Another year has passed us by. While 2009 felt like something that needed to be weathered, 2010 felt like the first chapter of a new book. Sure that can be said about any moment in time, but this past year seemed to mark the beginning of significant things to come.
For me the year started off both good and bad. The end of 2009 had shown me the signs that things needed to change otherwise I would be stuck in place. Like many changes, this came with a lot of pain, but in the end it was necessary to make some forward progress. So by the time the first of the year actually hit I had already been given all the information I needed to start something new. So on the first day of 2010 I both physically and emotionally ended a decade long relationship so that I could be free. This was the key to everything else. Mentally accepting the fact that I no longer needed to concern myself with someone else I could make the leap towards something new, and hopefully better. Thankfully I had a lot of support along the way.
Much like 2009, this year felt like more things were happening around me than actually to me. It feels like that, but quite a lot happened. To start it off I moved away from a place that felt more and more hostile to me. I returned back to a place where people actually seemed to be interested in me. I left a job that was intent on grinding up its employees until there was nothing left. It took most of the year to find a job to replace it and when I did, I found not just one, but a second that was even better than the first. This year also marked the end of apparent free fall through societal responsibilities. That is both good and bad. I now have expenses again, but have the means to pay them. I have to pay taxes for the first time in three years, but that means I've made enough money that the government wants their cut. There are times when it feels like I took a three year vacation from my own life and have finally come back home. Right now I'm in the process of dusting off everything and getting back into the routine of things. As I've mentioned with vacations though, they often point out the things that we'd like to escape from or possibly run towards.
Like any year there is a lot that happens over the course of 365 days. My family experienced some drastic changes. Some would say they were a long time coming, but they were no less unexpected or drastic, even if we saw them from a ways away. Lessons were learned about the consequences of our actions. They always seem to blindside us when we're getting comfortable. While in the moment it can feel larger than it is, but eventually, like everything else in our lives, it too will be another moment that fades into the past and shapes our future. My brother had such a moment and is still feeling the effects to this day. While I wish he could have avoided the method in which the lesson was given, I hope that he takes the good from it all because without that single event there is no saying how the year would have ended for him. As it is now, from that moment he can change the course he was on and move towards something better. Both of my parents are now faced with going through the world in a different way. They say that we only really appreciate the adventures after we've gone through them. While we're on them they may not seem like much fun at all. In some cases an adventure may just seem like a trial we have to endure. That may in fact be true. I think though that both my parents are ready to start their lives in ways they may have not expected or even wanted. 2010 was only the starting gun. The actual adventure is still to come. They, like the rest of us, just have to be willing to go on it.
New friends were made. Old ones went away. With technology being what it is the ability for all of us to connect or reconnect with those people from our past. Many of the people around me had to redefine themselves. Jobs were gained and lost. The limitations of the human body were discovered at the worst possible times. The gift of new life was given to both parents and those who wished more than anything to become parents. As with any year there was death. People close to us and people we know of in name only. This year didn't feel like it was a rampage to claim as much as possible before it closed. I'm sure to those who lost loved ones that point could be argued, but this year didn't seem as vindictive as the one that came before it.
2009 was the year that needed to be survived. 2010 felt like the year of freedom, both wanted and unexpected. Even if that freedom came from a seemingly terrible event. It marked the beginning. Like I said at first, 2010 felt like the start of something. Maybe that's true for every year or even every day. Looking back it seems like this last year was just a preamble for what comes next.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
On Purpose
There was a show once that had an episode where everyone in the world not only believed in past lives, but remembered them as well as they remembered yesterday. The main character of the story was the only person who didn't know his own history. In the end he helps people forget their past lives so they could move forward with their current one. I had a similar story idea where instead of past lives, people knew exactly what they're true calling was. This might seem like a good thing because there are many people out there who feel lost. They don't know what they're supposed to be doing and a little bit of guidance would go a long way. The problem with knowing though is that maybe your true calling wasn't something awesome. Maybe it was something you were meant to do, but at the same time it felt wrong because it wasn't something you or those around you hoped for. Instead of being a great musician, you are a seamstress. Much like the show about past lives, the main character would help people forget their calling and just experience life as it came to them. That meant there was a chance at going through life without always having a clear sense of direction. A past life or a true calling, they both could be viewed as a sort of destiny. Destiny can imply there is a lack of free will because it's meant to happen regardless of what we do to prevent or enable it.
A true calling is an interesting idea though. It would mean that each of us has a purpose in this world. Only a few get to figure out what that purpose is though. And it's hard to say if we ever really know our true purpose in this world. Is it really our calling or just the one that we've created for ourselves? Maybe it comes down to belief. If we believe that we're living up to our real purpose then maybe that's all that matters. We've all heard stories about someone who was great at something who at one point could have made a different choice. The writer who could have stayed as a carpenter and may have been entirely happy with that choice, but wouldn't have gone on to write the great American novel. I suppose it brings up the question of by which standard is someone's true calling really judged? To the outside world it may seem like the author has found what he was meant to do. To the author's family it could seem like a frivolous way to make a living. To the author himself there could be the longing question of 'what if' that sticks with him, regardless of how successful he has become. Just because we're good at something doesn't mean that's what we're supposed to do with our lives. Sometimes our talent towards something is just that. I don't believe that people are singular in their abilities. We're all multifaceted. Sometimes in ways that even we don't understand.
It also got me wondering about what other people know. When you meet someone for the first time you may not know what they know. In fact in most cases you can only have a partial understanding of everything they have experienced. The person you passed on the street could be a geneticist or a computer programmer working on artificial intelligence or a mind blowing artist. On the surface they may be very similar to you or me. They watch television or laugh at funny pictures of cats, but they have a deeper understanding of something you may never fully comprehend. Thing is that in a lot of cases the same could be said about you by someone else. We tend to take for granted the knowledge we've acquired. The lifetime of experience we've gathered up serves as reference for everything we will do. The question is though, does that knowledge always serve to lead you towards your true calling, if there is such a thing?
Are we put here for a reason or are we just the eventuality of cosmic chance? Given the size of the universe and its age, it's hard to really comprehend how all the complex things must be in a specific order for each of us to be born. Life as we know it could be considered a miracle since for as far as we can see out into the abyss, there is only us. That's not to say there aren't others like us out there, we just haven't been able to find them. Could be that somewhere out there is another miracle. So if our life is by some sort of design that would mean we each have a purpose in this world. If that's true then how come only a few of us ever really figure out what our calling is? Could it be that our purpose is to search our entire lives for it and not find it, so that those who do find their purpose have it mean that much more to them? Seems like a really inefficient ratio of undefined purposes in the world. This gives more strength to the argument that maybe there is no grand design to the universe. That everything and all people are guided by nothing but chaos. Those that do find their true calling are more fortunate than they can imagine because they are the exception. Maybe there is no such thing as a true purpose, only the purpose that we create for ourselves and those around us. Maybe we define our own route through the universe, regardless of if there was ever a plan for us or if it's all just a collection of random events colliding with each other.
A true calling is an interesting idea though. It would mean that each of us has a purpose in this world. Only a few get to figure out what that purpose is though. And it's hard to say if we ever really know our true purpose in this world. Is it really our calling or just the one that we've created for ourselves? Maybe it comes down to belief. If we believe that we're living up to our real purpose then maybe that's all that matters. We've all heard stories about someone who was great at something who at one point could have made a different choice. The writer who could have stayed as a carpenter and may have been entirely happy with that choice, but wouldn't have gone on to write the great American novel. I suppose it brings up the question of by which standard is someone's true calling really judged? To the outside world it may seem like the author has found what he was meant to do. To the author's family it could seem like a frivolous way to make a living. To the author himself there could be the longing question of 'what if' that sticks with him, regardless of how successful he has become. Just because we're good at something doesn't mean that's what we're supposed to do with our lives. Sometimes our talent towards something is just that. I don't believe that people are singular in their abilities. We're all multifaceted. Sometimes in ways that even we don't understand.
It also got me wondering about what other people know. When you meet someone for the first time you may not know what they know. In fact in most cases you can only have a partial understanding of everything they have experienced. The person you passed on the street could be a geneticist or a computer programmer working on artificial intelligence or a mind blowing artist. On the surface they may be very similar to you or me. They watch television or laugh at funny pictures of cats, but they have a deeper understanding of something you may never fully comprehend. Thing is that in a lot of cases the same could be said about you by someone else. We tend to take for granted the knowledge we've acquired. The lifetime of experience we've gathered up serves as reference for everything we will do. The question is though, does that knowledge always serve to lead you towards your true calling, if there is such a thing?
Are we put here for a reason or are we just the eventuality of cosmic chance? Given the size of the universe and its age, it's hard to really comprehend how all the complex things must be in a specific order for each of us to be born. Life as we know it could be considered a miracle since for as far as we can see out into the abyss, there is only us. That's not to say there aren't others like us out there, we just haven't been able to find them. Could be that somewhere out there is another miracle. So if our life is by some sort of design that would mean we each have a purpose in this world. If that's true then how come only a few of us ever really figure out what our calling is? Could it be that our purpose is to search our entire lives for it and not find it, so that those who do find their purpose have it mean that much more to them? Seems like a really inefficient ratio of undefined purposes in the world. This gives more strength to the argument that maybe there is no grand design to the universe. That everything and all people are guided by nothing but chaos. Those that do find their true calling are more fortunate than they can imagine because they are the exception. Maybe there is no such thing as a true purpose, only the purpose that we create for ourselves and those around us. Maybe we define our own route through the universe, regardless of if there was ever a plan for us or if it's all just a collection of random events colliding with each other.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
On Under the Sun
It's been said that "This has all happened before, and it will happen again." That can be kind of a strange concept for some people because we'd like to believe that our lives are distinct and what we're doing isn't something that's been done before. The thing is though it's entirely possible that there is nothing new under the sun. If you think about it everything we do now is influenced by what we've done before. I'm not just talking about a single person, but the whole of humanity. It's next to impossible to escape the influence of not only our world's history, but our genetic history as well. If that's the case then could it be there are no more truly unique ideas left to be had?
Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure for the person who is out there right now dreaming up things the world has never seen before it must seem like no one else has had the same thought. There are close to seven billion people on the planet and each of us has a entirely exclusive view on the world. So while each of us experiences the world slightly differently than the person next to us, the law of large numbers implies that there is a small chance that somewhere out there someone may be thinking exactly what you're thinking right now. Granted that person may have already thought of it long before you were born or they could be a baby at this moment and will grow up to eventually have the same exact thought that's going through your mind at this moment. If that's possible for one person and a single thought, then wouldn't that mean every thought or idea can also fall under the same concept? Is everything we do, say, or think just a derivative of what's already happened before?
Do you remember the first time you fell in love? Maybe you had heard about it before or even seen it with people around you, but it wasn't until you experienced for yourself did the notion really take hold. Depending on your age it could have felt like not only were you experiencing it for the first time, but no one else in the history of the world felt what you were feeling at the time. The thing is though, people were falling in and out of love for thousands of years before you caught up to it. At the time it was the first moment you ever felt anything like it and for some of us every relationship is just a variation on that initial feeling. Even our idea of love is guided by how we felt the first time. If that's the case then can love be a new feeling or just a recap of our first experience?
There is an old myth about a patent office commissioner, who on the eve of 1899 becoming 1900 said that everything that could be invented had already been invented. That there was nothing left to discover or create. Humanity had reached its apex. It's an old story told usually to prove that no matter how far we think we've come, there is still more to discover. I don't disagree that a hundred years from now people will see and experience things we couldn't even dream of. The people a century from now may look at those wonders and take them for granted, in very much the same way we regard email or traveling thousands of miles in a matter of hours. Those things are commonplace to us now, but there was a time when they were only dreams. Still an email is just a message from one to another. The means of delivery have changed, but not much else. Those boys were the first to have controlled and powered flight and flew over a hundred feet. Within ten years airplanes were delivering packages. Within twenty years there were commercial flights for those willing to pay. The Wright Brothers are given the credit for being the first and many took their ideas and went to the next step. Still the Wright Brothers weren't the first to conceive of the idea of human flight. That had been dreamed up long before they got around to their tests.
There is an idea about the universe known as eternal return. The general idea is that the universe is made up of a finite amount of matter. The matter has a limit, but time itself is unlimited. From this the universe has no starting or ending state, because the matter that makes up the universe is constantly changing its state. Since the number of possible changes is also finite, eventually the same state will recur. This really all means that time is not linear, but it's more cyclical. All that is a complex way of saying that the universe is in a constant state of recurrence. What has happened will happen again given enough time. The whole thing can call into question the idea of free will. If everything has already happened or been done before by someone else under similar circumstances then are our choices really our own or just a matter of eventuality? Then again maybe it doesn't matter if it's all been done before and will all be done again afterwards. For us, at this moment now, it's new and unique. Maybe that's the only thing that matters.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure for the person who is out there right now dreaming up things the world has never seen before it must seem like no one else has had the same thought. There are close to seven billion people on the planet and each of us has a entirely exclusive view on the world. So while each of us experiences the world slightly differently than the person next to us, the law of large numbers implies that there is a small chance that somewhere out there someone may be thinking exactly what you're thinking right now. Granted that person may have already thought of it long before you were born or they could be a baby at this moment and will grow up to eventually have the same exact thought that's going through your mind at this moment. If that's possible for one person and a single thought, then wouldn't that mean every thought or idea can also fall under the same concept? Is everything we do, say, or think just a derivative of what's already happened before?
Do you remember the first time you fell in love? Maybe you had heard about it before or even seen it with people around you, but it wasn't until you experienced for yourself did the notion really take hold. Depending on your age it could have felt like not only were you experiencing it for the first time, but no one else in the history of the world felt what you were feeling at the time. The thing is though, people were falling in and out of love for thousands of years before you caught up to it. At the time it was the first moment you ever felt anything like it and for some of us every relationship is just a variation on that initial feeling. Even our idea of love is guided by how we felt the first time. If that's the case then can love be a new feeling or just a recap of our first experience?
There is an old myth about a patent office commissioner, who on the eve of 1899 becoming 1900 said that everything that could be invented had already been invented. That there was nothing left to discover or create. Humanity had reached its apex. It's an old story told usually to prove that no matter how far we think we've come, there is still more to discover. I don't disagree that a hundred years from now people will see and experience things we couldn't even dream of. The people a century from now may look at those wonders and take them for granted, in very much the same way we regard email or traveling thousands of miles in a matter of hours. Those things are commonplace to us now, but there was a time when they were only dreams. Still an email is just a message from one to another. The means of delivery have changed, but not much else. Those boys were the first to have controlled and powered flight and flew over a hundred feet. Within ten years airplanes were delivering packages. Within twenty years there were commercial flights for those willing to pay. The Wright Brothers are given the credit for being the first and many took their ideas and went to the next step. Still the Wright Brothers weren't the first to conceive of the idea of human flight. That had been dreamed up long before they got around to their tests.
There is an idea about the universe known as eternal return. The general idea is that the universe is made up of a finite amount of matter. The matter has a limit, but time itself is unlimited. From this the universe has no starting or ending state, because the matter that makes up the universe is constantly changing its state. Since the number of possible changes is also finite, eventually the same state will recur. This really all means that time is not linear, but it's more cyclical. All that is a complex way of saying that the universe is in a constant state of recurrence. What has happened will happen again given enough time. The whole thing can call into question the idea of free will. If everything has already happened or been done before by someone else under similar circumstances then are our choices really our own or just a matter of eventuality? Then again maybe it doesn't matter if it's all been done before and will all be done again afterwards. For us, at this moment now, it's new and unique. Maybe that's the only thing that matters.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
On Christmas
As a kid Christmas was my favorite time of year. Looking back it was more about how the world around me was transformed into this magical world where everything twinkled with colorful lights than it was about the presents. Don't get me wrong though, I loved presents. Even to this day seeing a wrapped gift brings me back to those Christmas mornings, even if it's only for a moment. As I've gotten older and spent more and more time away from family some of that feeling has faded. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I've lost my spirit of Christmas. That's the kind of thing that happens in holiday movies where the spunky kid or animatronic reindeer reveals the true meaning of Christmas and we get that little glow in our chest from how sappy it all is.
Going back to when I was a kid. School let us out about a week or so before Christmas so we could be with our family. I think really though it was just that teachers didn't want to try and control a few hundred children heaped up eggnog and candy canes that at any moment could go berserk waiting for the chance to tear into their presents. It was during this week that everything came together though. Grandma would send her annual package of delicious cookies. I remember my father and I standing in the kitchen with the box freshly opened and we were stuffing our faces with all those amazing treats. My mother and I also had our own tradition of going out and looking for new decorations. Every year I was tasked with finding at least one new decoration for the tree. As I've mentioned before, as a kid I had a really hard time with making a decision when presented with so many options. Still that was part of the fun, just looking at all the new decorations and finding the ones that needed to come home with us and fill our tree.
Speaking of tree, we had a fake tree, which in my opinion is better than a real tree. As far as I know we never had a real tree. This fake tree was one that you can to assemble. So every year before Christmas there was an expedition down to the crawl space where all the holiday decorations spent their time when it was December. The tree was in a huge cardboard box that was overflowing with branches and pieces. Right now I can remember exactly how it felt to push that box towards the opening of the crawlspace. The branches were attached to base of the tree with twisted metal rods. Those rods had an uncanny way of poking themselves against unprotected parts of the body. Still even with all the pain and work that it took to bring the tree up, I knew that it meant Christmas was really here. That was the official start of Christmas in our house. These days Christmas decorations are on sale before Halloween. I'm all for preparation and understand the need for businesses to make money on the holiday seasons, but it's ok to enjoy the moment without immediately moving onto the next thing before the afterglow has faded.
Christmas time is also a special time of year where parents get to torture their children by letting them know that gifts are in the house, but cannot be opened until almost the end of the month. As a kid I never really thought about the semantics of buying, wrapping, and hiding presents from a child who was like the Terminator when it came to finding out what he was getting. Presents would arrive from relatives and go under the tree. This would be when my inner detective would kick in and I would try to determine what could be inside based on size, weight, and sound it made when shook. I was a little CSI when it came to wrapped presents.
It used to be that the only day I would wake up early was on Saturdays. Back then they had cartoons on early in the morning. Starting at 5AM the Smurfs would come on and for a few hours there was nothing but cartoons on. Since we only had about three channels, it was kind of a big deal and a very good reason to skip sleeping in on the weekend. Christmas morning was very much the same way. Trying to go to sleep on Christmas eve was an exercise in futility. Eventually I would pass out from sheer exhaustion, but my eyes would pop back open sometime in the middle of the night. Well I should say morning. I remember many times being awake and starting at the clock that said 3:37AM. I would be forced to wait until the reasonable time of 6AM before I could roust my parents out of bed. Now this didn't stop me from "quietly" creeping into the living room to see what Santa had brought. After a few years of me being unable to contain myself and waking my parents early it was decided that not only would we have a set wake up time, but I was in charge of making breakfast for the family. This would give me something to do for the two extra hours I was awake. I got really good and working out the timing so that food was on the verge of being done just moments before I had to go wake everyone up. I still think my parents were milking it though by insisting on slowly drinking their coffee or getting the paper. Finally after the mandatory pictures were taken, we were allowed to ravage our presents and get on with the day.
It's been at least ten years since I spent Christmas with my family like that. Had I known that would be the last one like that I would have put more effort into remembering the finer details of it all. As it is I couldn't really tell you what I've done for Christmas for the last decade. Some years it was treated like any other day. There were occasional times when I spent time with friends exchanging gifts the night before. While some years were better than others, it was hard to live up to the memory of Christmas past. Still now that I've gotten older it just means I've started thinking about what future Christmases will be like. I'd like to believe the best is still to come even if the ones behind me were great.
Going back to when I was a kid. School let us out about a week or so before Christmas so we could be with our family. I think really though it was just that teachers didn't want to try and control a few hundred children heaped up eggnog and candy canes that at any moment could go berserk waiting for the chance to tear into their presents. It was during this week that everything came together though. Grandma would send her annual package of delicious cookies. I remember my father and I standing in the kitchen with the box freshly opened and we were stuffing our faces with all those amazing treats. My mother and I also had our own tradition of going out and looking for new decorations. Every year I was tasked with finding at least one new decoration for the tree. As I've mentioned before, as a kid I had a really hard time with making a decision when presented with so many options. Still that was part of the fun, just looking at all the new decorations and finding the ones that needed to come home with us and fill our tree.
Speaking of tree, we had a fake tree, which in my opinion is better than a real tree. As far as I know we never had a real tree. This fake tree was one that you can to assemble. So every year before Christmas there was an expedition down to the crawl space where all the holiday decorations spent their time when it was December. The tree was in a huge cardboard box that was overflowing with branches and pieces. Right now I can remember exactly how it felt to push that box towards the opening of the crawlspace. The branches were attached to base of the tree with twisted metal rods. Those rods had an uncanny way of poking themselves against unprotected parts of the body. Still even with all the pain and work that it took to bring the tree up, I knew that it meant Christmas was really here. That was the official start of Christmas in our house. These days Christmas decorations are on sale before Halloween. I'm all for preparation and understand the need for businesses to make money on the holiday seasons, but it's ok to enjoy the moment without immediately moving onto the next thing before the afterglow has faded.
Christmas time is also a special time of year where parents get to torture their children by letting them know that gifts are in the house, but cannot be opened until almost the end of the month. As a kid I never really thought about the semantics of buying, wrapping, and hiding presents from a child who was like the Terminator when it came to finding out what he was getting. Presents would arrive from relatives and go under the tree. This would be when my inner detective would kick in and I would try to determine what could be inside based on size, weight, and sound it made when shook. I was a little CSI when it came to wrapped presents.
It used to be that the only day I would wake up early was on Saturdays. Back then they had cartoons on early in the morning. Starting at 5AM the Smurfs would come on and for a few hours there was nothing but cartoons on. Since we only had about three channels, it was kind of a big deal and a very good reason to skip sleeping in on the weekend. Christmas morning was very much the same way. Trying to go to sleep on Christmas eve was an exercise in futility. Eventually I would pass out from sheer exhaustion, but my eyes would pop back open sometime in the middle of the night. Well I should say morning. I remember many times being awake and starting at the clock that said 3:37AM. I would be forced to wait until the reasonable time of 6AM before I could roust my parents out of bed. Now this didn't stop me from "quietly" creeping into the living room to see what Santa had brought. After a few years of me being unable to contain myself and waking my parents early it was decided that not only would we have a set wake up time, but I was in charge of making breakfast for the family. This would give me something to do for the two extra hours I was awake. I got really good and working out the timing so that food was on the verge of being done just moments before I had to go wake everyone up. I still think my parents were milking it though by insisting on slowly drinking their coffee or getting the paper. Finally after the mandatory pictures were taken, we were allowed to ravage our presents and get on with the day.
It's been at least ten years since I spent Christmas with my family like that. Had I known that would be the last one like that I would have put more effort into remembering the finer details of it all. As it is I couldn't really tell you what I've done for Christmas for the last decade. Some years it was treated like any other day. There were occasional times when I spent time with friends exchanging gifts the night before. While some years were better than others, it was hard to live up to the memory of Christmas past. Still now that I've gotten older it just means I've started thinking about what future Christmases will be like. I'd like to believe the best is still to come even if the ones behind me were great.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
On Back in the Box
Have you ever opened your mouth and said something only to immediately regret it? It seems to be something that we're almost compelled to do, even if we know that the outcome isn't going to be good. In the heat of an argument our rational mind may take a back seat to our emotions and unchecked aggression may come pouring out of our mouth before we have a chance to hold it back. Now granted it may not even be when emotions are high, there are just times when something seems ok to say and it's only when it's out there in the world that we realize how wrong we were. It's at those moments that we wish we could rewind and put those words back into our mouths. We see the mistake after the fact and by then the damage is done. It makes me wonder though how this same type of thing can happen on a much larger scale, far beyond just simple words.
When the first atomic bomb was detonated, Oppenheimer quoted the Hindu Bible by saying "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." He knew at that point what he had helped create was more terrible than could be imagined. He knew this and yet it didn't change anything. Atomic technology was now out in the world and couldn't be taken back. Often that's how it is with things. Once they are fully realized, it's too late to take them back. Now I'm no scientist or doctor so maybe it's different for them when they get caught up in the excitement of discovery and experimentation. Still you have some of the smartest people in history running headlong towards something, not noticing the fact that what they're creating may be one of the most devastating things ever conceived by man. Then again, maybe they don't care or they simply believe that humankind will overcome its short sightedness. Granted the creation of the atomic bomb was a direct result of the anticipation that the German or Japanese were also potentially creating a super weapon that would help them win the war. It's hard to say if when the neutron was discovered that anyone could have guessed where it would lead.
I imagine that for some things it's just a natural progression from one to the next. The neutron was discovered. Then uranium bombarded with neutrons after that. Using neutrons to split the nucleus of an atom followed that. After that the ideas kept coming, tumbling over the top of each other and building momentum. As we've all learned, it's not always a single event that can change things drastically. It's the culmination of events leading up to it that creates an overwhelming surge of change. So when we're in that argument with someone it's the build up that's more important than the actual trigger. The trigger only ignites what was already there.
When I was in high school I had a chemistry teacher who told us that we stopped going to the moon because we had lost the technology to do so. All those German scientists that had come over after the war were either dead or retired. With them gone, the technology they created was gone too. It was a strange concept to accept because it's not like forgetting to bring your notes to a math test, this was NASA and you would have to imagine that someone somewhere wrote down the necessary information to recreate what was done before. The explanation given to this argument could be that someone like Einstein could hand you his notes on the theory of relativity, but most people wouldn't have any comprehension on what to do with it. Sure you may be able to follow the formulas that were already spelled out. That wouldn't necessarily prepare you for making the next leap in logic, using what was written down to move to the next idea. So while NASA had the means to create the lunar lander and a rocket that could propel it out of our atmosphere, did they have the ability to create what was next? I think they did. That's where the space shuttle came from. Most likely we stopped going to the moon because it was cost prohibitive and at the time we felt we learned all we could from physically being there. Plus the world now knew that we had the technology to leave our own planet. I guess the question is why after over forty years hasn't anyone gone back or made a real effort to leave the planet? Back in the 60s the technology didn't exist and had to be created. Now nearly anyone can find out what was done back then on the internet or a museum. So how come no one has taken the next step? Do we lack the drive or the ability?
The whole thing brings up the idea that maybe it is possible for us to lose the technology. It's just assumed that once an idea is out in the world then it can never be lost. The Antikythera mechanism is thought to be 1500 years ahead of its time. Does that mean it was created and those who used it or created it never shared the technology with anyone else due to some strange circumstances? History is full of incidents of leaps forward and setbacks. Our own world is very precarious and it wouldn't take much to disrupt what we take for granted. How many of us know how a CD really works or if forced to, could recreate the technology to produce them again? The same with computers. You may have put together a computer from parts already made, but most people who use computers on a regular basis couldn't tell you how to build a computer from scratch. So in that regard it's entirely possible that technology could be lost or at least seriously setback. It also makes me think about how specialized the world has become. Sure with enough training just about anyone could do my job. I could probably go be a farmer if needed. We all have the potential to do nearly anything, but we've settled into our roles among society almost without a second thought. Food will be at the market. The phone lines will work when we pick up the ringer. Government will continue to maintain the status quo. Even if there was a serious disruption to what we know, it would take a long time for us to forget what we could do. In that regard could anything ever really be put back in the box?
When the first atomic bomb was detonated, Oppenheimer quoted the Hindu Bible by saying "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." He knew at that point what he had helped create was more terrible than could be imagined. He knew this and yet it didn't change anything. Atomic technology was now out in the world and couldn't be taken back. Often that's how it is with things. Once they are fully realized, it's too late to take them back. Now I'm no scientist or doctor so maybe it's different for them when they get caught up in the excitement of discovery and experimentation. Still you have some of the smartest people in history running headlong towards something, not noticing the fact that what they're creating may be one of the most devastating things ever conceived by man. Then again, maybe they don't care or they simply believe that humankind will overcome its short sightedness. Granted the creation of the atomic bomb was a direct result of the anticipation that the German or Japanese were also potentially creating a super weapon that would help them win the war. It's hard to say if when the neutron was discovered that anyone could have guessed where it would lead.
I imagine that for some things it's just a natural progression from one to the next. The neutron was discovered. Then uranium bombarded with neutrons after that. Using neutrons to split the nucleus of an atom followed that. After that the ideas kept coming, tumbling over the top of each other and building momentum. As we've all learned, it's not always a single event that can change things drastically. It's the culmination of events leading up to it that creates an overwhelming surge of change. So when we're in that argument with someone it's the build up that's more important than the actual trigger. The trigger only ignites what was already there.
When I was in high school I had a chemistry teacher who told us that we stopped going to the moon because we had lost the technology to do so. All those German scientists that had come over after the war were either dead or retired. With them gone, the technology they created was gone too. It was a strange concept to accept because it's not like forgetting to bring your notes to a math test, this was NASA and you would have to imagine that someone somewhere wrote down the necessary information to recreate what was done before. The explanation given to this argument could be that someone like Einstein could hand you his notes on the theory of relativity, but most people wouldn't have any comprehension on what to do with it. Sure you may be able to follow the formulas that were already spelled out. That wouldn't necessarily prepare you for making the next leap in logic, using what was written down to move to the next idea. So while NASA had the means to create the lunar lander and a rocket that could propel it out of our atmosphere, did they have the ability to create what was next? I think they did. That's where the space shuttle came from. Most likely we stopped going to the moon because it was cost prohibitive and at the time we felt we learned all we could from physically being there. Plus the world now knew that we had the technology to leave our own planet. I guess the question is why after over forty years hasn't anyone gone back or made a real effort to leave the planet? Back in the 60s the technology didn't exist and had to be created. Now nearly anyone can find out what was done back then on the internet or a museum. So how come no one has taken the next step? Do we lack the drive or the ability?
The whole thing brings up the idea that maybe it is possible for us to lose the technology. It's just assumed that once an idea is out in the world then it can never be lost. The Antikythera mechanism is thought to be 1500 years ahead of its time. Does that mean it was created and those who used it or created it never shared the technology with anyone else due to some strange circumstances? History is full of incidents of leaps forward and setbacks. Our own world is very precarious and it wouldn't take much to disrupt what we take for granted. How many of us know how a CD really works or if forced to, could recreate the technology to produce them again? The same with computers. You may have put together a computer from parts already made, but most people who use computers on a regular basis couldn't tell you how to build a computer from scratch. So in that regard it's entirely possible that technology could be lost or at least seriously setback. It also makes me think about how specialized the world has become. Sure with enough training just about anyone could do my job. I could probably go be a farmer if needed. We all have the potential to do nearly anything, but we've settled into our roles among society almost without a second thought. Food will be at the market. The phone lines will work when we pick up the ringer. Government will continue to maintain the status quo. Even if there was a serious disruption to what we know, it would take a long time for us to forget what we could do. In that regard could anything ever really be put back in the box?
Sunday, December 12, 2010
On the Memory of It All
As I get older the more I remember and the more I forget. There is comfort in the old memories, even if fresh ones aren't that bad. I was fortunate to have a pretty good childhood, although I'm sure while I was in it there were several times when it seemed worse than it really was. For some reason though I can't remember those times when things were bad. Sure there are some lingering memories of things, but lately my mind has been reaching out for those times I remember fondly. It makes me wonder what my brain is really trying to do. Like when we're cold we reach for a blanket because it brings us comfort. Do we remember in the same way in order to bring comfort to our mind?
We like to hold onto places and keep them how we remember them. In some ways those locations represent a physical link to our past, which we may otherwise never have again. As of right now there is no way to go back and experience those moments. They are lost in time and we're only left with our memories to know that they did in fact happen at all. Sometimes it can be scary to think that all the moments and events in our lives will be forgotten given enough time. People who lived a thousand years ago are dust. Most of the things they saw are gone, with only a few pieces left to show that they existed. The thing is those few artifacts only represent a fraction of their lives. Think of everything you own right now. Now take five items at random and try to build a story about your life from that. That's essentially what's being done today when archeologists dig something up. Sure they've gotten pretty good at figuring out what they can from a few pieces, but can a clay pot or some broken trinkets ever really reveal the nuance of the person that created it?
I think this is why we try to preserve things for as long as possible. They provide us with a sense that what we've done matters. That even after we've left this place that something will remain behind for others to see. One could argue that by holding onto the past we don't allow for growth in the future. That could be true. An old building may be a landmark, but its existence could prevent something new from being built. That landmark was new at some point and whatever was there before it had to be removed before the landmark could be there. A few years ago I went back to where I grew up. It had been several years since I had been back home so I wasn't all that surprised that some things had changed. Still I wasn't prepared for some of the little changes.
When I was really little we had a single grocery store called Market Basket. It wasn't a great store or anything, but it was our store. It used to be that inside the store you could be liquor. It was sectioned off, but still inside the actual store. Eventually laws changed and the liquor store had to be moved outside the store. I don't know when this actually changed. For me there is a memory of it one way and then all of a sudden it was different. After awhile the store changed names and we got a mall-like addition to the store. Again I have no memory of the change in process, only a switch from one to the other. The store was now called SuperValu and it was where I got my first job as a bag boy. I only worked there for three months, but in that time I got to see the store in a different way. While I worked there I was able to look behind the curtain at something that was normally mundane. Granted while I worked there it was just a job. When the summer was done I moved onto other things.
So when I was back home my mother was going to the grocery store and I wanted to go because it had been awhile since I had seen the old place. In the years that I was gone it was changed from SuperValu to Safeway. The store I had fond memories of wasn't there anymore. Sure the building was still there, but everything was different. Now don't get me wrong, I like Safeway stores in general, but they tend to all look alike. In fact they tend to be almost generic. The home to all those memories was gone and at the time it felt like my connection to them was lost. I'm sure there are people who remember the store as it used to be. Some people who live there now may have never known it in the various ways I remember. And in some cases there may be someone like me, who is working there now and years from now they may look back on that seemingly generic store with affection because for them it was special.
Our memories and experiences help define who we are and guide us towards our next destination. For a lot of us though we can't quite remember all the finer details of the past. What we've done before is a template for what we're going to do next. So if we can't remember where we've been then what does that do for where we're going?
We like to hold onto places and keep them how we remember them. In some ways those locations represent a physical link to our past, which we may otherwise never have again. As of right now there is no way to go back and experience those moments. They are lost in time and we're only left with our memories to know that they did in fact happen at all. Sometimes it can be scary to think that all the moments and events in our lives will be forgotten given enough time. People who lived a thousand years ago are dust. Most of the things they saw are gone, with only a few pieces left to show that they existed. The thing is those few artifacts only represent a fraction of their lives. Think of everything you own right now. Now take five items at random and try to build a story about your life from that. That's essentially what's being done today when archeologists dig something up. Sure they've gotten pretty good at figuring out what they can from a few pieces, but can a clay pot or some broken trinkets ever really reveal the nuance of the person that created it?
I think this is why we try to preserve things for as long as possible. They provide us with a sense that what we've done matters. That even after we've left this place that something will remain behind for others to see. One could argue that by holding onto the past we don't allow for growth in the future. That could be true. An old building may be a landmark, but its existence could prevent something new from being built. That landmark was new at some point and whatever was there before it had to be removed before the landmark could be there. A few years ago I went back to where I grew up. It had been several years since I had been back home so I wasn't all that surprised that some things had changed. Still I wasn't prepared for some of the little changes.
When I was really little we had a single grocery store called Market Basket. It wasn't a great store or anything, but it was our store. It used to be that inside the store you could be liquor. It was sectioned off, but still inside the actual store. Eventually laws changed and the liquor store had to be moved outside the store. I don't know when this actually changed. For me there is a memory of it one way and then all of a sudden it was different. After awhile the store changed names and we got a mall-like addition to the store. Again I have no memory of the change in process, only a switch from one to the other. The store was now called SuperValu and it was where I got my first job as a bag boy. I only worked there for three months, but in that time I got to see the store in a different way. While I worked there I was able to look behind the curtain at something that was normally mundane. Granted while I worked there it was just a job. When the summer was done I moved onto other things.
So when I was back home my mother was going to the grocery store and I wanted to go because it had been awhile since I had seen the old place. In the years that I was gone it was changed from SuperValu to Safeway. The store I had fond memories of wasn't there anymore. Sure the building was still there, but everything was different. Now don't get me wrong, I like Safeway stores in general, but they tend to all look alike. In fact they tend to be almost generic. The home to all those memories was gone and at the time it felt like my connection to them was lost. I'm sure there are people who remember the store as it used to be. Some people who live there now may have never known it in the various ways I remember. And in some cases there may be someone like me, who is working there now and years from now they may look back on that seemingly generic store with affection because for them it was special.
Our memories and experiences help define who we are and guide us towards our next destination. For a lot of us though we can't quite remember all the finer details of the past. What we've done before is a template for what we're going to do next. So if we can't remember where we've been then what does that do for where we're going?
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
On Phobias
I have this fear of ladders that I can't really shake. I don't have any traumatic experiences with ladders that have forever scarred my psyche so that the very sight of ladders puts me in a cold sweat. It's just that every single time I've been on a ladder I've felt very uncomfortable. So much that my body wants nothing more than to get off of it, regardless of direction. Now the strange thing about this is that I don't have any problem with heights. I also don't have a problem with climbing things, such as trees or cliffs. I wouldn't say I'm exactly clumsy or bumbling, however, in recent years I've found that my clumsy factor has increased greatly. Still, there is no chance that I'll be mistaken for a ninja (fictional or otherwise). You put me on a ladder and my mind, which is taking its queues from my body, immediately realizes that I'm not even in the same zip code as my own element and begins that exceptionally fun process of freaking out. A couple years ago I decided that I would man up and face my fears head on. So for every day over the course of two months I would make a point to climb a ladder. Now granted I really liked being on the roof so I could look around, so there was some incentive. They say if you face your fears you can overcome them. Sometimes though when you face your fears you realize that they are justified for a reason.
The whole thing got me wondering about fears in general and why certain things scare us when they are nothing to worry about for someone else. If you get struck by lightning or nearly drown then it's understandable for a person to be afraid of thunderstorms or water. There are fears that don't have any sort of trauma associated with them that are just as strong in terms of fear. There is this term that I've heard before called Arachnid Reaction. Basically it's the reason why a lot of people are instinctively repulsed by the alien nature of spiders. Some people believe it's some old programming from our prehistoric brains that are attempting to warn us that spiders are not our friends. This reaction isn't limited to spiders though. Each of us has seen or experienced something where our brain knew something was very wrong. When that happens there is an overwhelming desire to be away from whatever it is. Now this could all stem from the fact that certain things like spiders or snakes can be venomous so throughout the course of evolution we've created a built-in warning mechanism that gets passed along throughout the generations. The question I have with that though is while some spiders may be poisonous, very few of them are actually dangerous to humans. This could be because their venom isn't strong enough to do more than ruin our weekend. Plus with the advances in anti-venom even those spiders who are dangerous can be countered with immediate attention. So how come some people still have this irrational fear of them?
Now not all fears are irrational, but there are phobias that override logic and reason. In those situations the brain is locked into a specific idea and simply can't break out of it. Part of me wonders if it's somewhat related to the same thing that causes obsessive compulsive behavior. For people with OCD they have to have things a specific way or they may not be able to function. People who don't have OCD may think that it's just a matter of not washing your hands five times before being able to start your day. Maybe it is that easy, but as I've talked about before, the mind is very powerful. Trying to convince it of something it doesn't want to believe would be about as easy as trying to bend a steel girder with your bare hands. Someone who is afraid of tight spaces, or heights, or mice may seem silly to a person who finds all those things to be enjoyable. Each of us have our own fears. If we wanted to explore why we have them and where they come from we might be able to move through the world a little easier. That is to say that at least we would understand why, but it may not stop the actual fear. A person who fears being alone may have figured out exactly why they are afraid of people abandoning them. It might come down to just accepting that the fear will always be there. At least by understanding it they may be able to cope with it better.
I think fear can be a good thing because it often serves as a warning for us. When I was four years old I went to my grandparents farm to visit. While I was there I ran headlong into the woods without a second thought. The world was mine to explore and the only reason I stopped tromping around was because my grandmother would call me back for dinner. About five years later I went back and it was a whole different story. The woods were this scary place to me, especially after dark. Now the forest hadn't changed, but I had. I was nearly twice as old as I was before and that meant I had more experience in the world. I knew there were potentially things in those trees that could hurt me. Plus at that age the world can be kind of a scary place because we have just enough knowledge under our belt to think we know what's going on. Skip ahead to another five years later and I laughed at my nine year old self for being afraid in the first place. Those same things that I needed to be careful of were out in the woods, but they weren't as overwhelmingly scary as they had been before. When I was four I didn't know I was supposed to be afraid. Up until then the world had been a pretty good place for me. They say we fear what we don't know or what we don't understand. I think that can be true. I also think that we can be afraid of what we think we know. So going back to the question of why some people are afraid of some things while other people aren't. Is it because the person who is afraid simply doesn't have enough information? This could be more than just mental knowledge. It could be genetic information. Their bodies could still be running on old information that mice are a threat of some kind and should be feared, not put on your lap and petted. Then again maybe people with certain fears have more knowledge than people without them. Much like my four year old self, maybe some of us don't know that we should be afraid.
The whole thing got me wondering about fears in general and why certain things scare us when they are nothing to worry about for someone else. If you get struck by lightning or nearly drown then it's understandable for a person to be afraid of thunderstorms or water. There are fears that don't have any sort of trauma associated with them that are just as strong in terms of fear. There is this term that I've heard before called Arachnid Reaction. Basically it's the reason why a lot of people are instinctively repulsed by the alien nature of spiders. Some people believe it's some old programming from our prehistoric brains that are attempting to warn us that spiders are not our friends. This reaction isn't limited to spiders though. Each of us has seen or experienced something where our brain knew something was very wrong. When that happens there is an overwhelming desire to be away from whatever it is. Now this could all stem from the fact that certain things like spiders or snakes can be venomous so throughout the course of evolution we've created a built-in warning mechanism that gets passed along throughout the generations. The question I have with that though is while some spiders may be poisonous, very few of them are actually dangerous to humans. This could be because their venom isn't strong enough to do more than ruin our weekend. Plus with the advances in anti-venom even those spiders who are dangerous can be countered with immediate attention. So how come some people still have this irrational fear of them?
Now not all fears are irrational, but there are phobias that override logic and reason. In those situations the brain is locked into a specific idea and simply can't break out of it. Part of me wonders if it's somewhat related to the same thing that causes obsessive compulsive behavior. For people with OCD they have to have things a specific way or they may not be able to function. People who don't have OCD may think that it's just a matter of not washing your hands five times before being able to start your day. Maybe it is that easy, but as I've talked about before, the mind is very powerful. Trying to convince it of something it doesn't want to believe would be about as easy as trying to bend a steel girder with your bare hands. Someone who is afraid of tight spaces, or heights, or mice may seem silly to a person who finds all those things to be enjoyable. Each of us have our own fears. If we wanted to explore why we have them and where they come from we might be able to move through the world a little easier. That is to say that at least we would understand why, but it may not stop the actual fear. A person who fears being alone may have figured out exactly why they are afraid of people abandoning them. It might come down to just accepting that the fear will always be there. At least by understanding it they may be able to cope with it better.
I think fear can be a good thing because it often serves as a warning for us. When I was four years old I went to my grandparents farm to visit. While I was there I ran headlong into the woods without a second thought. The world was mine to explore and the only reason I stopped tromping around was because my grandmother would call me back for dinner. About five years later I went back and it was a whole different story. The woods were this scary place to me, especially after dark. Now the forest hadn't changed, but I had. I was nearly twice as old as I was before and that meant I had more experience in the world. I knew there were potentially things in those trees that could hurt me. Plus at that age the world can be kind of a scary place because we have just enough knowledge under our belt to think we know what's going on. Skip ahead to another five years later and I laughed at my nine year old self for being afraid in the first place. Those same things that I needed to be careful of were out in the woods, but they weren't as overwhelmingly scary as they had been before. When I was four I didn't know I was supposed to be afraid. Up until then the world had been a pretty good place for me. They say we fear what we don't know or what we don't understand. I think that can be true. I also think that we can be afraid of what we think we know. So going back to the question of why some people are afraid of some things while other people aren't. Is it because the person who is afraid simply doesn't have enough information? This could be more than just mental knowledge. It could be genetic information. Their bodies could still be running on old information that mice are a threat of some kind and should be feared, not put on your lap and petted. Then again maybe people with certain fears have more knowledge than people without them. Much like my four year old self, maybe some of us don't know that we should be afraid.
Monday, December 6, 2010
On What's Next
Have you ever found yourself thinking about what comes next? The answer is most likely yes. This could be anything from what you're going to do after work. What's happening next weekend. What your next project is going to be. What's next for your career. Who are you going to sleep with next. I think it's a natural thought process to wonder about what comes next. As a species we're somewhat forward thinking. Well at least some of us are. There are those people out there who are perfectly content with right now. I kind of envy them because for some reason my mind can't find contentment with the present very often. I'm always thinking about the future or what I'm going to be doing. To quote that little green guy; "All his life has he looked away to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. What he was doing." That's me exactly and I wish sometimes I could break the habit.
It's entirely possible that by focusing on what's next you've essentially let the present get away from you. We've all heard phrases like "Seize the day" or "Make every moment count". Those are all great ideas, but they're not always practical because if you think about it, that type of mentality would be exhausting after awhile. Some days are better than others. Sometimes you put forth more effort into right now than you do in other cases. I'm not sure there's anything wrong with allowing yourself to just coast. For some people though coasting is almost the same thing as wasting time. If you're not moving towards something or figuring out what you're going to do next then you're sitting idle. For them being idle is about as close as you can get to being dead while still having a pulse. Now I'm not that fanatical about my time, but I do find myself watching the metaphorical clock of life. It's ticking away and every moment spent in a situation that doesn't feel right is a moment lost forever.
Maybe it's not as common as it used to be, but there was this idea that if you paid in advance now then eventually you would be rewarded for your efforts later. Eat your vegetables and you can have dessert. Problem was that sometimes you were too full for dessert because the vegetables filled you up. If you were like me, that didn't stop you from eating the dessert anyway because you earned it and it would be stupid to not take what you worked for. That same general idea comes into play with working for over thirty years until you're eligible to retire and then you can go enjoy yourself. Sure along the way you can take vacations or holidays so it's not like you've spent every day trudging towards your reward. Still by the time you make it to that promised land of retirement you're much older than when you started out and in some cases the options you once had are no longer valid. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that everyone who retires is too old to enjoy it, but maybe we've created a situation where we spent most of our best years working towards what's next rather than actually enjoying it.
It doesn't really matter how good your situation could be. Sometimes it can't be helped to think about the next thing. Monday comes and thoughts of Friday start filling our heads. The week itself may be filled with various events, both good and bad or maybe just bland. The circle of thought has already started though. If on Monday we think about the upcoming Friday, then it doesn't take a large leap on Friday to know that Monday is just around the corner, in which case we've created a trap for ourselves where the present is always taking a backseat to the future. By doing that can we really ever enjoy either?
Some people are happy with their current situation. They enjoy the moment for what it is, because those moments are somewhat precious if you think about it. We don't know how many we're going to get. As I've mentioned, everything is fleeting so today doesn't necessarily equal tomorrow. These people could be fortunate enough that they've found what they're looking for or they simply don't worry about what comes next because for the most part they're in a pretty good place. Now that's not to say that people who are happy don't think about the future or the next thing. I'm sure happy people put forth a lot of effort to make sure that their situation is what they want it to be. There are probably situations where circumstances just fall into place for them so it takes very little effort. If your situation isn't quite what you want then it's probably natural to start wondering how you're going to get to where you want to be. I'm of the mind that if you're not happy with something then time spent that way is being wasted. Sometimes we have to do things that we don't want because the payoff later is worth it. That's just how life is sometimes. I get that. Still unlike some people I just don't want to accept something that in my mind is second best when I know what I really want may be just around the corner. I suppose the trick to it all is keeping an eye on what's next, but also enjoying what you have now. If someone figures out how to do that, please tell me how.
It's entirely possible that by focusing on what's next you've essentially let the present get away from you. We've all heard phrases like "Seize the day" or "Make every moment count". Those are all great ideas, but they're not always practical because if you think about it, that type of mentality would be exhausting after awhile. Some days are better than others. Sometimes you put forth more effort into right now than you do in other cases. I'm not sure there's anything wrong with allowing yourself to just coast. For some people though coasting is almost the same thing as wasting time. If you're not moving towards something or figuring out what you're going to do next then you're sitting idle. For them being idle is about as close as you can get to being dead while still having a pulse. Now I'm not that fanatical about my time, but I do find myself watching the metaphorical clock of life. It's ticking away and every moment spent in a situation that doesn't feel right is a moment lost forever.
Maybe it's not as common as it used to be, but there was this idea that if you paid in advance now then eventually you would be rewarded for your efforts later. Eat your vegetables and you can have dessert. Problem was that sometimes you were too full for dessert because the vegetables filled you up. If you were like me, that didn't stop you from eating the dessert anyway because you earned it and it would be stupid to not take what you worked for. That same general idea comes into play with working for over thirty years until you're eligible to retire and then you can go enjoy yourself. Sure along the way you can take vacations or holidays so it's not like you've spent every day trudging towards your reward. Still by the time you make it to that promised land of retirement you're much older than when you started out and in some cases the options you once had are no longer valid. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that everyone who retires is too old to enjoy it, but maybe we've created a situation where we spent most of our best years working towards what's next rather than actually enjoying it.
It doesn't really matter how good your situation could be. Sometimes it can't be helped to think about the next thing. Monday comes and thoughts of Friday start filling our heads. The week itself may be filled with various events, both good and bad or maybe just bland. The circle of thought has already started though. If on Monday we think about the upcoming Friday, then it doesn't take a large leap on Friday to know that Monday is just around the corner, in which case we've created a trap for ourselves where the present is always taking a backseat to the future. By doing that can we really ever enjoy either?
Some people are happy with their current situation. They enjoy the moment for what it is, because those moments are somewhat precious if you think about it. We don't know how many we're going to get. As I've mentioned, everything is fleeting so today doesn't necessarily equal tomorrow. These people could be fortunate enough that they've found what they're looking for or they simply don't worry about what comes next because for the most part they're in a pretty good place. Now that's not to say that people who are happy don't think about the future or the next thing. I'm sure happy people put forth a lot of effort to make sure that their situation is what they want it to be. There are probably situations where circumstances just fall into place for them so it takes very little effort. If your situation isn't quite what you want then it's probably natural to start wondering how you're going to get to where you want to be. I'm of the mind that if you're not happy with something then time spent that way is being wasted. Sometimes we have to do things that we don't want because the payoff later is worth it. That's just how life is sometimes. I get that. Still unlike some people I just don't want to accept something that in my mind is second best when I know what I really want may be just around the corner. I suppose the trick to it all is keeping an eye on what's next, but also enjoying what you have now. If someone figures out how to do that, please tell me how.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
On Pirates
Ok let's start with the most obvious thing first. Pirates of the Caribbean was not a documentary. Most of the "pirates" in that movie were pirates in name alone. In most cases the worst thing they did was steal something that was already stolen by someone else or make a mean face towards the hero. It was sort of like watching a movie about cannibals who never actually eat a person. Don't get me wrong, the movies and more importantly, the rides at Disney are a lot of fun. Still celebrating pirates is a lot like building a ride around a group of terrorists and killers, which is what they were. Disney could probably make anything fun looking though. I'm still waiting for them to make a love story about two adorable scorpions.
We'll back it up a bit. Piracy is a pretty simple concept, which is basically robbery and/or violence at sea by a private party not affiliated with any government. Notice the last part about the government. If you acted on your own then you were a pirate. If the government sponsored your violence then you were just a privateer. Granted this was normally allowed during wartime because some nations didn't have a navy, including our own fledgling nation at one point. In a lot of cases sailors became pirates out of necessity and not out of some strange love for adventure. It's very similar to modern times where if your choice is to work forty hours for minimum wage or join a crew of people who can make ten times that in a fraction of the time, one might consider taking the more direct route to earning money.
It's pretty much assumed that for as long as there have been boats in the water there have been pirates of some sort. I'm sure that shortly after the invention of the wheel someone got the brainwave to use it to aid them in stealing from someone else. Admiring pirates also isn't a new thing, although it's recently become more popular thanks to both the movies and internet. During his time, Bartholomew Roberts was considered a hero by some and when he died it signified the end of the Golden Age of Piracy. While he was one of the most successful pirates of that era, he was still considered an outlaw by various governments. Roberts primary focus was capturing ships and disrupting sea trade, which was a big deal back then. It would be kind of like highwaymen hijacking shipping trucks along the freeways. Essentially it would grind commerce to a halt. You mess with people's money and they get really mean really fast. That dashing buccaneer doesn't look so great once you realize that he's just stolen the shipment of supplies that were meant for you and your colony. People find comfort in the laws of a civilized society and when they're tossed out the window the results can be explosive.
Strangely enough though many pirate vessels of that time adopted a democratic form of rule on board. The captain and quartermaster were elected by the crew, and the crew were appointed by ship's officers. This created a set of checks and balances very similar to our own government. Based on rank each member of the crew would receive a share of the captured bounty. This is also how modern fishing boats tend to divide up the profit from a haul. The whole idea makes me wonder if maybe it's not a bad form of dispensing compensation. We like to think that pirates stole treasure and buried it on some hidden island, but more often than not that treasure was just food, alcohol, weapons, or clothing. Sure they stole money when they could, but not all the ships in the ocean had a treasure chest of jewels in their hold. So pirates took what they needed, which could also include the ship that they just attacked, simply because it was better than what they were currently using. For a bunch of guys who were operating outside the law, they tended to create order of their own.
There is also this idea that pirates were bloodthirsty. Some of the raiders were probably more murderous than others and nearly all pirates were dangerous, with the exception of those from Penzance. Even still pirates tended to kill few people aboard the ships they captured. If the crew surrendered there was a good chance no one would be killed, at least not during the taking of the ship. Again this wasn't because of some sense of honor, but more about practicality. If it became known that pirates took no prisoners, then those being attacked would fight to the last man because they knew if they didn't, they would be murdered anyway. The whole thing would make victory very difficult and possibly not worth the cost in lives. The same tends to hold true today, where less than 10% of pirate attacks result in murder. Not being killed by pirates doesn't make the whole experience any less dangerous, just like being present during a robbery today could go either way based on the situation. Most pirates were and are more concerned with making a profit from the attack. If they kidnap the crew for ransom and kill them regardless of payment, then no one will pay, instead they'll just hunt them down with the intent to kill.
We like to think of pirates as these adventurous and clever rogues who make their own destinies. While there may be some out there that fit that description, a pirate vessel is more likely filled with a bunch of people who have come to the conclusion that it's more beneficial to steal from others than try to find so-called legitimate work on the rivers and oceans. Just like bank robbers and car thieves it may seem somewhat glamorous to live like Robin Hood. The reality is that it only seems cool until you notice the fact that their chosen profession is actually more work and more dangerous than that 9-5 job you've got, where you're safe in your cubicle. Plus there probably haven't been as many reported cases of scurvy. I'm not saying pirates are lame. They're mostly overrated, as many things tend to be when they become really popular.
We'll back it up a bit. Piracy is a pretty simple concept, which is basically robbery and/or violence at sea by a private party not affiliated with any government. Notice the last part about the government. If you acted on your own then you were a pirate. If the government sponsored your violence then you were just a privateer. Granted this was normally allowed during wartime because some nations didn't have a navy, including our own fledgling nation at one point. In a lot of cases sailors became pirates out of necessity and not out of some strange love for adventure. It's very similar to modern times where if your choice is to work forty hours for minimum wage or join a crew of people who can make ten times that in a fraction of the time, one might consider taking the more direct route to earning money.
It's pretty much assumed that for as long as there have been boats in the water there have been pirates of some sort. I'm sure that shortly after the invention of the wheel someone got the brainwave to use it to aid them in stealing from someone else. Admiring pirates also isn't a new thing, although it's recently become more popular thanks to both the movies and internet. During his time, Bartholomew Roberts was considered a hero by some and when he died it signified the end of the Golden Age of Piracy. While he was one of the most successful pirates of that era, he was still considered an outlaw by various governments. Roberts primary focus was capturing ships and disrupting sea trade, which was a big deal back then. It would be kind of like highwaymen hijacking shipping trucks along the freeways. Essentially it would grind commerce to a halt. You mess with people's money and they get really mean really fast. That dashing buccaneer doesn't look so great once you realize that he's just stolen the shipment of supplies that were meant for you and your colony. People find comfort in the laws of a civilized society and when they're tossed out the window the results can be explosive.
Strangely enough though many pirate vessels of that time adopted a democratic form of rule on board. The captain and quartermaster were elected by the crew, and the crew were appointed by ship's officers. This created a set of checks and balances very similar to our own government. Based on rank each member of the crew would receive a share of the captured bounty. This is also how modern fishing boats tend to divide up the profit from a haul. The whole idea makes me wonder if maybe it's not a bad form of dispensing compensation. We like to think that pirates stole treasure and buried it on some hidden island, but more often than not that treasure was just food, alcohol, weapons, or clothing. Sure they stole money when they could, but not all the ships in the ocean had a treasure chest of jewels in their hold. So pirates took what they needed, which could also include the ship that they just attacked, simply because it was better than what they were currently using. For a bunch of guys who were operating outside the law, they tended to create order of their own.
There is also this idea that pirates were bloodthirsty. Some of the raiders were probably more murderous than others and nearly all pirates were dangerous, with the exception of those from Penzance. Even still pirates tended to kill few people aboard the ships they captured. If the crew surrendered there was a good chance no one would be killed, at least not during the taking of the ship. Again this wasn't because of some sense of honor, but more about practicality. If it became known that pirates took no prisoners, then those being attacked would fight to the last man because they knew if they didn't, they would be murdered anyway. The whole thing would make victory very difficult and possibly not worth the cost in lives. The same tends to hold true today, where less than 10% of pirate attacks result in murder. Not being killed by pirates doesn't make the whole experience any less dangerous, just like being present during a robbery today could go either way based on the situation. Most pirates were and are more concerned with making a profit from the attack. If they kidnap the crew for ransom and kill them regardless of payment, then no one will pay, instead they'll just hunt them down with the intent to kill.
We like to think of pirates as these adventurous and clever rogues who make their own destinies. While there may be some out there that fit that description, a pirate vessel is more likely filled with a bunch of people who have come to the conclusion that it's more beneficial to steal from others than try to find so-called legitimate work on the rivers and oceans. Just like bank robbers and car thieves it may seem somewhat glamorous to live like Robin Hood. The reality is that it only seems cool until you notice the fact that their chosen profession is actually more work and more dangerous than that 9-5 job you've got, where you're safe in your cubicle. Plus there probably haven't been as many reported cases of scurvy. I'm not saying pirates are lame. They're mostly overrated, as many things tend to be when they become really popular.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
On Growing Up
When I was a kid I thought being a grown up would be something that would be unmistakable. I wasn't really sure what age it was supposed to happen, but at some point you'd stop being a kid and become an adult. Society likes to tell us that at eighteen we'll be an adult in the eyes of the law. I don't know if you remember what it was like being that age, but if anything the world was even more confusing than before. At eighteen you're allowed the right to vote. You can legally have sex with other eighteen year olds and not have it be wrong (at least in most cases). For males you're required to register for Selective Service, meaning it's ok for your country to call you to arms in the event of full scale war breaks out. It's also a time when many are given their first opportunity to leave home and start off on their own. This could be going off to college, joining the military, or just finding a job and place of their own. When we're eighteen we often think we have all the answers. We've been around just long enough to believe our own hype regarding our ability to conquer the world.
I was still in elementary school when I calculated that I would be twenty three when the year 2000 rolled around. I thought for sure that by then I would be an adult. Twenty three seemed so old at the time. I was a year older than my father was when I was born so it seemed logical to think that by the time I got to that age I would be grown up. The only thing worse than an eighteen year old is a twenty three year old. While the world is wide open for a newly graduated eighteen year old, they really have no idea what's in store for them. They may think they know, but it usually takes a few months for them to realize that everything is different than they originally thought it would be. Cut to a handful of years later and you've got this person who is even more convinced they know how the world works. Now don't get me wrong, there are a lot of people who are wise beyond their years in their early twenties. Some people have experienced a lifetime knowledge by the time they reach their twenty first birthday. In a lot of cases though people have only a touch more experience than they did when they graduated from high school. When we are young we learn at a fantastic rate. The world is new and everything we learn is bright discovery. Eventually we get to a point where we've learned so much that we think it's entirely possible that we know all the important stuff. I have a feeling the older you get the more you realize you don't know. With age comes that knowledge what you think you know is only fraction of everything that's out there.
When I was little I loved toys, like most kids probably did. I liked to draw and paint silly pictures. Cartoons were genius, even if they came on too early in the morning. Video games were still a relatively new thing, especially for the home, but once my father bought an Atari system I went out of my mind with excitement. In addition to all this I loved to play outside and run around like a crazy person. Those were things I knew I loved back when I was five. Nearly thirty years later I still love those things almost as much as I did back when I was a kid. I've often wondered why for me those things never lost their appeal, but to others, even people I grew up with, they eventually lost interest in childhood things and moved towards more adult interests. Interests being politics, lawn care, automobile engine horsepower, MASH, and the stock market. Sometimes I think I was very lucky to have found what I liked early on. It must have been difficult for other people who grew up to be interested in politics having to sit through years of brightly colored horses and wacky misadventures by talking ducks.
Then again maybe some people feel the need to follow the sentiment of "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways." For them they reach a certain age and find that they no longer care about what they liked as a kid. Taking a stab at the psychology of that, I wonder if it's possible that those "childish ways" are put away because if you still like those things then it means you're still a child yourself. As I grew up the adults around me had no interest in toys, cartoons, or video games. The friends of my father liked cars and motorcycles. They would talk about things that seemed so far beyond my understanding. My parents watched the news and read the paper, both of which seemed to be filled with the most boring information presented in the most mundane way possible. Both my parents had interests beyond what I saw, but as a kid I only knew that I was the only one in the house who cared about Space Marines or comic books.
These days the majority of my friends are interested in cartoons, video games, comic books, and even toys. Sure they like other things not so childish, but it's interesting to me that I am now around people my age and older who like things that were meant for children. It's become a lot more acceptable for people to like those things from our past. Some of the biggest movies out are cartoons or based on some comic book. The video game industry is a multi-billion dollar field where thousands of very smart people work very hard to make that radiation-ravaged mutant explode in a realistic way when you shoot his face with your bionic shotgun. I think some of this has to do with where we are as a society. Even though the economy isn't great right now, we've experience quite a few years of prosperity. With that there are a lot more opportunities to explore and enjoy things that aren't so practical. Growing up there weren't nearly as many movie critics as there are today. Thanks to the internet and cable's hundreds of channels there are thousands of people who can make a comfortable living discussing and critiquing movies. Thanks to our country's success it doesn't stop with movies. There are websites and television shows dedicated to talking about all sorts of things that have a definite kid-feel to them. Liking comic books or collecting toys is no longer something that people feel embarrassed about.
In addition to all that I think it's possible that this behavior is somewhat generational. Kids can really go one of two ways when it comes to following what their parents like or do. They can either go along with what their parents or they can rebel against it. My father likes cars, planes, and guns. He's a hard worker who has always seemed very practical in what he does. As I mentioned before, he was the one who bought our first video game system, but after that initial purchase his interest in games quickly faded whereas mine only intensified. He tried on several occasions to teach me about an engine works. It was just never something that I got into. I know some kids join their parents in working on cars or sewing or cooking, but for me I was always more interested in what the Smurfs were doing or creating some situation for He-Man to fight his way out of. I'm pretty thankful that my parents never really forced me to do what they did. Even without that pressure I never took to their interests because I had my own. Some kids see what their parents are doing and decide they too want to do it. I don't know if that's a personality thing or something else.
As kids we're asked what we want to be when we grow up. I think that is a really tough question because actually growing up could take a lifetime. Some people are older than their years. In fact I think some people are just mentally old. To them the world is to be seen in a practical way and handled accordingly. While there isn't anything really wrong with this approach to the world, I wonder if they experience joy like they did when they were kids. On the flip side though you have people like myself who only behave like adults when absolutely necessary so when those moments are forced upon us we tend to behave a bit more childishly than we should. Lately it feels like more and more there are grown ups and there are those people who have reached adulthood, but are still trying remember what it was like to be a child, when the world was there to be explored. I suppose if that's true then I don't want to grow up.
I was still in elementary school when I calculated that I would be twenty three when the year 2000 rolled around. I thought for sure that by then I would be an adult. Twenty three seemed so old at the time. I was a year older than my father was when I was born so it seemed logical to think that by the time I got to that age I would be grown up. The only thing worse than an eighteen year old is a twenty three year old. While the world is wide open for a newly graduated eighteen year old, they really have no idea what's in store for them. They may think they know, but it usually takes a few months for them to realize that everything is different than they originally thought it would be. Cut to a handful of years later and you've got this person who is even more convinced they know how the world works. Now don't get me wrong, there are a lot of people who are wise beyond their years in their early twenties. Some people have experienced a lifetime knowledge by the time they reach their twenty first birthday. In a lot of cases though people have only a touch more experience than they did when they graduated from high school. When we are young we learn at a fantastic rate. The world is new and everything we learn is bright discovery. Eventually we get to a point where we've learned so much that we think it's entirely possible that we know all the important stuff. I have a feeling the older you get the more you realize you don't know. With age comes that knowledge what you think you know is only fraction of everything that's out there.
When I was little I loved toys, like most kids probably did. I liked to draw and paint silly pictures. Cartoons were genius, even if they came on too early in the morning. Video games were still a relatively new thing, especially for the home, but once my father bought an Atari system I went out of my mind with excitement. In addition to all this I loved to play outside and run around like a crazy person. Those were things I knew I loved back when I was five. Nearly thirty years later I still love those things almost as much as I did back when I was a kid. I've often wondered why for me those things never lost their appeal, but to others, even people I grew up with, they eventually lost interest in childhood things and moved towards more adult interests. Interests being politics, lawn care, automobile engine horsepower, MASH, and the stock market. Sometimes I think I was very lucky to have found what I liked early on. It must have been difficult for other people who grew up to be interested in politics having to sit through years of brightly colored horses and wacky misadventures by talking ducks.
Then again maybe some people feel the need to follow the sentiment of "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways." For them they reach a certain age and find that they no longer care about what they liked as a kid. Taking a stab at the psychology of that, I wonder if it's possible that those "childish ways" are put away because if you still like those things then it means you're still a child yourself. As I grew up the adults around me had no interest in toys, cartoons, or video games. The friends of my father liked cars and motorcycles. They would talk about things that seemed so far beyond my understanding. My parents watched the news and read the paper, both of which seemed to be filled with the most boring information presented in the most mundane way possible. Both my parents had interests beyond what I saw, but as a kid I only knew that I was the only one in the house who cared about Space Marines or comic books.
These days the majority of my friends are interested in cartoons, video games, comic books, and even toys. Sure they like other things not so childish, but it's interesting to me that I am now around people my age and older who like things that were meant for children. It's become a lot more acceptable for people to like those things from our past. Some of the biggest movies out are cartoons or based on some comic book. The video game industry is a multi-billion dollar field where thousands of very smart people work very hard to make that radiation-ravaged mutant explode in a realistic way when you shoot his face with your bionic shotgun. I think some of this has to do with where we are as a society. Even though the economy isn't great right now, we've experience quite a few years of prosperity. With that there are a lot more opportunities to explore and enjoy things that aren't so practical. Growing up there weren't nearly as many movie critics as there are today. Thanks to the internet and cable's hundreds of channels there are thousands of people who can make a comfortable living discussing and critiquing movies. Thanks to our country's success it doesn't stop with movies. There are websites and television shows dedicated to talking about all sorts of things that have a definite kid-feel to them. Liking comic books or collecting toys is no longer something that people feel embarrassed about.
In addition to all that I think it's possible that this behavior is somewhat generational. Kids can really go one of two ways when it comes to following what their parents like or do. They can either go along with what their parents or they can rebel against it. My father likes cars, planes, and guns. He's a hard worker who has always seemed very practical in what he does. As I mentioned before, he was the one who bought our first video game system, but after that initial purchase his interest in games quickly faded whereas mine only intensified. He tried on several occasions to teach me about an engine works. It was just never something that I got into. I know some kids join their parents in working on cars or sewing or cooking, but for me I was always more interested in what the Smurfs were doing or creating some situation for He-Man to fight his way out of. I'm pretty thankful that my parents never really forced me to do what they did. Even without that pressure I never took to their interests because I had my own. Some kids see what their parents are doing and decide they too want to do it. I don't know if that's a personality thing or something else.
As kids we're asked what we want to be when we grow up. I think that is a really tough question because actually growing up could take a lifetime. Some people are older than their years. In fact I think some people are just mentally old. To them the world is to be seen in a practical way and handled accordingly. While there isn't anything really wrong with this approach to the world, I wonder if they experience joy like they did when they were kids. On the flip side though you have people like myself who only behave like adults when absolutely necessary so when those moments are forced upon us we tend to behave a bit more childishly than we should. Lately it feels like more and more there are grown ups and there are those people who have reached adulthood, but are still trying remember what it was like to be a child, when the world was there to be explored. I suppose if that's true then I don't want to grow up.
Words Fail Me
I need a word for when you don't know the answer to something, but are pretty sure the person you're asking for help doesn't either, even though they think they're right.
Monday, November 29, 2010
On Being Alone
When asked if he was lonely, Neil McCauley said "I am alone. I am not lonely." I suppose that makes sense because it is possible to be alone and not feel even a trace of loneliness. The flip side is also true though. You can be surrounded by people and feel like you're all by yourself. Alone in a crowded room. Being alone can be a frightening concept for a lot of people since as a species we tend to be more pack-oriented. I'm sure a lot of this comes from ancient times when it was a question of survivability. A group of humans would do better than a single person. So with that I guess one could argue that the desire to be with other people is almost hard wired into our brains from a long time ago. Very few of us have extended periods of isolation. Even when we're alone, we're not really alone. You could be holed up in your house or out in the woods for a walk. You're alone, but it wouldn't take very long to be surrounded by people again. We often choose to be alone because everyone needs private time to themselves. It's when it feels forced upon on us that we really feel its impact though.
I have spent a large majority of my life alone or at least feeling alone. Now I know that it's mostly a feeling because growing up my parents were there and eventually my brother arrived on the scene. I know this and yet it doesn't change how I remember a lot of my childhood. Sure I had friends who I would play with and visit, but it felt like a lot of my time was spent being by myself. For some people who grew up with several siblings the idea of spending so much time alone may be like a dream. We tend to wish for what we don't have and not appreciate the value in what we do have. So when I was still an only child spending my days alone I would dream about being surrounded by friends and family because it seemed better than the nearly constant of being alone, even if I didn't always feel lonely. Then a weird thing would happen when I actually was surrounded by friends or family, I would feel strangely uncomfortable around everyone. While I was alone I wanted to be with people and when I was with people I just wanted to go back to being alone. Our environment helps shape who we are and as a species we're very adaptable, however, there are times when once we adapt we don't know how to change again. I had gotten used to being alone and while I wanted to be with people, I wasn't exactly sure how I was supposed to feel once I got it. I recently moved into a new place and am living alone again. I had spent over a decade living by myself in different places. It was just something I was accustomed to. Much of the last three years have been spent living with different people. It was a drastic change to go from being alone to living with three or more people at a time. Most of the time I didn't miss being alone, but after most of my adult life being spent alone, it was strange for me to have to take into consideration other people.
Nearly everyone in my family is going through some variation of being alone for the first time in a long time. Moving to a new state where you don't know anyone after over thirty years in a familiar location. Becoming single again after a lifetime of being in a relationship with someone. Being forced to simply exist with yourself, without constant distractions buzzing around so you are confronted by your own thoughts. Each of those can bring about serious feelings of being alone, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing. By being alone you also have a certain amount of freedom that you may not get with someone else around. I think most people want someone to care about and in turn someone to care about them. It's a wonderful feeling to know that you matter to someone else. There is a cost to that though, just as there is a cost to everything in this world. Caring about someone else could mean worrying about their well being. It also means that extra considerations have to be made for that person. If you really care about that person then often those considerations are never second guessed. It's worth the extra effort. Being without that can feel foreign or it could feel liberating. One could argue that unless you're given time by yourself, you'll never figure out who you are. If you only spend your time with other people around then you'll only know who you are when you're with them. For some people their sense of identity is directly tied to how they interact with others and they may not want to know any different.
A new job, a new school, a new city, ending a relationship, even a move across town can all remind us that we're alone in the world. We're only alone as long as we choose to be though. Around the corner could be someone that helps end that feeling of isolation. We just have to step out and find them, which is often easier said than done. As Jim Morrison said "People are strange, when you're alone." When we're alone we may feel like strangers in a strange land, trying to find our way or prove ourselves once again. In the end though I have to wonder if being alone is all in our head. Are we the ones who decide if we're alone no matter our physical proximity to another person? If that's true then I guess we're only alone with ourselves.
I have spent a large majority of my life alone or at least feeling alone. Now I know that it's mostly a feeling because growing up my parents were there and eventually my brother arrived on the scene. I know this and yet it doesn't change how I remember a lot of my childhood. Sure I had friends who I would play with and visit, but it felt like a lot of my time was spent being by myself. For some people who grew up with several siblings the idea of spending so much time alone may be like a dream. We tend to wish for what we don't have and not appreciate the value in what we do have. So when I was still an only child spending my days alone I would dream about being surrounded by friends and family because it seemed better than the nearly constant of being alone, even if I didn't always feel lonely. Then a weird thing would happen when I actually was surrounded by friends or family, I would feel strangely uncomfortable around everyone. While I was alone I wanted to be with people and when I was with people I just wanted to go back to being alone. Our environment helps shape who we are and as a species we're very adaptable, however, there are times when once we adapt we don't know how to change again. I had gotten used to being alone and while I wanted to be with people, I wasn't exactly sure how I was supposed to feel once I got it. I recently moved into a new place and am living alone again. I had spent over a decade living by myself in different places. It was just something I was accustomed to. Much of the last three years have been spent living with different people. It was a drastic change to go from being alone to living with three or more people at a time. Most of the time I didn't miss being alone, but after most of my adult life being spent alone, it was strange for me to have to take into consideration other people.
Nearly everyone in my family is going through some variation of being alone for the first time in a long time. Moving to a new state where you don't know anyone after over thirty years in a familiar location. Becoming single again after a lifetime of being in a relationship with someone. Being forced to simply exist with yourself, without constant distractions buzzing around so you are confronted by your own thoughts. Each of those can bring about serious feelings of being alone, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing. By being alone you also have a certain amount of freedom that you may not get with someone else around. I think most people want someone to care about and in turn someone to care about them. It's a wonderful feeling to know that you matter to someone else. There is a cost to that though, just as there is a cost to everything in this world. Caring about someone else could mean worrying about their well being. It also means that extra considerations have to be made for that person. If you really care about that person then often those considerations are never second guessed. It's worth the extra effort. Being without that can feel foreign or it could feel liberating. One could argue that unless you're given time by yourself, you'll never figure out who you are. If you only spend your time with other people around then you'll only know who you are when you're with them. For some people their sense of identity is directly tied to how they interact with others and they may not want to know any different.
A new job, a new school, a new city, ending a relationship, even a move across town can all remind us that we're alone in the world. We're only alone as long as we choose to be though. Around the corner could be someone that helps end that feeling of isolation. We just have to step out and find them, which is often easier said than done. As Jim Morrison said "People are strange, when you're alone." When we're alone we may feel like strangers in a strange land, trying to find our way or prove ourselves once again. In the end though I have to wonder if being alone is all in our head. Are we the ones who decide if we're alone no matter our physical proximity to another person? If that's true then I guess we're only alone with ourselves.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Moving On
Even the best moments in our lives are fleeting. Nothing lasts forever, even if we wish it would. In a way we're always moving on from something. Life is change. Sometimes we fight against that change or try to hold it back so that things can remain the same. We may be successful for a short time, but in the end the moment will come when it's time to move on. What we move on towards could be something good or it could be worse than what we currently have. Whatever the situation is though, this too won't last forever, although in some cases it may feel like forever. If you're fortunate enough to be moving onto something better, then hopefully you'll remember to enjoy it while it lasts. If circumstances have moved you into something that feels terrible, know that there is always potential for things to change again. The cynical side of me used to have a phrase "Nothing in life is so bad that it can't get worse". While that is technically true, it's also true that nothing in life is so perfect that it can't get better.
About three years ago I finally got to a point where I was just tired of feeling like things were never changing. People around me seemed to be having experiences, both good and bad. They say life can be a roller-coaster of emotions, but for me things felt stagnant. The highs felt muted and the lows, while bad, were seemingly insignificant because overall everything felt like it was lacking a true impact. These feelings had been there for years and like most people, I pushed them aside because as an adult we're often times forced to endure things we may not like. Part of being a responsible adult has always been doing what is necessary. So after much deliberation I made a change and walked away from nearly everything that I had established. Sure I had this partially formulated plan that I would return to school and potentially further myself both in education and career. Fast forward to now and I learned a lot, most of it not from college. The things I learned were those little life lessons that smack you in the mouth when you're not expecting it just to make sure that you remember it.
Those three years were actually exactly what I was looking for, even though there were several times throughout that I wished I could go back to the stability of the mundane. I joke that it was a preview of what retirement would be like. More importantly though I've found that how I spent my time was more in tune with who I am, which I suppose some people would label as lazy. As I've mentioned before I've always had a difficult time when it comes to a career. Everything has more or less felt like a job. It was just a way to get money to pay for the things I really wanted. I think part of that comes from the fact that I feel like people forced to sit in cubicles is the equivalent of cattle who spend their life in a cage. You're expected to produce and when you no longer provide you're taken out. Granted people don't get a bolt gun to the forehead like a cow, but talk to someone who has spent most of their adult life working at a single place how they feel when it's taken away from them. I have a feeling that the impact may as well be physical. For me the last three years feel like I simply circled back to where I started. The job I have now is roughly the same as the one I left before. The people and places are the same, which is not at all a bad thing. The whole thing feels a little like being lost in the woods where you travel for hours only to find yourself back where you started. Where you started may be safe and comfortable, but you're no closer to finding your way home.
The past few years have been increasingly difficult for a lot of people for various reasons. The world economy is a much harsher place than it has been in a long time. People everywhere are being forced to make hard decisions about what they're willing to put up with simply to survive. I would imagine the hope is that eventually things will change for the better and people can stop thinking about just survival and move onto greater things. As I've mentioned before, when you're primary concern is how you're going to feed your children or how to pay for your mortgage, then little things like dreams get put on the back burner. Those dreams could stay back there so long they get forgotten. Some could say that's just how life is and maybe that's true, but if that's the case then we aren't much better off than a pride of lions, who's main concern is where the next meal is going to come from. As people our greatest strengths come from moving beyond just survival and overcoming the world around us.
Sometimes it's hard to accept the fact that things will constantly be changing around us. The things we have now may not be around forever. This could include not just material possessions, but people and situations. Everything is always in motion and with that there will come a time when everything you're near will move away from you and you from it. That doesn't mean that by moving on you'll never return. It just means that in this moment right now you're going in a different direction. Just as everything has a force, everything has a direction. You can embrace it or deflect it, why oppose it?
About three years ago I finally got to a point where I was just tired of feeling like things were never changing. People around me seemed to be having experiences, both good and bad. They say life can be a roller-coaster of emotions, but for me things felt stagnant. The highs felt muted and the lows, while bad, were seemingly insignificant because overall everything felt like it was lacking a true impact. These feelings had been there for years and like most people, I pushed them aside because as an adult we're often times forced to endure things we may not like. Part of being a responsible adult has always been doing what is necessary. So after much deliberation I made a change and walked away from nearly everything that I had established. Sure I had this partially formulated plan that I would return to school and potentially further myself both in education and career. Fast forward to now and I learned a lot, most of it not from college. The things I learned were those little life lessons that smack you in the mouth when you're not expecting it just to make sure that you remember it.
Those three years were actually exactly what I was looking for, even though there were several times throughout that I wished I could go back to the stability of the mundane. I joke that it was a preview of what retirement would be like. More importantly though I've found that how I spent my time was more in tune with who I am, which I suppose some people would label as lazy. As I've mentioned before I've always had a difficult time when it comes to a career. Everything has more or less felt like a job. It was just a way to get money to pay for the things I really wanted. I think part of that comes from the fact that I feel like people forced to sit in cubicles is the equivalent of cattle who spend their life in a cage. You're expected to produce and when you no longer provide you're taken out. Granted people don't get a bolt gun to the forehead like a cow, but talk to someone who has spent most of their adult life working at a single place how they feel when it's taken away from them. I have a feeling that the impact may as well be physical. For me the last three years feel like I simply circled back to where I started. The job I have now is roughly the same as the one I left before. The people and places are the same, which is not at all a bad thing. The whole thing feels a little like being lost in the woods where you travel for hours only to find yourself back where you started. Where you started may be safe and comfortable, but you're no closer to finding your way home.
The past few years have been increasingly difficult for a lot of people for various reasons. The world economy is a much harsher place than it has been in a long time. People everywhere are being forced to make hard decisions about what they're willing to put up with simply to survive. I would imagine the hope is that eventually things will change for the better and people can stop thinking about just survival and move onto greater things. As I've mentioned before, when you're primary concern is how you're going to feed your children or how to pay for your mortgage, then little things like dreams get put on the back burner. Those dreams could stay back there so long they get forgotten. Some could say that's just how life is and maybe that's true, but if that's the case then we aren't much better off than a pride of lions, who's main concern is where the next meal is going to come from. As people our greatest strengths come from moving beyond just survival and overcoming the world around us.
Sometimes it's hard to accept the fact that things will constantly be changing around us. The things we have now may not be around forever. This could include not just material possessions, but people and situations. Everything is always in motion and with that there will come a time when everything you're near will move away from you and you from it. That doesn't mean that by moving on you'll never return. It just means that in this moment right now you're going in a different direction. Just as everything has a force, everything has a direction. You can embrace it or deflect it, why oppose it?
Thursday, November 25, 2010
On Thanksgiving
It's that time of year again where we're reminded that we should be thankful for what we have and appreciate that there are those who aren't as fortunate as us. When I was younger I liked this time of year because it was this flurry of holidays and birthdays for the last part of the year. It usually meant a break from school and a chance to be without obligations for awhile. As I got older the significance of the holidays got to be less important. They quickly became just another day off of work or a chance to sleep in. Don't get me wrong, Thanksgiving was good when it was celebrated, but over the years it became very much a hit or miss type of holiday. I think part of that is because the time surrounding Thanksgiving has been filled with great changes.
It was the day after Thanksgiving eleven years ago that I moved to my current state. At the time I thought I was leaving very little, but once I arrived here I immediately realized that something didn't feel quite right. Turns out there were people I left behind that I cared about and it was only after I left that I realized their significance to me. Fast forward ten years and last Thanksgiving marked the last time I would ever see them. So instead of a physical change, it was an emotional one. For me that's really solidifies what Thanksgiving is all about though. It's a chance to see what's really important to us because things can change quickly. For many people the years can blend into each other with very little change. Thanksgiving, or really any day, may seem no different than the previous year's counterpart. There are those days though where in the span of a year there have been massive changes. Sometimes these are for the good and sometimes they can be for the worse, or at least seem like the worst. As that Zen master would say "We'll see".
Most of the Thanksgivings I've celebrated as an adult also serve as a reminder how nomadic my holiday seasons tend to be. As a kid it was just assumed that Thanksgiving dinner would be spent with family. Occasionally there would be a guest or we'd possibly go to someone's house, but for the most part it was just the four of us. Starting with college I spent my Thanksgivings with an array of different people, some of whom I've only seen that one time. I've never been in a position to host a Thanksgiving and to be honest it never occurred to me to even attempt it. So instead over the years there would be various invitations to family gatherings. Some years there would be nothing and I'd spend the holiday alone, enjoying the fact that for an entire Thursday I could do whatever I wanted. Every so often I would get down about the fact that on those occasions I had no one to spend the day with.
In the end though it's just a day. It's good to have a day filled with food and family, but it doesn't have to be a government sanctioned day in November. The obvious thing to say is that we should always be thankful for what we have, but it's easy to take things for granted because we assume that it will be there when we want it. As I mentioned things can change quickly between the years and it's usually when you stop appreciating something that you lose it. It's always easier to see the things we don't have or the things we don't like. The negatives in our lives have a strange way of eclipsing the positives if we let them. Now I'm not saying don't pay attention to those things in your life that aren't what you want. Dwelling on them may not actually do anything for the situation, other than make sure you're focused on the wrong things. This isn't some rant about the power of positive thinking either. You can think all the happy thoughts you like, but if you never follow it up with positive action then it's just as effective as sprinkling fairy dust on a broken leg. I think part of the whole process of giving thanks is to identify the things in our lives that are positive and hopefully take what's good and spread it throughout the other areas that could use a little bit of help. Life will never be perfect and even if it was, I think there would be the fear that eventually it would abruptly end, which would negate its perfection. Knowing that we have to try and remember to be thankful for the things in our life that may not be perfect, but get pretty close on occasion and in this world that's pretty damn good.
It was the day after Thanksgiving eleven years ago that I moved to my current state. At the time I thought I was leaving very little, but once I arrived here I immediately realized that something didn't feel quite right. Turns out there were people I left behind that I cared about and it was only after I left that I realized their significance to me. Fast forward ten years and last Thanksgiving marked the last time I would ever see them. So instead of a physical change, it was an emotional one. For me that's really solidifies what Thanksgiving is all about though. It's a chance to see what's really important to us because things can change quickly. For many people the years can blend into each other with very little change. Thanksgiving, or really any day, may seem no different than the previous year's counterpart. There are those days though where in the span of a year there have been massive changes. Sometimes these are for the good and sometimes they can be for the worse, or at least seem like the worst. As that Zen master would say "We'll see".
Most of the Thanksgivings I've celebrated as an adult also serve as a reminder how nomadic my holiday seasons tend to be. As a kid it was just assumed that Thanksgiving dinner would be spent with family. Occasionally there would be a guest or we'd possibly go to someone's house, but for the most part it was just the four of us. Starting with college I spent my Thanksgivings with an array of different people, some of whom I've only seen that one time. I've never been in a position to host a Thanksgiving and to be honest it never occurred to me to even attempt it. So instead over the years there would be various invitations to family gatherings. Some years there would be nothing and I'd spend the holiday alone, enjoying the fact that for an entire Thursday I could do whatever I wanted. Every so often I would get down about the fact that on those occasions I had no one to spend the day with.
In the end though it's just a day. It's good to have a day filled with food and family, but it doesn't have to be a government sanctioned day in November. The obvious thing to say is that we should always be thankful for what we have, but it's easy to take things for granted because we assume that it will be there when we want it. As I mentioned things can change quickly between the years and it's usually when you stop appreciating something that you lose it. It's always easier to see the things we don't have or the things we don't like. The negatives in our lives have a strange way of eclipsing the positives if we let them. Now I'm not saying don't pay attention to those things in your life that aren't what you want. Dwelling on them may not actually do anything for the situation, other than make sure you're focused on the wrong things. This isn't some rant about the power of positive thinking either. You can think all the happy thoughts you like, but if you never follow it up with positive action then it's just as effective as sprinkling fairy dust on a broken leg. I think part of the whole process of giving thanks is to identify the things in our lives that are positive and hopefully take what's good and spread it throughout the other areas that could use a little bit of help. Life will never be perfect and even if it was, I think there would be the fear that eventually it would abruptly end, which would negate its perfection. Knowing that we have to try and remember to be thankful for the things in our life that may not be perfect, but get pretty close on occasion and in this world that's pretty damn good.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
On Villains
Villains are a tricky lot. A lot of times in writing the villain is around to just serve as an obstacle that the protagonist is meant to overcome. They are put in place to create conflict for dramatic tension. The story may have less of an impact if there wasn't someone working against the hero. In our every day lives we tend to not have villains. Sure it may feel like there are people who are actively working against us, but more often than not, it's just someone going about their life and their method happens to conflict with ours. So the conflict in our life comes from other sources, usually in the form of situations that are possibly beyond our control. While stories about those types of situations are compelling, adding a antagonistic human element to the mix can make things even more interesting. I've talked about how perception shapes what is constituted as evil. For the most part we believe what we're doing is right and if not right, at least acceptable to us for whatever reasons we come up with. We could easily become the villain in someone's story and not even know it.
Sherlock Holmes was written as a brilliant, but flawed detective that always figured out what or who was behind the mystery at hand. This type of character is very interesting to read at first, but like with many characters they begin to take on an almost superhuman ability to overcome everything put in front of them. If the hero always wins then it's hard to create tension because the audience knows the hero will win somehow. The same thing has been a problem for Superman in the comics. His abilities have made him god-like and if he can do anything then how do you create a situation that would seem even remotely threatening? With Sherlock Holmes it was decided to end his adventures by going up against essentially an evil version of himself. Professor Moriarty appears in The Final Problem and is revealed to be the mastermind behind several of the cases that Holmes had taken on. Up until that point each of the mysteries could be taken as independent of each other and having no real connection. With the creation of Moriarty it was shown that many of the problems Holmes solved were originally part of a larger issue constructed by Moriarty. Many people now consider Professor Moriarty to be the archenemy of Sherlock Holmes, even though he only appears in two stories and is briefly mentioned in a few others.
That leads to some of the problems that come with villains. The first is too much exposure. In the story Red Dragon there is a brief appearance by a character named Hannibal Lecter. He wasn't the focus of the story and was really used as a way to help the main character track down the real villain, The Tooth Fairy. Hannibal has always seemed to be just another spin on the Moriarty-type villain. Brilliant, but twisted in a way that makes them fascinating. Because Hannibal worked so well in the first novel, he was used in very much the same in the second one, which most people know, Silence of the Lambs. His role is almost exactly the same as it was in Red Dragon, except it's expanded a bit. Then it was taken too far. Harris wrote a third novel which focused entirely on Hannibal and sucked away all the mystery surrounding the character. In order to cash in before it was too late, even a prequel was made to further explain what made Hannibal into the man we knew him to be. It's a fine line with villains. You want them to be more than a one note act, but you can't go too far in the other direction and explain too much because the villain can lose his impact.
As I mentioned, we often don't have full on villains in our lives. Instead we just have people doing their thing. Now in war we have an enemy. We may know who our enemy is, but we may not really know who our enemy is. In World War II America knew that Germany was causing serious problems in Europe, but that was Europe's problem. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor the war came home. Japan, and Germany because they were allies, became our enemy. I'm guessing most soldiers didn't know a lot about the Japanese or German people and probably didn't want to know about them. There were no longer people. They were the enemy. The enemy becomes this almost faceless idea that must be fought against, not related to. It's only when soldiers on both sides came face to face with each other did they realize that the enemy is just another person. Knowing that may not change the outcome or desire to win, but it stops being an abstract at that point. With a villain the same thing is true. They start off as this idea. They are the negative counterpoint in the conflict, but only because we've been introduced to the hero as the hero. In theory the story could be told from a different vantage point in such a way that the hero is the antagonist. It's not easy to do because villains tend to do villainous things that many people couldn't relate to. Superman stands for truth, justice, and the American way (whatever that is). Lex Luthor stands pretty much for himself. His belief is that mankind will never achieve greatness with someone like Superman standing watch. Maybe he's right, but the part that he's not telling most people is that he himself wants to be the one that leads mankind into greatness.
There have been books and movies that follow something of an anti-hero through an adventure. This could be a reluctant hero or even a straight up villain himself. The tendency is to set them up against something worse. Riddick goes up against space monsters. Danny Ocean steals from the ruthless Benedict. So we end up rooting for them because given the situation, they are the hero and what they're up against is the villain. In most other circumstances you wouldn't want to run up against those types of "heroes". Predator hunts humans and takes their skulls as trophies. It seems a bit cruel because humans are clearly outmatched in nearly every way. Predators are larger, faster, stronger, and more technologically advanced than humans and it almost seems unsporting for them to be hunting people. If deer could make movies then humans would be the horrifying creature that not only kills, but skins its victims and mounts pieces of them as trophies.
Speaking of which, monsters are easy villains because you don't have to explain their motivations. The reason they do what they do is hidden behind the fact that they're monstrous. As I've mentioned, not all monsters need to be literal monsters. More often than not the monster is just a person. In the movie Se7en Somerset warned Mills that labeling John Doe as crazy was comfortable. John Doe was twisted, but he believed what he was doing was righteous. In his mind the victims were the villains of society and needed to be punished as a warning to everyone else like them. In the end though that's all the explanation we need from him. Anything more would have watered down the character. We understood that he is just a person who has taken extreme measures to create a world that he believes is correct. In the grand scheme of things his crimes were an isolated event that impacted only those in his immediate area.
That leads to the other problem with villains. In addition to being overexposed, they can often be given far too much credit. Moriarty is a prime example. He went from being a brilliant criminal mastermind to someone that was involved in nearly everything Holmes went up against. Villains suffer from the same problem that heroes do. While Superman has an array of powers that make it difficult to create situations where anyone can truly be worried about the outcome, villains too have to constantly increase their threat level to make sure they're still relevant. In the early Spider-Man comics there was a somewhat goofy character named the Green Goblin. At first he was just another throw away bad guy meant to be flashy and colorful. Then he started to be a mastermind leading several criminal gangs and became more of a threat. It was revealed that the Green Goblin was actually the father to Peter Parker's best friend Harry. This really created conflict because even if the hero won, he would still lose. Eventually the Green Goblin kidnapped and killed Peter's girlfriend, Gwen Stacy. This lead to a final fight between Spider-Man and Green Goblin that resulted in the Goblin being impaled by his own glider. That should have been it. A great villain had a lasting impact on Spider-Man from that point on. Twenty years later the Green Goblin not only returns from the dead, but reveals that he has been responsible for manipulating things from behind the scenes. The Green Goblin, and more directly, Norman Osborn became an arch-nemesis to Spider-Man in a way that no other character had done before. It wasn't enough to simply have him be an especially smart and threatening villain, it was decided that he would be responsible for so many of the problems plaguing Spider-Man. Sounds a bit like the Moriarty-Effect at work here.
Villains can be very interesting because they not only represent conflict personified, but can show the flip side of humanity. An effective villain doesn't have to be one that we identify with or even fully understand. They only need to have fully realized motivations for what they do in order to make them believable. By doing that the villain becomes a very real threat.
Sherlock Holmes was written as a brilliant, but flawed detective that always figured out what or who was behind the mystery at hand. This type of character is very interesting to read at first, but like with many characters they begin to take on an almost superhuman ability to overcome everything put in front of them. If the hero always wins then it's hard to create tension because the audience knows the hero will win somehow. The same thing has been a problem for Superman in the comics. His abilities have made him god-like and if he can do anything then how do you create a situation that would seem even remotely threatening? With Sherlock Holmes it was decided to end his adventures by going up against essentially an evil version of himself. Professor Moriarty appears in The Final Problem and is revealed to be the mastermind behind several of the cases that Holmes had taken on. Up until that point each of the mysteries could be taken as independent of each other and having no real connection. With the creation of Moriarty it was shown that many of the problems Holmes solved were originally part of a larger issue constructed by Moriarty. Many people now consider Professor Moriarty to be the archenemy of Sherlock Holmes, even though he only appears in two stories and is briefly mentioned in a few others.
That leads to some of the problems that come with villains. The first is too much exposure. In the story Red Dragon there is a brief appearance by a character named Hannibal Lecter. He wasn't the focus of the story and was really used as a way to help the main character track down the real villain, The Tooth Fairy. Hannibal has always seemed to be just another spin on the Moriarty-type villain. Brilliant, but twisted in a way that makes them fascinating. Because Hannibal worked so well in the first novel, he was used in very much the same in the second one, which most people know, Silence of the Lambs. His role is almost exactly the same as it was in Red Dragon, except it's expanded a bit. Then it was taken too far. Harris wrote a third novel which focused entirely on Hannibal and sucked away all the mystery surrounding the character. In order to cash in before it was too late, even a prequel was made to further explain what made Hannibal into the man we knew him to be. It's a fine line with villains. You want them to be more than a one note act, but you can't go too far in the other direction and explain too much because the villain can lose his impact.
As I mentioned, we often don't have full on villains in our lives. Instead we just have people doing their thing. Now in war we have an enemy. We may know who our enemy is, but we may not really know who our enemy is. In World War II America knew that Germany was causing serious problems in Europe, but that was Europe's problem. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor the war came home. Japan, and Germany because they were allies, became our enemy. I'm guessing most soldiers didn't know a lot about the Japanese or German people and probably didn't want to know about them. There were no longer people. They were the enemy. The enemy becomes this almost faceless idea that must be fought against, not related to. It's only when soldiers on both sides came face to face with each other did they realize that the enemy is just another person. Knowing that may not change the outcome or desire to win, but it stops being an abstract at that point. With a villain the same thing is true. They start off as this idea. They are the negative counterpoint in the conflict, but only because we've been introduced to the hero as the hero. In theory the story could be told from a different vantage point in such a way that the hero is the antagonist. It's not easy to do because villains tend to do villainous things that many people couldn't relate to. Superman stands for truth, justice, and the American way (whatever that is). Lex Luthor stands pretty much for himself. His belief is that mankind will never achieve greatness with someone like Superman standing watch. Maybe he's right, but the part that he's not telling most people is that he himself wants to be the one that leads mankind into greatness.
There have been books and movies that follow something of an anti-hero through an adventure. This could be a reluctant hero or even a straight up villain himself. The tendency is to set them up against something worse. Riddick goes up against space monsters. Danny Ocean steals from the ruthless Benedict. So we end up rooting for them because given the situation, they are the hero and what they're up against is the villain. In most other circumstances you wouldn't want to run up against those types of "heroes". Predator hunts humans and takes their skulls as trophies. It seems a bit cruel because humans are clearly outmatched in nearly every way. Predators are larger, faster, stronger, and more technologically advanced than humans and it almost seems unsporting for them to be hunting people. If deer could make movies then humans would be the horrifying creature that not only kills, but skins its victims and mounts pieces of them as trophies.
Speaking of which, monsters are easy villains because you don't have to explain their motivations. The reason they do what they do is hidden behind the fact that they're monstrous. As I've mentioned, not all monsters need to be literal monsters. More often than not the monster is just a person. In the movie Se7en Somerset warned Mills that labeling John Doe as crazy was comfortable. John Doe was twisted, but he believed what he was doing was righteous. In his mind the victims were the villains of society and needed to be punished as a warning to everyone else like them. In the end though that's all the explanation we need from him. Anything more would have watered down the character. We understood that he is just a person who has taken extreme measures to create a world that he believes is correct. In the grand scheme of things his crimes were an isolated event that impacted only those in his immediate area.
That leads to the other problem with villains. In addition to being overexposed, they can often be given far too much credit. Moriarty is a prime example. He went from being a brilliant criminal mastermind to someone that was involved in nearly everything Holmes went up against. Villains suffer from the same problem that heroes do. While Superman has an array of powers that make it difficult to create situations where anyone can truly be worried about the outcome, villains too have to constantly increase their threat level to make sure they're still relevant. In the early Spider-Man comics there was a somewhat goofy character named the Green Goblin. At first he was just another throw away bad guy meant to be flashy and colorful. Then he started to be a mastermind leading several criminal gangs and became more of a threat. It was revealed that the Green Goblin was actually the father to Peter Parker's best friend Harry. This really created conflict because even if the hero won, he would still lose. Eventually the Green Goblin kidnapped and killed Peter's girlfriend, Gwen Stacy. This lead to a final fight between Spider-Man and Green Goblin that resulted in the Goblin being impaled by his own glider. That should have been it. A great villain had a lasting impact on Spider-Man from that point on. Twenty years later the Green Goblin not only returns from the dead, but reveals that he has been responsible for manipulating things from behind the scenes. The Green Goblin, and more directly, Norman Osborn became an arch-nemesis to Spider-Man in a way that no other character had done before. It wasn't enough to simply have him be an especially smart and threatening villain, it was decided that he would be responsible for so many of the problems plaguing Spider-Man. Sounds a bit like the Moriarty-Effect at work here.
Villains can be very interesting because they not only represent conflict personified, but can show the flip side of humanity. An effective villain doesn't have to be one that we identify with or even fully understand. They only need to have fully realized motivations for what they do in order to make them believable. By doing that the villain becomes a very real threat.
Monday, November 15, 2010
On Failure
Did you know that at this very moment something in your life has started it's journey towards eventual failure? This could be some mechanical part in your car or computer. It could be an internal organ that for whatever reason, has begun breaking down in such a way that after time it will eventually fail. We would like to imagine that the time in which this failure is going to happen is set for some far off future. It never occurs to us that is has any connection with the day that's already started. There is an idea about the Law of Entropy, which states that order will always eventually move towards disorder. Or said another way, given enough time, all things will break down. It may be considered a somewhat cynical way to view the world, however, there may be some truth to that idea. If you've ever experience something breaking on you then it can feel as though everything is simply holding on as long as possible until it can no longer sustain order and fails.
The thing is life is made up of failure. It's necessary for success. As I've mentioned before, there are mistakes that have to be made so that you learn a lesson from it. Without failure, we would have no basis for what will work and what will go horribly wrong. Unfortunately the lesson learned from either our failure or the failure of someone else doesn't make it any less painful. There are people out there who seem to go through life doing everything right, or so it would seem. To the outside observer it appears as though they simply don't make mistakes or fail in any way. It's very unlikely that anyone will go too long before failing at something. Those who don't are postponing the inevitable. I went white water rafting once. The river guide joked that everyone in the boat should get into the water at some point because everyone would find their way into water before the day was done. I didn't take him seriously and while others were bucked out of the boat or voluntarily jumped in, I stayed in the boat. Just before the end of our trip down the river there was a section of the river which was more treacherous than anything we had gone through before. The river guide told us to do everything possible to stay in the boat because you didn't want to fall out in this section. Sure enough the first several hits pitched me right out of the boat. Now one could look at that and say that regardless of if I got out of the boat before, I was going to fall in at that moment. Another way to look at it is that I put off getting in the river up until that point and in a way tempted fate to shove me overboard. What could have happened was that both mentally and physically I was focused on not falling out of the boat and in turn created a situation where there was no other option but to fall in. Then again it could have just been the rock we slammed up against that tossed me over the side.
The fear of failure is a powerful force. It can stop people more effectively than a physical wall. I've read that fear of public speaking rivals the fear of death for the number one fear people tend to have. In the end it comes down to people being afraid of failing in front of a group of people, which will lead to judgements from those same people. Failure isn't fun, but it doesn't always have to be a bad thing either. Thomas Edison went through nearly 10,000 experiments before finally perfecting the electric light bulb. Up until then he had 9999 ways to not have the perfect electric light bulb. From each of those failures he learned something and took that knowledge forward with him. For some though that initial failure has such a negative impact for whatever reason that going through it again is too much. It reminds me of people who won't ask someone out because they're afraid of being rejected, which will mean they have failed. In the past they could have tried and it didn't work and the feeling that came from it not working was not something they wanted to relive. While I understand not wanting to experience the pain of failure or in this case rejection, the greater problem is that never chancing failure means that you'll have no chance at success.
Going back to my original point, given enough time all things have the potential to fail. It's just the nature of things. Nothing lasts forever and even with maintenance there will come a time when something stops working as intended. It usually feels like this comes at the worst possible time. You car never stops working at some time that's convenient. It's more likely you find out there is a problem as you're trying to go to work in a hurry. In those situations one has to wonder why there weren't warning signs that could be seen. Instead it goes from fully functional to completely broken in the blink of an eye. I wonder if that's just how we see things. As I mentioned, the road to ruin has started today, we just don't know it. Catastrophic failure is categorized a sudden and total failure of some system from which recovery is not possible. I have a feeling that in most cases it only seems sudden. The failure was building quietly without anyone's knowledge. Well hopefully without their knowledge. With the space shuttle Challenger it was revealed afterwards that several people knew something was potentially wrong. When it left the tower there was a sigh of relief because the the thought was if the problem was really as bad as they feared, then it would explode before it left the ground. In the end it was an O-ring to a rocket booster that ultimately failed, which caused the entire craft to be destroyed.
We've all head that phrase "Failure is not an option." It's kind of ridiculous to say something like that. Obviously most undertakings aren't done with failure as the final goal. Failure should be expected. Failure is an eventuality given enough time. Failure should be avoided if possible and if not, then learned from in such a way that the next failure doesn't hurt as much. Our failures are what propel us closer towards our successes.
The thing is life is made up of failure. It's necessary for success. As I've mentioned before, there are mistakes that have to be made so that you learn a lesson from it. Without failure, we would have no basis for what will work and what will go horribly wrong. Unfortunately the lesson learned from either our failure or the failure of someone else doesn't make it any less painful. There are people out there who seem to go through life doing everything right, or so it would seem. To the outside observer it appears as though they simply don't make mistakes or fail in any way. It's very unlikely that anyone will go too long before failing at something. Those who don't are postponing the inevitable. I went white water rafting once. The river guide joked that everyone in the boat should get into the water at some point because everyone would find their way into water before the day was done. I didn't take him seriously and while others were bucked out of the boat or voluntarily jumped in, I stayed in the boat. Just before the end of our trip down the river there was a section of the river which was more treacherous than anything we had gone through before. The river guide told us to do everything possible to stay in the boat because you didn't want to fall out in this section. Sure enough the first several hits pitched me right out of the boat. Now one could look at that and say that regardless of if I got out of the boat before, I was going to fall in at that moment. Another way to look at it is that I put off getting in the river up until that point and in a way tempted fate to shove me overboard. What could have happened was that both mentally and physically I was focused on not falling out of the boat and in turn created a situation where there was no other option but to fall in. Then again it could have just been the rock we slammed up against that tossed me over the side.
The fear of failure is a powerful force. It can stop people more effectively than a physical wall. I've read that fear of public speaking rivals the fear of death for the number one fear people tend to have. In the end it comes down to people being afraid of failing in front of a group of people, which will lead to judgements from those same people. Failure isn't fun, but it doesn't always have to be a bad thing either. Thomas Edison went through nearly 10,000 experiments before finally perfecting the electric light bulb. Up until then he had 9999 ways to not have the perfect electric light bulb. From each of those failures he learned something and took that knowledge forward with him. For some though that initial failure has such a negative impact for whatever reason that going through it again is too much. It reminds me of people who won't ask someone out because they're afraid of being rejected, which will mean they have failed. In the past they could have tried and it didn't work and the feeling that came from it not working was not something they wanted to relive. While I understand not wanting to experience the pain of failure or in this case rejection, the greater problem is that never chancing failure means that you'll have no chance at success.
Going back to my original point, given enough time all things have the potential to fail. It's just the nature of things. Nothing lasts forever and even with maintenance there will come a time when something stops working as intended. It usually feels like this comes at the worst possible time. You car never stops working at some time that's convenient. It's more likely you find out there is a problem as you're trying to go to work in a hurry. In those situations one has to wonder why there weren't warning signs that could be seen. Instead it goes from fully functional to completely broken in the blink of an eye. I wonder if that's just how we see things. As I mentioned, the road to ruin has started today, we just don't know it. Catastrophic failure is categorized a sudden and total failure of some system from which recovery is not possible. I have a feeling that in most cases it only seems sudden. The failure was building quietly without anyone's knowledge. Well hopefully without their knowledge. With the space shuttle Challenger it was revealed afterwards that several people knew something was potentially wrong. When it left the tower there was a sigh of relief because the the thought was if the problem was really as bad as they feared, then it would explode before it left the ground. In the end it was an O-ring to a rocket booster that ultimately failed, which caused the entire craft to be destroyed.
We've all head that phrase "Failure is not an option." It's kind of ridiculous to say something like that. Obviously most undertakings aren't done with failure as the final goal. Failure should be expected. Failure is an eventuality given enough time. Failure should be avoided if possible and if not, then learned from in such a way that the next failure doesn't hurt as much. Our failures are what propel us closer towards our successes.
Word Fail Me
I need a word that describes how mustard seems to be drawn to white clothing with a force greater than just gravity.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
On Concentration
It feels like lately that my concentration has been nearly non-existent. I'm not really sure when it started, but for awhile now I've had a really hard time keeping to a single task or even thought. Instead I find my mind wandering off without warning. Now I've always been a bit of a day dreamer. Ever since I was a child I would go off into my head at various times. I think part of that was spending nearly my first ten years as an only child in a somewhat rural neighborhood. I wouldn't say I was isolated, but there was certainly a feeling of isolation at times. In that it became necessary to create your own fun. When some people are bored they let themselves get into trouble and I'm sure my parents would say that I was no different from other children, where if I was left to my own devices for too long, would eventually find something I wasn't supposed to be doing. Even still, I tended to entertain myself by using my imagination. Don't get me wrong, I loved television and games and toys. There were times though where there was no one to play with and nowhere to go so unless you wanted to sit in the dark and go slowly insane, you found something to occupy yourself. So it became second nature to go inside my head when the world got boring.
I never went to pre-school so kindergarten was a totally new experience to me. Up until then I stayed home with my mom and my interactions with other kids, or even other forms of authority were very limited. During my year in kindergarten I spent a lot of time in trouble. Part of that was because I hopelessly bored with the structure of school. If you can remember kindergarten, then you know that the term structure is used very loosely. Now I won't go so far as to say that I'm a genius or anything, but my mom spent a lot of time preparing me for school without my knowledge. The alphabet, numbers, colors, and all the little things are covered in kindergarten were old news to me by the time I actually went to school. So that meant while they were going over what comes after S, I was at my desk thinking of something fun in my head. Being a five year old I had very little self control, which isn't all that different from how I am now. Eventually I figured out how to keep having fun, but do it in such a way that I took fewer trips to the principal's office. At some point I was tested and put into an additional class called Gifted & Talented. While most of the other kids were doing reading comprehension or whatever, I went to the annex building where a small group of children had separate study. At first this was great because we covered all sorts of things that would have never been taught in regular class. Eventually though I became bored with it and returned to normal classes. Still for a time it was a great mental playground for me.
As an adult things have changed a lot and yet somehow stayed the same. When I'm bored I sink into my head as a form of escape from the mundane. I think that's why I like movies and books so much. They create a world where just about anything is possible. Someone out there also has a wild imagination and the ability to share it with others. Lately though even movies and books are having trouble holding my attention for too long. I wonder if part of that has been contributed by how our society is slowly moving towards information overload. When I was young I did one thing at a time. If you were watching television then that's what you were doing. You may listen to music while reading or playing, but for the most part life was mostly single threaded. These days we tend to take on multiple things at once. How many people turn the television on, do homework, surf the web, talk on the phone, or do various chores around the house. We no longer do just one thing. We try to do everything. Before if you focused on a single task then you knew other things had to wait in line. By doing that we could devote ourselves to that one thing. Now as we try to do several things at once we split our focus among a bunch of different tasks and ultimately commit to nothing. Add to that it's almost becoming expected that everyone move to this way of thinking. The world is moving so fast that unless you're covering five different things at once, you're going to get left behind. The problem that comes from that is when we're forced to revert back to a single task our minds want to keep going in several different directions at once.
So these days I find my mind wandering. It's not normally to anything specific, but rather just some random thought. This happens all the time now. In fact it just happened as I was writing this. For a minute or two I wasn't here. I couldn't even tell you where I went or what I was thinking about. I just know that I wasn't on point for a moment. Part of me wonders if a lack of concentration comes from something not being fulfilled. Or maybe there are unresolved issues that the brain is trying to work on. It could just be that boredom has set in and in an attempt to fight off sleeping, the mind randomly grabs some thought or memory and runs with it for a little while. Most of the time I'm not really satisfied with right now. I'm thinking about what I'm going to do next or what I've already done. Then the present is gone and the realization that it was used to think about some other time than right now sinks in, which just perpetuates the cycle further. So if you're talking to me and it looks like I might be drifting off, don't take it personal, my mind is doing its own thing and hasn't informed me about where we're going next.
I never went to pre-school so kindergarten was a totally new experience to me. Up until then I stayed home with my mom and my interactions with other kids, or even other forms of authority were very limited. During my year in kindergarten I spent a lot of time in trouble. Part of that was because I hopelessly bored with the structure of school. If you can remember kindergarten, then you know that the term structure is used very loosely. Now I won't go so far as to say that I'm a genius or anything, but my mom spent a lot of time preparing me for school without my knowledge. The alphabet, numbers, colors, and all the little things are covered in kindergarten were old news to me by the time I actually went to school. So that meant while they were going over what comes after S, I was at my desk thinking of something fun in my head. Being a five year old I had very little self control, which isn't all that different from how I am now. Eventually I figured out how to keep having fun, but do it in such a way that I took fewer trips to the principal's office. At some point I was tested and put into an additional class called Gifted & Talented. While most of the other kids were doing reading comprehension or whatever, I went to the annex building where a small group of children had separate study. At first this was great because we covered all sorts of things that would have never been taught in regular class. Eventually though I became bored with it and returned to normal classes. Still for a time it was a great mental playground for me.
As an adult things have changed a lot and yet somehow stayed the same. When I'm bored I sink into my head as a form of escape from the mundane. I think that's why I like movies and books so much. They create a world where just about anything is possible. Someone out there also has a wild imagination and the ability to share it with others. Lately though even movies and books are having trouble holding my attention for too long. I wonder if part of that has been contributed by how our society is slowly moving towards information overload. When I was young I did one thing at a time. If you were watching television then that's what you were doing. You may listen to music while reading or playing, but for the most part life was mostly single threaded. These days we tend to take on multiple things at once. How many people turn the television on, do homework, surf the web, talk on the phone, or do various chores around the house. We no longer do just one thing. We try to do everything. Before if you focused on a single task then you knew other things had to wait in line. By doing that we could devote ourselves to that one thing. Now as we try to do several things at once we split our focus among a bunch of different tasks and ultimately commit to nothing. Add to that it's almost becoming expected that everyone move to this way of thinking. The world is moving so fast that unless you're covering five different things at once, you're going to get left behind. The problem that comes from that is when we're forced to revert back to a single task our minds want to keep going in several different directions at once.
So these days I find my mind wandering. It's not normally to anything specific, but rather just some random thought. This happens all the time now. In fact it just happened as I was writing this. For a minute or two I wasn't here. I couldn't even tell you where I went or what I was thinking about. I just know that I wasn't on point for a moment. Part of me wonders if a lack of concentration comes from something not being fulfilled. Or maybe there are unresolved issues that the brain is trying to work on. It could just be that boredom has set in and in an attempt to fight off sleeping, the mind randomly grabs some thought or memory and runs with it for a little while. Most of the time I'm not really satisfied with right now. I'm thinking about what I'm going to do next or what I've already done. Then the present is gone and the realization that it was used to think about some other time than right now sinks in, which just perpetuates the cycle further. So if you're talking to me and it looks like I might be drifting off, don't take it personal, my mind is doing its own thing and hasn't informed me about where we're going next.
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