Glossary

Big Brother is a benevolent force who is here for the protection of all and who is never malicious or intrusive. No one would question the need for Big Brother, because a reliable record is always important in any government operation. Sometimes you even forget that he's there, until somebody slips up, and then Big Brother is all over it.

Big Brother knows almost everything that happens in any courtroom through the many cameras and microphones there. He can also read any email message to or from clark.co.nv.us, even the ones that you thought you deleted. He can't read your thoughts, but if you ever put those thoughts into words, there is a good chance Big Brother will hear them.

Big Brother is not merely electronic. He has agents everywhere, listening and watching and always ready to report you if it serves their interests. If you say or do something wrong, Big Brother will know, so everyone in the courthouse is very careful. If Big Brother says you should stamp a document in such-and-such a way, that's what you do, even if you don't understand why, because if you don't do it right Big Brother will eventually catch up with you, and things will not go well.

Big Brother is not a person. He has no center and no leader. No one, from the highest judge to the lowest clerk, is hidden from his eye or immune to his penalties. Even the guys who run the video recorders have Big Brother looking over their shoulder, waiting for them to make a mistake.

Big Brother is everywhere, and he is more than just surveillance. He also embodies the law, the organizational system, the media, the whims of public opinion and other higher forces that are difficult to define. Big Brother is a living organism who is bigger than any of us. It is like we are all bees living in a hive, each of us doing our own little job, but the hive itself also has a life and direction of its own that no one member can accurately see or predict. Even I can't see all of Big Brother, although I have tried, so I have to trust him.

I love Big Brother. Sometimes I am called to serve him, and it fills me with pride whenever I do. My brothers and sisters shouldn't have done what they did, or said what they said, or I wouldn't have had to report them. It makes me sad when they have to go away, because I love them so much, but I love Big Brother even more.
[1/8/06]

These are the cases that make caseworkers and judges cry, "Aggggh!" and pull out their hair.

"I just don't know what to do," says one Family Court judge, head in his hands, commenting on the family standing before him. The family is surrounded (at least virtually) by a small army of caseworkers, counselors, court-appointed lawyers, juvenile probation officers, psychiatrics, visiting nurses, special ed teachers, parenting instructors and clergy.

Of the large, indeterminate number of children in the family, only a few are present in the courtroom. Three have extensive arrest records; one is a runaway; one is currently in juvenile detention; and two are currently in therapeutic foster care. Dad has just got out of jail—again—and Mom has been working two jobs to try to support this mess, leaving the children largely unsupervised. There has been a lot of activity since the last court hearing—catastrophes of all kinds—but little progress toward completion of the case plan.

"Someone left the barn door open," says the judge.

Black hole parents might dabble in drugs and petty crime, but they never do anything bad enough to fulfill the high standards of Termination of Parental Rights. They are usually well-meaning sorts who try their best but simply don't have the intellectual capacity or mental stability to manage their children.

Their family life is one stupid crisis after another, which eventually brings them to the attention of the county. Intensive services are brought to bear: in-home intervention, parenting classes, counseling, social support services of every kind. And it has no appreciable effect.

"We's try'n, judge," say the parents in court, "but them kids is always misbehav'n!"

Some of the younger kids have been taken into foster care, where they thrive. The others run wild and become involved in the Juvenile Delinquency system. Every day there's a new disaster, and the common refrain of service providers is, "You put out one fire here and another one starts over there."

The parents respond to the chaos in their home in the logical, Constitutionally-protected way: They have more babies.

"That old 'uns will take care of the young 'uns," they explain.

Observing cases like this from the back of the courtroom, I too go, "Aggggh!"

Seeing the helplessness of the system in the face of such idiocy turns me not just into an interventionist liberal, but a fricking Nazi interventionist liberal.

I don't just support abortion and tubal ligation anymore. I will perform these procedures myself.

I am tempted to give these people some money and say, "Please buy some drugs." If these parents were incurable addicts, then the system could do something, but often they're not. They're just dim bulbs, perhaps marginally mentally ill but not technically a "danger to self or others." The state has few effective tools for dealing with this situation.

The more support the family receives, the more it adjusts to this support and goes right back to the way it was. (See the Pigeon Paradox.) Ultimately, the government has to neglect these black hole families, at least to some extent, because no one client can be allowed to absorb all of the state's resources.

When you neglect the family, bad things are going to happen. Kids die, and the press demands: "Why didn't the system do anything?" The answer often is that the system tried, but the needs of the family were too great for any mortal agency.

Right now there is a pretty clear boundary between me and you. I am writing this webpage and you are reading it. It would be pretty upsetting to me if you started modifying my webpage, and it would be equally upsetting to you if I came into your home, turned on your computer and started reading it to you. Although there is room for negotiation between us, we pretty much agree on where I end and you begin.

In dysfunctional families, there may not be this understanding. When you live with someone, it can be hard to figure out the boundary between you and them. Strong, self-confident people can work it out and come to a stable agreement. Weak, insecure people can't decide on their borders and get into perpetual conflict because of it. "I love you" can be the start of a volatile relationship where I let you in, then push you away, then draw you close again. I can't decide how close you should come, because I don't know who I am.

In functional families, members give each other their "space" while setting firm guidelines for behavior. They tell their 16-year-old daughter, "No, your 23-year-old boyfriend can not come live with us, and I want you home by 10 o'clock, young lady." Dysfunctional families are unable to draw these lines. They either let their daughter run wild or they lock her in her room. Most often it is both: Complete neglect of the child interspersed with absurd and ineffective punishment.

If you step on my toe, I am going to say "ouch!" and pull away. If you cut me off in traffic, I am going to honk my horn. If you try to move into my home without my consent, I am going to politely ask you to leave and call the police if you don't. I call this pushback. I know where my boundaries are, and if you cross them, I am going to react with appropriate force to push you back.

The dysfunctionals can't do that. They either vastly overreact to a space intrusion or they don't react at all. In many families, a 23-year-old boyfriend moving into the house with your 16-year-old daughter is not that unusual. The parents don't say yes and they don't say no, until the dad gets drunk one night and kicks both the boyfriend and the daughter out.

That's the stuff that dysfunctional families are made of.

BPD could be the world's most destructive, pervasive and misunderstood mental disorder. It is probably responsible for more cases in Family Court than any other. In fact, the underlying mechanisms may help explain nearly every every case in Family Court, since most juvenile crimes, abuse/neglect cases and contested divorces boil down to a lack of emotional control in at least one of the parties.

CASAs are trained volunteers who advocate for abused and neglected children in the Clark County Family Court. The CASA volunteer, serving as a court appointed advocate for the child, will prevent the child from getting lost in the system by being sensitive to the child's needs and presenting these needs to the Court.... CASA volunteer advocates are sworn court officers trained to work one-on-one with these children and are best equipped to advocate for what the child needs, and to serve as trusted mentors and friends. CASA volunteers help make sure that the educational, medical and practical needs of these children are identified and met.... The CASA volunteer's commitment is intense, and his or her impact on the child's life is significant. CASA is the only agency operating in Las Vegas providing court appointed volunteer advocacy exclusively to this group of young people.

Case law is what happens after a statute has been passed. No matter how carefully worded the written law may be, there are going to be ambiguities in it. There are going to be a lot of special circumstances and implications that the Legislature never considered when making the law. There will also be conflicts between laws, where one law tells you to do one thing and another tells you something else. Case law—or the actual application of the law upon appeal—helps resolve these ambiguities and differences.

Let's say that, in response to complaints, some governing body passes a law: "Skateboarding in the park is prohibited." Seems pretty straightforward, right? Wrong! Some people are going to get really pissed about this law, like skateboarding interest groups and skateboard manufacturers, and eventually some rebellious young skateboard dude says, "Hell no! This is my park, I'm gonna skateboard all I want!" He is arrested, and then something magical happens.

Lawyers get involved.

For the kid, certification is almost always a bad thing. It means that he is going to be tried as an adult and will be thrown into an adult prison if convicted. Adult court is about punishment and societal retribution, with little attention given to rehabilitation. Often it means a harsher sentence, up to life in prison. Other times, certification could result in a lighter sentence with no attempts at treatment, which puts the kid back on the street with none of his issues addressed.

It is the contention of some philosophers, such as Ayn Rand, that no true charity exists. Everyone has an "agenda" and is looking for some form of personal self-agrandizement by giving to others.

This theory neglects the true soul-searching of someone who believes he is helping others. Bill Gates or Andre Agassi may have mixed motives in helping disadvantaged children, but their methods are still fairly sophisticated and are concerned with results. Cynical charity is when a mafioso gives money to a local orphanage to buy respectability. Non-cynical charity is when you obey some higher theory—arrived at in good faith—of what will really help the children in the long run.

It is semi-cynical when the Catholic Church builds orphanages in Third World countries while at the same time working against any form of effective birth control, thus guaranteeing more homeless children. No matter how noble one action may be, it is cancelled out by the other. It is also semi-cynical whenever you focus only on the short-term effects of what you do, like "Can you feed this starving child?", without also considering the long-term effects on all children.

Non-cynical charity is when you see the whole picture, recognizing that there are limits on what you can do and that the relief of immediate suffering is not the most important goal. Non-cynical charity involves a lot of sophisticated strategizing and long-term tactical thinking, not just feeling good at the moment.

Once your own survival and comfort are assured, it is reasonable to want to help others. If you expect admission to Heaven for it, that's fine. Just remember that God is probably a results-oriented manager. It is not sufficient just to do good works; you should also make sure that the end results are good, over the course of all the foreseeable future. [12/26/05]

While it may sound noble to give a child his own attorney, the CAP program is murky in both law and practice. The problem boils down to "needs" vs. "wishes". The rest of the legal system is concerned with the best interests of the child, which may be entirely different from his expressed wishes. Which one is the CAP attorney supposed to represent?

A cocoon is the product of restricted vision and distracted attention. To avoid the distress of dealing with poverty, we stop driving through that part of town. We occupy ourselves with meaningless activities, like interior decorating or watching TV, so we don't have time to think bad thoughts. We start worrying about fashion and status and the vintage of the wine we are drinking. We stop feeling the feelings of the people we meet and see them only by their service role: maid, cashier, car repair guy. We don't feel uncomfortable about anything we do to them, because as far as we can see everything in the world is fine.

Every once in a while, there is a tear in the fabric of our cocoon, which seems to us like a bolt of lightning out of the blue. Whenever we get cancer or lose a loved one or our house burns to the ground, we say, "How can such a tragedy happen?" Get real! Tragedy is happening all the time, all around us, but our cocoon has prevented us from seeing it. If we didn't have so many layers around us, maybe we wouldn't be so surprised.

In general, cocoons tend to be thicker the more things you own. Thus the silk of 89134 tends to be more impenetrable than 89101. The more you have, the more you need to protect, and the more restricted your vision of the world must become to preserve your sense of security and inner peace. The most pampered worms are especially vulnerable when tragedy finally breaks through, because they are the least prepared for it.

If you own nothing of luxury and are already doing what you can to help others, then the cocoon is less necessary. If you choose to, you can see all the suffering around you, understand your own limitations and accept it all without blindness or despair.

More than any other event, Columbine gave us the policy of "zero tolerance." To prevent another massacre, the theory went, we would not accept any kind of criminal activity in our schools. No drugs would be tolerated under any circumstance. Every incident of violence or vandalism would be prosecuted. No threat of any kind, be it written or verbal, would be dismissed as insignificant.

It sounded so noble. No one wants crime in school, and Columbine gave us the motivation to get tough.

The end result, however, can be seen every day in Juvenile Court: a steady stream of trivial cases referred by the school system. Things that used be handled effectively in the principal's office are now dumped on the court, at a much greater cost to both the kids and the taxpayer.

A typical case is the "hot potato." Some kid brings something to school that he shouldn't have: maybe a stink bomb ("an incendiary device") or a pill from his mom's medicine cabinet ("a Class 2 controlled substance"). In class, the kid says to Steve, the guy next to him, "pass this to Joe." Steve tries to, but Joe won't accept it. The teacher catches Steve with the "hot potato" and he gets arrested. "Zero tolerance" requires that both he and the entire chain of custody be prosecuted. No exceptions. Steve, in some cases, doesn't even know what he's passing to Joe, but that's no defense under the law.

The Juvenile Justice system is overburdened enough with cases of real danger and violence; now it has to deal with these baloney ones as well. Since the violations are technically illegal, the court is not allowed to brush them off. Certain procedures have to be followed: a public defender and a probation officer have to be assigned; drug assessments must be made; reports must be written; consequences ceremoniously handed out; stern lectures given.

In most cases, this is a single isolated incident by a kid who has never been involved in the justice system before. There may be nothing served by his being here, and in fact the system may end up doing far more emotional violence to him then he ever did in the school.

Post-Columbine, if any kid writes "Die, Teacher, Die!" in his notebook, it's a terrorist threat. If he draws a hang-man on his desk, it's a terrorist threat and destruction of school property. In one case I saw in court recently, a kid was charged with writing graffiti in a school restroom with a washable marker! (It seems to me that the sensible punishment is to make him wash it off and spend a couple days of detention.) The kids plead guilty, because that's the easiest thing to do. They serve their probation and community service, then leave the system with some understandable bitterness. Or maybe they just say, "Fuck it! If they think I'm bad, then I'll be bad."

One wonders how many additional crimes were encouraged by zero tolerance rather than stopped by it. It's like our belligerent "War on Terror," efficiently creating new terrorist groups worldwide.

School administrators have no great incentive to change the policy. The public loves it, and it gives them an opportunity to dump their discipline problems elsewhere. "Problem kids" get so harshly treated, both inside and outside the school system, that they are tacitly encouraged to drop out, so they're no longer a problem to anyone and don't draw down the test scores. (Incidently, Las Vegas' chronically under-funded schools—but big on discipline—have one of the highest dropout rates in the country.)

The Juvenile Court can't fight back. If crimes are referred to them, they have to handle them. They can't say "Back Off!" to the school system.

It's all a perfect tragedy — caused by the hysteria that came before the hysteria of 9-11. What hysteria will tomorrow bring, and how will the innocent suffer? Stay tuned.

Relevant Article: Schools Working to Distinguish Misbehaving From Criminal Acts (1/21/05)

We haven't taken the tour, and it isn't open to the public, only to juvenile miscreants who have sent there by the court. We suspect that the reaction of most of them is the same as ours would be when we were between the ages of 14 and 18.

Cool!

There is a lot of covetousness in this world (It powers our economy!) and plenty of it in the foster care system.

If a retired couple decides to use their freedom to care for foster children rather than sitting on the beach in Miami, this is not covetousness. They are seeking to serve the children and don't need the children to serve them. It is a little different when a younger couple who are unable to have children themselves come into the foster care system wanting a baby of less than eighteen months, of a certain race, physically healthy, who is likely to become free for adoption. "Covet" just might apply there.

The decision to become a parent, in any form, can get really murky in this regard. What are your real motivations? Do you see a child who needs you and who you have the resources to help? Or is there some kind of desperation inside that you are trying to fill up? Hey, the county isn't going to ask, so it's just between you and me. Why do you really want to do this?

Are you trying to create a little "Mini Me" — a clone in your own image to whom you can give all your precious traits and who of course will worship you? That's kind of an ego thing, don't you think? It never really works out that way. Clones have a way of rebelling and turning into something quite different from the plan.

I'm not saying your motivations are impure. This is humanity: It's all impure. All I am saying is think about it. Get your head on straight. Take a look at your partner and think about how you will get along without a child, and if you find you don't need one, then maybe you should get one.

Creepiness is a vibe, not substantive evidence, and it is not admissible in court for very good reasons (namely, the difficult of distinguishing it from spookiness). Nonetheless, we have to acknowledge that valid information can be received on nonverbal channels, and we should not simply discard it because it isn't empirical. Courts can't rule on creepiness and other weird vibes, but you can. At the least, these vibes should prompt you to seek more information.

Caseworkers from the Department of Family Services often operate in crisis mode. Every day there is a new crisis pushing aside lesser concerns, which might never get addressed. This is also the problem of superheroes everywhere: When you are always trying to save the world, when do you do your laundry?

Domestic violence is defined by the intent of the action and not its force. If you throw a slice of bread at your spouse, it is domestic violence if the action is an expression of hostility, while accidentally dropping the bread in their direction is not a crime. In fact, the same applies to all food items and kitchenware: toast, sandwiches, muffins, pies, spoons, plates, coffee mugs.... For some reason, coffee mugs are a really popular item for domestic violence, perhaps because they are easy to grab and throw. It is still domestic violence even if the victim ducks and the object misses and shatters on the wall behind. Slapping, hitting, punching, shoving, biting (a surprisingly popular method), and any other form of bodily assault also fall into the legal category of domestic violence.

And let's get enlightened here: It's not just men beating on women. The gentle sex does a fair amount of it as well; they just tend to not cause as much physical damage and are less likely to be reported.

Intent can be difficult to define, since the perpetrator almost always believes that their actions are wholly justified by the behavior of the victim. If I throw a coffee mug at you, it is because of your insensitive words, your disrespectful attitude or your failure to do what I tell you to. You forced me to do it, and my violence is no worse than yours.

The law takes a slightly different view. Contrary to the belief of many, hurtful words do not constitute domestic violence. This is America: Within the privacy of your own home, you can verbally demean or psychologically abuse your own family members in any manner you choose. Only when the encounter turns physical is the law authorized to intervene.

Domestic violence tends to be prevalent among the emotionally volatile, especially victims of Borderline Personality Disorder and related personality traits. It is a expression of paranoia and projection, which is the externalization of one's inner frustrations. I lash out at you because I feel bad about myself, and I assume that you are responsible. Even one misspoken word can seem like terrible violence to me, so I feel justified in doing violence to you.

The response of the legal system is limited. It can either issue a Temporary Protective Order to keep the parties apart, or it can prosecute the offender. Neither of these solutions are practical unless the victim is willing to terminate the relationship. Most are not. There can be practical reasons (such as economic dependence and shared children) but also some emotional ones. Victims often see their attackers as vulnerable human beings who "can't help themselves" and who just need more love. The fact that the attacker usually blames the victim for the attack further complicates things. There is never a graceful exit from an abusive relationship. These parties can't shake hands and walk away. It takes inner strength and external resources that many victims don't have.

Falling in love may seem magical at first, until you realize that you're falling in love, and it isn't clear where the falling will stop. Sometimes it feels like you're drowning in love, gasping for air, trying to break free.

That's engulfment.

The scary thing about love, and about any kind of dependence or devotion, is that you might lose yourself in the "Other." This is especially a problem with people who have a weak sense of their own identity. I want to fall in love because I am hoping that this person will save me, but as soon as I do I may feel overpowered... smothered. Help!

Identity is just about the most important thing to every human. Everyone wants to feel that they are significant, valuable and unique. Intimacy can threaten this. If you don't have a strong base of identity to start, then you are going to absorb the beliefs, preferences and worldview of the Other. Pretty soon you're wondering, "But who am I?"

Once you realize just how far you have fallen, panic can set in. Love turns to a kind of terror, and some very violent reactions can result. Fights ensue, usually over trivial issues. Everything about the Other begins to irritate you, and you start making plans to break free.

This sensation is by no means limited to romantic love. Child development can be seen as a struggle against engulfment. A child loves his parents but... he also finds their love oppressive. If the parent is a control freak with a weak identity of his own, than the reaction of the child is all the stronger: "Leave me alone! I just want to be me!"

All of this stuff is going on below the surface at Family Court. It often helps explain why love goes bad and ends in divorce. It also provides insight into why children act out and find themselves in Juvenile Court, often for destructive actions that make no rational sense.

The problem, in essence, is too much love. Oppressive love. Love that doesn't allow me to be me.

This doesn't necessarily imply that the Other itself is inherently oppressive, only that victim is not strong enough to oppose it. Even normal, healthy love can be engulfing sometimes.

The fear of engulfment is an invisible force in all relationships. In some cases, it puts the brakes on love and stops it from happening.

You may think that everyone needs a sensitive, attentive partner who is responsive to their needs and is always there for them. Every Cinderella wants to marry a prince, right? In fantasy, perhaps, but not in practice. The "perfect" partner can be extremely threatening to someone who, deep down, believes they aren't worthy of it. What these people may actually need is a dolt or bimbo just like them, someone who isn't particularly sensitive or attentive but who doesn't threaten their own identity.

These, in fact, are often the marriages made in Heaven. Relationships where the two parties are similar to each other in ego strength are the ones that might actually last. Relative equality limits the risk of engulfment.

For everyone, there is a romantic partner who is just right. Not too hot, not to cold, just the right degree of lukewarm.

Links: Google for "engulfment" [12/31/05]

If you are going to bother to care about anyone (which, again, is a personal choice), then you need to come up with some system for doing it. If we decide to improve society, then how do we go about it? Who should we help and why? What really matters to the well-being of others? You could pray to God for assistance, but that's not the existential way. The solutions, like the problems, are right in front of you.

We call an experience existential if it exposes and makes vulnerable the fragile underpinnings of our existence. It is existential when death or disaster sneak up on you in an unexpected way or when you suddenly discover, in a moment of insight, that the whole elaborate structure of your life is based on a lie. Examples....

• It is existential when you are standing on the edge of the roof of a tall building looking down on the street below wondering if you should jump.
  
  
• It is existential when you are dreaming that you have already jumped and are falling, falling when — BAM! — you wake up in a sweat.
  
  
• It is existential when you are on the Titanic just after it strikes the iceberg. You know full well that the ship is sinking, and there is nothing you can do about it.
  
  
• It is existential when you are tried before a jury of your peers, found guilty and sentenced to life in prison for a crime you didn't commit.
  
  
• It is existential when you are tried before a jury of your peers, found guilty and sentenced to life in prison for a crime you did commit.
  
  
• It is even more existential when you are sentenced to life in prison, but with a possibility of parole after 40 years.
  
  
• It is existential when you are a good Mormon who completes his overseas mission, marries a nice Mormon girl, raises a family, tithes his 10%, becomes a respected Bishop in his church, and who then realizes, in an existential moment, that maybe Joseph Smith didn't receive the Book of Mormon directly from God written on golden tablets in Reformed Egyptian. Maybe he just made it up.
  
  
• It is existential when you raise a daughter from birth for 5-1/2 years; you are her only "Daddy," and you and she are very close, and then one day a caseworker comes and takes her away and you never see her again.

Quite simply, evil is lying to yourself.

If you look up at the blue sky and tell yourself it is green because it is convenient to do so, that is evil.

It may seem absurd to think of evil as something so simple, but the jump from self-deception to genocide is not that great. Once you accept any hypocrisy in your internal world and start generating more lies to defend it, there is no telling what terrible act it may lead you to.

Due to the advent of the internet, fewer and fewer human activities are extrajournalistic—for better or worse. Anyone who has a family picnic or pierces their nipples can put their photos on the web. Eventually, anyone who is frustrated with a Family Court case will be there, too.

It's an embarrassing situation: The government is supposed to be responsible for the kid but doesn't know where he is. If this condition persists for an extended period, then wardship is terminated by the court. The kid is still missing, but the government isn't responsible any more.

A recent news article on the topic says:

Clark County Family Services estimates that on any given day more than 75 children are missing from their foster homes. Some run away for a few hours or days and then return, while others are never heard from again.

Kids don't just run away from bad placements where the staff or foster parents don't care; they run away from good ones, too. Conscientious foster parents can't understand it. "I'm doing everything I can for the kid," they say. "His situation is far better now than it was before, so why doesn't he want to be here?"

Maybe he does want to be here, and that's the problem.

Your field of responsibility is actually a continuum of responsibility, dictated to a large extent by practical concerns such as the availability of information and your ability to help. You probably would care about a family in Finland or Mesquite if you knew them, had visited them or had read an article about them, but when you don't even know they exist, it is hard to care. You don't feel bad when they feel bad, because you don't know about it.

If something unpleasant happens to a sentient being on a distant planet in a galaxy far, far away, you do not have to be concerned, because not only do you not know about it, you have absolutely no means of helping them even if you did. Thus, you can still sleep soundly at night despite the infinite suffering all over the universe.

Here on Earth, your field of responsibility is not so clear. In some way or another, you have the ability to help any human on the planet, especially with modern communication and transportation, so in a sense you are responsible for everyone and everything on Earth, just not in the same proportion. Your field of responsibility can be thought of as a magnetic field that is very strong at the center but that becomes weaker the further away you go. For most of us, the field is very weak in Finland. (I don't mean to offend the Finnish here, but it's true.) The field is very strong in our own household and community, because we are more emotionally involved, have better information and have greater ability to help effectively.

When we see images on TV from a famine in Africa, it brings it a lot closer to us and makes it stronger in our field. We may want to send money to the address on our screen, because now we feel greater responsibility and an ability to help. The field of responsibility is funny that way: You can feel responsible for things you see that are far away and not feel responsible for things you don't see, even if they are hidden in your own home.

What if you saw EVERYTHING that went on in the world? What would your field of responsibility be then? Would you go mad from all the suffering you saw around you? No, you would come to accept it. You would still be limited by your resources and your practical ability to help. You would still have to use a system of triage to tell you what to do.

You would help your own family first, because you have greater control over the outcome of your actions and a greater sense that their problems are yours. You would help the starving millions in Africa only if you felt that your own family problems were under control and you thought you could help a lot of suffering people with relatively few resources. As you searched the globe for a charitable cause, you would want to choose the destination where you would get the greatest long-term benefit from the limited resources you have.

The endless quest to define your field of responsibility is called scope management. Whenever you have an ability to help someone in need, you have to ask yourself, "Is this my responsibility?" There are rarely any simple answers, but you have to come up with one. You have to weigh your ability to help, your ability to monitor the results, your emotional investment in the outcome and the drain on your resources that could be used to help others. Your field of responsibility is constantly being redefined, but firm preferences have to exist and you have to obey them; otherwise, you will spread your resources too thin, and your well-intentioned efforts may effect nothing in the end.

For example, if you wake up in the morning and can decide, on the spur of the moment, that you want to go strolling in the park, you have more freedom than someone who wakes up to the alarm clock and has to be somewhere at a certain time or bad things will happen.

Everyone claims to love freedom and will fight for it in theory, but most people don't really want it in their own lives and will make it go away as soon as they have it. They don't want the ability to change their mind.

As an activist in the Family Court, I feel it is important to take a firm stand: I am opposed to gay marriage.

Throughout the country, outraged voters are working at a grassroots level to ban the marriage of homosexuals through ballot referenda and agressive lobbying of their lawmakers. I believe these initiatives don't go far enough.

I want to ban marriage altogether.

The graffiti artist wants to make his mark on the world, just like Donald Trump wants to build big hotels with the name "TRUMP" at the top. Both are trying to say: "You see, I am somebody."

Every child (Trump included) has a desperate desire to assert his identity in the world. Some kids like to excel at gymnastics or math league or video games. Those whose lives are particularly frustrating may not have such socially accepted outlets, so they must make their mark on the world in subversive ways. Overall, Graffiti is one of the least destructive ways that a child can act out against the world, and it must almost be considered a rite of passage in difficult neighborhoods.

The graffiti artist has been told all his life that he is worthless. The world, to him, is a monolithic block that does not respond to him and does not care if he exists. He can either accept this message, or he can fight back. With a can of spray paint, he gains control and becomes a influential force in the universe. He can't move a building, but he can customize it and make it "his".

The graffiti artist is motivated by the same inner drive as any other artist. He just happens to have chosen a canvas that is at odds with the wishes of society. He would not be doing this if he had other satisfying ways to assert his identity. Kids in gymnastics or math league don't do graffiti, but current public opinion would prefer to punish offenders rather than diverting them.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman (the Donald Trump of local politics) suggested in November 2005 that graffiti offenders should have their thumbs cut off on television. This is one solution, although I believe it is the index finger, not the thumb, that is most essential to the spray painting. Goodman does not talk much about expanding programs for disadvantaged youth, which might decrease the motivation for graffiti, but that's not his job. (We all know, of course, that Oscar's first priority is to make an impression, as though Las Vegas was this big canvas that he can write "OSCAR" on.)

(Sun article on graffiti. Asks the right questions but doesn't adequately answer them.)

The engine can be thought of as a black box. Sensations, memories and impulses go in, and behavior comes out. Inputs to the box can range from hunger and lust to a mugger with a gun demanding your wallet. The behavior that comes out can be explicit words or actions, or it can be an inner fantasy or obsession that no one else ever knows about.

The traditional view of human behavior is that people are responding to inner "drives" like seeking food, mating and something called a "survival instinct". While these drives certainly exist, the trouble with this theory is that people rarely act upon them in a straightforward manner. In fact they often do things that directly contradict those drives. If a survival instinct were the highest human motivator, why would people do apparently dangerous things like climbing cliffs and jumping out of airplanes?

The answer lies in the black box, which receives the drives as input but doesn't necessarily act upon them. The identity engine twists things around in a characteristically human way. What it wants most of all is to preserve its own positive self-image.

I Love You, Type I. To some speakers, "I love you," means, "I need you." This is the kind of love expressed by young children and by adults who are still children emotionally. To them, "I love you," means "I have no idea who you are, but I am totally dependent on you, and I hope you will give me what I need." This is fine for children, but when spoken by adults, it's a bit creepy. In adulthood, this is a desperate and cloying love, as if there is a big gaping hole in the speaker's soul that the listener is expected to fill up. Inevitably, the listener can't fill it up, and when the speaker recognizes this, "I love you," can rapidly turn to "I hate you," followed by a messy divorce.
I Love You, Type IA. "I love you" can also mean "I worship you." The listener is perceived as a god or goddess, often for no other reason than the color of their eyes or the shape of their bodies. "I love you," in this case means, "I am hopelessly idealizing you based on my own fantasy of what I need." Since the key issue is the speaker's need, this is a variation of Type I and not a separate category of its own. Rich, handsome guys and good-looking chicks get a lot of Type IA compliments. Type IA impulses can lead to "love at first sight" and a pathological disregard for any evidence that might contradict the idealized image. When you start writing poetry about the color of your lover's eyes, this ought to be a warning sign. Get a prenup!

I Love You, Type IB. "I love you" can mean "I find you sexually attractive." In other words, "Your physical appearance, behavior, voice and/or odor have activated my hormonal system and brainstem in favor of reproductive activities." Postcoitally, it can also mean, "Wow, thanks!" as if it were the other party and not ones own brain that induced this drug-like high. The "I love you's" tend to flow freely in the passion (i.e. temporary insanity) of such circumstances. The only question is how they will flow when the insanity abates.

I Love You, Type II. "I love you," can mean, "I need to be needed by you." This is the way people talk to babies and pets. ("I love you, poochie poo! Aren't you a sweetie? Yes, you are!") It is not an entirely dysfunctional love. The speaker is seeking some personal satisfaction from attending to others, which is admirable. Babies need to be taken care of, and loving a pet is better than loving no one at all. It is not exactly a reciprocal relationship, however, and when you have one adult talking this way to another, again it can be creepy. Type II speakers are "helpers" and sometimes "enablers." Get them together with a Type I speaker, and the latter is like a black hole sucking energy off a companion star. Sometimes the system explodes, and other times it reaches a stable stasis of "I need you/I need to be needed by you" that lasts "'til death do you part."

I Love You, Type III. A more mature form of "I love you," is "I care about you." It is the kind of love expressed by parents for their older children. It means that some part of my ego is tied up in your well-being. I want you to be safe, happy and successful, and I will fight for you if necessary, but I am also eager for you to move out of the house. I care about you, but I don't need you, and I don't need to be needed by you.

I Love You, Type IV. This is an extremely rare form of "I love you" which is hardly ever spoken, even though the love itself is common. Most often, this "I love you" is verbalized as a mock insult, such as "You're a moron!" or "I'm going to kill you!" This is the love that exists between close siblings, who rarely express their feelings directly, in part because it really isn't necessary. You know that this person is there for you, and that he will also push back if you ask too much from him. "I love you," is assumed and natural and is rarely a matter of contention.

I Love You, Type V. A messy combination of all of the previous types, as commonly found in the real world.

[Am I missing any other types?]

It sounds like a good idea—in a perfect world. Why should one parent get preference over another? The problem, unfortunately, is that divorce isn't pretty, and joint custody has a way of stretching out that unprettiness for decades, with the child stuck in the middle the whole time. What happens if the parents are supposed to share decisions but can't agree on anything? It's back to court you go!

This reporter's opinion is that joint custody is a good idea if the parties can work it out on their own. It is a bad idea if it has to be imposed by a court. I think that some judges use joint custody as an "easy out" to avoid making any real decisions about who is the better parent. In some cases, it is the equivalent of Solomon's solution of slicing the kid down the middle, so that he's always conflicted and there's a new battle to fight every day.

Judge Hardcastle has written an article expressing similar misgivings (summary, citation). In early 2005, he and other Family Court judges successfully lobbied to defeat a bill that would have made joint custody the preferred solution in Nevada (article). [12/25/05]

A judge is empowered and constrained by law, which is a bunch of instructions written down in books. A judge is not allowed to do anything—like send a kid to Juvvie or grant visitation rights to grandparents—unless the law explicitly says he can. The law, in turn, is created by the Legislature, which is composed of ordinary citizens who occasionally have their heads up their asses.

There are good judges and bad judges, but all judges get blamed for things that aren't their fault. When a judge has to rule on an assinine provision of the law, he can bitch and moan all he wants, but it's still the law, and he has to obey it.

A judge also has to make people unhappy. In fact, approximately half of the people who come before a judge will go away begrudged. They may think he is out to get them and is part of a nefarious black-robed conspiracy to control the world—which isn't entirely true. (I know for a fact that he doesn't always wear the robe.)

In Nevada, most judges are directly elected by the people, which is just about the stupidest idea short of the popular election of presidents. Being a good judge is a highly technical and subtle skill, akin to brain surgery. Imagine if we chose our brain surgeons by popular election. Would you feel comfortable having your head cut open by someone whose skills were verified only by the whims of thousands of your dimwitted friends and neighbors who don't have a clue about the candidates and know nothing about brain surgery?

That's called "democracy." Pretty scary, eh?

Of course, if you don't like a judge's ruling, you can always appeal it. In Nevada, decisions of Family Court are appealed directly to the state Supreme Court. This is a more refined and ethereal environment than the rabble of District Court. Unfortunately, the justices here are also chosen by popular election.

It isn't clear that there is a better way. The alternative is the political appointment of judges, which has its own set of problems.

The idea of elected judges may be more palatable if you think of it as a random lottery. Anyone with a strong-sounding name (Hardcastle, Steel, etc.) can become a judge, but he or she does have to be a lawyer and (with a new law in 2005) must have a certain number of years in practice. It also helps to be female, a genetic condition that has held great sway with the voters in recent years. (After all, this is Family Court, and who knows more about families, an unrecognized male name or an unrecognized female name?) Every once in a while, due to the random linguistic fickleness of the voters, incompetent judges get elected and good ones get thrown out, but at least the system stays dynamic and power doesn't become too entrenched. [12/28/05]

All states require that divorce judges consider "the best interests of the child" when choosing which parent he should live with, but it is up to the judge to decide what that phrase means. Different judges have different philosophies and, frankly, different biases and competence levels, which means that custody is essentially a personal choice by the judge. Because you and your ex-love couldn't decide the question yourselves, you have invited this stranger into your home to do it for you.

If this doesn't terrify you, it should.

There is no alternative to judicial discretion in this situation. Somebody has to make a decision, and every case is so complicated that no written law can reasonably help. There may be laws that try to force litigants to negotiate with each other or that require a judge to obtain certain information before acting, but no law or simple rule can decide who is the better parent. Furthermore, you can't allow most custody decisions to be reconsidered on appeal, because if this were possible then every custody decision would be appealed.

You have to live with the judge's decision even if he or she is a jerk, shows obvious preferences, is inexperienced or doesn't have adequate understanding of your case. The judge has to maintain the appearance of impartiality and cannot, for example, accept bribes to go a certain way, but this is still a very human, personality-driven process.

Divorce attorneys know this. They know that Judge "X" shows a strong preference for awarding joint custody, while Judge "Y" tends to prefer the female half. The assignment of cases to judges is done on an essentially random basis, based on openings on the docket, so you never know who you will get. It's a roll of the dice, but in the great Nevada tradition, if you don't like the outcome you can choose to roll again. (Double or nothing?) The mechanism is called a peremptory challenge*. Each litigant has one opportunity to fire their judge, without cause or explanation, before the proceedings begin. This service costs $300 and is a big money maker for the state.

It is all a big chess game, and it's the kind of stuff that you would be clueless about if you tried to represent yourself or if you chose an attorney who isn't familiar with Family Court. If you don't control the peremptory challenge, then you may become a victim of it. Certain judges are challenged frequently, so they will have more docket openings, so you have a greater probability of being assigned to one of these judges yourself.

What right does a judge have to be biased in favor of one custody solution over another? Every right in the world. A judge in Nevada derives their power from you, the voter. You elected them knowing full well what they stood for.

Oh, you're telling me you didn't know? Are you saying that you voted for President, then you got down to the bottom of the ballot to Family Court Judge, and went, "Aggggh! Who are these people?" Not realizing that thousands of lives were at stake, did you blindly check off some name because it sounded right?

Now, are you telling me that you had to get a divorce, and things didn't turn out as you hoped they would?

I guess you got what you deserved then, didn't you?

Justice is roughly "an eye for an eye," although we aren't supposed to say that. Murderers get life in prison. Thieves lose their freedom. Injured people get compensated for what they lost (plus all their "pain and suffering," of course). Justice is usually crude and tends toward brutish overkill. It may deter some future crimes and address our emotional need for retribution, but it rarely does much to repair underlying problems.

You should not expect much justice from Family Court, which is more concerned with repair and rehabilitation. Family Court tries to give distressed people a way to move on with their lives, a goal that is often incompatible with justice.

Here in Juvenile Delinquency, customer service is our Number One priority (although customer satisfaction may still be lagging).

In Family Court (and maybe the whole justice system), there may be no other workers who are as passionate and uncynical as the JVCSR's. Unlike adult criminal court, which is bent on retribution, there is a true sense in Juvenile Court that the system is going to try to reform the defendant and address his problems and not merely punish him. The JVCSR's are at the forefront of that process. Regardless of the child's guilt, they fight for a plan that they hope will best serve their client in the long run.

Their idealism is untarnished by actually having to deal with the kid outside of court. Their interaction with him is usually limited to the waiting room before and after a hearing. They only fight, in a somewhat abstract way, for his innocence and his future plan if convicted. (The dirty work of enforcing the plan is left to Juvenile Probation Officers and corrections personnel, who may actually get to know the kid and his problems.)

Part of the job of the JVCSR is to deal with the parents of the defendant, who are usually far more difficult than the kid himself. The parents are often outraged that their precious progeny was arrested and may propose all sorts of bizarre legal theories to get their child off the hook. After listening to the parents, you often understand why the kid is acting out.

The experienced JVCSR will resist the temptation to tell the parents where to go, but will focus instead on the kid and what he wants. When that interaction has been successfully completed, then it's the parents' turn again. They go "Yap, yap, yap!".... until the JVCSR politely excuses themselves and says they have to go back into the courtroom for another case. (Often there is nothing in the courtroom that concerns them, but it is a convenient sanctuary.)

It's the same problem faced by thousands of visitors to Las Vegas every day: You want a "Good Time" and maybe you think you need a prostitute to accomplish this, but how do you find a good one? You could look in the phonebook under "Entertainers - Adult" or pick up an escort brochure on the Strip, but how do you know that what you get will match the picture? Furthermore, the ads never tell you how much it will cost to do everything you want.

The Heavy Hitta

The only thing all lawyers have in common is they went to law school and passed the state bar exam. This assures that they have certain basic technical skills, like writing briefs and following a chain of legal logic. It does not guarantee that they have the skills and empathy to deal with troubled people, which is perhaps half the job of lawyering, especially here in the Family Services Center.

It is rare to find a lawyer with any training in psychology, which ought to be a critical field when dealing with children and families. The "people skills" of lawyers run the same gamut that they do in the general population. Some lawyers "get it," and some don't and never will.

We have a special term which is reserved for this profession: shyster. This is someone who may be clever at the law but who lacks any moral scruples. This is a serious occupational hazard among lawyers. The law is society's codification of morality—generally a very crude and primitive one. ("If you hurt someone, we will hurt you.") Some lawyers think they can get into Heaven simply by obeying the law. If there is a blindness in a statute, then it is the legislature's fault, not theirs, and they feel obligated to exploit it.

The people who pass through law school have gained certain technical skills which are similar to mathematics. Not all mathematicians are skilled at life, however: Some of them are geeks; some are autistic, and some couldn't survive for 10 minutes outside the halls of M.I.T. Lawyerdom has its own brand of autistics, perhaps brilliant at law but clueless to the morality that is supposed to underlie it. In Family Court, these lawyers can cause enormous damage, because they fail to see the human needs that are right in front of them. A few minutes of sensitivity where the lawyer asks, "What is really going on here?" can avoid years of litigation, but of course litigation is much more profitable.

An outbreak of love in Northern Nevada Dec. 4, 2005

• Contrary to popular belief (and popular music), love is not all you need. Love alone can not solve the problems of the world or the problems of relationships. You also have to use your brain. Without a firm intellectual basis, "I love you so much" can turn in an instant into, "I hate you so bad."

• Romantic love involves a fair amount of delusion. (Really?) You want so much for this person to give your life meaning that you will overlook even the most glaring negative evidence. You will seize upon any detail as positive evidence of your magical affiliation. ("You like blue? So do I. This is so amazing!") Most romantic delusions eventually collapse, and when they do, we may find ourselves in divorce court.
  
  
• The unreality of the initial delusion is directly related to the eventual nastiness of the divorce.
  
  
• You can't talk seriously about love — any kind of love — without talking about its evil twin, which travels with love wherever it goes. Whenever you love someone, you are also secretly afraid of being absorbed by them and losing your own identity. For those whose identities are weak, the fear of engulfment can provoke some very un-love-like reactions, like arguments and domestic violence. "You only hurt the ones you love," because they are the ones to whom you are most vulnerable.
  
  
• A child loves his parents but also has a need to rebel against them, especially when they intrude into his own identity. You find a lot of this played out in Juvenile Delinquency court. In a hearing, you see both the child and his parents, and over the course of the proceedings, you may come to realize that this isn't about grafitti or breaking some windows; it's about the love between parent and child and how it isn't working.

  QUERY: I hope a reader can answer this... In the movie Prizzi's Honor, Jack Nicholson's character falls in love with Kathleen Turner but later has to kill her. Somewhere in the movie, he talks about love being something that happens to the "sense of smell." What is that quote?

"What do we do now?" says one to the other.

"I don't know. What do you want to do?"

"I don't know."

"I know, we'll have a baby!"

"Yeah, that must be it! We'll have a baby!"

Then they have a baby; their family is complete, and they all live happily ever after.

Guess what?... NOT!

In the movie The Matrix, we learn that life as we know it is a virtual reality projection. Our real bodies are stored in vats in a giant warehouse somewhere, while everything we think is real is generated by a computer program and fed directly into our nervous system. A few people have learned to break out of the Matrix and see life as it really is, which is a lot darker and more desperate than the Matrix leads us to believe.

I am not saying that the objects and activities around us aren't real, only that the meaning we assign to them isn't. For the most part, we don't need these things. They just get in the way of living.

We all need to eat, sleep and have meaningful relationships with others. We don't need most of the other stuff we surround ourselves with: objects, hobbies, rituals, entertainment. Certain modern conveniences, like supermarkets, indoor plumbing and central heating, make our lives easier. Most other things just make life more complicated and separate us from what is really important.

vs.

Most real families are more like The Osbournes, but without the money or the one shrewd parent to hold it all together.

As you are reading this, I request that you please not touch your nose. You have no reason at all to touch it, so please don't.

But now that I have mentioned it, doesn't it itch just a little? Try as you may, now that I have requested that you not touch your nose, you're going to do it. It's just a matter of time.

That's the problem with the forbidden, and it is something that all adolescents struggle with. Saying they shouldn't do something is almost an invitation to do it. It has something to do with why they engage in the most outrageous acts and fashions, like stealing the family car, going "Goth" or hanging out with exactly the boys Mom and Dad don't approve of.

The forbidden has an enormous appeal, because it seems like an easy way to achieve identity. Whatever your parents stood for, you can support the opposite. You don't realize at the time that by rebelling against your environment, you are still letting it control you. If they say "Republican" and you say "Democrat," this isn't the same as deciding the issue for yourself.

Paradox is an important element in human behavior, and it helps explains why laws and rules often don't work. By forbidding something, you are in a way encouraging it. One wonders, for example, how many sexual perversions and acts of vandalism are generated precisely because of their illicit nature. If the activity is legalized or normalized, much of its attraction goes away. Perversions and delinquencies can actually be molded and defined by the laws and strictures intended to control them.

There can be a lot of reasons for paradoxical attraction. Forbidding something can simply place it in consciousness where it didn't exist previously. Engaging in the forbidden also gives people an outlet for frustrations that they wouldn't be able to express otherwise. It helps them define themselves by rebelling against something. It makes them feel unique and powerful.

Many an arachnid or reptile specialist can trace his roots to a deathly fear of spiders or snakes in childhood. Many a swastika has been painted on a synagogue simply because it is considered such a heinous act—with anti-semitism almost being an afterthought. Sometimes it is a Jewish activist who is caught painting the swastika, because real neonazis aren't giving him enough to fight against.

There is a lot of bizarre hidden paradox in people and a lot of strange secret things going on in brains and bedrooms everywhere. A nasty high-profile divorce proceeding (which we haven't seen lately in Las Vegas) would be an excellent opportunity to review those perversions.

(Not that I have any interest in that.)

Paranoia makes good people do bad things. It can be responsible for anything from everyday rudeness to attempted extermination of the Jews. If you believe that someone is "out to get you," then any response to that threat seems reasonable and justified. Paranoid people are capable of any evil act because they perceive a corresponding threat of similar magnitude. In their eyes, they are merely trying to defend themselves.

As unpleasant as it may seem, paranoia serves a purpose in the victim. At least temporarily, it protects them them from inner self-doubt and damage to their ego. Failing a test at school may hurt your self-esteem, but you wouldn't have to feel so bad if the teacher deliberately made you fail, perhaps by colluding with others to stack the cards against you. Paranoid beliefs provide convenient escape from any unpleasant news that you would rather not receive about yourself. Unfortunately, the beliefs then need to be supported and explained, and this can lead to an ever-widening perceived conspiracy—involving, in this case, not just teachers, but principals, school boards and the Council on Foreign Relations

Paranoia helps us explain most of the seemingly inexplicable and irrational human behavior that we see almost every day, especially in the court system. Whenever someone engages in an obviously self-destructive act, behind it is usually the perception of an exagerated threat or grandiose entitlement. "I beat him up because he called me gay," says the barroom brawler heading off to jail, as if the insult was a form of violence itself, equalling the response.

Paranoids do have enemies, but mostly they are created by their own preemptive attacks. If you believe that someone hates you, then you will respond to them in kind, and this in turn creates the very real hatred that you feared. Paranoia is self-reinforcing, and once it reaches critical mass, it often can't be stopped. Paranoia can wreck families, sabotage careers, and wipe out the trust of others, all of which must then be knitted into the Great Conspiracy to free the paranoid from blame. The end result is an impoverished and restricted life, if not in jail then in a prison of ones own creation.

In other words, if you contributed the sperm or womb for the child, then the law assumes that you are the most qualified to raise him. To put it another way: If you make 'em, you own 'em, and the State can't take 'em away without substantial grounds — any more than they can seize your property or deprive you of liberty. It's a loony theory, because the ability to have sex is no indication of parenting ability, but it's the only doctrine possible in the real world. Otherwise, you would get into the nightmare of the government deciding the suitability of every parent. (Deciding custody during divorce is messy enough. There would be chaos in the legal system if you said that anyone could lay claim to a kid.) The parental preference is stupid, destructive and unjust, but we have to live with it.

Feeding the pigeons can have several negative effects:

1. More pigeons survive and have more offspring. The population eventually increases to outstrip whatever food you can supply. In the end, you still have the same proportion of starving pigeons, but the total number of them is greater than before you fed them. (Adaptation.)
   
   
2. Because you are providing them with an easy food source, the pigeons are discouraged from pursuing more more difficult solutions that may be more sustainable in the long run. (Corrupted motivation.)
   
   
3. The pigeons start depending on you. If you ever stop feeding them they will be a lot more vulnerable than they were before, and many more of them will starve. (Dependence.)
   
   
4. Because they don't understand where the food is coming from, the pigeons will start seeing you as a god, and they may expect a lot more of you than you can reasonably provide. (Deification.)
   
   
5. When you feed the pigeons, they are going to create a scene and crap all over the place. (Noise.)

This is not to say that we shouldn't care about the pigeons or that we shouldn't feed them under extraordinary circumstances, like a natural disaster. It is just that feeding them, per se, is not the solution to their problems. It would be the same if we decided to solve the problems of human poverty by giving all the poor people in the country $1000 each: It would buy a lot of big screen TVs but probably wouldn't improve much in the end.

The problems of both pigeons and people are not usually solved by a mere redistribution of resources. First of all, most such problems are not solveable at all, at least within your own limited capacity. For most of us, pigeon starvation and worldwide poverty are beyond our ability to repair. However, once we find a domain of charity in which we feel comfortable, then the system of helping is at least as important as the raw resources.

Children are different from pigeons. Caring for a child does not result in a permanent dependency, since you know they are going to grow up eventually, but it can create multi-year one. When you step into a child's life it can sometimes be hard to step out, unless you establish clear boundaries to protect both you and the child.

Whenever you help anyone, you have to be aware of the dynamic you are creating. Alleviated pain right now is not the most important thing. What really counts is helping that person create a stable and sustainable future that will continue to function even after you step out of the picture. [12/26/05]

For example, if there has been an epidemic of convenience store robberies in the city, the legislature might respond by increasing the prison term for such robberies from 5 years to 20 years. The theory of rational self-interest predicts that this will decrease the number of robberies as potential criminals weigh the greater cost of punishment against the possible rewards ($50 from the till). But what difference does it make in the actual crime statistics? Probably none. Anyone who would rob a convenience store probably isn't thinking straight anyway, and whether the punishment is six months or sixty years makes no difference to their actions. Whatever may motivate them, it is not rational self-interest.

The main problem with reality is that it hurts. If you make a mistake and get zapped for it, you know you've been hit. Sometimes, you get zapped even without making a mistake. Sometimes, reality gives you a continuous zapping for no other reason than it is reality and can do whatever the hell it wants.

The main advantage of reality is that it is persistent. If you are playing a video game and lose your memory card, you're screwed: You lose all of your experience and have to start over. Reality, on the other hand, has perfect memory and a never forgets anything you say or do. And I mean never forgets, for better or worse.

Once you decide to play reality, there are a lot of rules you have to learn. If you hit your real head on a real brick wall, it's going to hurt. I don't mean just losing points; it's going to hurt. Lots of things hurt, and if you get playing for a while, you learn how to avoid those things by planning for them in advance. You do this by learning more rules, based on some fairly esoteric philosophical concepts. You might choose to "fasten your seat belt" while riding in a "car," only because you might be hurt if you don't. To get really good at reality, you have to keep developing new theories about it and about what causes pain. You continously compare your theories to what actually happens and adjust your play accordingly.

Reality is complicated. It is easy to get attached to the characters you encounter, and pretty soon you start feeling the pain of those characters even if it isn't really yours. This is a big problem with reality: There is too much pain in it, way more than you can feel or deal with. This is one reason why people playing reality often turn to virtual reality for escape. Virtual reality is about seeking your own gratification and doesn't involve any significant pain. Real reality, on the other hand, is all about pain and how to deal with it honorably.

If you accept the reality of reality, then you have to accept that the suffering of others is also real. If someone else is hurting, this is not something you can brush off as imaginary or insignificant. It is as real and important as your own suffering—and you know what that is like. You don't want to hurt other people; you lose points for that. You want to navigate the game so you actually decrease the pain of the world, which is no easy task.

Most people who play reality do a half-ass job of it. They play what I call "selective reality." They accept some of reality but fill in the rest with wishful thinking. Their theories tend to run wild, based on what they want reality to be. They think their theories are so perfect that they don't need to compare them to what actually happens and what actually works. As a result, they make many mistakes and unnecessarily hurt themselves and others.

Reality is big. Really big. I mean like 10 gazillion gigabytes. You can't expect to hold it all in your little brain. No matter how smart you are, unexpected things are going to happen, and you can either fight them because they don't fit your theory or accept them and go with the flow.

Reality can be a bitch sometimes, but once you get to know it and understand its ways, it's the richest game in town.

It is useful, however, to think that reality has a plan, even if it doesn't, and that there is a God looking after you, even if there isn't. To do your best in the game of reality, God and his Plan should form an integral part of your life. This is true even if you don't believe in God and would never set foot in a church.

Here's what we know about God, if He exists: He's big — as big as all reality. (10 gazillion gigabytes.) He sees everything, way more than you can see, and He's always testing you, pushing you, trying to turn you into the best player you can be.

You've got this wee little brain and can't possibly see as much as He does. Thus, you've got to put some faith in the process. God's Plan is bigger than you can conceive right now, but when things happen to you and you look back on them later, you'll realize, yup, that was the Plan.

Right now, you're kind of in the dark. You don't know the whole Plan. You have to keep looking for clues. God is always leaving them, because He's the kind of Guy who wants you to get ahead in the game but who isn't going to make it easy for you.

The clues are happening all the time. Maybe you get cancer or your dog dies or the mail is late on Wednesday. Everything is a clue, and you've got to be thinking about the deeper meaning of it. Why is the mail late? What is God trying to teach you?

It is easy to think you've got the Plan all worked out. Wrong! Whenever you look back on those times when you thought you had it all worked out, you realize that you were deluded. You didn't have it all worked out. Sometimes it is best to go through the game in a daze, never being quite sure if you are doing the right thing, because the fact is, that's the way things are. It's just you and your dim little brain trying to figure out God's fantastic reality.

Have some humility, man!

Sex, at its base, is a method of assuring species diversity by merging the genetic material of two differing body types: the female, who bears the offspring, and the male, who is often regarded as unnecessar