Monday, August 30, 2010
On The Motion of the Source
Technology is great. It seems like every day there are new breakthroughs that border on science fiction. Each new development leads us to another. Sometimes I wonder if our technological limitations are only held back by our imagination. Or maybe it's the other way around. One of the main themes in Dune was that computers were ultimately a limitation to human potential. We thought that computers and technology would be the tools that made us better, but in fact the mind was the true tool to our advancement. The message was that technology, while seemingly beneficial in the short term, was actually going to eventually stunt our long term growth. We have yet to uncover the true potential of our own minds so it's anyone's guess as to what we are really capable of. Instead we rely on computers to do our thinking for us. As I've mentioned before we're giving up the ability to process simple things because a machine is doing it for us. The whole idea is that the machine frees us up to think about other things. What are those other things though?
Maybe the technology we create to make life easier is really slowing us down. In a way we tend to use it as a crutch. There is this belief that if technology can't solve the problem then maybe it can't be solved. I find the concept of time travel endlessly fascinating. I've been thinking about it lately though that maybe technology will never reach a point where it provides us with a means to travel through time. Then again that's based entirely on the fact that as of right now it seems next to impossible. So what if the way to travel through time had nothing to do with physical travel, but rather conscious travel? There was a book by Richard Matheson called Somewhere in Time where the main character used the force of will to travel back in time. What he did was mentally concentrate on a specific time and his body followed. Maybe there is some hope in that idea. There are times when you kind of "zone out". Your conscious mind slips off somewhere. So technically are you not really there? Your body my still exist in the same location, but your mind is somewhere else. What if we were able to take that and go to the next level and instead of just mentally checking out, we then focused our ability to mentally traverse previously experienced times?
It's been theorized that all moments are existing at the same time. If that's true then how come we aren't able to remember the future? What is it about our perception of time that causes us to only view time in a straight line and we can only see what's behind us? If all time is happening at once then one day it might be possible for us to re-experience the past. We would need to just alter our perception. I suppose the would be two schools of thought on that, assuming any of it was possible. 1) You could go back and experience it, but not change it because you can't change a memory. 2) Since the past, present, and future are all happening at the same time then what's to stop a person from altering any point based on previous knowledge? I'm sure everyone has moments in their life that they wish they could back and change. Or even bigger, how many times do you wish that you had today's knowledge yesterday? Imagine where your life would be if the younger you had the experience of older you. I won't get into the whole potential paradox idea when it comes to time travel. Instead I wonder about how you wouldn't know to make the right choice until you made the wrong one. It's only then, when you regret what you've done, that you realize you should have done it a different way. Maybe somewhere out there you already made both choices and it's up to you to decide which route to take.
If the mind believes something then the body is forced to believe it as well. We've all heard about this with the placebo effect. Even hallucinations can cause physical effects because the mind creates its own reality. So while believing something may not make it so, sometimes the mind can't tell the difference between actual reality and perceived reality. I suppose as far as the mind is concerned there is no difference because we all live in our own realities. Everyone else is just a visitor as their reality bumps up against our own. So what's to say if someone truly believed that they traveled back to 1912 that they didn't? We may think them to be crazy or delusional because their perception of reality differs from the accepted norm. How can we ever know what the mind is really doing behind the scenes? The advances in technology can potentially solve many of the mysteries of the universe given enough time. Can that technology ever really help solve the mystery of ourselves or what we're capable of? Maybe one is just a precursor to another, but it's us to figure out which comes first.
Maybe the technology we create to make life easier is really slowing us down. In a way we tend to use it as a crutch. There is this belief that if technology can't solve the problem then maybe it can't be solved. I find the concept of time travel endlessly fascinating. I've been thinking about it lately though that maybe technology will never reach a point where it provides us with a means to travel through time. Then again that's based entirely on the fact that as of right now it seems next to impossible. So what if the way to travel through time had nothing to do with physical travel, but rather conscious travel? There was a book by Richard Matheson called Somewhere in Time where the main character used the force of will to travel back in time. What he did was mentally concentrate on a specific time and his body followed. Maybe there is some hope in that idea. There are times when you kind of "zone out". Your conscious mind slips off somewhere. So technically are you not really there? Your body my still exist in the same location, but your mind is somewhere else. What if we were able to take that and go to the next level and instead of just mentally checking out, we then focused our ability to mentally traverse previously experienced times?
It's been theorized that all moments are existing at the same time. If that's true then how come we aren't able to remember the future? What is it about our perception of time that causes us to only view time in a straight line and we can only see what's behind us? If all time is happening at once then one day it might be possible for us to re-experience the past. We would need to just alter our perception. I suppose the would be two schools of thought on that, assuming any of it was possible. 1) You could go back and experience it, but not change it because you can't change a memory. 2) Since the past, present, and future are all happening at the same time then what's to stop a person from altering any point based on previous knowledge? I'm sure everyone has moments in their life that they wish they could back and change. Or even bigger, how many times do you wish that you had today's knowledge yesterday? Imagine where your life would be if the younger you had the experience of older you. I won't get into the whole potential paradox idea when it comes to time travel. Instead I wonder about how you wouldn't know to make the right choice until you made the wrong one. It's only then, when you regret what you've done, that you realize you should have done it a different way. Maybe somewhere out there you already made both choices and it's up to you to decide which route to take.
If the mind believes something then the body is forced to believe it as well. We've all heard about this with the placebo effect. Even hallucinations can cause physical effects because the mind creates its own reality. So while believing something may not make it so, sometimes the mind can't tell the difference between actual reality and perceived reality. I suppose as far as the mind is concerned there is no difference because we all live in our own realities. Everyone else is just a visitor as their reality bumps up against our own. So what's to say if someone truly believed that they traveled back to 1912 that they didn't? We may think them to be crazy or delusional because their perception of reality differs from the accepted norm. How can we ever know what the mind is really doing behind the scenes? The advances in technology can potentially solve many of the mysteries of the universe given enough time. Can that technology ever really help solve the mystery of ourselves or what we're capable of? Maybe one is just a precursor to another, but it's us to figure out which comes first.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
On Scale
Have you ever looked up at the sky and realized that you are essentially looking out into infinity? Sure it's possible that the universe has an end. That's simply where matter and space as we know it comes to an end, but beyond that there could be something even more indescribable and no one knows how far that goes. We look at the stars and catch only a glimpse of what's out there. Even with the most sophisticated technology currently in existence, we're basically looking through a set of binoculars down the road. In our lifetime we may never actually see what's completely out there. Maybe that's how it's supposed to be. Maybe there are portions of our universe that are never meant to be seen. We look up and start to get a sense of the incomprehensible vastness of all that is out there. Very rarely do we look inward at all that there is on the smaller scale. The universe is large beyond imagination, but micro-verse is just as large. It just happens to be operating on a completely different scale. Its size comes from how small it is.
Scientists don't fully grasp how things operate on the very large scale. Things that we take for granted such as gravity don't behave as expected when you start dealing with objects so big that measuring them is an exercise in itself. Even more strange is that objects that are so small they exist on the quantum level behave even more differently. There is a whole subset of physics dedicated to quantum mechanics and so far the only thing that everyone agrees upon is that no one fully understands quantum physics. So if something as fundamental as gravity can't be trusted to behave the same way with objects of different sizes, then what can we truly put our faith into? Are the laws that have been proved time and again really laws at all, but rather simply trends that tend to stay true given a specific set of variables?
Looking back at the dinosaurs I can't help wonder what this planet must have looked like to them. Not the landscape or environment so much, rather just the size of the planet must have felt somewhat small. There are over six billion people on the planet right now and while it feels big most of the time, we can easily see just what a small world we live on. We are just a fraction of the size of the larger dinosaurs. Remember what it was like as a kid and how big the world seemed growing up. Or even your house. It's not until you return later as an adult that you notice that it seems smaller, making you wonder if it was always that size and you just remembered it larger. It's hard to know just how many dinosaurs there were at any given time, but we do know they were around for a much longer period of time than we've been here. Could it have been that they saw their world getting smaller? They may have never looked up and pondered the size of what was beyond their world. Dinosaurs lived on the earth for millions of years. Man has only existed for several thousand. Our concept of history is so short in comparison to them. They're not entirely sure of how long dinosaurs lived, but it could have been anywhere from 75-300 years for some of the larger ones. The world must have seemed very different to someone several times larger than us who lived multiple lifetimes. Even some species today outlive us. There are sea turtles who can live to be 150 years old, which is twice as long as the average human. I wonder if their sense of time is different from ours. They live twice as long so does time move differently for them?
On the other side there are insects who live and die within days or even hours. The whole of their existence is summed up in what we consider to be moments. If a fly only lived for twenty four hours then each of those hours would feel like years to them. We even say there is a thing as dog years because as far as we can tell a dog's life is a fraction of our own. The point is that even something like time scales differently based on the one experiencing it. It's been shown mathematically that time speeds up as we get older. Well our perception of time anyway. When we're young and have only five years under our belt, a year seems like an eternity. Add another twenty five years to that and a year is considerably shorter. The days seem to fly by. I would imagine if we were to live twice as long if a year would feel more like six months by the time we reached fifty, which would still technically be young for our lifespan.
It would seem that both time and space are subject to change based on who perceives them. Does that mean there are no limits in either direction?
Scientists don't fully grasp how things operate on the very large scale. Things that we take for granted such as gravity don't behave as expected when you start dealing with objects so big that measuring them is an exercise in itself. Even more strange is that objects that are so small they exist on the quantum level behave even more differently. There is a whole subset of physics dedicated to quantum mechanics and so far the only thing that everyone agrees upon is that no one fully understands quantum physics. So if something as fundamental as gravity can't be trusted to behave the same way with objects of different sizes, then what can we truly put our faith into? Are the laws that have been proved time and again really laws at all, but rather simply trends that tend to stay true given a specific set of variables?
Looking back at the dinosaurs I can't help wonder what this planet must have looked like to them. Not the landscape or environment so much, rather just the size of the planet must have felt somewhat small. There are over six billion people on the planet right now and while it feels big most of the time, we can easily see just what a small world we live on. We are just a fraction of the size of the larger dinosaurs. Remember what it was like as a kid and how big the world seemed growing up. Or even your house. It's not until you return later as an adult that you notice that it seems smaller, making you wonder if it was always that size and you just remembered it larger. It's hard to know just how many dinosaurs there were at any given time, but we do know they were around for a much longer period of time than we've been here. Could it have been that they saw their world getting smaller? They may have never looked up and pondered the size of what was beyond their world. Dinosaurs lived on the earth for millions of years. Man has only existed for several thousand. Our concept of history is so short in comparison to them. They're not entirely sure of how long dinosaurs lived, but it could have been anywhere from 75-300 years for some of the larger ones. The world must have seemed very different to someone several times larger than us who lived multiple lifetimes. Even some species today outlive us. There are sea turtles who can live to be 150 years old, which is twice as long as the average human. I wonder if their sense of time is different from ours. They live twice as long so does time move differently for them?
On the other side there are insects who live and die within days or even hours. The whole of their existence is summed up in what we consider to be moments. If a fly only lived for twenty four hours then each of those hours would feel like years to them. We even say there is a thing as dog years because as far as we can tell a dog's life is a fraction of our own. The point is that even something like time scales differently based on the one experiencing it. It's been shown mathematically that time speeds up as we get older. Well our perception of time anyway. When we're young and have only five years under our belt, a year seems like an eternity. Add another twenty five years to that and a year is considerably shorter. The days seem to fly by. I would imagine if we were to live twice as long if a year would feel more like six months by the time we reached fifty, which would still technically be young for our lifespan.
It would seem that both time and space are subject to change based on who perceives them. Does that mean there are no limits in either direction?
Friday, August 27, 2010
On Manipulation
Did you ever notice that the whole world is trying very hard to manipulate you? Or the fact that you are trying to manipulate it right back. Everything we do or say is colored by manipulation. It's how we attempt to control the uncontrollable. We are constantly being bombarded by images, phrases, and ideas that have the sole purpose of getting us to do what someone else wants. It's not always a bad thing either because sometimes we experience great things that we wouldn't have come up with on our own. It took someone else nudging us into it. Sometimes it takes someone dragging us kicking and screaming before we realize that it was a good thing. At the same time though there are so many things out there that are trying to get you to change your mind about something or realize a need that you didn't know you had. Turn on the television or radio for more than ten minutes and you'll know what I mean. I was going to call this On Truth, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that truth itself is very subjective. So what may seem like truth to one may not be true for someone else.
We can start with the obvious ones. I mentioned television and radio. They are both means to entertain, however, the cost of that entertainment is that you have to subjected to a nearly constant stream of pitches about various products that someone wants you to buy. Try watching a commercial. Really watching it for more than just face value. Lately when I do watch a commercial, which is rarely, I find myself wondering how they sorted out the exact message they wanted to get across. I recently saw a Jeep commercial which had old footage of America. The commercial went on to talk about how we're a nation of builders. We love to build great things. It's in our history and if we're not building things then we're not doing great. I think it's a very effective commercial because it's perfect for a recession. It shows that once things were wonderful, even if they really weren't. It shows that America and more importantly Americans, need to build in order to feel purpose. This new Jeep is supposedly built in America and not off in some other country. To me that says "Buy this car because doing so means Americans will have more jobs. More jobs means more money for the economy. More money means that by buying this car you will be helping stop the recession." Now I'm not going to buy a Jeep, but I can appreciate how they manipulated the message in such a way that people will only hear what they've been told. A commercials whole point is to plant a message inside the consumer within thirty seconds. After that it's up to the salesmen to do the final bit of convincing to close the deal. I could write a whole thing just on car salesmen, but I don't have that kind of time right now.
Our entertainment is also a source of manipulation. Comedians tend to exaggerate for effect and twist specific situations in a way to point out the humor in them. Recently someone wrote an article on James Cameron's Avatar and how the aliens were cleverly designed for maximum empathy. From their over-sized eyes to their skin color, it was all done to manipulate the audience in a specific way. Having seen the movie, I found it to be very effective because at first you do see them as alien, but by the end of the movie you're rooting for them. The story itself is also very manipulative and has been called yet another story about white guilt. While I enjoyed the movie for the fancy cartoon that it was, I was fully aware of the heavy handed message they were beating into me. Strange how the movie's message is that industrialized nations are corrupt and often tend to take what they want from those whom they feel are beneath them and yet the millionaire director thought it was ok to charge $12 a movie ticket, resulting in a box office take over a billion dollars. Plus they're re-releasing it with an additional bit of footage so they can grab some more of that money because apparently making a billion dollars from a cartoon just isn't enough anymore. It's easy to blame the filmmaker or movie studio for this, but as the consumer we allow ourselves to be manipulated because in some ways we enjoy it. Movies attempt to tell a story or visualize an idea, which is fine, but in order to do that they must manipulate certain things to get the reaction they want. A scene is setup to pull at your heartstrings or feel enraged at the injustice of the system. Several takes and millions of dollars have refined this message into the most concise and effective medium (usually).
The government is constantly trying maintain a message based on what they feel is in their best interest. Sure sometimes it's because of safety or a need for secrecy, but I would have to imagine there are several times where it's simply easier to hand out information like a parent would to a child. The less you say, the fewer questions. At least that's the theory. As I've mentioned before, the lack of information can lead people to formulate their own ideas, regardless of if it's true or not. They're simply going on what information they have. Even with that there have probably been situations where the government has manipulated things just enough to let us create our own wild speculation, which is far from the truth, and exactly where they want us looking. The media is responsible for the same type of manipulation. They are required to make sure that their news segments and stories generate a certain amount of ratings and there are tried and true things that will almost guarantee a ratings spike. People say they're tired of scandals, sexual or otherwise, but news sources which lead with those stories usually see a spike in their ratings. So obviously we don't mind being manipulated into watching certain things because it's been sensationalized. Still that kind of manipulation is nothing compared to what we do to each other on a daily basis.
I talked about lies before, which are really overt manipulations of the truth to suit our own needs. Still there are times when we may not necessarily lie about something, but we shape the truth to be more in line with our perception of what happened. For instance you're relaying an argument to a third party and you may not give all the details to the other person. We tend to do this because we want this other person to see our side, or more importantly, be on our side, even if we weren't in the right. We twist the facts in so many situations. Unfortunately we may also manipulate the truth so much that we end up believing our version over what really happened. I suppose that's really the basis of perception.
On the other side though not all manipulation is negative. It's sometimes necessary. We do this all the time, sometimes without even knowing it. It's something we learned at an early age. Even I choose my words very carefully because I'm trying to make a point. I may not always be successful, but at the time I picked what I thought was the most effective word or phrase. I doubt we have the ability to stop manipulating the world around us. It's in our nature to want to shape the world to how we want it to be, even if we're ever only partially successful.
We can start with the obvious ones. I mentioned television and radio. They are both means to entertain, however, the cost of that entertainment is that you have to subjected to a nearly constant stream of pitches about various products that someone wants you to buy. Try watching a commercial. Really watching it for more than just face value. Lately when I do watch a commercial, which is rarely, I find myself wondering how they sorted out the exact message they wanted to get across. I recently saw a Jeep commercial which had old footage of America. The commercial went on to talk about how we're a nation of builders. We love to build great things. It's in our history and if we're not building things then we're not doing great. I think it's a very effective commercial because it's perfect for a recession. It shows that once things were wonderful, even if they really weren't. It shows that America and more importantly Americans, need to build in order to feel purpose. This new Jeep is supposedly built in America and not off in some other country. To me that says "Buy this car because doing so means Americans will have more jobs. More jobs means more money for the economy. More money means that by buying this car you will be helping stop the recession." Now I'm not going to buy a Jeep, but I can appreciate how they manipulated the message in such a way that people will only hear what they've been told. A commercials whole point is to plant a message inside the consumer within thirty seconds. After that it's up to the salesmen to do the final bit of convincing to close the deal. I could write a whole thing just on car salesmen, but I don't have that kind of time right now.
Our entertainment is also a source of manipulation. Comedians tend to exaggerate for effect and twist specific situations in a way to point out the humor in them. Recently someone wrote an article on James Cameron's Avatar and how the aliens were cleverly designed for maximum empathy. From their over-sized eyes to their skin color, it was all done to manipulate the audience in a specific way. Having seen the movie, I found it to be very effective because at first you do see them as alien, but by the end of the movie you're rooting for them. The story itself is also very manipulative and has been called yet another story about white guilt. While I enjoyed the movie for the fancy cartoon that it was, I was fully aware of the heavy handed message they were beating into me. Strange how the movie's message is that industrialized nations are corrupt and often tend to take what they want from those whom they feel are beneath them and yet the millionaire director thought it was ok to charge $12 a movie ticket, resulting in a box office take over a billion dollars. Plus they're re-releasing it with an additional bit of footage so they can grab some more of that money because apparently making a billion dollars from a cartoon just isn't enough anymore. It's easy to blame the filmmaker or movie studio for this, but as the consumer we allow ourselves to be manipulated because in some ways we enjoy it. Movies attempt to tell a story or visualize an idea, which is fine, but in order to do that they must manipulate certain things to get the reaction they want. A scene is setup to pull at your heartstrings or feel enraged at the injustice of the system. Several takes and millions of dollars have refined this message into the most concise and effective medium (usually).
The government is constantly trying maintain a message based on what they feel is in their best interest. Sure sometimes it's because of safety or a need for secrecy, but I would have to imagine there are several times where it's simply easier to hand out information like a parent would to a child. The less you say, the fewer questions. At least that's the theory. As I've mentioned before, the lack of information can lead people to formulate their own ideas, regardless of if it's true or not. They're simply going on what information they have. Even with that there have probably been situations where the government has manipulated things just enough to let us create our own wild speculation, which is far from the truth, and exactly where they want us looking. The media is responsible for the same type of manipulation. They are required to make sure that their news segments and stories generate a certain amount of ratings and there are tried and true things that will almost guarantee a ratings spike. People say they're tired of scandals, sexual or otherwise, but news sources which lead with those stories usually see a spike in their ratings. So obviously we don't mind being manipulated into watching certain things because it's been sensationalized. Still that kind of manipulation is nothing compared to what we do to each other on a daily basis.
I talked about lies before, which are really overt manipulations of the truth to suit our own needs. Still there are times when we may not necessarily lie about something, but we shape the truth to be more in line with our perception of what happened. For instance you're relaying an argument to a third party and you may not give all the details to the other person. We tend to do this because we want this other person to see our side, or more importantly, be on our side, even if we weren't in the right. We twist the facts in so many situations. Unfortunately we may also manipulate the truth so much that we end up believing our version over what really happened. I suppose that's really the basis of perception.
On the other side though not all manipulation is negative. It's sometimes necessary. We do this all the time, sometimes without even knowing it. It's something we learned at an early age. Even I choose my words very carefully because I'm trying to make a point. I may not always be successful, but at the time I picked what I thought was the most effective word or phrase. I doubt we have the ability to stop manipulating the world around us. It's in our nature to want to shape the world to how we want it to be, even if we're ever only partially successful.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
On Routine
The weird thing about routines is that often times you don't even know you're in one until you've gotten comfortable in it. Personally I'm not a fan of routine and tend to do what I can to mix it up as much as I can. Still I think there is a tendency to find yourself repeating things a certain way because you've found that they work. Problem is that you can just as easily find yourself in a rut. Like I mentioned about a career, the same thing that once made you comfortable, now makes you complacent.
When I was in high school I had a routine. Every morning I would wake up with about twenty minutes before the school bus was scheduled to arrive. It was still dark outside and the house was quiet. My mother had left at least an hour before I even woke up. My father had only gotten home from the swing shift six hours before and was sleeping. I would get in the shower with the lights off. Then I'd dress and head out. I would always go out the side door of the garage. This was because it was the easiest door I could exit from without a key. Back then I didn't carry keys with me, which makes me wonder when was it that we really start carrying keys on a regular basis. From there I'd walk down the dark driveway towards the road. Every single morning as I passed by the woods on the left I would imagine what it would be like to just walk in there with a blanket and go back to sleep. The rational part of me knew that was a terrible idea, but I was usually so tired still that sleeping in the cold was probably very much like a person in the ocean dying of thirst contemplating taking a drink of sea water. I would walk to the end of the block and wait for the bus. Once it arrived I'd sit in the same seat every day and sleep with my head on my backpack. This went on all winter for two years until I was able to start driving or get rides from people. Strangely enough that routine was so comfortable that to this day I treat it as my happy place. When I need to calm down, I think about that walk down the driveway and what it would be like to go to sleep in the woods.
You watch in movies where someone is being tailed by the cops, or an assassin, or just a stalker and you notice how the person doing the watching is slowly learning the target's routine. With that knowledge they know where to park the van for eavesdropping or where to setup the sniper rifle for the best shot. Having a routine means that you're much easier to predict, which can both be good and bad depending on your situation. If you have a stalker on your ass then them knowing you spend the time between five and six at the gym would be bad if they wanted to actually step up from stalking to hurting. The flip side is that if there was an emergency or someone was trying to reach you because Salma Hayek suddenly rolled into town, then they could quickly pinpoint where you normally are at that time.
For a long time I prided myself on not having a routine. Granted I left work around the same time every day, but I wouldn't always go straight home. Or when I got there I wouldn't always do the same thing. I think part of that was because I was single. When you're in a relationship or have a family there is an inherent need for routine. It helps the other people plan their time as well as yours. Parents want to know where their children are so when we're young we tend to have a bit more structure to our lives. In fact I've known many parents who have a very specific routine for their children. Bath time is always the same. Then unwind time followed by brushing teeth and story. From what I've been told, children need a structured schedule in those early years. It brings them a sense of regularity. So when we get older we tend to build that same type of structure for ourself because it's what we grew up with.
I suppose one of the potentially bad things about having a routine is that you may unconsciously lock yourself into a pattern that doesn't allow for spontaneity. Tonight is meatloaf night so having the idea of pizza is almost foreign. I'm not saying having a routine prevents you from doing different things, but the whole point of a routine is that it's a set of actions that have been tried and done before so you know the expected outcome. Knowing what comes next is something a lot of people hope for in their every day. Meat loaf tonight means you know exactly what's required to make it and you've probably already prepared for it ahead of time. And it could mean left overs for lunch tomorrow so that day is planned too. One event sets up everything around it. So what happens when meat loaf night is interrupted or changed on the fly? The ingredients go unused and you have to sort out what's for lunch the next day without the left overs in the equation. For some people that type of vagueness is unbearable. For me it's kind of refreshing because there is a bit of excitement in having nearly limitless options in front of me. Of course having all those options could be overwhelming in a way that instead of picking something different, you go with what's safe because it's all you can think to do. In that case the lack of routine makes you pick something safe, defeating the whole purpose.
So maybe routines aren't a bad thing to have. Predictability can be like a warm blanket. I still prefer to have almost to nothing when it comes to a set pattern. That way even I'm surprised by what I do next. Besides the more you plan out how things are supposed to happen, the more likely something could disrupt that plan.
When I was in high school I had a routine. Every morning I would wake up with about twenty minutes before the school bus was scheduled to arrive. It was still dark outside and the house was quiet. My mother had left at least an hour before I even woke up. My father had only gotten home from the swing shift six hours before and was sleeping. I would get in the shower with the lights off. Then I'd dress and head out. I would always go out the side door of the garage. This was because it was the easiest door I could exit from without a key. Back then I didn't carry keys with me, which makes me wonder when was it that we really start carrying keys on a regular basis. From there I'd walk down the dark driveway towards the road. Every single morning as I passed by the woods on the left I would imagine what it would be like to just walk in there with a blanket and go back to sleep. The rational part of me knew that was a terrible idea, but I was usually so tired still that sleeping in the cold was probably very much like a person in the ocean dying of thirst contemplating taking a drink of sea water. I would walk to the end of the block and wait for the bus. Once it arrived I'd sit in the same seat every day and sleep with my head on my backpack. This went on all winter for two years until I was able to start driving or get rides from people. Strangely enough that routine was so comfortable that to this day I treat it as my happy place. When I need to calm down, I think about that walk down the driveway and what it would be like to go to sleep in the woods.
You watch in movies where someone is being tailed by the cops, or an assassin, or just a stalker and you notice how the person doing the watching is slowly learning the target's routine. With that knowledge they know where to park the van for eavesdropping or where to setup the sniper rifle for the best shot. Having a routine means that you're much easier to predict, which can both be good and bad depending on your situation. If you have a stalker on your ass then them knowing you spend the time between five and six at the gym would be bad if they wanted to actually step up from stalking to hurting. The flip side is that if there was an emergency or someone was trying to reach you because Salma Hayek suddenly rolled into town, then they could quickly pinpoint where you normally are at that time.
For a long time I prided myself on not having a routine. Granted I left work around the same time every day, but I wouldn't always go straight home. Or when I got there I wouldn't always do the same thing. I think part of that was because I was single. When you're in a relationship or have a family there is an inherent need for routine. It helps the other people plan their time as well as yours. Parents want to know where their children are so when we're young we tend to have a bit more structure to our lives. In fact I've known many parents who have a very specific routine for their children. Bath time is always the same. Then unwind time followed by brushing teeth and story. From what I've been told, children need a structured schedule in those early years. It brings them a sense of regularity. So when we get older we tend to build that same type of structure for ourself because it's what we grew up with.
I suppose one of the potentially bad things about having a routine is that you may unconsciously lock yourself into a pattern that doesn't allow for spontaneity. Tonight is meatloaf night so having the idea of pizza is almost foreign. I'm not saying having a routine prevents you from doing different things, but the whole point of a routine is that it's a set of actions that have been tried and done before so you know the expected outcome. Knowing what comes next is something a lot of people hope for in their every day. Meat loaf tonight means you know exactly what's required to make it and you've probably already prepared for it ahead of time. And it could mean left overs for lunch tomorrow so that day is planned too. One event sets up everything around it. So what happens when meat loaf night is interrupted or changed on the fly? The ingredients go unused and you have to sort out what's for lunch the next day without the left overs in the equation. For some people that type of vagueness is unbearable. For me it's kind of refreshing because there is a bit of excitement in having nearly limitless options in front of me. Of course having all those options could be overwhelming in a way that instead of picking something different, you go with what's safe because it's all you can think to do. In that case the lack of routine makes you pick something safe, defeating the whole purpose.
So maybe routines aren't a bad thing to have. Predictability can be like a warm blanket. I still prefer to have almost to nothing when it comes to a set pattern. That way even I'm surprised by what I do next. Besides the more you plan out how things are supposed to happen, the more likely something could disrupt that plan.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
This is Ponderous
If a fart smelled like a rose would we still think they smell bad? If a rose smelled like a fart would we want to smell them at all?
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
On The Preamble
Do you ever get the impression that this is all some giant preamble to something else? Like that this is just what you have to get through until the real event begins. I'm not talking specifically about an afterlife either, although that's really the whole basis of Heaven. Be good now, because if you are, things will be better later. It's not to say that what happens here is meaningless, but its only importance is that if we're not good then we won't be allowed in. Once we get into heaven though, everything that happened before doesn't matter. Whether any of that is true or not isn't what I'm referring to. Is it possible that right now isn't as important as what's next? In thinking that way are you neglecting the present in hopes that tomorrow is going to be better? Even Yoda said something about this "All his life he's looked away, to the future. Never his mind on where he was. On what he was doing."
The very nature of life is that it's temporary. As I've mentioned before, the present is such a small fraction of our reality and that most of our life is either behind us or in front of us. When you know that your situation is temporary how do you make sure that this moment here and now gets as much attention as those moments yet to come? You go through primary school so that you can eventually go to college. College is all about preparing your for getting a job. Your first job may be entry level so that you can be prepared for hopefully deeper, more meaningful work. Everything up until that point had been preparation for something else. I know you shouldn't allow yourself to think too far into the future, but at the same time if you know something isn't going to last then it's human nature to prepare for what's next, even if that's at the expense of what you're supposed to be doing now. During the week we tend to look at the clock, counting the hours until it's time to go home. When we're home we're counting the days until the weekend. Next thing you know, it's Monday again and the cycle begins again.
I recently started working again and have found that my time feels a lot more precious than before when I had nothing but time. I find myself questioning if I should be spending my time doing certain things because with a finite amount of time in the evening it sometimes feels like I'm wasting it on trivial things. While I like my current job, I was constantly thinking about what would be coming next. I entered into it knowing that it was only a stepping stone for something else. Now I have an even newer job that I will be starting shortly and I have to wonder if given enough time I'll look at it the same way. Everything leads to something else and nothing lasts forever, but I suppose you have to remind yourself to appreciate the moments in between now and then. If you don't then you'll be lost in some kind of limbo between waiting for the next thing while the present passes you by.
Martin said that he always felt very temporary about himself and I can appreciate that kind of feeling because for most of my life it's felt like I've been on the verge of doing something. That something was always put on hold by some indescribable hold-up. It's like my preparation for the next thing prevented me from taking care of this moment. And it's this moment that inevitably leads to the next. As obvious as that sounds, a lot of people seem to try and skip ahead in hopes that it will get them along the path sooner. It's like trying to cook something at twice the normal heat for half the normal time. It seems like it should work. Instead you usually get a charred mess and have to go back to the start. Or order pizza, but you know what I'm saying. So I guess it comes down to realizing that maybe everything you do now is in fact some preamble to something else down the line. The important thing to know is that it's everything along the way that makes the difference. The journey is as important as the destination.
The very nature of life is that it's temporary. As I've mentioned before, the present is such a small fraction of our reality and that most of our life is either behind us or in front of us. When you know that your situation is temporary how do you make sure that this moment here and now gets as much attention as those moments yet to come? You go through primary school so that you can eventually go to college. College is all about preparing your for getting a job. Your first job may be entry level so that you can be prepared for hopefully deeper, more meaningful work. Everything up until that point had been preparation for something else. I know you shouldn't allow yourself to think too far into the future, but at the same time if you know something isn't going to last then it's human nature to prepare for what's next, even if that's at the expense of what you're supposed to be doing now. During the week we tend to look at the clock, counting the hours until it's time to go home. When we're home we're counting the days until the weekend. Next thing you know, it's Monday again and the cycle begins again.
I recently started working again and have found that my time feels a lot more precious than before when I had nothing but time. I find myself questioning if I should be spending my time doing certain things because with a finite amount of time in the evening it sometimes feels like I'm wasting it on trivial things. While I like my current job, I was constantly thinking about what would be coming next. I entered into it knowing that it was only a stepping stone for something else. Now I have an even newer job that I will be starting shortly and I have to wonder if given enough time I'll look at it the same way. Everything leads to something else and nothing lasts forever, but I suppose you have to remind yourself to appreciate the moments in between now and then. If you don't then you'll be lost in some kind of limbo between waiting for the next thing while the present passes you by.
Martin said that he always felt very temporary about himself and I can appreciate that kind of feeling because for most of my life it's felt like I've been on the verge of doing something. That something was always put on hold by some indescribable hold-up. It's like my preparation for the next thing prevented me from taking care of this moment. And it's this moment that inevitably leads to the next. As obvious as that sounds, a lot of people seem to try and skip ahead in hopes that it will get them along the path sooner. It's like trying to cook something at twice the normal heat for half the normal time. It seems like it should work. Instead you usually get a charred mess and have to go back to the start. Or order pizza, but you know what I'm saying. So I guess it comes down to realizing that maybe everything you do now is in fact some preamble to something else down the line. The important thing to know is that it's everything along the way that makes the difference. The journey is as important as the destination.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
On Life vs Career
A long time ago I made a choice that rather than be someone who lives to work, I would be someone who works to live. I've always put my life before my career, or lack of it, because I figured what's the point of being someone who dreads going to work? Sure we all need money because somewhere along the way that's how our society decided to keep people in check. Go to work, earn a wage, pay for things you don't always need but have just the same. We've been told it's how you get the American Dream. Still I wonder though if it's not another variation on indentured servitude. It's true we get paid, but how many people do you know are essentially forced to work for a specific wage because otherwise they can't support themselves? I know people who make six figure salaries, but they can't afford to have an apartment on their own. They simply don't have the cash every month. Now there are extenuating circumstances, but really if you think about it, life is all about extenuating circumstances. There is this fear that if you were to stop working then you'd lose everything. I'm not saying the fear is baseless because it's usually grounded in truth. Still having just come off of nearly three years of not working, I found that maybe there is more to life than just the next paycheck.
Looking back at all the jobs I've had there is a pretty common theme. I did them either because I liked them or because they were simply a means to get something I wanted. Maybe that's true for everyone. With one notable exception my resume is filled with these fleeting positions. A few months here. Maybe half a year there. When I first graduated college I thought it was probably natural to have a resume like that. I was a teacher's aide for almost two years an after that I worked at some semiconductor manufacturer for two months, even though I knew next to nothing about semiconductors, except that they were inside computers. Then I worked as an intern at credit card company for another two months. The only reason I left the semiconductor place was because the internship was offering more money. I didn't care about either place as far as work was concerned. Both were just a way to get something on my resume so it didn't look like my only work experience was video store clerk and teacher's aide. When I graduated I was one of the last people in my class to find a job. It wasn't because I couldn't be placed. It was because I didn't want to settle for just anything. I wanted something that I could stay interested in. Turns out those places weren't hiring and I did end up settling for a company that several of my classmates had gone to. The reason I chose that place was because it paid the most and was right across the street from my new apartment. In retrospect it might not have been the best decision because eight months later I was laid off along with about three hundred other people.
There I was back in the same position, looking for work in a field I wasn't all that excited about. For four months I tried to find work, along with a few thousand other IT people who also had been laid off when the Internet bubble burst. At one point in my search I found some small company that was seriously exploiting their workers. I worked there for about two days before I stopped going in. I didn't give notice. I just stopped going in. I know a lot of people in that situation who would have stuck it out because there were no other options. Eventually I found work that was in my field and paying what I needed. Turns out by the time I found it I was already tired of the city I was living in. After about four months at this new job I was told by a friend about a position open in another state. Technically the position was a bit of a backwards step for me, however, it would get me out of town and hopefully onto better things.
The job was great. I was making more money than I had ever made before and the people were fantastic. I didn't mind the fact that I had strayed off from what I had gone to college for, I was doing something I enjoyed. Problem is that nothing lasts forever. What was once enjoyable had become monotonous. Somehow I had gone from comfortable to complacent. Without me even realizing eight years had gone by and I had very little to show for it. My title had changed and I had gotten several raises over the years, but I could work there another eight years with little or no change. The whole reason I chose that place was because it was agreeable and a little bit easy. Rather than think about my career, I focused more on my life and because of that my career came to a screeching halt.
Partly because of my job and partly because I wasn't near certain people, I decided it had to be time to make a change. I figured by going back to school I had a great reason to leave my job and be near the people I cared about. It was my attempt at using my career to better my life. Unfortunately for me things didn't quite work out the way I had hoped. Like anyone who has moved because of someone else, I found that my choices were directly tied to someone else's choices, even if that person didn't ask for the responsibility. Combined with the fact that even though it was ten years later, I was looking for a job in another recession. As I mentioned I spent most of the last three years not working. Some of that was due to being a full time student. Still it was the longest I had ever gone without working since I was sixteen. Now that I'm working again I find my career back where it was ten years ago and I have to question if it was worth it or not. Should I have focused on my career a little more?
Part of the problem for me has always been I've never known what I want to do as far as a career is concerned. It was always this vague idea of doing something interesting and meaningful. Trying doing a job search for that and see what results you get back. All the way through high school I had no idea what I was going to do when I graduated. I knew that I would be going to college, but for what I had no idea. I had liked computers for as long as I had been using them and because I knew enough about them to be somewhat dangerous, I decided to pursue them into an actual career. It just happened to be what I was interested in at the time. Or at least the most interested in. I've never been one of those people who inherently know what they want to do with their lives. Sometimes it feels like all these other people were given this secret manual on life, but my copy was lost in the mail. So I've been left to grasp blindly for a career like someone searching for their glasses. You know it's close, but you just can't see it.
Sometimes you don't have a choice in the job you do. I've found out several times in my life you often have to do whatever is necessary to support yourself. It's what a responsible adult is expected to do. And I've been fairly fortunate that I haven't had to degrade myself in ways that some people are forced to. Still I wonder how many people out there just assume that being miserable at your job is to be expected. To me that seems like such a sad way to go through life. Americans are experiencing a higher rate of stress and obesity than ever before. I have to believe that a lot of that is tied to our jobs. If you're being mentally crushed at work then eventually your body will suffer. Even knowing that people continue on because we feel like we have no choice and maybe we don't. I just think about what Bernstein said "Well, it's no trick to make a lot of money... if what you want to do is make a lot of money."
So here I am, back where I started. The only thing that's changed is that I've gotten older. It feels a little bit like the Pink Floyd saying "Ten years have got behind you. No one told you when to run. You missed the starting gun." I had a good start in the rat race, but it turns out I didn't know what the destination was and have been going the wrong direction this whole time. Like most people, I'm wishing I had a do-over.
Looking back at all the jobs I've had there is a pretty common theme. I did them either because I liked them or because they were simply a means to get something I wanted. Maybe that's true for everyone. With one notable exception my resume is filled with these fleeting positions. A few months here. Maybe half a year there. When I first graduated college I thought it was probably natural to have a resume like that. I was a teacher's aide for almost two years an after that I worked at some semiconductor manufacturer for two months, even though I knew next to nothing about semiconductors, except that they were inside computers. Then I worked as an intern at credit card company for another two months. The only reason I left the semiconductor place was because the internship was offering more money. I didn't care about either place as far as work was concerned. Both were just a way to get something on my resume so it didn't look like my only work experience was video store clerk and teacher's aide. When I graduated I was one of the last people in my class to find a job. It wasn't because I couldn't be placed. It was because I didn't want to settle for just anything. I wanted something that I could stay interested in. Turns out those places weren't hiring and I did end up settling for a company that several of my classmates had gone to. The reason I chose that place was because it paid the most and was right across the street from my new apartment. In retrospect it might not have been the best decision because eight months later I was laid off along with about three hundred other people.
There I was back in the same position, looking for work in a field I wasn't all that excited about. For four months I tried to find work, along with a few thousand other IT people who also had been laid off when the Internet bubble burst. At one point in my search I found some small company that was seriously exploiting their workers. I worked there for about two days before I stopped going in. I didn't give notice. I just stopped going in. I know a lot of people in that situation who would have stuck it out because there were no other options. Eventually I found work that was in my field and paying what I needed. Turns out by the time I found it I was already tired of the city I was living in. After about four months at this new job I was told by a friend about a position open in another state. Technically the position was a bit of a backwards step for me, however, it would get me out of town and hopefully onto better things.
The job was great. I was making more money than I had ever made before and the people were fantastic. I didn't mind the fact that I had strayed off from what I had gone to college for, I was doing something I enjoyed. Problem is that nothing lasts forever. What was once enjoyable had become monotonous. Somehow I had gone from comfortable to complacent. Without me even realizing eight years had gone by and I had very little to show for it. My title had changed and I had gotten several raises over the years, but I could work there another eight years with little or no change. The whole reason I chose that place was because it was agreeable and a little bit easy. Rather than think about my career, I focused more on my life and because of that my career came to a screeching halt.
Partly because of my job and partly because I wasn't near certain people, I decided it had to be time to make a change. I figured by going back to school I had a great reason to leave my job and be near the people I cared about. It was my attempt at using my career to better my life. Unfortunately for me things didn't quite work out the way I had hoped. Like anyone who has moved because of someone else, I found that my choices were directly tied to someone else's choices, even if that person didn't ask for the responsibility. Combined with the fact that even though it was ten years later, I was looking for a job in another recession. As I mentioned I spent most of the last three years not working. Some of that was due to being a full time student. Still it was the longest I had ever gone without working since I was sixteen. Now that I'm working again I find my career back where it was ten years ago and I have to question if it was worth it or not. Should I have focused on my career a little more?
Part of the problem for me has always been I've never known what I want to do as far as a career is concerned. It was always this vague idea of doing something interesting and meaningful. Trying doing a job search for that and see what results you get back. All the way through high school I had no idea what I was going to do when I graduated. I knew that I would be going to college, but for what I had no idea. I had liked computers for as long as I had been using them and because I knew enough about them to be somewhat dangerous, I decided to pursue them into an actual career. It just happened to be what I was interested in at the time. Or at least the most interested in. I've never been one of those people who inherently know what they want to do with their lives. Sometimes it feels like all these other people were given this secret manual on life, but my copy was lost in the mail. So I've been left to grasp blindly for a career like someone searching for their glasses. You know it's close, but you just can't see it.
Sometimes you don't have a choice in the job you do. I've found out several times in my life you often have to do whatever is necessary to support yourself. It's what a responsible adult is expected to do. And I've been fairly fortunate that I haven't had to degrade myself in ways that some people are forced to. Still I wonder how many people out there just assume that being miserable at your job is to be expected. To me that seems like such a sad way to go through life. Americans are experiencing a higher rate of stress and obesity than ever before. I have to believe that a lot of that is tied to our jobs. If you're being mentally crushed at work then eventually your body will suffer. Even knowing that people continue on because we feel like we have no choice and maybe we don't. I just think about what Bernstein said "Well, it's no trick to make a lot of money... if what you want to do is make a lot of money."
So here I am, back where I started. The only thing that's changed is that I've gotten older. It feels a little bit like the Pink Floyd saying "Ten years have got behind you. No one told you when to run. You missed the starting gun." I had a good start in the rat race, but it turns out I didn't know what the destination was and have been going the wrong direction this whole time. Like most people, I'm wishing I had a do-over.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
On Things Left Behind
Have you ever been driving down the road and see a single shoe laying in the street? I've always wondered what the circumstances were that someone would leave a shoe in the open like roadkill. Were they driving with their foot out the window? Did they just happen to take their shoe off and toss it out the window? Having worn quite a few shoes in my time, I've found that it was take effort to lose on while driving. Still I try to imagine the people who have lost something like that. They are in a unique position where they're probably not able to simply stop and pick it back up again. And so it sits, left behind.
For the first two years I was in college I rode a bike to school. It wasn't very far, but it was in Phoenix. When I first moved there my dad and I found a nearby bike shop and bought a new bike, since shipping my old one wasn't practical. The new bike was cursed. I wasn't prepared for life in the city while on a bike. Early on I rode my bike to the movies. When I came out someone had stolen my front tire. So it was a long walk back to the bike shop to buy a new tire. Then while ride home I was hit by a car. Well technically I hit him. It was safer to ride on the sidewalk than in the street. The car was sitting at a stop sign and I thought for sure he wasn't going to move because it was obvious I was heading towards him. Instead he pulled out in front of me. My front wheel hit his right quarter panel and I flipped over onto his windshield. Thankfully I wasn't hurt, but that new tire I bought was no longer circular. Another long walk back to the bike shop. Then there was a strange incident with a potential roommate that forced me to store my bike on my balcony. The next morning it was gone, which in retrospect was probably a good thing because I think that bike was trying to kill me. So my father ended up having to ship my old bicycle down to me, which really defeated the purpose in the first place. I rode that bike for another year before I finally bought my truck. When it was time to move to my new apartment after graduating from college, I took that bike down to the dumpster and left it there. I no longer wanted anything to do with bikes. I doubt that everything that gets left behind has some bizarre story behind it, but we all have our reasons for ditching something.
Before I talked about moving, I mentioned how it was a chance to decide what comes with us. When we move it's the most obvious time to really reevaluate what we have in our lives and if they're important enough for us to make the effort to drag them along for whatever comes next. This process isn't just limited to moving or is it limited to things. Think about all the people you've known in your life and what fraction of them are still around. I have been on both sides of leaving someone behind. At least for me in a lot of cases it's not normally anything specific that causes me to explicitly leave someone behind. It just sort of happens, which I suppose must be how it is for other people. Still there is a bit of ego involved when you find out someone has left you behind. It used to be something like that would make me wonder about what it was that I did or didn't do that caused use to go our separate ways without even saying anything. Now I just see it as a natural progression of things. The relationship ran its course and it's time to move on, although it seems in many cases only one person is aware that things are ending.
I've also thought a lot about the various places we reside over the course of our lives. There are those people that leave home the first chance they get and never go back. For them they were forced to live there for far too long without choice and now that they are free, they practically run. Leaving home is interesting because if you go far enough away you can reinvent yourself. If you're like me then growing up meant that you pretty much knew everyone for a very long time. The people in high school were probably the same ones you went to elementary school with. Sure there were some new people along the way, but for the most part everyone had a preconceived notion about who you are because that's who you've always been. When you leave home you can leave yourself behind if you want. Obviously you're still you, but everyone you meet is meeting you for the first time and doesn't have eighteen or so years of history with you. This allows you to get rid of those preconceived ideas that you've been carrying around most of your childhood. So like so many other things, we have the option of what we take with us. Lately I've been wondering if those things, people, and places that seemingly are holding us down are also the things that keep us grounded in a way that we don't get too far away from ourselves. I can't decide if that's a good thing or not.
For the first two years I was in college I rode a bike to school. It wasn't very far, but it was in Phoenix. When I first moved there my dad and I found a nearby bike shop and bought a new bike, since shipping my old one wasn't practical. The new bike was cursed. I wasn't prepared for life in the city while on a bike. Early on I rode my bike to the movies. When I came out someone had stolen my front tire. So it was a long walk back to the bike shop to buy a new tire. Then while ride home I was hit by a car. Well technically I hit him. It was safer to ride on the sidewalk than in the street. The car was sitting at a stop sign and I thought for sure he wasn't going to move because it was obvious I was heading towards him. Instead he pulled out in front of me. My front wheel hit his right quarter panel and I flipped over onto his windshield. Thankfully I wasn't hurt, but that new tire I bought was no longer circular. Another long walk back to the bike shop. Then there was a strange incident with a potential roommate that forced me to store my bike on my balcony. The next morning it was gone, which in retrospect was probably a good thing because I think that bike was trying to kill me. So my father ended up having to ship my old bicycle down to me, which really defeated the purpose in the first place. I rode that bike for another year before I finally bought my truck. When it was time to move to my new apartment after graduating from college, I took that bike down to the dumpster and left it there. I no longer wanted anything to do with bikes. I doubt that everything that gets left behind has some bizarre story behind it, but we all have our reasons for ditching something.
Before I talked about moving, I mentioned how it was a chance to decide what comes with us. When we move it's the most obvious time to really reevaluate what we have in our lives and if they're important enough for us to make the effort to drag them along for whatever comes next. This process isn't just limited to moving or is it limited to things. Think about all the people you've known in your life and what fraction of them are still around. I have been on both sides of leaving someone behind. At least for me in a lot of cases it's not normally anything specific that causes me to explicitly leave someone behind. It just sort of happens, which I suppose must be how it is for other people. Still there is a bit of ego involved when you find out someone has left you behind. It used to be something like that would make me wonder about what it was that I did or didn't do that caused use to go our separate ways without even saying anything. Now I just see it as a natural progression of things. The relationship ran its course and it's time to move on, although it seems in many cases only one person is aware that things are ending.
I've also thought a lot about the various places we reside over the course of our lives. There are those people that leave home the first chance they get and never go back. For them they were forced to live there for far too long without choice and now that they are free, they practically run. Leaving home is interesting because if you go far enough away you can reinvent yourself. If you're like me then growing up meant that you pretty much knew everyone for a very long time. The people in high school were probably the same ones you went to elementary school with. Sure there were some new people along the way, but for the most part everyone had a preconceived notion about who you are because that's who you've always been. When you leave home you can leave yourself behind if you want. Obviously you're still you, but everyone you meet is meeting you for the first time and doesn't have eighteen or so years of history with you. This allows you to get rid of those preconceived ideas that you've been carrying around most of your childhood. So like so many other things, we have the option of what we take with us. Lately I've been wondering if those things, people, and places that seemingly are holding us down are also the things that keep us grounded in a way that we don't get too far away from ourselves. I can't decide if that's a good thing or not.
Friday, August 6, 2010
On Cursive
When I was in elementary school we were taught how to write in cursive. We were told that as adults that's how everyone writes. It was as though printing was for children and no one would take you seriously if you didn't have nice hand writing. Really it came down to potential mockery from scribes that caused us to learn it. For me it was painful and slow. In school the focus was more on the process than anything else. It didn't matter that I had a hard time reading it, what mattered was that the N had two humps when it connected to another letter and only one hump when it ended a word. I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but at some point in school people stopped making a big deal about writing in cursive. You could if you still wanted to, but for the most part it wasn't required for assignments. Maybe it was a hold over from the previous generation because both of my parents write in cursive. Looking back at my education, there are so many things that we had to learn that have little meaning in my life today.
I'm from the last generation to know what it was like to not have computers around all the time. We used them a little bit up through middle school, but it wasn't until high school that I got any real exposure to them beyond just a novelty. So when I was taught to type it was on a typewriter, making me a part of a group of people who were probably the last to have to deal with ribbons and typebars. While learning to type someone asked the question "Why are the keys arranged in this way?". The answer we were given is that originally the keys were arranged alphabetically, but the people were typing too fast and it jammed up the typebars. To slow down typing the keys were rearranged into the layout that exists today. At the time it seemed like a good enough reason to make the change. Now I look at it as a antiquated way to get around a hardware issue that doesn't exist anymore. A computer doesn't have typebars so it doesn't matter how fast you type, it won't jam. Granted the computer will have any number of other problems, but two pieces of metal smooshed together isn't one of them. That little problem permanently changed how we do things, even though most people learning to type today have no idea why.
And speaking of computers, it used to be that if you wanted to use one you had to have some knowledge of DOS. It was the underlying architecture of that pretty little interface everyone was using. These days you could ask your basic computer user what dir means or how to use it and you'd get a blank stare back. The good news is that it's not a bad thing if you don't know DOS. It's no longer required. You can be a power user and never touch a DOS window. So what do I do with that knowledge if it's no longer necessary? It's not like you can pitch that information over the side to clear room for something else. It's up there forever, even if you can't remember it. There are so many things we're taught that end up not being used. If it were possible, ask all the people from your high school graduating class how often they use Algebra. Try even asking the people you know now. Most will probably say that they use it very little. At the time we were told that Algebra was the key to everything, but then again they had to justify it being taught for three years in high school. If you're like most of us, you can probably do simple math, but even that is being slowly replaced by those little machines we carry around in our pockets. There were several math teachers who insisted that using a calculator would essentially make your brain lazy. Turns out they were right. Most people can't figure out how to add 15% to a dinner check without the calculator on their phone.
Now I'm not saying we shouldn't be taught math, but maybe it's time to address the fact that people need to learn more practical usage of it. What good is it to teach kids the quadratic equation when they don't know how to balance their checkbook? It seems that more and more young people are entering the world ill-prepared for reality. I was talking about language recently and how the best way to really learn it is to immerse yourself in it. I took two years of German in high school. In the end I learned that not only could I not speak German if a gun was pointed at my head, I couldn't even tell you the word for gun while it was being cocked. I'm guessing a part of that was because I sat next to a hot girl so the class could have been explaining the secrets of the universe and I wouldn't have learned anything. The other part was that reading about a language in a book does very little to prepare you for how people really speak that language. Maybe it was like a taste test. You try out how the foreign language tastes in your mouth and if you want to learn more about how to speak it you'll take it in college, where the real education comes from.
When I was learning to drive my father made sure that I learned how to drive a manual transmission. It wasn't because I had to, it was more that I should know how, even if I wouldn't be using it. As it is I've been driving for over eighteen years and have only spent ten hours driving a stick shift. Obviously it turned out to be something that wasn't required in my life. It's possible that all those seemingly useless things they taught us in school were a sort of preparation. You may never use those skills, but it's important that you learn them because you never know what situation may come up that requires you to have a least a basic understanding of a specific subject matter. At least that way you have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. Imagine what our schools would be like if they taught practical knowledge rather than theoretical abstracts. Then again if they only taught practical skills and usage we might not have all the wonderful ideas that exist today. I would hope that someday we'll find equilibrium between the two schools of thought.
I'm from the last generation to know what it was like to not have computers around all the time. We used them a little bit up through middle school, but it wasn't until high school that I got any real exposure to them beyond just a novelty. So when I was taught to type it was on a typewriter, making me a part of a group of people who were probably the last to have to deal with ribbons and typebars. While learning to type someone asked the question "Why are the keys arranged in this way?". The answer we were given is that originally the keys were arranged alphabetically, but the people were typing too fast and it jammed up the typebars. To slow down typing the keys were rearranged into the layout that exists today. At the time it seemed like a good enough reason to make the change. Now I look at it as a antiquated way to get around a hardware issue that doesn't exist anymore. A computer doesn't have typebars so it doesn't matter how fast you type, it won't jam. Granted the computer will have any number of other problems, but two pieces of metal smooshed together isn't one of them. That little problem permanently changed how we do things, even though most people learning to type today have no idea why.
And speaking of computers, it used to be that if you wanted to use one you had to have some knowledge of DOS. It was the underlying architecture of that pretty little interface everyone was using. These days you could ask your basic computer user what dir means or how to use it and you'd get a blank stare back. The good news is that it's not a bad thing if you don't know DOS. It's no longer required. You can be a power user and never touch a DOS window. So what do I do with that knowledge if it's no longer necessary? It's not like you can pitch that information over the side to clear room for something else. It's up there forever, even if you can't remember it. There are so many things we're taught that end up not being used. If it were possible, ask all the people from your high school graduating class how often they use Algebra. Try even asking the people you know now. Most will probably say that they use it very little. At the time we were told that Algebra was the key to everything, but then again they had to justify it being taught for three years in high school. If you're like most of us, you can probably do simple math, but even that is being slowly replaced by those little machines we carry around in our pockets. There were several math teachers who insisted that using a calculator would essentially make your brain lazy. Turns out they were right. Most people can't figure out how to add 15% to a dinner check without the calculator on their phone.
Now I'm not saying we shouldn't be taught math, but maybe it's time to address the fact that people need to learn more practical usage of it. What good is it to teach kids the quadratic equation when they don't know how to balance their checkbook? It seems that more and more young people are entering the world ill-prepared for reality. I was talking about language recently and how the best way to really learn it is to immerse yourself in it. I took two years of German in high school. In the end I learned that not only could I not speak German if a gun was pointed at my head, I couldn't even tell you the word for gun while it was being cocked. I'm guessing a part of that was because I sat next to a hot girl so the class could have been explaining the secrets of the universe and I wouldn't have learned anything. The other part was that reading about a language in a book does very little to prepare you for how people really speak that language. Maybe it was like a taste test. You try out how the foreign language tastes in your mouth and if you want to learn more about how to speak it you'll take it in college, where the real education comes from.
When I was learning to drive my father made sure that I learned how to drive a manual transmission. It wasn't because I had to, it was more that I should know how, even if I wouldn't be using it. As it is I've been driving for over eighteen years and have only spent ten hours driving a stick shift. Obviously it turned out to be something that wasn't required in my life. It's possible that all those seemingly useless things they taught us in school were a sort of preparation. You may never use those skills, but it's important that you learn them because you never know what situation may come up that requires you to have a least a basic understanding of a specific subject matter. At least that way you have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. Imagine what our schools would be like if they taught practical knowledge rather than theoretical abstracts. Then again if they only taught practical skills and usage we might not have all the wonderful ideas that exist today. I would hope that someday we'll find equilibrium between the two schools of thought.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
On Things We Think, But Don't Say
There have been situations where someone is talking to me and for a moment I can tell exactly what they're going to say next. Or even more common than that is when someone is trying to think of a word or phrase and I can practically see the word appear in my head. Sometimes I'll help them out, but more often than not I keep my mouth shut because I want to see if we were thinking the same thing. How is it that we can tell what another person is thinking without them saying so? Sure some of it comes down to simply knowing the person to a degree that you know how they think rather than what they think. Still there are times where it feels as though it's more than having a hunch someone is about to say something. Maybe it's possible that our thoughts aren't simply in our heads. I'm sure to some that may sound like telepathy, but it's not that controlled. Our brain is this incredibly complex organic machine that's run by electricity. That would mean our thoughts are potentially electrical signals traveling at the speed of light throughout our mind. If you've ever lived close to an AM radio tower you know that the signal gets into everything, even if it's not meant to. When I was a kid you could pick up the phone and hear the radio in the background. Same goes for an open television channel. The channel itself isn't broadcasting anything so it behaves like an open microphone picking up whatever ambient broadcasts are nearby. It's possible that our own brains do that with other people's thoughts. Now obviously it's not always something we pick up on or even transmit out beyond our own mind, but occasionally we might be "tuned in".
Some people I know like to joke about how their brain and mouth have no filter. Instead they just sort of say most everything they think. That may feel somewhat liberating because they never really have to censor themselves. The truth is that everyone does check themselves to some degree. Even if you're brutally honest about everything, it's very rare that your thoughts get translated into words exactly. One might pick and choose the right phrase from any number of possibilities. The reason for that isn't always to be polite, but more because think about how you think. I might be in the minority on this one, but I don't always think in words. In a lot of cases it's images of half-formed ideas that defy explanation. It takes conscious effort to translate that flurry of thoughts into something someone else could possibly understand. And those are just the things we choose to share with other people for whatever reason. There is so much we think of that we keep to ourselves.
It's interesting the various pieces of information that we notice and store away for later reference, especially when it comes to other people. For instance, when you're first starting a relationship with someone there is so much information about a person coming at you. It's all new and if you like them, it all seems wonderful. It's only later that we start to realize that it's not all wonderful. That's usually after the infatuation phase has ended. All those little details we know about a person and choose to accept until the moment comes that we're not happy with them. Then those things that we once were able to accept get turned into verbal weapons. When Andy first started dating Trish he told her that he rode a bicycle and didn't drive. There was a moment where she may have thought it was a little odd for a grown man to only have a bicycle, but because she liked him, she was willing to accept that aspect of him. It wasn't until later when they were fighting that she threw it back in his face. So it's possible that she was willing to overlook it because it was a slightly weird nuance that made him who he was. She was willing to overlook it right up until the moment she decided to use it against him. I think we've all been in situations like that, where we pull out old pieces of information in an effort to hurt another person. Certain ideas about a person may be acceptable at one moment, but not in the next. My point is that those things may always up there, we just choose to not say them for whatever reason. Does that mean the negative thoughts are somewhere in there too, even if they're not quite formulated yet?
Going back to what I mentioned before about the possibility that our thoughts aren't always confined to just our own brain. In a sense we're broadcasting something out into the world. It might not be thoughts, but it could be feelings or unseen chemicals that carry information within. If that's true then those negative thoughts might be leaking out as well. There have been times when a person you know is in a bad mood or has some intense things on their mind. You can tell by looking at them. Sometimes it's subtle physical indicators that give it away, but sometimes it's something else. It's something you can't quite quantify or explain. You just know something isn't right. In those situations are we receiving information from some other source? That could mean that even if we don't say something out loud, we're still technically "saying" it in some other way. If any of that's true then we might want to think twice about thinking because the person you're standing next to might be unconsciously listening.
Some people I know like to joke about how their brain and mouth have no filter. Instead they just sort of say most everything they think. That may feel somewhat liberating because they never really have to censor themselves. The truth is that everyone does check themselves to some degree. Even if you're brutally honest about everything, it's very rare that your thoughts get translated into words exactly. One might pick and choose the right phrase from any number of possibilities. The reason for that isn't always to be polite, but more because think about how you think. I might be in the minority on this one, but I don't always think in words. In a lot of cases it's images of half-formed ideas that defy explanation. It takes conscious effort to translate that flurry of thoughts into something someone else could possibly understand. And those are just the things we choose to share with other people for whatever reason. There is so much we think of that we keep to ourselves.
It's interesting the various pieces of information that we notice and store away for later reference, especially when it comes to other people. For instance, when you're first starting a relationship with someone there is so much information about a person coming at you. It's all new and if you like them, it all seems wonderful. It's only later that we start to realize that it's not all wonderful. That's usually after the infatuation phase has ended. All those little details we know about a person and choose to accept until the moment comes that we're not happy with them. Then those things that we once were able to accept get turned into verbal weapons. When Andy first started dating Trish he told her that he rode a bicycle and didn't drive. There was a moment where she may have thought it was a little odd for a grown man to only have a bicycle, but because she liked him, she was willing to accept that aspect of him. It wasn't until later when they were fighting that she threw it back in his face. So it's possible that she was willing to overlook it because it was a slightly weird nuance that made him who he was. She was willing to overlook it right up until the moment she decided to use it against him. I think we've all been in situations like that, where we pull out old pieces of information in an effort to hurt another person. Certain ideas about a person may be acceptable at one moment, but not in the next. My point is that those things may always up there, we just choose to not say them for whatever reason. Does that mean the negative thoughts are somewhere in there too, even if they're not quite formulated yet?
Going back to what I mentioned before about the possibility that our thoughts aren't always confined to just our own brain. In a sense we're broadcasting something out into the world. It might not be thoughts, but it could be feelings or unseen chemicals that carry information within. If that's true then those negative thoughts might be leaking out as well. There have been times when a person you know is in a bad mood or has some intense things on their mind. You can tell by looking at them. Sometimes it's subtle physical indicators that give it away, but sometimes it's something else. It's something you can't quite quantify or explain. You just know something isn't right. In those situations are we receiving information from some other source? That could mean that even if we don't say something out loud, we're still technically "saying" it in some other way. If any of that's true then we might want to think twice about thinking because the person you're standing next to might be unconsciously listening.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Sunday, August 1, 2010
On Memory
If you think about it almost all of human experience is in the past, meaning that except for what's happening right this moment, everything else is in the past. Sure one could argue that it doesn't take into account the future. The thing is at least right now we can't perceived the future, only the past and present. Essentially 1% of our life takes place now while the other 99% has already happened. That would mean nearly all we think about is from memory. Memory shapes who we are and what we do and even what we will do. The strange thing about memory though is that it's not always what really happened, it's just what we think happened. In a sense we're creating our own reality even if it's not what "officially" happened. It doesn't really matter if it's what really happened, it's what we believed happened and short of a time machine, there usually isn't much that can cause us to unremember a specific memory. I think it would be interesting if people could somehow compare memories of the same event. That blue care was actually teal. This person said this with a certain inflection rather than that with a different emphasis. Seeing that comparison could potentially alter how we move forward through life. Then again sometimes you want to remember your own way. Fred Madison hated video cameras because he wanted to remember things how he remembered, which wasn't necessarily the way they happened. I don't know if there's anything wrong with that kind of thinking.
What causes us to remember specific moments over others? I know that technically everything we experience is stored in that hard drive we call a brain. Most of us lack the ability to recall it whenever we want. There are those with a "photographic" memory but even that has its limitations. Maybe there's a mental trigger that causes something to stay in short-term memory long enough that it's effectively put on the top of the pile of memories that we access when we go into long-term storage. And what's even more strange is that it's not always a voluntary thing to remember something vividly or easily. Things we want to remember fade away and stuff we wish we could forget lurks in the corner, waiting for when we least expect it. Tell yourself you're going to remember this moment. Or really any moment. You can try to force yourself to recall it later but how much do you really remember? What were you wearing. What did you smell or feel? Even if you remember the moment, it's the specifics that get away from us. Do we have to force ourselves to remember a memory? Even when we do that we can't always bring back something we want to recall. Sure trauma is a good way to cement something into your memory. I would imagine that there must be something the opposite of trauma that causes you to remember very good things.
A long time ago I heard a story about how some scientist had a person's skull open. The person was awake and willing to try this experiment where electrodes were placed on various sections of the brain. A mild electrical current was sent to that area and the person was suddenly remembering things from their past in a way that was almost like reliving them. They could smell specific things and hear tiny little nuances around them. The electrical stimulus was taken away and the memory faded back into the brain. That lead everyone to believe that even if we can't remember something, the brain has stored it away somewhere. For what purpose no one really knows. Or why if that information is being stored, then how come we can't retrieve it whenever we want. It's possible that the brain acts as something of a gatekeeper or hall monitor, making sure that only certain things are allowed into our consciousness. Without it we could be overwhelmed by all the information. As I said before, about 99% of our experiences are in the past. That's a lot of memories, no matter how old you happen to be. It's been said that we only use a fraction of our brain and maybe that's technically true because a lot of our brain function is out of our immediate use. Think of it as a kind of active reserve. It's working in the background and is essential for several things, but if we were to try and take over we would potentially fall down into a gasping heap because we lack the mental prowess to control both memories and anatomical functions at the same time.
Still if those memories are there and our brains are constantly recording everything we perceive (and many things we don't) then could that mean given time and practice we could have a better way of remembering things? Also is it possible that we're passing that information along when we pass our genes to the next generation? Sure you get things like eye color from your parents, but think about all the other things you get as well. Maybe you got your father's temper or your mother's love for reading. Those things could be attributed to growing up around people who had those traits already so you're more likely to take them on. What if though it's more than just your environment that shapes your personality? What if in some way their memories are also transferred over, even if it's in a fraction of their original state? It could be a sort of genetic memory. The movie Altered States kind of touched on this idea that on a genetic level we remember everything our ancestors did, going all the way back to ancient man. If that were possible then each of us possesses the collective memory of everyone who came before us, even if it's only stored in our cells somewhere. So think about that the next time you can't remember someones phone number. It's up there, stashed away with a millennium of information, we just don't have the right indexing system to quickly pull it off the shelf. Maybe one day we will.
What causes us to remember specific moments over others? I know that technically everything we experience is stored in that hard drive we call a brain. Most of us lack the ability to recall it whenever we want. There are those with a "photographic" memory but even that has its limitations. Maybe there's a mental trigger that causes something to stay in short-term memory long enough that it's effectively put on the top of the pile of memories that we access when we go into long-term storage. And what's even more strange is that it's not always a voluntary thing to remember something vividly or easily. Things we want to remember fade away and stuff we wish we could forget lurks in the corner, waiting for when we least expect it. Tell yourself you're going to remember this moment. Or really any moment. You can try to force yourself to recall it later but how much do you really remember? What were you wearing. What did you smell or feel? Even if you remember the moment, it's the specifics that get away from us. Do we have to force ourselves to remember a memory? Even when we do that we can't always bring back something we want to recall. Sure trauma is a good way to cement something into your memory. I would imagine that there must be something the opposite of trauma that causes you to remember very good things.
A long time ago I heard a story about how some scientist had a person's skull open. The person was awake and willing to try this experiment where electrodes were placed on various sections of the brain. A mild electrical current was sent to that area and the person was suddenly remembering things from their past in a way that was almost like reliving them. They could smell specific things and hear tiny little nuances around them. The electrical stimulus was taken away and the memory faded back into the brain. That lead everyone to believe that even if we can't remember something, the brain has stored it away somewhere. For what purpose no one really knows. Or why if that information is being stored, then how come we can't retrieve it whenever we want. It's possible that the brain acts as something of a gatekeeper or hall monitor, making sure that only certain things are allowed into our consciousness. Without it we could be overwhelmed by all the information. As I said before, about 99% of our experiences are in the past. That's a lot of memories, no matter how old you happen to be. It's been said that we only use a fraction of our brain and maybe that's technically true because a lot of our brain function is out of our immediate use. Think of it as a kind of active reserve. It's working in the background and is essential for several things, but if we were to try and take over we would potentially fall down into a gasping heap because we lack the mental prowess to control both memories and anatomical functions at the same time.
Still if those memories are there and our brains are constantly recording everything we perceive (and many things we don't) then could that mean given time and practice we could have a better way of remembering things? Also is it possible that we're passing that information along when we pass our genes to the next generation? Sure you get things like eye color from your parents, but think about all the other things you get as well. Maybe you got your father's temper or your mother's love for reading. Those things could be attributed to growing up around people who had those traits already so you're more likely to take them on. What if though it's more than just your environment that shapes your personality? What if in some way their memories are also transferred over, even if it's in a fraction of their original state? It could be a sort of genetic memory. The movie Altered States kind of touched on this idea that on a genetic level we remember everything our ancestors did, going all the way back to ancient man. If that were possible then each of us possesses the collective memory of everyone who came before us, even if it's only stored in our cells somewhere. So think about that the next time you can't remember someones phone number. It's up there, stashed away with a millennium of information, we just don't have the right indexing system to quickly pull it off the shelf. Maybe one day we will.
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