The Doubt-Sharing Buddy

[paulhope]

Today I met for lunch with Asher, my doubt-sharing buddy.

This relationship is a direct parody of the "faith-sharing buddy" relationship explicitly organized and supported for voluntary participants in the Madhouse. Nevertheless, I think we both intend to undertake our discussions seriously.

Comments

[anonymous]

Great, this will allow me to relate a historical anecdote technically irrelevant to your post but interesting nonetheless. I came across it while researching an article on the brilliant (seriously) TV show Nip/Tuck.

The nosejob or rhinoplasty was invented in order to help people with big noses from being mistaken as Jews. Can you believe that? It gets better, though. The guy who invented the procedure.......was Jewish. That's got to be a metaphor for something.

-hal

[paulhope]

You're right, that is an interesting anecdote.

Don't ever let technical irrelevancy ever stop you from posting a comment. Ever time I post something and there's no response, I have this feeling of "Uh, oh--now I've really alienated everybody."

[anonymous]

It is sort of unfortunate when society decides you are one thing and you don't identify as such: for instance, AEPi insists that I am Jewish, due only to my Jewish last name and conservative Jewish boyfriend. My mother's father similarly claims that I am Episcopalian, even though I told him I was an atheist when I was about seven. Should I just introduce them and let them have it out? And if society can't even agree, does that leave me as a blank?

P.S. I love Mary Renault. And keep your Apocalyse--I prefer creation myths.

-ARG

[paulhope]

Unfortunately, I can't answer any of your questions.

But I can tell you that you have AMAZING initials. Holy crap.

[vaguelyweird]

you have AMAZING initials
very true.

how about the identification as "depressed person." i highly dislike that one.

[paulhope]

Tricky.

Do you think that you exhibit symptoms of depression?
Do you think of yourself as depressed?
Does society consider those that exhibit symptoms of depression as being depressed?

Maybe there's a disagreement about what it means to be (the definition of) a depressed person. That was my solution for Asher.

Or maybe one can actually be wrong about one's identity.

Or maybe--I like this one best--our nose is so right-up-close to ourselves that it would actually be incorrect to apply labels to ourselves that gloss over all the complexity and detail. Identities are for other people to figure out what we'll do next, but we are each entitled to ignore them and focus on all the contradicting pieces.

blah blah blah...I talk to much.

Thanks for posting.