Apparently I’m just too wordy. My wife’s comment after reading ‘All that Glitters’ was simply to state, “Yeah, that was too long. People don’t want to read that much.” This makes me wonder what exactly the limit is. How long is the attention span of the average person that they can’t traipse through a page of text for free stuff? I’d imagine that’s less than a minute’s worth of reading, is a minute not worth $12,000? Have we become so overwhelmed by the deluge of information from television and radio that a minute is just too long to spend reading? So is everything I write for an audience of none unless it’s less than 5 words long? Perhaps if I’d written simply: “@@ Free 25,000 basketball cards 4 you!!” they’d be out of my trunk now? Does Joe Average ignore every piece of textual information that can’t fit into the title of an eBay auction listing? Everything after 55 characters is just needless fluff it seems.
Perhaps brevity is the soul of wit but some things just can’t be condensed and still retain their vigor. When everything around us written in the minimalist style of the New York Times, boiled down to its bones, what art will be left in the written word? In Orwell’s 1984, ‘The Party’ is on a continual campaign to reduce the number of words in the dictionary. The theory went that nobody can utter a thought that they can’t express in words so to end sedition we merely eliminate all the words required to verbalize those thoughts. Luckily, in the real world, we won’t need to resort to such means. We’ll just quietly ignore anything that falls outside the boundaries of our newfound norms and build our own Orwellian Newspeak around consensus. Well, consensus of everyone that really matters at least. The Ministry of Truth will take care of everyone else.
We will then enter upon the golden age of literature! Oh! I can barely await those halcyon days when we can plumb the very depths of every book, news article and scholarly journal by a mere perusal of the title. But please, 55 characters or less. Anyway, can’t write any more, I’m off the read “Oliver Twist was orphan Met Fagan But Was OK In the End” again for the 465th time!
Monday, December 26, 2005
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Missin’ the Christmas Party
Yes indeed, it’s that time of year again. It’s time to miss the company Christmas party. I’m pretty sure that conventional wisdom says that missing the company Christmas party is a BAD idea. Luckily, I’m unfettered by any such niggling annoyance as wisdom of any kind so I always miss the Christmas party. In fact, I miss pretty much EVERY party related to my workplace. What’s more, I’ve been in the working world for ten years and I’ve gone to a company function outside normal working hours exactly once that I can recall.
Now that’s not to say I never go to any parties. I am regularly obliged to attend my wife’s Christmas parties and other wife or child-related events now and again but when it comes to people in my own work environment I’m a perpetual no-show. So much so in fact that people have begun to actually take notice. I’d really be interested to know what the exact impact of that is, if any.
What change would be wrought in my life, I sometimes wonder, if instead of missing the 37 social events that have taken place since I started working here, I’d shown up to every single one. The uninformed voters out there might well say something along the lines of, “Well, silly, you’d know your co-workers better and have lots more friends.” To this person, and with all due respect and good intentions, I respond with a hearty raspberry, “Pffttt.”
This is where the previous ‘party’ experience comes into play. Having been to a few of these events, I know the script pretty well.
Stage 1: Tattered arrives at the party early. Alright, I’ll admit it, I’m annoyingly punctual. If someone sets a time of 1, I’ll be there on the spot ready to go at 12:50 just in case your clock is wrong. I’d hate for anyone to have to wait just because their clock did not coincide identically with my own.
While we’re on the subject of punctuality, this is a good point at which to interject an amusing anecdote on the subject of being on time to parties. Many moons ago, a work associate invited me and my wife to a party at his home. The invitation clearly and distinctly said: 3:00pm. For the numerically impaired, that’s THREE in the afternoon. So my wife and I made arrangements, we find the domicile in question, we synchronize our chronometers and we arrive spot on 3pm ready to partake of the festivities. Annoyingly, the first words out of our hosts mouth were, “Heh, Tattered, should have known you’d be on time.” Yes, you may have guessed it, apparently the 3pm time was some sort of bizarre temporal decoy. It seems that some people engineer their invitations in such a way that the event actually begins 90 minutes after the announced time. I believe this has something to do with the concept of being ‘fashionably late.’ Whatever the cause, the result was that my wife and I suddenly found ourselves with an hour and a half to kill while our host took care of minor details such as showering and preparing the food. Even more annoying was the fact that most people did not actually start to arrive until 6:00 despite the fact that the party was to actually start at 4:30 (at least according to our host).
Stage 2: Guests arrive and periodically attempt to engage me in conversation. Admittedly, of all the steps, this is probably the most pleasant but sadly things never progress past the random small-talk phase. I’ll admit that in general people at work are very friendly and talkative. There are some that doggedly attempt to converse with me again and again. I respect them for their dedication to gregariousness. Sadly, I simply don’t appear to have the social skills necessary to reciprocate properly and sustain a conversation. My only real defense in these situations is to respond with wit and enigmatic comments. Unfortunately, it’s the type of wit that leaves half the hearers laughing and the other half wondering what in the hell I’m talking about. Comedy does not a sustainable conversation make; conversation requires something to which a person can actually respond and exchange ideas about. Sadly, most of the time my comments don’t lead people down any of the well-trodden conversational paths that most indulge in. Call me small-minded but I don’t have anything to say about the big game, I didn’t see that movie you’re talking about and know nothing about cars. That pretty much kills 95% of the available male-to-male conversations. Don’t even get me started on the other gender.
Stage 3: I call this the ‘kill me now’ phase. This is the point after which all the small-talk kamikazes have broken off their attack and found other harbors to raid and I’m trying desperately to look interested in something, ANYTHING in the room. Typically, the party-goers have broken into groups of 3-5 people and are actively discussing some topic or other. I don’t typically feel it appropriate to go and glom on to someone else’s conversation and since everyone else is engaged, I can hardly start my own. I have found though that talking at length to a candlestick about the unique cell wall proteins found in sub-tropical species of Spirea inspires conversation elsewhere in the room.
The real root of the problem, I think, is just plain social ignorance. My parents raised me for one thing and one thing only, to sit in my room and shut the hell up. We didn’t actually do ‘stuff’ when I was growing up so I never learned those key social skills like, “converse with people” and “don’t just blab the absolute truth as you see it on your blog.” At this stage in my life though, I’m not sure exactly how to learn these skills without some obnoxiously painful moments.
Obviously, avoiding social functions, like the Christmas party, is not helping. To do a thing you must first attempt a thing. I’m not honestly sure what my life would be like if human interaction came to me as easily as I see it happen for others. I’m frankly mystified at times at the easy exchanges that people have with each other. I’ve never gotten it and I probably never will completely but it’s apparent that hiding from it is not the solution.
Before any of that though, I have to decide if it’s really a problem. If I do build relationships with these people, what have I really gained? Will I do my job any better? No. Will I like my job any better? No, well maybe, but I don’t consider the social interactions these people represent as part of the job. Will the company be any better off? Possibly. Most upsettingly though, it does seem that the way to really rise in a company has little do with your actual work. As long as I retain my current enigmatic persona, I have no doubt that I will forever remain a 2nd Class Turd in the deepest bowels of the company as I am now.
Now that’s not to say I never go to any parties. I am regularly obliged to attend my wife’s Christmas parties and other wife or child-related events now and again but when it comes to people in my own work environment I’m a perpetual no-show. So much so in fact that people have begun to actually take notice. I’d really be interested to know what the exact impact of that is, if any.
What change would be wrought in my life, I sometimes wonder, if instead of missing the 37 social events that have taken place since I started working here, I’d shown up to every single one. The uninformed voters out there might well say something along the lines of, “Well, silly, you’d know your co-workers better and have lots more friends.” To this person, and with all due respect and good intentions, I respond with a hearty raspberry, “Pffttt.”
This is where the previous ‘party’ experience comes into play. Having been to a few of these events, I know the script pretty well.
Stage 1: Tattered arrives at the party early. Alright, I’ll admit it, I’m annoyingly punctual. If someone sets a time of 1, I’ll be there on the spot ready to go at 12:50 just in case your clock is wrong. I’d hate for anyone to have to wait just because their clock did not coincide identically with my own.
While we’re on the subject of punctuality, this is a good point at which to interject an amusing anecdote on the subject of being on time to parties. Many moons ago, a work associate invited me and my wife to a party at his home. The invitation clearly and distinctly said: 3:00pm. For the numerically impaired, that’s THREE in the afternoon. So my wife and I made arrangements, we find the domicile in question, we synchronize our chronometers and we arrive spot on 3pm ready to partake of the festivities. Annoyingly, the first words out of our hosts mouth were, “Heh, Tattered, should have known you’d be on time.” Yes, you may have guessed it, apparently the 3pm time was some sort of bizarre temporal decoy. It seems that some people engineer their invitations in such a way that the event actually begins 90 minutes after the announced time. I believe this has something to do with the concept of being ‘fashionably late.’ Whatever the cause, the result was that my wife and I suddenly found ourselves with an hour and a half to kill while our host took care of minor details such as showering and preparing the food. Even more annoying was the fact that most people did not actually start to arrive until 6:00 despite the fact that the party was to actually start at 4:30 (at least according to our host).
Stage 2: Guests arrive and periodically attempt to engage me in conversation. Admittedly, of all the steps, this is probably the most pleasant but sadly things never progress past the random small-talk phase. I’ll admit that in general people at work are very friendly and talkative. There are some that doggedly attempt to converse with me again and again. I respect them for their dedication to gregariousness. Sadly, I simply don’t appear to have the social skills necessary to reciprocate properly and sustain a conversation. My only real defense in these situations is to respond with wit and enigmatic comments. Unfortunately, it’s the type of wit that leaves half the hearers laughing and the other half wondering what in the hell I’m talking about. Comedy does not a sustainable conversation make; conversation requires something to which a person can actually respond and exchange ideas about. Sadly, most of the time my comments don’t lead people down any of the well-trodden conversational paths that most indulge in. Call me small-minded but I don’t have anything to say about the big game, I didn’t see that movie you’re talking about and know nothing about cars. That pretty much kills 95% of the available male-to-male conversations. Don’t even get me started on the other gender.
Stage 3: I call this the ‘kill me now’ phase. This is the point after which all the small-talk kamikazes have broken off their attack and found other harbors to raid and I’m trying desperately to look interested in something, ANYTHING in the room. Typically, the party-goers have broken into groups of 3-5 people and are actively discussing some topic or other. I don’t typically feel it appropriate to go and glom on to someone else’s conversation and since everyone else is engaged, I can hardly start my own. I have found though that talking at length to a candlestick about the unique cell wall proteins found in sub-tropical species of Spirea inspires conversation elsewhere in the room.
The real root of the problem, I think, is just plain social ignorance. My parents raised me for one thing and one thing only, to sit in my room and shut the hell up. We didn’t actually do ‘stuff’ when I was growing up so I never learned those key social skills like, “converse with people” and “don’t just blab the absolute truth as you see it on your blog.” At this stage in my life though, I’m not sure exactly how to learn these skills without some obnoxiously painful moments.
Obviously, avoiding social functions, like the Christmas party, is not helping. To do a thing you must first attempt a thing. I’m not honestly sure what my life would be like if human interaction came to me as easily as I see it happen for others. I’m frankly mystified at times at the easy exchanges that people have with each other. I’ve never gotten it and I probably never will completely but it’s apparent that hiding from it is not the solution.
Before any of that though, I have to decide if it’s really a problem. If I do build relationships with these people, what have I really gained? Will I do my job any better? No. Will I like my job any better? No, well maybe, but I don’t consider the social interactions these people represent as part of the job. Will the company be any better off? Possibly. Most upsettingly though, it does seem that the way to really rise in a company has little do with your actual work. As long as I retain my current enigmatic persona, I have no doubt that I will forever remain a 2nd Class Turd in the deepest bowels of the company as I am now.
Friday, December 16, 2005
All that Glitters
All that Glitters
Well, I tried to give away $12,000 today. Sadly, there were no takers. I’ll admit that my methods were not the most straightforward but still I expected at least one person to be willing to help me take the $12,000 from my car and place it in their own.
The attempt to give away the big bucks started with a simple missive:
I sent this rather murky correspondence to eight people within my immediate work environment. One I knew to be an automatic ‘no, thanks’ but among the other seven I expected at least one to either want or know of someone who wanted at least a box. Sadly, I received for my trouble one vague but ultimately unsuccessful lead, one person who was too sick to respond, four who provided only the unequivocal ‘no, thanks’ and two who apparently didn’t actually make it far enough into the notice to know what it was that was being offered for free. Obviously, the uninterested can’t be faulted, especially since they have the good sense to not want the stupid things any more than I do. Bravo for the uninterested. Those who didn’t make it through leave me wondering if perhaps my use of the vernacular is simply insufficient to transmit the premise in question. Praps I need me one of dem dar rightin classes at the universe-T.
Aside from the annoying fact that I’ve got 125 pounds of cards in the back of my vehicle now, it’s also interesting to note that someone writing a price guide has really gotten their cipherin’ turned the wrong direction. The foremost authority on trading cards and their market values is a publishing company by the name of ‘Beckett’s.’ They publish pricing on every kind of trading card imaginable from 1909 Cy Young baseball cards to Pokemon. According to their price guides, the lot I just tried to give away has a total market value of just over $12,000. Sadly, this is a bunch of crap.
Even the local purveyors of such tripe won’t touch such a lot. It’s not worth their time to attempt to sell such stuff so the real collectable value of the lot is therefore $0. The sample at work proves the other half of the equation. There’s also no perceived capitalized value so the real worth of this lot is exactly nothing. Now I realize that Beckett’s prices are intended to reflect ‘retail’ values but there always has to be some non-zero conversion factor between ‘retail’ and ‘wholesale.’ Companies cannot buy inventory at $0 and turn it around at a profit. Everything has some cost.
Summarily, this is a sad reality of the collectables market. All these items from antiques to sports cards that have some ‘theoretical’ value are in reality worthless. They exist in a sort of pricing limbo; they’re worth only what one person considers their worth at the exact moment they’re for sale. Could be $1000, could be nothing. This insanity of uncertainty is exactly the reason I’ve finally managed to talk myself out of this greed in my soul to obtain, acquire and accumulate. Everything is worthless garbage. Unless you can write on it, read it, use it to cut the grass or cook your dinner with it, everything you own is completely without value. Everything. Those beanie babies. Garbage. Those books you never read. Garbage. No utility, no value. All garbage. Every sad little scrap of it. Is it too late in the year to have a really big gar(b)age sale?
Well, I tried to give away $12,000 today. Sadly, there were no takers. I’ll admit that my methods were not the most straightforward but still I expected at least one person to be willing to help me take the $12,000 from my car and place it in their own.
The attempt to give away the big bucks started with a simple missive:
Addressees,
Before I tell you about the free stuff, I’ll avail myself of the opportunity to bore you with pointless explanatory background.
Some of you may be aware that I’ve been wasting my free time for the last 15 years or so selling trading cards on the internet. That tiny fraction of you who regularly read my blog are also aware that due to a felicitous convergence of serendipity and human reason I’ve recently stopped that insanity and now enjoy my free time as god intended, watching reruns of the Muppet Show and the Smurfs on DVD. That Gargamel, how unsmurfular can you get?
What, you may well be asking yourself, does this mean to me and is he really watching the Smurfs? Well, I’ll tell you. Not quickly, but I’ll eventually get to it. As a result of these last 15 years I have accumulated thousands of these blasted cards. I’m not talking, “Pile these all into your car at once and drive to a nearby lake and dump them right in” thousands either. I’m talking, “Isn’t this amount of weight going to do something bad to the floor of your house?” thousands and frankly I’m sick of them.
And now the part you’ve been waiting for: the Free Stuff. Obviously enough, the free stuff is the cards themselves. Right now, I’ve got about 25,000 mostly Basketball (a small number of Golf and Hockey included as well) that I’m ready to just be rid of. The price for the items is that you need to help me carry them from My vehicle and place them into Your vehicle. After that, godspeed to you and your new friends. If more than one person is interested, it’s worth noting that the 25,000 cards will come in 5 boxes of about (get out your pocket calculators) 5,000 cards each. That works out to about 25lbs per box. Simple math reveals that I can accommodate up to 5 interested parties or possibly more if they bring their ability to negotiate and storage containers of some sort.
That’s it. Anyone who’s interested drop me a line and I can have them in the parking lot before the quarterly meeting today. Also feel free to pass this along to anyone I’ve missed who you think might be interested; I didn’t want to blast the whole office.
PS: Sadly, only the original French version of the Smurfs is out on DVD. So no, I don’t watch the Smurfs but I am considering learning French.
I sent this rather murky correspondence to eight people within my immediate work environment. One I knew to be an automatic ‘no, thanks’ but among the other seven I expected at least one to either want or know of someone who wanted at least a box. Sadly, I received for my trouble one vague but ultimately unsuccessful lead, one person who was too sick to respond, four who provided only the unequivocal ‘no, thanks’ and two who apparently didn’t actually make it far enough into the notice to know what it was that was being offered for free. Obviously, the uninterested can’t be faulted, especially since they have the good sense to not want the stupid things any more than I do. Bravo for the uninterested. Those who didn’t make it through leave me wondering if perhaps my use of the vernacular is simply insufficient to transmit the premise in question. Praps I need me one of dem dar rightin classes at the universe-T.
Aside from the annoying fact that I’ve got 125 pounds of cards in the back of my vehicle now, it’s also interesting to note that someone writing a price guide has really gotten their cipherin’ turned the wrong direction. The foremost authority on trading cards and their market values is a publishing company by the name of ‘Beckett’s.’ They publish pricing on every kind of trading card imaginable from 1909 Cy Young baseball cards to Pokemon. According to their price guides, the lot I just tried to give away has a total market value of just over $12,000. Sadly, this is a bunch of crap.
Even the local purveyors of such tripe won’t touch such a lot. It’s not worth their time to attempt to sell such stuff so the real collectable value of the lot is therefore $0. The sample at work proves the other half of the equation. There’s also no perceived capitalized value so the real worth of this lot is exactly nothing. Now I realize that Beckett’s prices are intended to reflect ‘retail’ values but there always has to be some non-zero conversion factor between ‘retail’ and ‘wholesale.’ Companies cannot buy inventory at $0 and turn it around at a profit. Everything has some cost.
Summarily, this is a sad reality of the collectables market. All these items from antiques to sports cards that have some ‘theoretical’ value are in reality worthless. They exist in a sort of pricing limbo; they’re worth only what one person considers their worth at the exact moment they’re for sale. Could be $1000, could be nothing. This insanity of uncertainty is exactly the reason I’ve finally managed to talk myself out of this greed in my soul to obtain, acquire and accumulate. Everything is worthless garbage. Unless you can write on it, read it, use it to cut the grass or cook your dinner with it, everything you own is completely without value. Everything. Those beanie babies. Garbage. Those books you never read. Garbage. No utility, no value. All garbage. Every sad little scrap of it. Is it too late in the year to have a really big gar(b)age sale?
Friday, December 02, 2005
Survey of the Blogsphere
In the past year or so I’ve basically used this blog as a convenient way to keep a registry of my opinions and various states of mind. My interactions with the rest of the blog world have been relatively minimal and I’ve made no attempt to really see what other people were doing on their own blogs. Well today I broke the pattern and surfed around to at least 200 different blogs. Here’s what I’ve found in my completely unscientific survey...
About 25% are in some language I don’t read fluently enough to understand. Unfortunately, these all look DAMN interesting and it’s annoying that I can’t access those wells of infinite knowledge. No doubt the answers to all my most pressing questions are contained there in indecipherable Estonian.
Yet another 30% are either incomprehensible or inane. The majority of these are comprised of entries like this:
so then I went over to Jessica’s house and we played playstation for a while and then we called up Joe and Jack was there with him and he said hi so we said hi too and Jessica and I talked about how totally geeky Jack was so then we went to get some nachos at taco bell but they were out of cheese and that sucked because I just love cheese...
These basically amount to online diaries. Clearly, these are of great interest to the author but for the rest of us it’s a complete loss. No harm no foul in my book, at least they’re taking the time to write out their thoughts which is never a bad thing.
Another 25% of these seem to be dedicated to commenting on and archiving the news. Some of these are of course a total waste of time; you can only reread the same news article so many times. It might be amusing to look back on in a dozen years, but in the here and now it’s just so much more repetition. On the flip side, some of these are genuinely interesting. I especially enjoy the viewpoint of the blogger at http://islandmonkeyworld.blogspot.com/. For some reason, the opinions of people outside the U.S. always interest me, especially when the involve the various ways in which the U.S. is screwing up abroad. The award for best artwork goes to this blogger: http://neilshakespeare.blogspot.com/. I half expect to see President Bush conducting the construction of Bruegel’s ‘Tower of Babel’ the next time I view the page. The owner of http://farkleberries.blogspot.com/ falls into this category as well and has one of the best looking blogs I’ve seen so far. All that said, there are a LOT of people in this category so I’ll officially leave it to them and keep all such content out of my blog entirely. I dare say they are much more interested in it and better informed than I am. Keep up the good work!
The remaining 20% is a mishmash...
A significant subset of them seem to be selling some specific product or advertising a business. I’ll admit that I don’t understand how blogger really serves that purpose adequately. I guess if all you want is a free website then it does what you need it to.
Some just like to provide information. For example this blog is full of somewhat random facts about Ancient Rome: http://ancientromeblog.blogspot.com/. I categorize my own ‘Rob Reads’ blogs in this category. Clearly, it’s not the best vehicle for transmitting this sort of data but it does have the advantages of being easy to do, cheap and easy to share. Not exactly the first place you’d want to cite in your PhD thesis but good for a casual read or two.
Saddest of all is the ‘dead’ blog, an idea that just never quite managed to make it past the first post. Examples abound: http://lacassosrue32.blogspot.com/ and you have to feel somewhat sorry for them. Who knows what this person would have written if they’d just managed to keep going.
Anyway, in summary, I find that my cynicism about the content of the Blogsphere was only partially justified. There’s some really good content out there but sadly it’s buried in reams and reams of worthless blabbering. Not surprisingly, the contents of blogger reflect humanity at large. Luckily it’s much easier to detach yourself from a stupid blog than it is to extract yourself from a stupid conversation.
More importantly, this excursion into all these other blogs has taught me a few cardinal rules of creating new entries:
1. Never talk about the news. There are already plenty of people doing that both on the internet and on television. People don’t need MORE news commentary.
2. If you find yourself using the name of someone you know, stop. Nobody will care about whatever you’re about to type except you.
3. Just after you finish your first blog entry containing a piece of your original poetry, immediately delete your blog and burn your computer.
4. Nobody ever reads more than the two most recent entries of your blog. Everything after that 2nd posting might as well be deleted because nobody has the patience to go any further.
5. Don’t worry about what other people might think of what you write in your blog. There’s no way they’ll ever be able to find you in real life. At least not without knowing how to use the internet... or a phone book... or directory assistance...
About 25% are in some language I don’t read fluently enough to understand. Unfortunately, these all look DAMN interesting and it’s annoying that I can’t access those wells of infinite knowledge. No doubt the answers to all my most pressing questions are contained there in indecipherable Estonian.
Yet another 30% are either incomprehensible or inane. The majority of these are comprised of entries like this:
so then I went over to Jessica’s house and we played playstation for a while and then we called up Joe and Jack was there with him and he said hi so we said hi too and Jessica and I talked about how totally geeky Jack was so then we went to get some nachos at taco bell but they were out of cheese and that sucked because I just love cheese...
These basically amount to online diaries. Clearly, these are of great interest to the author but for the rest of us it’s a complete loss. No harm no foul in my book, at least they’re taking the time to write out their thoughts which is never a bad thing.
Another 25% of these seem to be dedicated to commenting on and archiving the news. Some of these are of course a total waste of time; you can only reread the same news article so many times. It might be amusing to look back on in a dozen years, but in the here and now it’s just so much more repetition. On the flip side, some of these are genuinely interesting. I especially enjoy the viewpoint of the blogger at http://islandmonkeyworld.blogspot.com/. For some reason, the opinions of people outside the U.S. always interest me, especially when the involve the various ways in which the U.S. is screwing up abroad. The award for best artwork goes to this blogger: http://neilshakespeare.blogspot.com/. I half expect to see President Bush conducting the construction of Bruegel’s ‘Tower of Babel’ the next time I view the page. The owner of http://farkleberries.blogspot.com/ falls into this category as well and has one of the best looking blogs I’ve seen so far. All that said, there are a LOT of people in this category so I’ll officially leave it to them and keep all such content out of my blog entirely. I dare say they are much more interested in it and better informed than I am. Keep up the good work!
The remaining 20% is a mishmash...
A significant subset of them seem to be selling some specific product or advertising a business. I’ll admit that I don’t understand how blogger really serves that purpose adequately. I guess if all you want is a free website then it does what you need it to.
Some just like to provide information. For example this blog is full of somewhat random facts about Ancient Rome: http://ancientromeblog.blogspot.com/. I categorize my own ‘Rob Reads’ blogs in this category. Clearly, it’s not the best vehicle for transmitting this sort of data but it does have the advantages of being easy to do, cheap and easy to share. Not exactly the first place you’d want to cite in your PhD thesis but good for a casual read or two.
Saddest of all is the ‘dead’ blog, an idea that just never quite managed to make it past the first post. Examples abound: http://lacassosrue32.blogspot.com/ and you have to feel somewhat sorry for them. Who knows what this person would have written if they’d just managed to keep going.
Anyway, in summary, I find that my cynicism about the content of the Blogsphere was only partially justified. There’s some really good content out there but sadly it’s buried in reams and reams of worthless blabbering. Not surprisingly, the contents of blogger reflect humanity at large. Luckily it’s much easier to detach yourself from a stupid blog than it is to extract yourself from a stupid conversation.
More importantly, this excursion into all these other blogs has taught me a few cardinal rules of creating new entries:
1. Never talk about the news. There are already plenty of people doing that both on the internet and on television. People don’t need MORE news commentary.
2. If you find yourself using the name of someone you know, stop. Nobody will care about whatever you’re about to type except you.
3. Just after you finish your first blog entry containing a piece of your original poetry, immediately delete your blog and burn your computer.
4. Nobody ever reads more than the two most recent entries of your blog. Everything after that 2nd posting might as well be deleted because nobody has the patience to go any further.
5. Don’t worry about what other people might think of what you write in your blog. There’s no way they’ll ever be able to find you in real life. At least not without knowing how to use the internet... or a phone book... or directory assistance...
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Little White Lies with Black Black Hearts
At some point it was decided in this country that it’s cruel to tell someone the truth. Rather than deal with each other in a straightforward manner, we’ve decided it’s better to hide all our true feelings in the vagaries of euphemism and omission. Rather than have serious conversations and say things like, 'Sir, you may not realize this but you have some serious body odor and the boss is going to fire you because he can’t stand to have you around the office,' the response is to gossip endlessly amongst ourselves and let the person’s career decline while the victim wonders what happened to cause their sudden termination of employment. If it were you with the body odor, would you rather lose your job or would you rather have one really uncomfortable conversation?
If someone in your vicinity is doing themselves a disservice, then it’s your duty as a human to tell them about it. This doesn’t mean you have to critique the style of dress of everyone you see on the street but if they’re doing something to their own physical or material detriment then the least considerate thing you can do it to keep mum about it. It’s not a hard thing to do and it’s very rewarding. In this spirit, I’ll start by telling a few groups on this planet how wrong they are...
--
Republican War Mongers, got yourselves into kind of a mess didn’t ya? Think next time we might want to think things through to the end a little more? Hmm? Yeah, the next time you decide to take over a country, you might want to have a little better plan for getting OUT of the country afterwards. You realize don’t you that Iraq was actually pretty progressive for an Arab state, right? Sure they had their problems but so does the U.S. You don’t see Iraqis over here with machine guns trying to protect the Native Americans or free all the low-income people working in Republican sweatshops do you?
Democrats, you can’t honestly think we can just leave after the mess we’ve made do ya? If we owe the Iraqis anything then it’s to at least leave them with a country as good as the one they had before. Yes, I know the country can’t be perfect and yes this whole thing was one big political maneuver by the President to clean up what his daddy left behind but the fact is that we’re there now and we’re stuck. Don’t demoralize our troops with talk of how much of a mistake this is because truth be told they don’t need to hear that. Is it true? Sure. Should we support them anyway because it wasn’t THEIR mistake? Doubly sure. So just sit down and shut up for a minute. The Republicans got us into this war and they’ll eventually get us out. If there’s one thing the religious right knows how to do, it’s wage a war in the middle east. Just look at the Crusades.
--
Intelligent Design Crackpots, ID is NOT science. You don’t do science by looking in a book for the answer you want and then going out to find ‘evidence’ to support your wacko theory. Real science works in the reverse; take the evidence and from that generate a reasonable theory to explain your observations. Then you TEST your theory over and over again.
Scientific Dogmatists, they’re not doing science but even so, we cannot dismiss their premise out of hand. Was the entire world created in 7 days from nothing? Exceptionally doubtful. There’s no evidence and even if there was it’s unprovable speculation. They do bring up an interesting question though. Did life evolve independently on this planet? I’d say there’s at least a 40% chance that panspermia is in fact the real answer to the origin of life for us. Life’s damn complicated to build from scratch but boy once it happens in one place it sure is good at getting from A to B. There’s even logic in the argument that perhaps life was placed here on purpose. In all probability it wasn’t by some fictitious all-powerful being but from the perspective of primitives, any entity more advanced than an ape would have been looked upon as a god. Heck, maybe we should be combing Norway looking for Slartibartfast’s signature on a glacier. All these theories are within the realm of possibility and I think if we’re going to start teaching Intelligent Design in our classroom that these other theories deserve equal time. In my book, the Christian view of genesis makes the least sense of all. I mean come on, seven days for an entire planet by a god who made us in his own image? I’m not believing in any God who’s as unattractive as the average human.
--
To the Exceptionally Rich, you did NOT get rich because you’re smarter, better or work harder than everybody else around you. You got rich because you’re a bit smarter than the average person, a bit harder working and REALLY lucky. Just because you have vast millions does not make you better than everyone else. In fact, chances are that since you’ve become rich you’ve completely lost touch with reality. If you were suddenly transported into the position of someone who’s really poor you’d probably starve and would NOT work your way up to being rich again. Nobody gets that lucky twice. So get off your high horses and be thankful for what you’ve got. Realize that no matter how hard you worked to get where you are, there are a million people who worked harder but still ended up dead in the gutter because the right opportunity never came along.
To the Exceptionally Poor, it’s probably your fault that you’re poor. Unless you have some congenital physical problem that keeps you from doing much of anything, you’re probably poor because you screwed up somewhere and not just because you were ‘unlucky.’ Can’t pay the rent? I’m not surprised, I saw you at the gas station the other day buying $50 in lottery tickets and cigarettes. Didn’t bother to pay attention in school? Well you’d better pay attention to those fries. When the buzzer goes off, take them out. Can’t buy your child a coat? Well, maybe that big screen TV at the Rent-to-Own place wasn’t such a great idea. Luckily for you, there’s hope. Don’t buy those lottery tickets for a month and you’ll have enough to take a class. Then you’ll just need a bus pass and you can actually go downtown to the community college and educate yourself. The government is all about handing out checks to people but what they really need is life management skills. Throwing money at the problem just makes it worse. If you feed a feral animal long enough, it forgets how to hunt on its own. The same applies to people. Why should they bother to improve themselves if the government will subsidize their continued inactivity and waste?
--
To the Readers of this Blog, congratulations on having waded through 1,186 words! If you made it this far, you must be having a problem with insomnia. I’ve found that it’s all about routine. Think up some relatively unexciting scenario and each night before you go to bed go through this scenario in your head. If the scenario ends before you fall asleep, repeat it until you do. Be warned, the first night will suck big time, especially if the scenario is too interesting. Each night, you’ll go to sleep in less and less time. Oh, also, don’t read or watch TV in bed. Train your brain that bed equals sleep and only sleep. (exceptions given for intimate relations) The more different things you do in bed the harder it’ll be to actually sleep.
To the Non-Readers of this Blog, so what HAVE you been reading then? Clearly, my reading list is at an end if I’m writing rather than reading. I could really use some good suggestions. PLEASE! This blog is sapping my will to live...
If someone in your vicinity is doing themselves a disservice, then it’s your duty as a human to tell them about it. This doesn’t mean you have to critique the style of dress of everyone you see on the street but if they’re doing something to their own physical or material detriment then the least considerate thing you can do it to keep mum about it. It’s not a hard thing to do and it’s very rewarding. In this spirit, I’ll start by telling a few groups on this planet how wrong they are...
--
Republican War Mongers, got yourselves into kind of a mess didn’t ya? Think next time we might want to think things through to the end a little more? Hmm? Yeah, the next time you decide to take over a country, you might want to have a little better plan for getting OUT of the country afterwards. You realize don’t you that Iraq was actually pretty progressive for an Arab state, right? Sure they had their problems but so does the U.S. You don’t see Iraqis over here with machine guns trying to protect the Native Americans or free all the low-income people working in Republican sweatshops do you?
Democrats, you can’t honestly think we can just leave after the mess we’ve made do ya? If we owe the Iraqis anything then it’s to at least leave them with a country as good as the one they had before. Yes, I know the country can’t be perfect and yes this whole thing was one big political maneuver by the President to clean up what his daddy left behind but the fact is that we’re there now and we’re stuck. Don’t demoralize our troops with talk of how much of a mistake this is because truth be told they don’t need to hear that. Is it true? Sure. Should we support them anyway because it wasn’t THEIR mistake? Doubly sure. So just sit down and shut up for a minute. The Republicans got us into this war and they’ll eventually get us out. If there’s one thing the religious right knows how to do, it’s wage a war in the middle east. Just look at the Crusades.
--
Intelligent Design Crackpots, ID is NOT science. You don’t do science by looking in a book for the answer you want and then going out to find ‘evidence’ to support your wacko theory. Real science works in the reverse; take the evidence and from that generate a reasonable theory to explain your observations. Then you TEST your theory over and over again.
Scientific Dogmatists, they’re not doing science but even so, we cannot dismiss their premise out of hand. Was the entire world created in 7 days from nothing? Exceptionally doubtful. There’s no evidence and even if there was it’s unprovable speculation. They do bring up an interesting question though. Did life evolve independently on this planet? I’d say there’s at least a 40% chance that panspermia is in fact the real answer to the origin of life for us. Life’s damn complicated to build from scratch but boy once it happens in one place it sure is good at getting from A to B. There’s even logic in the argument that perhaps life was placed here on purpose. In all probability it wasn’t by some fictitious all-powerful being but from the perspective of primitives, any entity more advanced than an ape would have been looked upon as a god. Heck, maybe we should be combing Norway looking for Slartibartfast’s signature on a glacier. All these theories are within the realm of possibility and I think if we’re going to start teaching Intelligent Design in our classroom that these other theories deserve equal time. In my book, the Christian view of genesis makes the least sense of all. I mean come on, seven days for an entire planet by a god who made us in his own image? I’m not believing in any God who’s as unattractive as the average human.
--
To the Exceptionally Rich, you did NOT get rich because you’re smarter, better or work harder than everybody else around you. You got rich because you’re a bit smarter than the average person, a bit harder working and REALLY lucky. Just because you have vast millions does not make you better than everyone else. In fact, chances are that since you’ve become rich you’ve completely lost touch with reality. If you were suddenly transported into the position of someone who’s really poor you’d probably starve and would NOT work your way up to being rich again. Nobody gets that lucky twice. So get off your high horses and be thankful for what you’ve got. Realize that no matter how hard you worked to get where you are, there are a million people who worked harder but still ended up dead in the gutter because the right opportunity never came along.
To the Exceptionally Poor, it’s probably your fault that you’re poor. Unless you have some congenital physical problem that keeps you from doing much of anything, you’re probably poor because you screwed up somewhere and not just because you were ‘unlucky.’ Can’t pay the rent? I’m not surprised, I saw you at the gas station the other day buying $50 in lottery tickets and cigarettes. Didn’t bother to pay attention in school? Well you’d better pay attention to those fries. When the buzzer goes off, take them out. Can’t buy your child a coat? Well, maybe that big screen TV at the Rent-to-Own place wasn’t such a great idea. Luckily for you, there’s hope. Don’t buy those lottery tickets for a month and you’ll have enough to take a class. Then you’ll just need a bus pass and you can actually go downtown to the community college and educate yourself. The government is all about handing out checks to people but what they really need is life management skills. Throwing money at the problem just makes it worse. If you feed a feral animal long enough, it forgets how to hunt on its own. The same applies to people. Why should they bother to improve themselves if the government will subsidize their continued inactivity and waste?
--
To the Readers of this Blog, congratulations on having waded through 1,186 words! If you made it this far, you must be having a problem with insomnia. I’ve found that it’s all about routine. Think up some relatively unexciting scenario and each night before you go to bed go through this scenario in your head. If the scenario ends before you fall asleep, repeat it until you do. Be warned, the first night will suck big time, especially if the scenario is too interesting. Each night, you’ll go to sleep in less and less time. Oh, also, don’t read or watch TV in bed. Train your brain that bed equals sleep and only sleep. (exceptions given for intimate relations) The more different things you do in bed the harder it’ll be to actually sleep.
To the Non-Readers of this Blog, so what HAVE you been reading then? Clearly, my reading list is at an end if I’m writing rather than reading. I could really use some good suggestions. PLEASE! This blog is sapping my will to live...
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
The Emancipation of Tattered
Why, you may ask did I bother? The answer is simple enough: greed. I’ll admit that with no hesitation. I had some deranged idea that if I could just make enough money, I could buy my way into a happier existence. That is not to say that I was unhappy per se but one of the clear messages that society sends our way is that more is better. Consume, consume, consume and you’ll be happier. What right had I to disagree? If I can sell more, I can make more money and therefore buy more stuff which will make me happy! YAY! That’s a wonderful and simple formula that results in total happiness for everyone!
Friday, November 18, 2005
The Eye that sees itself - 2005
It's that time of year again... oh yes, review time at work. For those not familiar, they ask you all these self-assessment questions to be inserted into your review. I've paraphrased the questions and included my responses below for posterity...
* How well does Rob do at keeping up his technical knowledge?
Rob keeps on hand exactly enough technical knowledge to do his job. Rob has long ago lost the sense of awe and wonder associated with simply knowing something about computing that can't put to any practical use. While his associates all clamor about AJAX and Stylesheets, he's perfectly happy to continue to plod on in whatever south-going groove he’s been in for the past 10 years. If some new technological insight is called for he will happily go acquire whatever information is needed but until that time comes he sees no value in surfing the web looking for the ‘next big thing.’ This differentiates Rob from his colleagues in a significant way. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is left as an exercise to the reader.
* How well does Rob balance his quality and quantity of work?
This question, like many of the others, is an impossible conundrum. What standard exists for either the quality or quantity of work a person does? I personally, have only a poor sense of how much work other people in the department actually do. Worse, I have an even worse sense of what would typically be considered a “normal” amount of work. Having spoken to Rob on this point at length, I know that at times he ‘feels’ lazy and relatively unproductive and that the quality of his work has also suffered significantly over the past few years. My analysis leads me to believe that this is largely due to a sense of ennui and let’s face it, on most levels this job is pretty boring. But the real question is, how does Rob’s work stack up compared to his peers? Who can say with any surety?
* How does Rob get along with others?
For a guy who interviews like a moldy sack of potatoes, Rob seems to get along fairly well with others around him. This isn’t so much, I think because he’s pleasant or amusing to be around because he does an immaculate job of putting on a façade of misanthropy for those who don’t really know him. If he gets along with other people it’s only because he’s so utterly ignorable. Underneath, Rob may be an agreeable and interesting person on the inside, but to the outside world he’s as utterly free of personality as the aforementioned sack of potatoes.
* How does Rob do at planning?
If there’s one thing that Rob does with absolute and utter precision, it’s not planning. Rob is a support person at heart. As a support person, you don’t plan, you just do. If a customer calls up with a problem, you fix it, regardless of whatever plans were set down before. In general, Rob will try desperately to plan, to bring order to the chaos of his job but invariably the tides of change and customer need wash those away like a sidewalk chalk drawing.
* How is Rob at Decision Making?
Yeah, Rob sucks at this. Your question seems to steer towards long-winded analysis of the problem, followed by action. Rob’s style is to formulate 10 hypotheses and try them all while the rest of the table is still arguing about what best to do. Again, this goes back to the whole support issue. If a customer has a problem, they want the problem solved NOW. They don’t want an hour-long discussion of best-case/worst-case scenarios.
* How does Rob do at communicating Orally and in Writing?
In general, it’s rare that Rob actually SAYS anything. When he does, it’s usually confusing, poorly thought out and makes him look like a simpleton. But, that’s what you get from having introverted employees. In writing, Rob comes across as stilted, sesquipedalian, and with an unusual style that’s sometimes hard to follow until you get to become properly accustomed to it.
* How does Rob adapt to change?
Adapting to change is Rob’s only real solid job skill. I’ve often heard him say that he’d be happy to sweep the floors if only provided with a proper broom to do so. A new system is largely the same to Rob as an old one because he doesn’t really hold on to information about a system much past the point at which he stops working on it. Luckily, this doesn’t seem to hinder his productivity significantly; he can pick up whatever skills are required for a job in short order and be prepared to do it with relative efficiency.
* Other comments?
Rob should come out of his shell more and show the people around him his softer, gentler, less perpetually annoyed at the world side. He needs to expand his skill sets beyond mere programming and into more interpersonal realms like sales and marketing; let his expressive and creative flare express itself more than what’s allowed in the confines of a programming position. The majority of Rob’s real talents are wasted at the desk of a lower-level programmer. Rob needs to find a position that will make use of the full spectrum of Rob’s abilities.
* How well does Rob do at keeping up his technical knowledge?
Rob keeps on hand exactly enough technical knowledge to do his job. Rob has long ago lost the sense of awe and wonder associated with simply knowing something about computing that can't put to any practical use. While his associates all clamor about AJAX and Stylesheets, he's perfectly happy to continue to plod on in whatever south-going groove he’s been in for the past 10 years. If some new technological insight is called for he will happily go acquire whatever information is needed but until that time comes he sees no value in surfing the web looking for the ‘next big thing.’ This differentiates Rob from his colleagues in a significant way. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is left as an exercise to the reader.
* How well does Rob balance his quality and quantity of work?
This question, like many of the others, is an impossible conundrum. What standard exists for either the quality or quantity of work a person does? I personally, have only a poor sense of how much work other people in the department actually do. Worse, I have an even worse sense of what would typically be considered a “normal” amount of work. Having spoken to Rob on this point at length, I know that at times he ‘feels’ lazy and relatively unproductive and that the quality of his work has also suffered significantly over the past few years. My analysis leads me to believe that this is largely due to a sense of ennui and let’s face it, on most levels this job is pretty boring. But the real question is, how does Rob’s work stack up compared to his peers? Who can say with any surety?
* How does Rob get along with others?
For a guy who interviews like a moldy sack of potatoes, Rob seems to get along fairly well with others around him. This isn’t so much, I think because he’s pleasant or amusing to be around because he does an immaculate job of putting on a façade of misanthropy for those who don’t really know him. If he gets along with other people it’s only because he’s so utterly ignorable. Underneath, Rob may be an agreeable and interesting person on the inside, but to the outside world he’s as utterly free of personality as the aforementioned sack of potatoes.
* How does Rob do at planning?
If there’s one thing that Rob does with absolute and utter precision, it’s not planning. Rob is a support person at heart. As a support person, you don’t plan, you just do. If a customer calls up with a problem, you fix it, regardless of whatever plans were set down before. In general, Rob will try desperately to plan, to bring order to the chaos of his job but invariably the tides of change and customer need wash those away like a sidewalk chalk drawing.
* How is Rob at Decision Making?
Yeah, Rob sucks at this. Your question seems to steer towards long-winded analysis of the problem, followed by action. Rob’s style is to formulate 10 hypotheses and try them all while the rest of the table is still arguing about what best to do. Again, this goes back to the whole support issue. If a customer has a problem, they want the problem solved NOW. They don’t want an hour-long discussion of best-case/worst-case scenarios.
* How does Rob do at communicating Orally and in Writing?
In general, it’s rare that Rob actually SAYS anything. When he does, it’s usually confusing, poorly thought out and makes him look like a simpleton. But, that’s what you get from having introverted employees. In writing, Rob comes across as stilted, sesquipedalian, and with an unusual style that’s sometimes hard to follow until you get to become properly accustomed to it.
* How does Rob adapt to change?
Adapting to change is Rob’s only real solid job skill. I’ve often heard him say that he’d be happy to sweep the floors if only provided with a proper broom to do so. A new system is largely the same to Rob as an old one because he doesn’t really hold on to information about a system much past the point at which he stops working on it. Luckily, this doesn’t seem to hinder his productivity significantly; he can pick up whatever skills are required for a job in short order and be prepared to do it with relative efficiency.
* Other comments?
Rob should come out of his shell more and show the people around him his softer, gentler, less perpetually annoyed at the world side. He needs to expand his skill sets beyond mere programming and into more interpersonal realms like sales and marketing; let his expressive and creative flare express itself more than what’s allowed in the confines of a programming position. The majority of Rob’s real talents are wasted at the desk of a lower-level programmer. Rob needs to find a position that will make use of the full spectrum of Rob’s abilities.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
The Poverty of Plenty
After a long hiatus, I have to open the newest entry with an expression of the utter futility of human activity. I sit here now engaged in a commercial activity that while relaxing in a Zen sort of way I have to question the logic of. For over an hour tonight I have perched myself here entering items for sale into my beckett.com marketplace but logically speaking there’s no point to it whatsoever. At last count, I had 85,943 different items for sale there, all entered by hand over the course of a little over two years. The reasoning for all this effort is a straightforward one: Money. Everyone wants a little extra money in their life but in my case it’s become obvious that I spend so much time acquiring the money in question that I don’t really have any time left to enjoy it. My mindless hobby has become a slave driver as every night I find myself trudging upstairs to mail out someone’s order. I could make more money in less time working at McDonalds but would they let me watch Dr. Who while I was making cheeseburgers?
When I was younger, this was all much less contradictory. I had a piddling allowance and more importantly nowhere to shop. For most of my life, I had access to one bookshop (and by bookshop I mean a junk shop that had shelf upon shelf of old dusty books from the 30s and 40s) so when the freak coincidences of ‘having the money for’ and ‘actually finding something worth buying’ occurred it was a MAJOR event. Even more significant, however, was the fact that when this major event occurred I actually went home and READ the book in question. When I waded through the hundreds of ancient arithmetic books and finally found a good calculus book I actually sat down and learned calculus. In relative terms, I had next to nothing but somehow it counted for more.
Now I can freely convert free time into cash and almost every book ever published is at my fingertips but in most significant ways I have lost ground. Before, I concentrated on a topic out of necessity. If I had a Latin textbook then I was bound to it by the virtue of its uniqueness in my library. It was either study the new Latin textbook or something I’d already read so the choice was simple. Today, in the glut of availability I have too many distractions. Which subject do I choose for my purposeless studies? Spanish? Latin? French? Russian? Botany? Mathematics? Literature? Writing? And once I get involved in one thing or another, I start to feel guilty about neglecting the others and am invariably pulled away. Because I have access to so much, everything I have is without value. I have a huge library covering all manner of topics from the sciences to languages yet do I speak any of these languages? Have I acquired any new skills? Hell no. I’ve wasted a lot of time and money acquiring these possessions but be damned if anything positive has actually come of it.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
On the Balance of Blogging
Today begins the new blog with a new set of principles to guide it. In my previous and sporadic ramblings, I have sought to write on various topics of presumably common interest or pose interesting problems and for the most part I’ve found these explorations of my internal psyche to be at least mildly amusing. Apparently some other people have as well. Unfortunately, while I’m busily espousing the validity of this or the insanity of that what has been lacking is the acquisition of new knowledge. I can, and have, been busily building up my own opinions into tidy little entries but during that time I haven’t really acquired any new information. There have been various positive outcomes in real life: people attempting to convert me to Christianity, some very diverting conversations and small pockets of agreement and new theories to some interesting questions. This is all well and good but at what cost does it come? While I’m variously outputting my own opinion I’ve forsaken the input that it takes to build new opinions.
The 60 to 90 minutes it takes to generate a blog entry that is probably of no interest to anyone but me could certainly be better spent in study of some sort. This is not to say that the act of creating the entries themselves is frivolous. It certainly does aid one in solidifying one’s thoughts to write it out in painstaking detail. The point is that at the end you don’t really know anything you didn’t know before. You’ve only massaged an existing belief into something which is 98% similar to what you had previously.
To the ends of building onto rather than merely rearranging my mental furniture, I begin the hybrid project to annotate a few key pieces of literature as I read them. No doubt the same sort of observations will be made as in the previous ramblings but in a context that allows me to also add to my own repertoire of knowledge while also massaging it into something more concrete as I go. Wish me luck.
The 60 to 90 minutes it takes to generate a blog entry that is probably of no interest to anyone but me could certainly be better spent in study of some sort. This is not to say that the act of creating the entries themselves is frivolous. It certainly does aid one in solidifying one’s thoughts to write it out in painstaking detail. The point is that at the end you don’t really know anything you didn’t know before. You’ve only massaged an existing belief into something which is 98% similar to what you had previously.
To the ends of building onto rather than merely rearranging my mental furniture, I begin the hybrid project to annotate a few key pieces of literature as I read them. No doubt the same sort of observations will be made as in the previous ramblings but in a context that allows me to also add to my own repertoire of knowledge while also massaging it into something more concrete as I go. Wish me luck.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Workin’ 9 to Eternity
Unlike what the title may evoke, this epistle has little to do with real eternity but rather with the perceived eternity of one’s working life in a particular position. Few people go into a job with the intent to only stay a year but it doesn’t take long for the ‘this is the last job I’ll ever have’ attitude to turn into a visceral need to be anywhere else. Inevitably, what was novel or interesting in the beginning turns into day-to-day humdrum existence. What was amusing becomes annoying and you find yourself inhabiting a cubical-shaped personal hell filled with a million screeching harpies.
It seems indisputable that every job suffers from this inevitable decline; what varies is the rate at which this decline occurs. The rate of descent into personal job hell varies from job to job and from person to person. I for one, tend to become rather bored with exceptional rapidity. Once the learning and innovation phase of a job is over, I’m ready to find greener pastures with less predictability and more room for innovation. It has been my experience that all the truly entertaining work of establishing procedures, developing standards and building the foundation for future work in the department is done after the first year. After that it’s just reapplying what you’ve built over and over again. Once you’ve established that baseline, you’ve guaranteed yourself a vacuum of real quality entertainment for years to come.
Sometimes the hell isn’t of your own making but instead inherited. I sadly point to my own colleagues who have in fact entered such a situation. Coming into the department well after its practices were established they now have to live with them or attempt to change them. While they have done a great job of bringing their own special knowledge and experience to the department I am sure it’s frustrating trying to work in an area whose standards don’t quite meet their own. Interestingly it is their commentary and criticism which I now find most interesting. Having established a certain way of doing things I’m endless intrigued by the differing viewpoints they being to the exact same set of problems.
Sadly our society has an ‘If you can’t say anything nice then don’t say anything’ mentality that filters their real feedback. Those who subscribe to such a motto do themselves and their peers a great disservice.
Lastly, some jobs just can’t last. When the job involves creation of a product, support of that product will eventually take its toll. You can alleviate this somewhat with draconian long-term support contracts and the like but the crux of the matter is that someone will have to support this customer for the life of the product and that person is probably the one that created it in the first place. So as time goes along, the person who created the product is less and less able to create new product because of ongoing responsibilities to existing customers. Eventually the wicket snaps and they will go somewhere else merely to escape their own creations.
And thus the cycle of creation and escape continues…
It seems indisputable that every job suffers from this inevitable decline; what varies is the rate at which this decline occurs. The rate of descent into personal job hell varies from job to job and from person to person. I for one, tend to become rather bored with exceptional rapidity. Once the learning and innovation phase of a job is over, I’m ready to find greener pastures with less predictability and more room for innovation. It has been my experience that all the truly entertaining work of establishing procedures, developing standards and building the foundation for future work in the department is done after the first year. After that it’s just reapplying what you’ve built over and over again. Once you’ve established that baseline, you’ve guaranteed yourself a vacuum of real quality entertainment for years to come.
Sometimes the hell isn’t of your own making but instead inherited. I sadly point to my own colleagues who have in fact entered such a situation. Coming into the department well after its practices were established they now have to live with them or attempt to change them. While they have done a great job of bringing their own special knowledge and experience to the department I am sure it’s frustrating trying to work in an area whose standards don’t quite meet their own. Interestingly it is their commentary and criticism which I now find most interesting. Having established a certain way of doing things I’m endless intrigued by the differing viewpoints they being to the exact same set of problems.
Sadly our society has an ‘If you can’t say anything nice then don’t say anything’ mentality that filters their real feedback. Those who subscribe to such a motto do themselves and their peers a great disservice.
Lastly, some jobs just can’t last. When the job involves creation of a product, support of that product will eventually take its toll. You can alleviate this somewhat with draconian long-term support contracts and the like but the crux of the matter is that someone will have to support this customer for the life of the product and that person is probably the one that created it in the first place. So as time goes along, the person who created the product is less and less able to create new product because of ongoing responsibilities to existing customers. Eventually the wicket snaps and they will go somewhere else merely to escape their own creations.
And thus the cycle of creation and escape continues…
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
The Lost Art of Conversation
It seems that the fine art of conversation, complete with possible conflict and rife with potential controversy, has died a horrible death and left in its wake only a hollow and meaningless stepchild, small talk. Or, perhaps it’s just that I’m somehow lacking in my execution of it that leaves me thinking so. Maybe people don’t care to talk about topics that interest me (science, history, religion, politics, etc) or is that our society has grown so contentious over these issues that everyone is afraid to start a conversation for fear of offending someone and so to avoid conflict we constrain ourselves to inane topics such as the weather, the ‘big game’ and last nights television programming?
I’ve often that thought that under the surface, most people really WANT to talk about interesting things. That if you could just dig down, under the veneer of defensive meaningless gibber that every one of us is seething with ideas that would just offend the pants off our neighbors if only they were allowed to escape, a verbal Pandora’s box. It’s occurred to me that small talk may be the vehicle by which humans ‘feel out’ each other to determine if their ideas are compatible enough to continue into more interesting conversations.
Since I admittedly suck at small talk the humans I interact with simply subconsciously register a negative response in the ‘Rob’ column and go look for someone else to talk to. This is an understandable response but it does leave one wondering what epiphanies are hiding behind the protective conversational shell of ones neighbors.
Alternatively, it’s possible that people frankly don’t care nearly as much as I do about most of the topics in my conversational top ten. In order for that to be the case, however, most of the people I know would have to care about precious little except for sports and television. I cannot recall, in fact, the last time I overheard a conversation in the office about anything outside the realm of everyday experience: company gossip, entertainment and what to have for lunch. Where are the philosophers? Did all the mathematicians at heart go on to actually become mathematicians and leave me behind? Surely not; surely there’s more to the average person than the surface experiences of everyday life.
In defense of the common man, I haven’t exactly gone out of my way to plumb the depths of anyone within my daily contact but I haven’t gotten any real glimmers either that swifter waters are running under the surface either. We all have our outward obsessions, hobbies, religions, etc but what about the real mechanics of the psyche? Perhaps this is too much to expect to see. Some currents run too deep to show themselves at all.
Most sad of all is the possibility that we just don’t talk to each other because we’re afraid to. This country has become so polarized: black/white, liberal/conservative, man/woman, different/not different that you can’t really say much of anything without offending someone. It seems tragic that we can’t explore these differences and learn from each other rather than being afraid of being attacked or sued. Despite my opinion on the subject, I am completely fascinated by people of a religious nature. I enjoy hearing their ideas about how the world works, what God means to them and how it impacts their daily lives. The lives, feelings, beliefs of the people who are NOT like me are of unbounded interest because they represent the rest of the human story that I think all of us want to figure out. Unfortunately, the old ‘never discuss religion or politics’ rule rears its head and we have to mum up on the topics of real interest because we’re afraid we’ll offend someone.
While the state of conversation is clearly in disarray, there is yet hope for the social animal that is man. At this point, I’ll site a few rare counter examples to the trends noted above. First and foremost I must point out my own wife. She will talk happily, spiritedly and intelligently on any one of hundreds of topics from Genetic Engineering to Abortion Rights with anyone and everyone. She’s never afraid to speak her mind and drives her points home like a mathematics professor with a rigor that’s obvious to anyone with an open mind to start with. If not for her, I’d be a blubbering mass looking for some form of social outlet. Her audience may not always like what she says but that’s hardly the point. She adds to the total knowledge of the world and is a teacher and leader in every sense. If every human on the planet conversed as well as she does then we would live in a much better informed and no doubt much happier society.
My own father, not surprisingly, is also good for a conversation in the realm of music, psychology, philosophy or human behavior. His viewpoint on the world is as unique as my own; I sincerely wish he had the time to sit down and write some of it out.
The only other person with whom I can say I’ve had a really interesting conversation in the past ten years is my associate from 3 jobs ago, Charlie (See Art and Its Appreciation). Whereas my wife is primarily anchored in the concrete, Charlie is more an aficionado of the artistic, historical and dare I say religious realms. Though softer spoken than my wife, Charlie is not afraid to talk about the ‘forbidden’ topics that other people shy away from and is always good for a real and truly interesting conversation devoid of any reference to the weather, sports and 99% of TV shows.
Logic assures me that these are not the only people on the planet who want to have a real meaty conversation with some real content. The chances are infinitesimal that there aren’t at least another ten people like them in my immediate vicinity. The problem, of course, is identifying them and getting through to their true intellect without the usual requisite hours of inane babbling about sports that most people go through. This assumes that even after all the small talk people find their way into real and relevant conversations. Perhaps they just don’t and I’m wishing on a star that has long since ceased to shine.
I’ve often that thought that under the surface, most people really WANT to talk about interesting things. That if you could just dig down, under the veneer of defensive meaningless gibber that every one of us is seething with ideas that would just offend the pants off our neighbors if only they were allowed to escape, a verbal Pandora’s box. It’s occurred to me that small talk may be the vehicle by which humans ‘feel out’ each other to determine if their ideas are compatible enough to continue into more interesting conversations.
Since I admittedly suck at small talk the humans I interact with simply subconsciously register a negative response in the ‘Rob’ column and go look for someone else to talk to. This is an understandable response but it does leave one wondering what epiphanies are hiding behind the protective conversational shell of ones neighbors.
Alternatively, it’s possible that people frankly don’t care nearly as much as I do about most of the topics in my conversational top ten. In order for that to be the case, however, most of the people I know would have to care about precious little except for sports and television. I cannot recall, in fact, the last time I overheard a conversation in the office about anything outside the realm of everyday experience: company gossip, entertainment and what to have for lunch. Where are the philosophers? Did all the mathematicians at heart go on to actually become mathematicians and leave me behind? Surely not; surely there’s more to the average person than the surface experiences of everyday life.
In defense of the common man, I haven’t exactly gone out of my way to plumb the depths of anyone within my daily contact but I haven’t gotten any real glimmers either that swifter waters are running under the surface either. We all have our outward obsessions, hobbies, religions, etc but what about the real mechanics of the psyche? Perhaps this is too much to expect to see. Some currents run too deep to show themselves at all.
Most sad of all is the possibility that we just don’t talk to each other because we’re afraid to. This country has become so polarized: black/white, liberal/conservative, man/woman, different/not different that you can’t really say much of anything without offending someone. It seems tragic that we can’t explore these differences and learn from each other rather than being afraid of being attacked or sued. Despite my opinion on the subject, I am completely fascinated by people of a religious nature. I enjoy hearing their ideas about how the world works, what God means to them and how it impacts their daily lives. The lives, feelings, beliefs of the people who are NOT like me are of unbounded interest because they represent the rest of the human story that I think all of us want to figure out. Unfortunately, the old ‘never discuss religion or politics’ rule rears its head and we have to mum up on the topics of real interest because we’re afraid we’ll offend someone.
While the state of conversation is clearly in disarray, there is yet hope for the social animal that is man. At this point, I’ll site a few rare counter examples to the trends noted above. First and foremost I must point out my own wife. She will talk happily, spiritedly and intelligently on any one of hundreds of topics from Genetic Engineering to Abortion Rights with anyone and everyone. She’s never afraid to speak her mind and drives her points home like a mathematics professor with a rigor that’s obvious to anyone with an open mind to start with. If not for her, I’d be a blubbering mass looking for some form of social outlet. Her audience may not always like what she says but that’s hardly the point. She adds to the total knowledge of the world and is a teacher and leader in every sense. If every human on the planet conversed as well as she does then we would live in a much better informed and no doubt much happier society.
My own father, not surprisingly, is also good for a conversation in the realm of music, psychology, philosophy or human behavior. His viewpoint on the world is as unique as my own; I sincerely wish he had the time to sit down and write some of it out.
The only other person with whom I can say I’ve had a really interesting conversation in the past ten years is my associate from 3 jobs ago, Charlie (See Art and Its Appreciation). Whereas my wife is primarily anchored in the concrete, Charlie is more an aficionado of the artistic, historical and dare I say religious realms. Though softer spoken than my wife, Charlie is not afraid to talk about the ‘forbidden’ topics that other people shy away from and is always good for a real and truly interesting conversation devoid of any reference to the weather, sports and 99% of TV shows.
Logic assures me that these are not the only people on the planet who want to have a real meaty conversation with some real content. The chances are infinitesimal that there aren’t at least another ten people like them in my immediate vicinity. The problem, of course, is identifying them and getting through to their true intellect without the usual requisite hours of inane babbling about sports that most people go through. This assumes that even after all the small talk people find their way into real and relevant conversations. Perhaps they just don’t and I’m wishing on a star that has long since ceased to shine.
Friday, April 08, 2005
A Special Place in Hell
As I sit down to write this entry I am amused that some days it is an effort to dredge an idea from the depths of my mind while on others like today an idea simply smacks you so hard aside the head that you can barely sit still long enough to type it out. It is not often that my muse is so brutal in her appearance so I will do my best to do her justice.
Today as I sat pondering my lunchtime repast some of the most offensive words ever to find their way into my comprehension greeted me without warning from across the room:
"You know, there’s a special place in hell for queers."
Before I go on to describe exactly WHY this is so offensive let me begin by telling you where I stand on the issues at subject here. Firstly, I am not a homosexual and like most of the population, the mechanics of homosexuality are frankly disturbing to me. While I would not encourage homosexual behavior in my children or my friends I also see no reason to censure those who do engage in it. In many species of animals that have a fixed gender throughout their lives we can see many examples of homosexuality, so clearly this trait is a natural phenomenon and not a ‘choice’ as many people on the religious right would have you believe. As long as they do not begin promulgating their beliefs and activities on my doorstep I say let them do as they like and we can all live happily ever after.
Amusingly, this is much the same attitude I have towards those who practice a religion.
Since I live in a primarily Christian area of the world I have some passing familiarity with the Christian belief system and would say that the religious figure of Jesus as depicted in the bible is a remarkable example of optimal human behavior. Jesus’ message of forgiveness and acceptance is a remarkable one that would make a wonderful example for all of us. Jesus even forgave those who betrayed him to his death just as the Pope forgave his would-be assassin. Surely the death of a savior is more of a crime than that of homosexuality? Amazingly, the same people who claim to follow Jesus and his teachings cannot forgive but instead hurl hateful epithets about those who disagree with them in terms of lifestyle.
Religious leaders will respond that homosexuals are openly living in sin and are in violation of God’s law. But did Judas not know what he was doing? Did Jesus say, “Judas, there’s a special place in hell for you!”? No, Jesus forgave. Jesus forgave the man who brought about his death but the followers of Jesus can’t tolerate a group of people who live differently from themselves. Whether they’re different because of choice, biology, fashion or fad is irrelevant. It is not man’s place to judge his fellow man:
7:1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
7:2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
7:3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
7:4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
7:5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
So before you condemn anyone to hell for any reason, you’d better be damned sure your own affairs are in order or you’ll find yourself living next door to them for all eternity.
Today as I sat pondering my lunchtime repast some of the most offensive words ever to find their way into my comprehension greeted me without warning from across the room:
"You know, there’s a special place in hell for queers."
Before I go on to describe exactly WHY this is so offensive let me begin by telling you where I stand on the issues at subject here. Firstly, I am not a homosexual and like most of the population, the mechanics of homosexuality are frankly disturbing to me. While I would not encourage homosexual behavior in my children or my friends I also see no reason to censure those who do engage in it. In many species of animals that have a fixed gender throughout their lives we can see many examples of homosexuality, so clearly this trait is a natural phenomenon and not a ‘choice’ as many people on the religious right would have you believe. As long as they do not begin promulgating their beliefs and activities on my doorstep I say let them do as they like and we can all live happily ever after.
Amusingly, this is much the same attitude I have towards those who practice a religion.
Since I live in a primarily Christian area of the world I have some passing familiarity with the Christian belief system and would say that the religious figure of Jesus as depicted in the bible is a remarkable example of optimal human behavior. Jesus’ message of forgiveness and acceptance is a remarkable one that would make a wonderful example for all of us. Jesus even forgave those who betrayed him to his death just as the Pope forgave his would-be assassin. Surely the death of a savior is more of a crime than that of homosexuality? Amazingly, the same people who claim to follow Jesus and his teachings cannot forgive but instead hurl hateful epithets about those who disagree with them in terms of lifestyle.
Religious leaders will respond that homosexuals are openly living in sin and are in violation of God’s law. But did Judas not know what he was doing? Did Jesus say, “Judas, there’s a special place in hell for you!”? No, Jesus forgave. Jesus forgave the man who brought about his death but the followers of Jesus can’t tolerate a group of people who live differently from themselves. Whether they’re different because of choice, biology, fashion or fad is irrelevant. It is not man’s place to judge his fellow man:
7:1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
7:2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
7:3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
7:4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
7:5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
So before you condemn anyone to hell for any reason, you’d better be damned sure your own affairs are in order or you’ll find yourself living next door to them for all eternity.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Intelligence vs. Experience
It has become evident to me that most people are completely unable to draw the line between innate intelligence or talent and the mere appearance of it after long experience. As a society we seem to assume that just because someone is good at something it’s because they have some natural ability, something that was gifted to them when the entered the world. We seem to disregard the fact that while some people may be naturally predisposed to be particularly good at something it’s generally the hours and hours of practice or study that makes someone an adept in a particular area.
On some levels, I think this is actually a self-defense mechanism. As long as a person believes that they simply aren’t talented enough to do something then they have a bulletproof excuse for remaining as they are. Without this, we are forced to admit that if we were only willing to put forth the effort then we could in fact get an A in math, learn to play the trombone or finally learn to write coherent blog entries. If we can hide behind those misfortunes of birth that are beyond our control our lack of success is guilt-free. Once we come to the realization that with small exception we are in charge of our own limitations, only then can we begin the process of overcoming them. As a computer programmer, I see this mechanism in action every time I tell someone what my profession is. Invariably, the reaction from the listener is something of the form, “Oh, wow. You must be smart; I’d never be smart enough to do that.” I always find this amusing since many of the programmers I have worked with in the past have been among the most moronic people I’ve ever known. I generally don’t bother to bore the speaker with a long diatribe about the basic skills needed to generate computer code and how it’s not particularly complicated or even difficult. Primarily the job is one of repeating what you have seen before and remembering where to find the information you need to repeat that task. It is not, in general, a profession that requires a great deal of intelligence in any sense of the word.
Computer programming is as blue collar as any assembly line job yet the perception is that it requires a gift of nature to do it well. This notion is not limited to vocational pursuits. With few exceptions, I have come to the end of the list of people with whom I can play chess. Most people if they lose at a game with no element of luck will refuse to continue playing. People believe that if they lose a game of chess that it indicates some inferiority of intellect but completely fail to see that chess, like all mental exercises, is one much more heavily influenced by long hours of practice and experience than else.
In summary, I think it important to remember that the only real limitations to our aspirations are those that can be measured externally. Clearly, a five-foot-tall adult will probably not reach seven feet but aside from the extremes we can be what we want to be. In a journey of a thousand miles it’s that first step which is the hardest for it’s that first step that forces us to admit that we can succeed if we only have the determination to do so.
On some levels, I think this is actually a self-defense mechanism. As long as a person believes that they simply aren’t talented enough to do something then they have a bulletproof excuse for remaining as they are. Without this, we are forced to admit that if we were only willing to put forth the effort then we could in fact get an A in math, learn to play the trombone or finally learn to write coherent blog entries. If we can hide behind those misfortunes of birth that are beyond our control our lack of success is guilt-free. Once we come to the realization that with small exception we are in charge of our own limitations, only then can we begin the process of overcoming them. As a computer programmer, I see this mechanism in action every time I tell someone what my profession is. Invariably, the reaction from the listener is something of the form, “Oh, wow. You must be smart; I’d never be smart enough to do that.” I always find this amusing since many of the programmers I have worked with in the past have been among the most moronic people I’ve ever known. I generally don’t bother to bore the speaker with a long diatribe about the basic skills needed to generate computer code and how it’s not particularly complicated or even difficult. Primarily the job is one of repeating what you have seen before and remembering where to find the information you need to repeat that task. It is not, in general, a profession that requires a great deal of intelligence in any sense of the word.
Computer programming is as blue collar as any assembly line job yet the perception is that it requires a gift of nature to do it well. This notion is not limited to vocational pursuits. With few exceptions, I have come to the end of the list of people with whom I can play chess. Most people if they lose at a game with no element of luck will refuse to continue playing. People believe that if they lose a game of chess that it indicates some inferiority of intellect but completely fail to see that chess, like all mental exercises, is one much more heavily influenced by long hours of practice and experience than else.
In summary, I think it important to remember that the only real limitations to our aspirations are those that can be measured externally. Clearly, a five-foot-tall adult will probably not reach seven feet but aside from the extremes we can be what we want to be. In a journey of a thousand miles it’s that first step which is the hardest for it’s that first step that forces us to admit that we can succeed if we only have the determination to do so.
Vishnu's Dream
The Hindus believe that the world we see and hear around is all an illusion. That in fact all we think we perceive is really merely one of Vishnu’s Dreams. While it is of course ridiculous to assert any literal interpretation of such a mythological belief the point should be well taken that we create much more of our own reality than we give ourselves credit for.
Humans live for stimulus. We are literally built around and dedicated to the process of taking outside information and turning it into actions we can use to ensure our survival. Whether this means eluding the fierce predator on the plains of the Serengeti or beating out our co-workers for promotion, the basic principle is the same. We accept inputs from our environment and in response we do stuff. At least that’s how one might expect it to work.
Along with each stimulus we also depend on knowledge of the context for that stimulus. The sound of a roaring tiger is much different when heard in the midst of a jungle safari than when heard on the radio while driving down the street. Luckily for our collective sanity our brains are smart enough to differentiate between those situations and act accordingly. So along with the actual information our senses receive we also have a lot of background information that tints the way information is processed.
This background is often more powerful than the stimulus itself. To demonstrate this effect, try watching a horror movie with the sound turned down and replace the music with the ‘Green Acres’ theme song. We still SEE the horror, our context is the same but without the additional backdrop of the music what was horrific before becomes merely silly.
In day to day life, though, there is no incidental music. We each go through each day without the aid of Hollywood soundtracks. Instead we have something equally as powerful, our attitude. Whether it’s the violin concerto of the upbeat optimist or the slow dirge of the pessimist we each have an internal symphony that impacts how we see our world. If you think the world hates you then to you it will. Passive looks of indifference will become sneers of disgust. Conversations between neighbors will instantly seem to point the finger of guilt at you. Even a smile from a stranger will grow into a tangled web of deception.
Like any scientist who thinks he knows the answer before he begins his investigation, every scrap of input from your world will simply add to your case and deepen your belief that everyone is out to get you. Happily, the reverse is equally and delightfully true. To those with a truly upbeat outlook on life, every stranger is three words from being a lifelong friend. I recall my grandmother driving down the street one day when a boy in a school bus made an obscene gesture at her. She just happily waved back and said, “My, what a friendly young man.” I explained later to her that what the boy did was in fact obscene and she merely replied, “Oh, you must be mistaken. He looked so friendly.” In my grandmother’s eyes, there was no evil and everyone was a friend.
So while the Hindu’s say we all live in Vishnu’s dream, I would disagree. We all live in our own dreams.
Humans live for stimulus. We are literally built around and dedicated to the process of taking outside information and turning it into actions we can use to ensure our survival. Whether this means eluding the fierce predator on the plains of the Serengeti or beating out our co-workers for promotion, the basic principle is the same. We accept inputs from our environment and in response we do stuff. At least that’s how one might expect it to work.
Along with each stimulus we also depend on knowledge of the context for that stimulus. The sound of a roaring tiger is much different when heard in the midst of a jungle safari than when heard on the radio while driving down the street. Luckily for our collective sanity our brains are smart enough to differentiate between those situations and act accordingly. So along with the actual information our senses receive we also have a lot of background information that tints the way information is processed.
This background is often more powerful than the stimulus itself. To demonstrate this effect, try watching a horror movie with the sound turned down and replace the music with the ‘Green Acres’ theme song. We still SEE the horror, our context is the same but without the additional backdrop of the music what was horrific before becomes merely silly.
In day to day life, though, there is no incidental music. We each go through each day without the aid of Hollywood soundtracks. Instead we have something equally as powerful, our attitude. Whether it’s the violin concerto of the upbeat optimist or the slow dirge of the pessimist we each have an internal symphony that impacts how we see our world. If you think the world hates you then to you it will. Passive looks of indifference will become sneers of disgust. Conversations between neighbors will instantly seem to point the finger of guilt at you. Even a smile from a stranger will grow into a tangled web of deception.
Like any scientist who thinks he knows the answer before he begins his investigation, every scrap of input from your world will simply add to your case and deepen your belief that everyone is out to get you. Happily, the reverse is equally and delightfully true. To those with a truly upbeat outlook on life, every stranger is three words from being a lifelong friend. I recall my grandmother driving down the street one day when a boy in a school bus made an obscene gesture at her. She just happily waved back and said, “My, what a friendly young man.” I explained later to her that what the boy did was in fact obscene and she merely replied, “Oh, you must be mistaken. He looked so friendly.” In my grandmother’s eyes, there was no evil and everyone was a friend.
So while the Hindu’s say we all live in Vishnu’s dream, I would disagree. We all live in our own dreams.
Monday, April 04, 2005
On Art and the Creation and Appreciation of it
While on a trip to the local state museum my wife remarked that she simply ‘did not get’ art. In my experience, this is anything but uncommon in today’s world. As a people we are so irrevocably anchored in the concrete concerns of day to day life that we don’t often take time to look at things on a more abstract level. In all honesty, this is probably exactly what the forces of evolution intended. If primitive man was lost forever in the appreciation of ‘that beautiful flower’ he would no doubt find himself someone’s lunch rather quickly.
Many seem to have the idea that only the ‘intelligent’ can appreciate art and those who don’t appreciate it are simply feeble minded. This is frankly balderdash as my wife is exceptionally intelligent but the simple fact is that she has no experience with art and doesn’t have a particularly artistic nature, at least in the classical sense of the word. I think the real problem is that she, and many others, simply don’t know what to expect. It’s always amusing to me that she will say ‘I don’t get this’ but will also state that she’s repulsed by it. This visceral and non-concrete reaction is what’s supposed to happen. Rather than allowing her emotions to interpret what she’s seeing, she instead tries to use reason to decode it. Most of art is not susceptible to such forms of analysis.
I said above that my wife is not of an ‘artistic’ nature in the classical sense but clearly her artistic energies are merely differently expressed. Her medium is not oils or stone or clay but instead the interior of our home. I think the art of everyday esthetics is vastly under appreciated in our culture.
As for myself, I’m no more an expert at art than my wife though perhaps more likely to ‘let go’ and see beyond the literal. A friend of mine does art in a purely digital medium and has generated a small gallery of images:http://www.geocities.com/ceaudritsh/gallery.html
In each of these images can be seen a vague impression of something, though it’s very open to debate what that actually is. I’m relatively convinced that this is entirely his intent. I’ll admit that none of these really evokes any great emotion from me with the exception of his submission on 8/30/04.
Firstly, it’s an utter and complete contradiction. Large, apparently stone, objects are floating happily among the clouds. The use of color is also powerful to further suggest a world much like our own but still wholly different in some key way. Mind bogglingly, I’ve found myself actually imagining this picture at random points throughout the day. Each time the image becomes slightly modified: details are added to the floating objects, clouds rearranged, etc. The actually physical image is not stored in my memory but the internal impression is etched permanently in my recollection.
Charlie’s interpretation of this particular work is an apocalyptic one. Presumably he’s seeing large threatening objects looming over us waiting to stab down into the planet. I don’t see that at all. Instead I see mankind and his works interceding hard and sterile into the realm of nature. This difference between the observer and the observed is what art is really about.
Many seem to have the idea that only the ‘intelligent’ can appreciate art and those who don’t appreciate it are simply feeble minded. This is frankly balderdash as my wife is exceptionally intelligent but the simple fact is that she has no experience with art and doesn’t have a particularly artistic nature, at least in the classical sense of the word. I think the real problem is that she, and many others, simply don’t know what to expect. It’s always amusing to me that she will say ‘I don’t get this’ but will also state that she’s repulsed by it. This visceral and non-concrete reaction is what’s supposed to happen. Rather than allowing her emotions to interpret what she’s seeing, she instead tries to use reason to decode it. Most of art is not susceptible to such forms of analysis.
I said above that my wife is not of an ‘artistic’ nature in the classical sense but clearly her artistic energies are merely differently expressed. Her medium is not oils or stone or clay but instead the interior of our home. I think the art of everyday esthetics is vastly under appreciated in our culture.
As for myself, I’m no more an expert at art than my wife though perhaps more likely to ‘let go’ and see beyond the literal. A friend of mine does art in a purely digital medium and has generated a small gallery of images:http://www.geocities.com/ceaudritsh/gallery.html
In each of these images can be seen a vague impression of something, though it’s very open to debate what that actually is. I’m relatively convinced that this is entirely his intent. I’ll admit that none of these really evokes any great emotion from me with the exception of his submission on 8/30/04.
Firstly, it’s an utter and complete contradiction. Large, apparently stone, objects are floating happily among the clouds. The use of color is also powerful to further suggest a world much like our own but still wholly different in some key way. Mind bogglingly, I’ve found myself actually imagining this picture at random points throughout the day. Each time the image becomes slightly modified: details are added to the floating objects, clouds rearranged, etc. The actually physical image is not stored in my memory but the internal impression is etched permanently in my recollection.
Charlie’s interpretation of this particular work is an apocalyptic one. Presumably he’s seeing large threatening objects looming over us waiting to stab down into the planet. I don’t see that at all. Instead I see mankind and his works interceding hard and sterile into the realm of nature. This difference between the observer and the observed is what art is really about.
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