The Iconoclast

A short story about class at Berkeley

2:17p, late for section – need to run, run, up the steps, passed the door in Dwinelle, up to floor D, room 206.  Pant.  “Sorry I’m late.”

“Just take a seat,” said the TA.  She had short blonde hair and was emaciated.  “Let’s continue to talk about Price’s book.  Now Jenn, you had something to say about the Orange Free State?  What was it about the people?”

“Well I was just saying that I felt as though the people during apartheid were entirely dehumanized.  They were treated like animals under the white rule and the dichotomy between white and black wealth was astronomical.”

I started twirling my pen on the bridge of skin between my thumb and my index finger.  Oops, it fell.  I whispered, “Sorry”, as I reached for the pen.  There was a bird perched on the railing…oh wait, what was going on?  Orange Free State, must focus.

Daniel, a guy from Texas asked to offer his opinion.  “Well I mean I think that they were really trying to protect their culture.  It’s quite interesting how people will give up quality of life in order to protect their culture and rituals.  I really wish that there was some way we could instill protection of heritage in Africa the same way we do with UNESCO world sites in Europe, America, and Asia.  Protecting culture is important, but people shouldn’t have to forgo improving their lives in order to protect their culture as a means of protest.”

“Yeah, that’s actually a very good point.  Some people will go so far as to inflict major harm upon themselves in order to protect who they are and where they came from.”  The TA marked down in her grade book that Daniel made a good point.  It was pretty good I’d say.

Jenn raised her hand.  I fucking hated her annoying voice.  She was a Jewish girl with big boobs and was relatively short.  She had a high voice and had gotten used to being the teacher’s pet in high school.  Those were the girls that always got the A when I got the A- for the same amount of work – either because male teachers fanaticized about fucking her or female teachers thought she was ‘cute’.

She went on some tirade about human rights and linked it to the holocaust.  I did really get it.  Eyes drooping…no wait, stay awake AWAKE.

2:45.

2:50. Tick tock.  “Alright, I think that’s enough for today.  See you in lecture tomorrow!”

I moved the desk-chair up so I could get out of my seat by moving the desk part in a 90 degree angle.  Outside I said “Hey Dan, I really liked that point you made about culture, its really interesting.”

“Hey man, whatever gets me an A.”

A short story about Bear's Lair

Heaving.  I heard heaving.  And then puking.  It was normal and it was nighttime…about 1am.  The moon cast a shadow on the Campanile in the distance.   A frat boy yelled “dude, that’s nasty, there’s chunks of Blondie’s in your puke hahaha”.  I tried to avoid the splatter on the sidewalk as did the hobo while clutching the leash of his pitbull.

Sweat and piss odor filled the sky, almost as if the air was a crimson tide that filled Telegraph.  I was going to Bears’ Lair to grab a couple of drinks, the only thing to do on a Saturday night in this town.

“ID?”

“Sure, here you go”

He flicked his fingers motioning for me to pass.  Bouncers – they think they’re running Checkpoint Charlie.

“Pilsner please, pitcher.”

Urine must taste like this.  Maybe they reduce the price by peeing in the beer.

The crowd at the bar pushed and forced me into directions I didn’t want to go.  Frat boys flexed their biceps when you passed to keep you from easily getting around them.  Dave showed up — Bloodshot eyes, smell of herb.

“Yo”

“Yo bro”

“Get a pitcher?”

“Yeah, sip on some of this”

I passed him a cup filled with Pilsner.  We sat outside with some girls from Sigma Kappa on a picnic table.  The layers of paint on the table were thicker than the wood construction; they must have been painted over three hundred times since the 50s.

Journey’s “Anyway you want it, that’s the way you need it” played for the second time since I had arrived.  One of the girls at the table was knee deep in conversation with the group.

“Yeah so I went to Italy last spring, it was absolutely awesome.  I can’t believe that their culture is so different and diverse.  They take naps in the afternoon and its unbelievable that they’re able to get anything done.”

One of the other girls asked, “Did you drink a lot?”

“Omigod, I drank more than I ever have in my life.  I was literally so drunk this one time when I was on the river.  This guy Joey was with me, he was hot.  Its great to see the world and how developing countries live.”

She adjusted her bra.  Her dress was too short for her, you could see her ass sticking out.  As a guy, I was relatively intrigued at first, but turned off later.

I left to go take a leak over on the steps at Zellerbach.  I was kind of drunk – the kind of drunk where the lights are brighter and you have the sensation that the air is thinner.  The side of the building was the local drunken-person toilet.  I went back, Dave had moved on to some girl Rachael he was hooking up with at the time.  They were making out on the bench over by the gate separating the crowd from the street.

I saw Tiffany.  I knew her through one of my friends from high school.  She said “hi” and gave me a hug.  I was closest with Tiff out of most girls at Berkeley.  We had a relatively deep conversation:

“Hey, how are you?”

“Great, see you around!”

Dave came over and asked if I wanted to head back and smoke a bowl.

“I’m down, would be a good way to deal with the night.”

“Seriously, let’s roll out.”

Dave had a Malibu accent.  He sounded like he was going surfing every time he spoke.

We walked back.

Project for fun

I was thinking today about art and how troublesome it is for artists to get noticed and appreciated.  While there are art galleries and places to showcase pieces, the truth is that most art goes completely unnoticed.  There are great places online to browse art — deviantart is one of them — but its difficult to sort through all the pieces and only artists spend their time on deviantart.  It seems as though art has become appreciated only by those who create art themselves or have so much money that they buy fantastic pieces to show off to their house guests.

I don’t really like how art is distributed in the world today so I think I’m going to change it.  I’m going to work on a project for fun that should come out within the next two weeks that will allow you to showcase art in your Facebook, MySpace, and various profiles from artists that live near you.  It will be a great way for artists to turn people’s profiles into galleries and a great way for users to see some of the art they won’t normally see.

It’ll also be relatively interesting to see the differences in the styles from city to city.  This project will be completely funded by me so you won’t have to worry about people stealing the art.  Artists will get full credit for their pieces and will be able to receive messages from users.

The cool part of the project will be the distribution mechanism.  Art that is clicked on most often will be shown more often in people’s profiles than art that isn’t clicked on.  And new pieces will get preferential treatment.  The point is to create a competitive space for artists without invoking a hostile culture.

The name of the product will be fwix.net — nothing’s there yet, but look out for it if you’re reading this blog.  If anyone is interested in donating to the project or working on it, let me know.

Why does everyone care about content?

One of the biggest problems with the way that people who design and build internet sites is their inability to see the true reason why people decide to use the web.  The main reason people use Facebook and MySpace is to interact with people.  If we take a look at human history (not that I’m a fan of using history to determine how I make decisions), its quite obvious that people spend most of their time finding new ways to communicate and build relationships.  The majority of the population cultivates relationships because it’s how most of us complement our inadequacies, confide in others, or basically keep from getting bored easily.  No matter how many articles we read, videos we watch, or activities we do alone, people need to interact with others.

What I posited when I decided what I wanted to do with my life —  you know, the “enhance people’s social lives” comment — is provide more avenues for people to create real relationships.  I was pretty disappointed at the social scene when I went to LA a few weeks ago.  Most of the people were deciding to build new connections because it provided some vanity benefit, not because they were searching for complementary personality traits.  This seems to have become more of the case in most major US cities.  The FOCUS has trended AWAY from substantive qualities of a personality and to attachments to the person.  This focus shift has led most products built online to be more about something “cool” rather than something “useful”.  75% of the Facebook applications available are “Just for Fun” because they maximize vanity value.  An example of this is “Top Friends” or “FunWall” which have become major hubs for creation of vanity value and not true connection value.

Why do I think this trend is happening?  I think its mainly because its the low-hanging fruit.  Helping people build new connections online and find ways of communicating around personalities is not easy by any means at all.  Helping people find cool videos that they’ll laugh momentarily at or what new stuff they can buy to make them look cool is much easier and might have some value behind it.

People are probably utilitarian at heart.  We all want to gain the most for ourselves and will choose actions that present the most value personally.  If you look at what John Stuart Mill says (not really a fan of Mill, but he works here), you’ll see that he intimates people attain more value by working together and connecting with each other than by focusing purely on material possessions and the value of those possessions.

It’s quite sad to see internet products move away from interactions between people.  It will be interesting to see who can crack the ‘code’ on how best to help people meet new people online and who will be willing to not follow the crowd and say that content is NOT king.  You can view cool videos on a myriad of sites, but you can’t talk to someone you might care about or that might complement you anywhere online today.

I kind of see the internet as an onion.  Some of you might laugh at this and think its off the wall, but that’s alright, you can say hello to my middle finger.  Anyways, each layer of the onion are just attachments or extras that are used to help people interact more.  One layer is social video and another is music sharing, however, the true core of the onion is human interaction.  While online chat rooms are reaching that core, there’s still a whole lot that can be done to facilitate interaction between people who have never met before that SHOULD meet each other.

The Epiphany that Broke the Mold

I don’t usually talk about personal stuff here, and I don’t plan to but just this once I thought I might talk about something that happened to me about a year and a half ago.

For my entire life, I was a conformist. I followed the “rules” to the point that I was over achieving in every way possible. Those of you who knew me in high school considered me to be stressed and an over-achiever. The nights when others were out partying, I stayed in an studied. It wasn’t because my parents were oppressive or strict, it was more that I was trying so desperately to validate whether I was smart or not. I actually tried so hard that I worked while in high school, slaving hours at eBay programming. Then the SAT came, the grades, and all the other bullshit that “defines” high school students as they applied for various colleges.

Despite my lower SAT scores, I was able to get into Berkeley and Georgetown. At the time, I considered not getting into an Ivy League a complete failure and considering I hadn’t gotten into MIT, my father’s alma mater, I assumed he was disappointed in my performance.

On a personal level, I was also someone that cared so much about the minutia — “Don’t drive fast”, “Make your parents proud by performing well”, “Focus on what is important, like making a good career and making money”, etcetera, you know the OCD mentality that drives America’s suburban communities.

Then before going to Berkeley, I worked at Facebook hours on end, trying to make up for not getting to Harvard, MIT, and all those schools. I was on a mission to “show everyone up”. After Facebook, I sold some software that my friends and I had built to a music social network for a good amount of cash and the congratulations rushed in and I thought “so this is when I’m going to start being happy”.

Heh, what a let down.

I plunged into a few months of severe depression and thoughts of suicide. I felt as though I was waking up in the morning because someone else needed me and not because I wanted to live my life for myself. I was contemplating leaving school and living at home. I consider the Fall of 2006 the worst time of my life ever. The feeling is like falling into a hole and not knowing how to climb out and contemplating just giving up. It wasn’t because I was scared to go on with my life, it was more that I just didn’t understand why society had to be run a certain way. Why was a mold built for us to conform to? Why do you have to do X, Y, and Z to be successful? It was almost as if society had put an anvil on my head and asked me to jump as high as I could and if I wasn’t able to get my feet more than 1 foot off the ground, I would be subjugated to a life of poverty and failure.

On October 24th, 2006, I said two words that changed it all: “Fuck That.”

I completely changed what I wanted to do with my life. I decided that I wanted to everything in my power to enhance people’s social lives and I figured the first way to do that was by doing what I was good at: building an internet site that helped people socialize. November and December of 2006 marked the beginning of a new era — I gave up my OCD tendencies, reoriented my life to not caring about the things that didn’t matter, and eliminated everything that wasn’t important personally to me. I gave up entirely on trying to “be the best” in school and focused on what I wanted to do. I dropped out of school, started a company, raised a few million dollars, and really the rest is history.

Since then, I’ve realized that life is all about finding what you want to accomplish and doing everything in your power to do that. The reason this blog is called The Iconoclast is because its the iconoclasts that are the ones that realize the mold is just a social construction for people that think life is determined for them. Its easier to follow directions for most people, but it won’t be until those people are in their 50s before they realize that the mold was just something to keep them from reaching their full potential. Now, everything I do is based on what I want and what I think will further my objective of enhancing social lives. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there with other objectives and that’s why humans have been able to succeed in so many areas.

If you watch Fight Club again, watch out for when Tyler says “It’s only when we feel as though we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.”

That "wave speech" thing.

Take a look at this passage which is pretty famous from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Loathing_in_Las_Vegas#The_.22wave_speech.22

So if you haven’t seen the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, you probably should.  I will say that you need to be ready for absurd drug use and a lot of non-sensical discussion and dialog between the main characters “The Duke” and “Dr. Gonzo”.  For the most part, FLILV is an adaptation of Thompson’s real experiences in Las Vegas during the hippie era.  While I think that the excessive drug use in the story is quite entertaining and at times hilarious, the main theme of the story is relatively similar to other iconoclastic American literature.  In my opinion, FLILV is the modern Great Gatsby and Thompson would probably agree if he were here today to compare his book with other similar stories out there (Thompson shot himself in the head in 2005 while on the phone with his wife).

Why am I writing about such a controversial novel and film?  Well I think that the “wave speech” as it is called, is probably the most accurate explanation of the hippie era and the advent of mass materialism in America.

If you don’t know the background of FLILV, the two main characters are in search of the true American dream.  And despite searching the “riches” of Vegas, they find the true American dream in a diner.  The wikipedia article above explains the circumstances and to me this portion of the story is more of a downer than anything else the two experience during the stint in LV.

How does this pertain to what I usually write about?  Well you’ll see if you read the wave speech that Thompson is showing the chaos of American culture.  For example: “There was madness in any direction, at any hour…[t]here was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning…” 

I find this section of the speech the most pertinent to social interaction because Thompson shows that society is so focused on the idea of moving in a specific direction, but we have no understanding of what American Dream will be most satisfying to us.  Thompson’s story ends in disappointment - he finds the American Dream in shambles: A waitress with nothing to live for.  I highly recommend watching the movie at least to see this specific scene.

Here’s where my theory comes in: Thompson’s characterization of the American Dream leads me to believe that social interaction is severely flawed and viewed as grim.  The main warrant is that people are so fixated on attaining the “American Dream” but at the same time they have no idea of what the “American Dream” is or whether it will bring them happiness or not.  Materialism has quite a bit to do with this because people horde objects to give them the perception they are “living high” or experiencing the Dream.  As a society, we are moving in the direction of limiting our social interaction in order to make time for us to acquire more things and achieve what we perceive as success — whether it be money or a big house, yadda yadda…the American Exceptionalism that most people believe in.

I actually think that people will be better served by achieving social success.  The fact that fewer and fewer people are meeting each other for social reasons is troubling.  As a society we’re becoming more closed.  We use cell phones over face-to-face interaction and we use chat and social networks as ways to hide our true personas because we’d rather hide than build our own confidence personally to allow us to enter social situations.  I think the piece that was missing from Thompson’s characterization of American society and the direction it’s heading is the solution to the problem.  For the most part, people need to understand that the true root of happiness is connecting with other people.  Humans are notoriously good at avoiding social situations because it introduces ego, personality, and conflict into situations — the most common form of social interaction is confrontation which is also people’s second most feared act (behind public speaking) because of fear of humiliation or rejection.  In societies where people are forced to meet face-to-face — a Kibutz for example — people are generally more utilitarian and happier.

If you get a chance, read Thompson’s book or check out the film.  While it is a tough story to handle, there is no question its an eye-opener.