So, this is your god

You hear all the time about how Church goers tend to live longer, healthier lives. What you never hear is this tid bit from a Slate.com story (emphasis mine):

Christians, of course, don't limit their prayers to the deceased—they also pray for the sick, and several recent studies have tested whether this practice contributes to recovery. The answer appears to be no.

As part of a study published in the American Heart Journal in 2006, researchers asked Christian congregations to pray for two groups of cardiac patients—the first group knew the Christians were praying on their behalf, and the second thought they might be. As a control, researchers told a third group that Christians might pray for them, but the Christians did not do so.

Mortality rates were comparable across the three groups, but the unprayed-for group experienced the fewest complications.

I'm not convinced it mattered one way or the other. The fewer complications were probably an anomoly or some other issue with the study. But if you are going on faith alone that a omnipotent, benevolent god exists, intervenes, and listens in any way to prayer, this can't be good.

Of course, maybe God knew it was a study, had fun with it, and is sitting up their laughing at us as some kind of practical joke. Since we can't know the plan the man in the sky and his super-marketer have for us, he pretty much has carte blanche to do whatever, doesn't he?

Great story!

The first couple lines of this story ring very, very true. I haven't read the entire article yet but its about an author whose first book took 10 years (there are others!) from conception to publication (it can happen, even today!). Nicely written and reassuring.

There is surely a word—in German, most likely—that means the state of active non-accomplishment. Not just the failure to reach a specific goal, but ongoing, daily failure with no end in sight. Stunted ambition. Disappointed potential. Frustrated and sad and lonely and hopeless and sick to death of one's self.

Whatever it's called, this is what leads people to abandon their goals—people do it every day. And I understand that decision, because I lived in this state of active non-accomplishment for many years.

I wrote the earliest bit of what would become my first novel, Stiltsville, in January of 2000, when I was in my first year of a graduate writing program. In May of 2009, I old Stiltsville to HarperCollins—the hardcover is due out next month.

This means that the time from my novel's conception to its appearance on store shelves adds up to a staggering 10 years. An entire decade. Between, I graduated and spent a year on fellowship (during which I wrote a lot but only half of it was any good); then there were the teaching years (during which I wrote very little, hardly any of it good); then there were the Internet company years (during which I barely wrote at all).

Stiltsville is in good company, which is reassuring. There are oodles of novels that took a decade or longer to write—including some famous examples, like Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Diaz spoke in interviews about his own decade of active non-accomplishment. He said that five years into the process, he decided to give up on the novel and start a graduate degree (in what, he didn't say). He said his life improved: no more torture, no more fights with his fiance. Oh, Junot, I thought when I read this, I understand! Still, something pulled him back, and another five years passed, and then he was finally done.

[UPDATE]: I liked this column so much, that I plan to write a response column either this weekend or early next week. It probably won't be a straight response. More likely it will be a breakdown of my own struggles and a response to certain parts of the column that struck a cord with me.

Stupid stories

I thought maybe this story on digital drugs was the worst thing I had seen in a while, having managed to make a mountain out of a mole hill all while also being late to the party; however, then I came across this little jem about a city fining a lady for picking up an air conditioner off the street (with permission).

Slate: Greetings From Fat-Land

Clap, clap, clap

A story that deconstructs another story looking at obesity. It pretty handily takes apart what amounts to a common media representation of the obesity situation in the country

Different day, over zealous in a whole new way

I had occasion to meet up with a former high school classmate of mine recently. We talked for, oh, about 15 or 20 minutes, maybe 25 at most.

It was a business transaction of sorts, and a planned meeting. Still, I was anxious going in. I'm anxious about 100 things all the time. And this is especially true of things that involve meeting new people or new situations.

But the meeting went well. We had a nice talk. Not awkward at all, as I feared it could be.

And it got me thinking about my high school self, as compared to current self. And I realized that I took some stuff entirely too seriously in high school. I suppose that is an occupational hazard of being in high school.

But then I realized I probably take some stuff too seriously now, as well. It's in a less aggressive form, and much, much more personalized and private. I rarely feel that the world revolves around the proper solution to issue X. Though I suppose I still believe that it does in that making the proper choice is what is good for the betterment of society and mankind.

For someone who doesn't believe that they have a soul to save, I'm preeminitely worried, not about saving my sould per se, but about making sure I'm the person I can be.

Two things about this post: Despite its somewhat public nature, it's not for public discussion outside this board. For various reasons. Secondly, this is the second time in a week that I've stream of concious'd something, and ran flat into a dark void of which I couldn't seem to write my way out.

Two great posts

A hilarious one about meditation at a Buddhist resort; and one on agnosticism that seems to me to be spot on.

Finally finished. Finally.

Tonight, sometime after 11 p.m., I finally finished Falsely Accused. Only like a year late and after having blown past something on the order of 4 self-imposed deadlines.

But hey, its finished.

It was oddly anticlimatic. For months now I haven't known exactly what to do with the ending. Even when I knew the "what" of the ending, I still struggled with the how.

Even the first ending I wrote tonight underwent a slight edit that changes the "how" - though not the "what." But when it was all finished, I just kinda sat back, looked at the screen, and thought, "huh, I have nothing left to write. There is nothing left to say." Nothing remained in front of me but a dark... void isn't right... more like this wall of solid darkness. Just nothing left in front of me.

So its finished. And printing. Which is actually more terrifying than I expected. Though maybe I shouldn't have been surprised by that. Still, I hadn't expected it to be so scary having the actual words on actual paper rather than having them in pixels on the screen.

The long, cold winter of rewrite/editing begins.