urinal psychology

there is a bathroom i frequently use in the university library.  the facilities stay clean, and they have good urinals.  the best part of the urinals is that the dividers between them are really tall, so you feel like you are all alone doing your business; this is opposed to the urinals in other buildings at the university where there are no dividers, and you feel like everyone is looking at you as you, you know, take care of business.  i digress.

in the bathroom that i like with the Great dividers there are four urinals.  four.  this, to my mind, is a terrible thing (i hate even numbers, anyway, but) you see, when a boy needs to use the restroom, he does not want to stand next to someone and do it- that would be uncomfortable, you might exclaim.  it is uncomfortable for me!  so the problem with the four stalls becomes that they only, at any given time, allow for two people at a time to pee comfortably.  five stalls would allow three people to pee comfortably, because it would leave an unused urinal between each of the men relieving themselves.

four urinals cause other problems for me: when there is one person using a urinal, and he is on one end, do i take the urinal at the other end, or do i take the urinal one away from the peeing boy?  this doesn't seem like a problem with a complex answer, right?  well the complications start to show their little faces when a third person comes.  if there is a third person on a four urinal system, that third person will unavoidably have to pee next to someone else.  with this new complication in mind, ask yourself again, where would i stand in relation to that one person peeing at the far end of the urinals?  if i am on the other end, the third person will have to choose between standing next to me or next to the other person peeing.

i hate this scenario.  i always feel bad if he doesn't stand next to me, because i start questioning myself, "am i doing this wrong?  do i look like i might be a 'peeper'?  did he choose to stand next to the other person because i look like i might try and be personable, strike up a lively conversation?  why didn't he want to stand next to me?"  on the other hand, if he stands by me, i immediately get self-conscious and uncomfortable.  i also am feeling bad for the guy on the other end, wondering if he is now running through the same questions discussed earlier.

that's why i prefer the scenario where i stand only one urinal away from the other person relieving himself.  in this case, the third person entering the restroom, who has to stand next to someone else without any way out of it, has to choose between numbers merely and not necessarily between who is less likely to take a certain advantage of peeing next to another person.  it has been reduced from personal judgment to a choice of numbers.  the only question the new third person has to ask himself is, "one or two?"  the answer of course is, "ah, i will pee next to only one person."  without doubt, this third person is full of gratitude to the second person for his wisdom and Great foresight.

however, even this setup has its drawbacks.  i think it's inevitable that if i choose to stand one urinal away from a person instead of the possible two urinals, he'll think something is up.  but to this, my concerned friend, all i can say is that i have thought it through, and this is best for the both of us, i promise.

the furniture is in ruins

writing of heroes, ralph waldo emerson said, "But that which takes my fancy most, in the heroic class, is the good-humor and hilarity they exhibit. It is a height to which common duty can very well attain, to suffer and to dare with solemnity. But these rare souls set opinion, success, and life, at so cheap a rate, that they will not soothe their enemies by petitions, or the show of sorrow, but wear their own habitual greatness. Scipio, charged with peculation, refuses to do himself so great a disgrace as to wait for justification, though he had the scroll of his accounts in his hands, but tears it to pieces before the tribunes. Socrates's condemnation of himself to be maintained in all honor in the Prytaneum, during his life, and Sir Thomas More's playfulness at the scaffold, are of the same strain. In Beaumont and Fletcher's "Sea Voyage," Juletta tells the stout captain and his company, —

_Jul_. Why, slaves, 't is in our power to hang ye.
_Master_. Very likely, 

'T is in our powers, then, to be hanged, and scorn ye."

These replies are sound and whole. Sport is the bloom and glow of a perfect health. The great will not condescend to take any thing seriously; all must be as gay as the song of a canary, though it were the building of cities, or the eradication of old and foolish churches and nations, which have cumbered the earth long thousands of years. Simple hearts put all the history and customs of this world behind them, and play their own game in innocent defiance of the Blue-Laws of the world; and such would appear, could we see the  human race assembled in vision, like little children frolicking together; though, to the eyes of mankind at large, they wear a stately  and solemn garb of works and influences."

humor is the most important quality that one can nurture, for it is the mother of the best virtues love and patience, and it can replace other virtues like hope and faith with higher orders of power.

hope is elusive.  it is expecting something that never is, because nothing can be what we hope.  humor, then, replaces an attitude of expectation with an attitude of jovial waiting for nothing, and being happy when something comes, whatever it is.  humor causes you to have a new sense of lightheartedness about the world, so that when something comes that you aren't hoping for or when something you are hoping for is different than you hoped (inevitable), you can smile and say a little quip and enjoy what's in front of you with a good demeanor. when you hope for something, you start to "know" what is coming, which is just impossible.  everything is relational, and even if you experienced something in the past, like going to the dentist and being in pain, you might "hope" or "expect" the same thing the next time you go, but you will be going in different circumstances.  the last time you went, maybe you had a cavity or sore, but you don't this time.  your expectations in every case are somehow going to be different than the reality or experience you will have.  with humor, you can detach yourself from expectations.  you can detach yourself from want.  in fact, you can detach yourself from everything, creating for yourself a new hovel or platform from which everything can be made to look hilarious.  this may cause people to call into question your sanity, but it is possible.  when people laugh at weird things, it makes you step back and wonder, right?  so there may be societal boundaries to work with...  but good humor will ask of you to understand that the world is full of resources that can be prodded to produce results of mirth and hilarity.  why would you want to live any other way?  humor raises you above levels of "seriousness" that weigh you down.  and why be serious and intent about something?  you are going to be wrong anyway; there is just so much in the world.

emo phillips, a notable comedian once said that humor can be found just "by turning something upside-down.  like a small child."

humor cultivates patience.  patience seems to be an offspring of smiling and shunted expectations; patience is watching a child kick at the pricks of freedom and merely smiling, not getting upset.  i watch children everyday who get upset at me for the way things are, and when i smile in good humors, they can know i mean no malice, and they know i know that they just don't understand the way the world works, yet.  kindly smiling and being light about such things is a Great opposite to freaking out about a child making a mistake.  humor makes mistakes lighter all around by giving you an air of patience.

there is a boy who is annoyed by his family, everyday.  the boy fumes and seethes watching his mother go around saying opinions that he wants to expose the malice of, but he can't.  this boy cannot love his mother right now.  now, add humor to this situation, and this newly detached boy is aloof from his mother's opinions and not weighed down by their senselessness.  instead, the boy makes a joke and changes the subject, or makes a joke and makes the subject come into a new perspective- one in which both parties know that something is only as serious or as sacred as you make it.  happily, now, the boy loves his mother again.  he can be around her, and she can be around him, because they are wrapped in a spirit of good-happiness together.  anger becomes displaced by humor, and fighting, shouting, hating are all but gone.

this being said, i am not in the position to say that such things should be totally eradicated.  i actually do think those powerful emotions have their places; however, i am in a position to say that i think those things are nicely balanced with a good dose of humor.  humor will bring a sense of binding and life to a newly wounded heart.  ah, the treacherous path of balance...

i once was in an upheaval about questions that can't be answered, and they felt like a giant, seething blob, undergirded with fine, flexible steel trappings slopping around in my head, crashing from wall to wall.  it also felt like the blob was charged with electricity.  in the midst of my pain, i stepped back- i stepped back and i saw it for what i really wanted to see it- and there was a little fish flopping around, harmless.  i laughed at my self, and i laughed at the fish.

humor is most poetic.  humor is most noble.  humor is most divine.  humor is the platform on which ideas are pushed ahead.  humor is the ability to rise above sludgy swamps of sentimentality and heavy atmospheres into new heights.  humor is beating prejudice.  humor is loosening the tongue.  humor is a life's pursuit.  humor is sincerity packaged in edible morsels.  humor is camaraderie.  humor is solidarity.  humor is the twist of your lips.  humor is stubbing your toe and laughing, because pain is funny.  humor is bending circumstances.  humor is honor.  humor is the highest truth.

"The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?"

-henry david thoreau