Holding onto it a little of it helps clear the path toward the future. There are many things in life I regret: I wish George W. Bush had never been president. I wish my grandmother could have seen me grow up. I wish my parents hadn’t divorced. I wish I would never have said hello to the dark haired boy with adorable brown eyes who would eventually lie to me and drain my bank accounts. But all of these things did happen, and living with a wall up against the hurt they might have inflicted doesn’t undo it. I’m a realist, and sometimes reality sucks.

I find no peace in letting go, but I don’t let holding on slow me down. I can deal with the bad while appreciating the good, and when the smoke clears, I’ll see the humor, wisdom, and humanity in both.

Jackie Was Here (Part 3)

Setting sail out of Athens on the Aegean Sea, the first thing one can’t help but notice is the unbelievable shade of the water. The ancient Greeks called the Aegean the “wine-dark sea” for good reason, and in some places the color is such a deep and penetrating shade of blue that it almost appears purple in the sunlight.

Prior to Greece, I’d only traveled by ferry one other time for a grand total of about 20 minutes, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised. The ferry ride out to sea was made better by a perfect day without a cloud in the sky and looking out toward the hazy, far-off horizons, it was difficult to tell where the blue sea ended and the blue sky began.

The ferries cruise along at a comfortable speed of about 35 knots. I honestly have no concept of how fast a knot is, but it kept a warm breeze ruffling my hair when standing on the deck, and made the journey very enjoyable.

Our first stop in the Aegean was the island of Mykonos where we spent the better part of three days. Mykonos is known today for its beaches and its nightlife and it’s a popular tourist destination for mainland Europeans. Apparently the Greek Islands are like the Caribbean of Europe, and Mykonos, as the epicenter, is highly crowded! Still, the magic of the Aegean, and the beauty of its beaches are unmistakable on Mykonos, and despite the inordinate number of tourists it’s still easy to have a good time.

At least half of the island’s beaches are “clothing optional” and of those another several are “exclusively nude.” I didn’t actually make it to any of the later variety but I saw enough of the former to develop a theory about public nudity on European beaches: The only people who take their clothes off are those who shouldn’t! While the repeated sightings of saggy bare breasts did little to boost my excitement for nude beaches, they did reassure my confidence in my own sexuality. I’m not sure if being gay came from my environment, my genetics, my mother, or from God, but whoever did it to me – THANK YOU!!!

The center of all activity on Mykonos (aside from the beaches) is the chora. All islands have a chora, which is the main city, or urban hub, but Mykonos’s is unique. It’s laid out in a complete mesh of white stucco buildings built literally right on top of one another with narrow alleyways passing in between (far too small for even the littlest vehicles). These urban pedestrian trails weave in and out of the buildings with absolutely no rhyme or reason and it doesn’t take much time at all to become lost and confused, not mention frustrated! Oddly enough, a little alcohol seemed to almost help the navigating abilities. Apparently the chora was built like that centuries ago, in a preventative attempt to thwart pirate raids, which were frequent in the Greek Islands.

Mykonos also has the distinction of being a favorite vacation spot of Jackie Onassis during the years that she lived in Greece. This seemed to really fit with the island’s mystique and for me personally, made it much more appealing! You see, Jackie serves as something of an icon for the homo-world at large. No, she wasn’t one herself, and she didn’t go around actively supporting the gay rights movement. But she was a liberal (we love all liberals by default), and her sense of fashion, her style, her charisma and charm, and her untouchable class have made her sort of the queen mother of gay men around the world… Cher may be our mascot, but Jackie was our monarch!

Appropriately the premier gay bar on Mykonos is called Jackie O, and it draws enormous crowds after hours when the beaches close. For gay men, a drunken night at Jackie O seemed to be like a Greek right-of-passage, and so that’s where we ended up.

I should point out here that my travel companion is NOT gay, but he puts up with us rather well… in fact I sometimes tease him that he’s an “honorary homo.” At any rate, I managed to convince him to come with me to Jackie O and after we actually found the place (this required the assistance of four locals, two stops at internet cafés, and a misguided walk around half the damn island) we had a pretty good time.

Day two on Mykonos had the best agenda you can have when you’re on an island 6,000 miles from home: Laying on the beach drinking pina coladas (to the tune of about 10 Euros each!). This was the ONLY thing we did on that particular day and I came to the conclusion that no matter how hectic a vacation ever becomes, a day to do nothing except sunbathe and drink is absolutely essential to the rejuvenation of the soul!

Our final day on Mykonos involved a quick trip to the ruins at Delos (more on that in the next post) before setting sail for the next island, Ios. Overall, I have to give Mykonos a thumbs-up. While it was by far the most crowded, touristy place we visited in Greece, it was a beautiful island and a lot of fun. Jackie knew a good thing when she saw it!
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Sailing on the Aegean Sea.

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Mykonos

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Paradise Beach. This was one of the "mostly" clothed beaches

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The gay bar appropriately named "Jackie O." When I took this picture the morning after being there I was a little stunned at how close it is to the sea, and how rough the sea is. Maybe not a good mix when drinking, huh?
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The streets of the Mykonos chora. VERY narrow!
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This pelican is something of a local legend and there's competing stories about how he got to Mykonos. Pelicans are not native to this part of the world but this one stays and the tourists love him.

. The view from our room

Athens: Where History & Hookers Collide (Part 2)

In some naive way, I think I had pictured Athens to be like something out of my high school Western Civ textbook. Of course I knew it was a modern city too, but I imagined that life in Athens would exemplify the important role the city played in world history, and that the birthplace of democracy and Western thought would really celebrate those badges in a way that couldn’t be mistaken or misunderstood. This wasn’t exactly what I found.

For a Greek-novice like me, the broader history of all Greece can be easily confused with the history of Athens. In country we call Greece was full of small, autonomous colonies called city-states, of which Athens was the largest and most prominent. These city-states were often known to go to war against each other, and it wasn’t until much more modern times that the concept of Greece as a one nation came into existence. Much of what I thought was Greek history is really just Athens history.

After landing at Athens International Airport and making our way through customs (easier than I expected), we caught a bus to the city center, which is about 30 minutes away. Riding through Athens on a bus, the thing I couldn’t help but notice was just how packed the place is and how big. The city’s shapeless dilapidated building and choppy overcrowded streets seem to weave randomly across the topography from the Aegean Sean on the south, as far as you can see in every other direction. There’s little rhyme or reason to the town’s layout, and I was very happy to be using public transportation.

The streets are dirty, the air is heavy, and for some reason there are stray dogs and cats everywhere. Apparently the concept of a Pound isn’t popular in Greece and strays are seen almost as “community property” and live quite contently on the streets of Athens. Not surprisingly, the strays have figured out that the average American tourist comes from the land of fat dogs and they tend to congregate heavily in the tourist areas where handouts are plentiful. Give one of these creatures a little food or attention and you’ve suddenly found yourself a companion who is likely going to tag along pretty much everywhere you go. Don’t be surprised when one follows you onto a restaurant patio and parks itself next to your table.

When the 2004 Summer Olympics were held in Athens these stray animals were being rounded up by the truckload and euthanized. The deal was that any dog/cat without a collar was deemed to be ownerless and would be put down, so PETA showed up and began sneaking around the city fastening collars to every animal they could catch, some of which still carry them today.

The tourist section of Athens, known as the “Plaka,” is where you’ll find most everything of historical significance. It’s slightly cleaner and feels safer than the rest of the city in general and everything is in English there. I found myself very appreciative of being from the country where our native language is the universal language of tourism. The Plaka is a somewhat circular area that’s runs uphill from the outside in, and at the center is the Acropolis, the small mountain on top of which sits the world-famous Parthenon – by far, the most well known symbol of Classical Greece.

To be sure, Athens (to say nothing of Greece as a whole) is proud of its history, and that’s apparent not only by the care that’s taken in the efforts toward preservation, but also in the fees charged to go trudging up mountains to see these ancient sites – 24 Euro (about $35 US dollars) to hike to the Parthenon.

I suppose I was expecting to see ruins in their natural state of decay, but I discovered that most of these ancient sites, including the Parthenon, have been extensively renovated in an ongoing effort to keep them upright. While I can appreciate the fact that this has helped them survive the centuries for me to see, something about it felt tainted, almost as if the permanent scaffolding which surrounds the ancient structure deters from the historic significance of seeing it in its raw form, no matter the state of decay.

The Parthenon was built as a temple dedicated to Athena, the goddess of War, for whom the city was also named. The Athenians built it around 480 BC to thank Athena for her assistance in helping the city ward off a Persian invasion. That particular skirmish – or rather, its outcome – helped define ancient Athens as a force to be reckoned with throughout the Mediterranean. Inside of the Parthenon was a 40-foot tall gold statue of Athena, which has since come up missing (how in the hell do you lose a 40-foot statue, no matter what it’s made of?!).

The Parthenon is certainly the highlight of any Athens trip, but there are other things to be seen at the Plaka as well. The Agora sits just downhill from the Parthenon and was an informal public gathering place for the ancient Athenians. This is where the assemblies met to vote, where merchants brought their goods from around the Mediterranean to trade, and where some of the earliest Greek philosophers (Socrates, Aristotle, Plato) were preaching, recruiting like-minded thinkers, and sometimes (as in Socrates’ case) getting themselves executed. It’s an interesting place to hang out today, and I appreciated the fact that at least one of the market buildings has been completely rebuilt in the fashion believed to be very close to it’s original state. That particular venture took place about 60 years ago thanks to a personal donation from Mr. John D. Rockefeller. The thought of American-style capitalism restoring the hinges of history and democracy seemed almost poetic, I glowed with a sense of nationalist pride, instilled in me two decades ago by a narrow minded public school system… I couldn’t help myself.

Leaving the Plaka that afternoon, we tried and failed to catch a bus to the Temple of Poseidon, learning that outside the tourist areas, English is rarely spoken or written, and translating an Athenian bus schedule can be a little daunting (just how does one pronounce Ώ, Ψ, or β ?) My travel companion belongs to a college fraternity and he knew the basics of reading Greek, but that didn’t help us understand it much. Between us, the only word we knew was kalimera (good morning) which proves somewhat useless when trying to explain yourself to a shop owner or taxi-cab driver. My favorite was the cab driver who tried in vein to understand where we wanted to go before finally stretching his English enough to order me out of his cab.

After failing in our hunt for Poseidon, we wandered back to the English-speaking Plaka, and got ourselves some authentic Greek food. The primary meat in Greece always seemed to be lamb, which I love, and you’ll also see a lot of pastas and breads. The drink of choice is ouzo, an alcoholic beverage that’s mixed with water (½ and ½) and served over ice. Ouzo tastes a lot like black licorice and it’s meant to be sipped throughout a meal. I had a couple glasses the first few days in Greece, but eventually switched back to my standard spirits of vodka or rum.

Being in Greece primarily to see the islands, we just spent one night on the mainland in Athens before heading out to sea the next morning. This required catching a 6:00 a.m. train to the port and as we walked from our hotel to the train station, I was shocked to see how many prostitutes were on the street at that hour. (If you’re still looking for clients at 6:00 a.m. does that make you a really BAD hooker?). I know that sort of thing happens in America too, but it surprised me how blatantly it is propagated in Athens, and how no one really seems to care.

In an odd way, I came to not care either. No, I didn’t rent a hooker (ewwww!) but I did reach something of an understanding about how classical times, historic pride, and modern urban decay all seem to collide in one of Europe’s largest cities. If you want to see Athens and enrich yourself in Greece’s classical history and deeply important culture, you get to deal with hookers and stray dogs. It’s another one of those things that doesn’t need to be understood or interpreted… It just “is.” To judge Athens’ state of modern affairs, or define Athenian morality from the viewpoint of my intensely American logic seems monumentally unfair.

Again, I come back to the reasons we travel in the first place: to see the world, experience culture, and expand our minds. It goes without saying that sometimes your mind is expanded in ways that defy traditional thinking from an otherwise narrow perspective, but I believe that’s the point. Athens, for me – historic but dirty, significant though seedy – was a great lesson in humanity. I would go back..

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Taken from a neighboring peak, this is the Parthenon, sitting atop the Acropolis. Anyone who has spent time in Washingto DC can't help but notice the effect of Greek architecture and style on the cultural icons of American history.
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Surviving statues built into the Parthenon.

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From our restaurant at the Plaka.
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The Acropolis at night, with the Parthenon lit up
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Stray dog

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The Theatre of Dionysus, where the earliest Greek Tragedies were performed.

My Journey to Greece: How People Never Really Change (Part 1)

The Cyclades Islands of Greece dot the middle of the Aegean Sea and for practical purposes constitute the far eastern border of the Mediterranean. From a global standpoint, they are directly south of mainland Greece and Bulgaria – sort of sandwiched in the corner between the old-block communist countries of Eastern Europe, and the edges of the Middle East at Turkey. According to Google Earth, the Cyclades lie 5,429 nautical miles from where I was born and like most exotic destinations it was high on the list of places I never expected to see. But when a good friend wanted to go there this summer and was looking for a travel companion, the adventure sounded like fun so I signed on.

While my travels within the United States have been fairly extensive, international trekking was new for me. Aside from Canada and Mexico (which were basically just day trips across the border), the only travel I’d been exposed to outside the US was a Spring Break trip to Japan, back when I was a sophomore in high school.. I was 15 years old then – half-my-life ago – and almost certainly, I lacked the maturity to view the experience from a standpoint of personal growth. Though I’ve always appreciated the idea of seeing the world, the international travel bug had never really taken hold of me.

Of Greece specifically, I knew almost nothing. Like most people, I took Western Civilization in high school and college, and I understood the basics of the nation’s history: cradle of democracy, different gods for everything under the sun, the first Olympics, and something about a really big wooden horse. I had no idea what Greece was like in the 21st century, and on a larger scale, I did not realize how much ancient Greece continued to influence modern culture, not only there, but across the western world.

My journey around the globe to Greece was a uniquely personal experience and was likely rooted in a deeper need to see things from a metaphorical standpoint – to interpret, and to search. Frankly, one doesn’t just lay down a couple of grand and rush off to far corners of the globe to stand in the shadow of dilapidated temples unless there’s significance to it, or a level of self-awareness that comes as a result of it. It had to mean something. And in form typical to my nature that “something” needed to be examined under the scope of my own reality, and then shared within the confines of my very simple life back in Minnesota.

In the posts that follow I plan to rehash my trip, share some photos and fun memories, while digging for the heart of what Greece meant to me, and what the experience did for my own level of self-actualization. To be honest, I’m not sure what I’m trying to accomplish here, or what I have left to learn. Then again, it could be argued that writing is a completely selfish undertaking – the purging and renewing of one’s soul, if you will.

To understand what Greece meant to my life at large, I suppose a brief unraveling of the events that led up to it is necessary. This past summer, my efforts at blogging and writing in general have faded off to practically nothing so maybe an explanation of that is the first step.

Just shy of six months ago, my grandfather passed away. Although the event was not entirely unexpected, it sent something of shockwave through my life and, to an extent, altered the essence of my own identity. He and I were close. I spent the last part of my teenage years, and my early 20’s working for the man, helping him on the ranch, and learning his trade. I’ve always believed that the frame of time between ages 18 and 23-ish is critical in a person’s life, or at least it was in mine. The decisions I was making and the life I was leading seemed to point me in the direction of my future. Looking back with the unfair advantage of hindsight, it feels as though my time with my grandfather represented a great precipice that would define the decade which followed, and ultimately bring my life to where it is today.

That’s not to say I’ve been living the life my grandfather lived or that I’ve been harboring my own meager existence within his shadow; quite the contrary, in fact. He was a cowboy and a rancher, and though I’ve dabbled in that life, it isn’t where I ended up, nor is it where my future will take me. Strangely though, the experience of living that existence provided lessons that I still carry with me and in more ways that I ever realized at the time, those lessons have dictated the course of my life.

With Grandpa suddenly gone, I felt a bit lost. It wasn’t that I was sad (though I did grieve as would be expected). It was almost as though my own identity was left with a big damn hole in it and it took a long time to get my mind around that. Sort of like the building blocks of my life had all fallen down and I knew there was no way they could ever be stacked up in quite the same order again. The personal journey that followed was neither planned nor expected, and it can’t exactly be documented blow-by-blow because… well… I guess I don’t fully understand it myself. What I do understand is that my priorities began to change quickly after Grandpa died, and at 30 years old, I was examining my life and its direction with a sense of freshness I hadn’t experienced in years.

The spring and summer that followed were somewhat monumental just by measure of how distorted my life became in relation to what it had previously been, and I don’t mean that in a negative way. I stopped writing altogether, which seemed completely against my nature, but was oddly refreshing. I read more than I ever had before – much more in fact – and I branched out significantly in the level of what I was reading and the amount of thinking I did during and after. I joined a gym and hired a trainer. I went out more, got drunk more, and felt less guilty about it; in fact I didn’t feel guilty at all. My approach to education changed too, and through the course of summer school, I found myself really appreciating my Humanities classes, and not worrying about the fact that I might half-ass an assignment in Principles of Management. From an ethical perspective, out-right cheating in calculus was only a stone’s throw away and I didn’t care. I still don’t.

When it came to people, I felt like I had become very settled in who I associated with and the things that we did. Something about that felt restrained and over the last few months I’ve invested a lot more energy into the people with whom my connection was based on the future, rather than the past. I let a few friendships drift away and I put perhaps more effort and time into cultivating those that seemed to feel the most comfortable.

My family gained an almost unspoken sense of importance in my life and somewhat unexpectedly, I simply stopped caring about the past. Thanks to some strategic business trips, I was able to spend over a month of the summer in my hometown and I felt a sense of comfort with my family that I don’t believe I’ve known in many years. I realized that the kinship we all share doesn’t have to change just because our lives do. This led me to a firm belief that people don’t ever really change. Our priorities, our circumstances, our levels of healthiness, and even divisiveness, the facts that make up our current lives, and the masks we wear to deal with those facts – all of those things change, but the essence of who we are does not. With the right amount of clear-headedness that’s easy to see, and in my new-found realization I felt comfort and in many ways, I healed.

In ways that I can’t fully explain I just stopped caring about things I can’t change and the I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude bled over into decisions about life, money, and people – risky perhaps, but fun and fresh. I learned to be more carefree without being stupid. This somehow helped me to stop asking pointless and unanswerable questions of myself that had haunted me for years. Questions about life, meaning, religion – things that will simply happen the way they happen regardless of what I do about it, or how much I care about it – all went away. For the first time in my adult life I stopped praying altogether, and I realize now that I lost my faith in God many years ago. That doesn’t hurt or scare me anymore. And philosophical waxing about the events that led up to that mindset… well, it’s just not worth the energy. With that consciousness comes a freedom that I can’t explain but it feels good… very good!

And so, somewhere in the middle of all this movement within my own life and mind, a random trip around the globe to visit the crucible of civilization seemed to fit almost poetically as a curtain to one of the best summers of my life. So with a fresh perspective, I set out this summer to learn about Greece, and in the process I learned a lot about myself and about society. The Greeks had a fundamental impact on western civilization – that goes without saying. But perhaps more importantly, the study of them, at least for me, seems to ring with truisms from my own life and modern society, again fostering the belief that people as individuals and as a group never really change, even across the barriers of millennia.

If you study the ancient Greeks as an adult, outside the confines of a G-rated high school textbook, there’s one glaring fact that will literally jump out of the pages of history and smack to you in the face: the Greeks were kinky! Almost everything in their culture revolved around sex – every kind of sex you can imagine, and a few you probably can’t. I’m almost shocked at how our modern education system has managed to whitewash that fact right out of western history. I suppose I can see the reason for it, but it distorts the reality… drastically. Perhaps if my teacher had included it way back then, I might have paid more attention.

To be Greek 2,500 years ago was to live one of two ways: as the agitator, or as the subservient peon, and this probably changed back and forth throughout one’s existence. No matter what your station in life, there wasn’t much in between. In a class system where slave-owning was not only accepted but expected, and the city down the road might just come wipe yours off the map at any given time, I suspect that people saw themselves, their families, their communities, even their cultures as being either on top or bottom. So the sex-connection seems relevant. To be quite literal about it, you were either a fucker or a fuckee, but either way, there was a lot of “fucking” going on. Spend a little time in Greece today and you can’t help but realize how much the ancients viewed sex as a metaphor for everything else in life. Are we really that much different 2000 years later? Truthfully, the impact of sex on society was probably about the same in ancient Greece as it is today in 21st century pop culture. The only difference is that the Greeks didn’t feel guilty about it.

Still, an education on Greek history is much more than a crash course in Freudian theory, and its history notwithstanding, there’s something to be said for modern Greece as well.

So with the backdrop of my own personal growth, or whatever it is that I’ve gone through this summer, my study of Greece and my eleven short days there and in the Islands seem to have culminated an event in my life that I can’t quite define. I feel the meaning in it, but I don’t understand it yet. So, in reaching for something that I’m not sure what is (see how people never really change?) I’m going to continue the story of my journey in the weeks ahead. I’m not sure how long it will last, and I may not be able to explain it when I’m done, but I suppose I’ll know when I get there.