So what is humility? Webster defines humility as “the state of being humble”, and it defines humble as “not proud or haughty”. I find it interesting that humility is defined by what it’s not. But if we stop and try to define humility in the positive we find it to be an elusive concept, and hard to define. In my life I strive to live an existence of humility. So I will define it by what it means to me, in a practical sense. In my life, I value others higher than myself, I don’t feel superior or look down on others, I try not to judge others, but instead live by the facts I observe, not the assumptions I make.
You’re probably wondering why anyone would want to live like this. First off, I find arrogance to be aggravating and I think most people would agree. Secondly by living a life devoid of judgment or assumptions I’m able to interact with others in a more meaningful way. Rather than looking down on someone when I find out about a mistake they’ve made in their life, and thinking myself better than them, I’m able to engage with them in an empathetic way. I’m able to have conversations that I would otherwise not be able to have. Judgment and condemnation break down communication and create distance in relationships.
Living a life of humility has a simplicity and calmness to it. It removes the social jockeying and posturing in relationships. Having an accurate understanding of one’s faults, flaws, and weaknesses, creates humility and allows an acceptance of others for who they are, faults, flaws, and all. When you stop trying to make others see how great you are, you begin to see how amazing the people around you are and you begin to really value and appreciate the people you know and the relationships you have. When you stop for a moment and take a good look at the people around you, setting aside preconceptions you begin to see what others have to offer. The person you previously ignored or labeled as insignificant turns out to be an amazing person with diverse talents.
I think for most people the bravado and bluster is a defensive mechanism to hide their own insecurities. I know that I seek affirmation from others to make myself feel better, but when you go fishing for compliments it makes you seem arrogant. On the outside it looks like your saying, “Look how cool I am,” When on the inside you’re saying, “please someone tell me I’m worth something”. It’s the bully mentality. Psychology has revealed that most bullies are themselves insecure, and this is why they bully others. They do it to bolster their own feeling of self worth by putting others down. We as a culture do the same thing to a lesser degree. We are insecure in ourselves and so we cover with bravado. This is why the concept of humility is so hard for many people. To stop and take a real look at ourselves would mean having to deal with our own insecurities. To accept that others are better than us, let alone tell them so, means admitting our own faults and insecurities.
Someone out there might be thinking, wouldn’t being humble be much like having low self esteem? And in some ways it would look similar. Someone with low self esteem lacks a belief in their own value and as a result might defer to others. But choosing to be humble is fundamentally different. Choosing to value others above oneself is very different than believing you are worthless and others are better than you. The key is in the choice. In humility you are saying that regardless of how great or insignificant you believe yourself to be, you choose to treat others with respect and honor as though they were greater, and more important than yourself.
This brings me to another point. Humility does not mean being a doormat. It does not mean letting yourself get walked all over by others, which is what someone with low self esteem would be inclined to do. By making the choice to value others, you have the power to also choose to not value them. If someone starts to bully you, you can stand up to them, humility does not mean letting others treat you as if you are worthless. Placing yourself in a position of submission is different from being worthless.
This is the fallacy of the service industry. Customers treat the employees of stores, shops, and restaurants as though they are somehow beneath them. When choosing to humble yourself and serve others, is in fact the harder position to be in. To do it with a smile in the face of harassment and general disrespect from the population at large is a monumental task. The employees are humbling themselves to serve you, so next time you are in a restaurant or store, think of them as the people they are not as whatever you perceive them to be. They are people just like you, no better and no worse. The difficulty of doing a service job is that for the most part you aren’t allowed to stand up for yourself if someone treats you poorly. But in life as a whole, if you are choosing to serve others or choosing to be humble, you can stand up for yourself.
Now having said all this I should mention that living a life of humility is not easy. It seems to be in our nature as humans to fight for superiority, to put others down and strive to be top dog. Especially in a modern capitalist culture like America, choosing a life of service or humility is counter cultural, and may even seem counter intuitive. But as hard as it is, I find it brings a greater peace than striving to always be better than the next guy. I strive to be the best I can be and make no judgments about weather that’s any better or worse than the person sitting next to me on the bus, or in line at the grocery store. And in the process it frees me to have more meaningful relationships with the people I meet.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Stories
Recently I was presented with a concept, one that gave a name or a frame work, if you will, to a behavior that I had already observed in my life. This is the concept of stories. You’re probably thinking, big deal, stories, I hear those every day. And you’re right, you do hear stories every day, you even tell yourself stories. What I mean by stories is the things we tell ourselves about others, about our actions, the assumptions we make. Let me give an example for the sake of clarity. I frequently talk to someone and then when I walk away, I begin to make assumptions about what the other person meant by something they said or didn’t say. I will concoct a story that the person is angry with me or doesn’t like me all because of something they said. Or another example, you overhear part of someone else’s conversation, and you mentally try and fill in the rest, perhaps even getting angry because you think they are talking about you behind your back. In both cases you are telling yourself a story. You don’t know what was or is going on and so you fill in the blanks with your imagination.
We probably tell ourselves hundreds of small stories every day without ever realizing and for the most part it’s not a big deal. Because they don’t matter, but where the stories become a problem is when they interfere with the relationships we have. If, as in the first example, I tell myself the story that my friend is mad at me because they said something I didn’t like, our relationship begins to break down. Now this is easily solved in two ways, first realizing that I’m telling myself a story, and secondly going to the person and asking them what they really meant. In the second example, realizing that you’re telling yourself a story and disregarding it, might be all you need to do, or you could ask the people what they were talking about. Often times just realizing it’s a story is all it takes. Because you can then disregard what you we’re thinking and dispel the assumptions you’ve made. But far better is to take the opportunity to work on communication and clarify the situation with whoever you are interacting with. I know I have been prone to believing people I emailed are ignoring me when they don’t reply to my emails immediately, and most often that’s just a story, they weren’t ignoring me but were instead busy, or out of town, or any number of other things. But because I made an assumption and told myself a story about what was happening, I put myself in a place where I was upset. When I am conscious of the thoughts I am having and the stories I’m constructing, then I’m able to take actions against them. I can dispel the assumptions I’ve made, and strengthen my relationships through communication. So weather you call them stories or assumptions, we need to be on our guard against those that hinder and hold us back. If you tell yourself you can’t do something odds are you won’t be able to, but if you turn it around and tell yourself you can, you’re chances immediately go up.
Not all stories are bad though. Sometimes we tell ourselves positive stories; we assume the best of people and in doing so we manifest a positive attitude, which can be beneficial. But there is a danger in these stories as well. If we live in a perpetual world of positive assumptions and stories, we will be prone to disappointment. As people fail to live up to the positive assumptions we assign to them. I personally like to think the best of people and give them the benefit of the doubt. But at the same time it does no one a service if we view the world through rose tinted glasses. So while positive stories can be good, I would say it’s best to be wise and realize that no matter what the story is, it’s still a story and is no substitution for the truth.
We probably tell ourselves hundreds of small stories every day without ever realizing and for the most part it’s not a big deal. Because they don’t matter, but where the stories become a problem is when they interfere with the relationships we have. If, as in the first example, I tell myself the story that my friend is mad at me because they said something I didn’t like, our relationship begins to break down. Now this is easily solved in two ways, first realizing that I’m telling myself a story, and secondly going to the person and asking them what they really meant. In the second example, realizing that you’re telling yourself a story and disregarding it, might be all you need to do, or you could ask the people what they were talking about. Often times just realizing it’s a story is all it takes. Because you can then disregard what you we’re thinking and dispel the assumptions you’ve made. But far better is to take the opportunity to work on communication and clarify the situation with whoever you are interacting with. I know I have been prone to believing people I emailed are ignoring me when they don’t reply to my emails immediately, and most often that’s just a story, they weren’t ignoring me but were instead busy, or out of town, or any number of other things. But because I made an assumption and told myself a story about what was happening, I put myself in a place where I was upset. When I am conscious of the thoughts I am having and the stories I’m constructing, then I’m able to take actions against them. I can dispel the assumptions I’ve made, and strengthen my relationships through communication. So weather you call them stories or assumptions, we need to be on our guard against those that hinder and hold us back. If you tell yourself you can’t do something odds are you won’t be able to, but if you turn it around and tell yourself you can, you’re chances immediately go up.
Not all stories are bad though. Sometimes we tell ourselves positive stories; we assume the best of people and in doing so we manifest a positive attitude, which can be beneficial. But there is a danger in these stories as well. If we live in a perpetual world of positive assumptions and stories, we will be prone to disappointment. As people fail to live up to the positive assumptions we assign to them. I personally like to think the best of people and give them the benefit of the doubt. But at the same time it does no one a service if we view the world through rose tinted glasses. So while positive stories can be good, I would say it’s best to be wise and realize that no matter what the story is, it’s still a story and is no substitution for the truth.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Introspection
Introspection is an interesting thing. I find I spend a lot of time in introspection and I've learned that it can be a double edged sword.
Without taking time to reflect on the experiences in your life and the decisions you've made, it's hard to learn from what you've been through. Self analysis is integral to gaining wisdom or at least learning from your mistakes. So without at least pausing for the briefest of moments to reflect upon what has passed, you will simply be running blindly into the future. But if you spend too much time in reflection you run the risk of not living your life at all. It's possible to get lost in your thoughts and loose sight of what's right in front of you.
I know I often run afoul of over analyzing the events in my life. This happens most when an event or choice is followed by a long period where I have nothing to do, but think. Over analyzing is dangerous as well, because you begin to second guess yourself and your actions. And once you start to second guess your actions you've stopped learning from them and can become mired in self doubt.
The trouble with doubt is it's like a cancer, it spreads and eats away at you. You begin questioning first one decision and then another. This can in turn shake your confidence and cause more doubt. Doubt undermines self confidence further, which in turn effects your ability to be decisive and make decisions. This causes more doubt and less confidence. If you let it, this can become a vicious downward spiral. Luckily all it takes to break out of a cycle like this, is to get out of your own head. Frequently going and talking to someone is all it takes. Getting a second opinion on your decision will give you the perspective you need to stop questioning yourself.
This is why it's so important to have friends who will talk strait with you. Because while introspection is good, having someone who can hopefully, look at your situation objectively and tell you strait out, that you made a mistake and where you went wrong, is a great thing.
So to sum up take some time to examine your life, so you can learn from your mistakes, but don't spend too much time there, because its easy to get lost in your head and that can have dangerous results. And if you don't have friends to give you perspective, find some.
Without taking time to reflect on the experiences in your life and the decisions you've made, it's hard to learn from what you've been through. Self analysis is integral to gaining wisdom or at least learning from your mistakes. So without at least pausing for the briefest of moments to reflect upon what has passed, you will simply be running blindly into the future. But if you spend too much time in reflection you run the risk of not living your life at all. It's possible to get lost in your thoughts and loose sight of what's right in front of you.
I know I often run afoul of over analyzing the events in my life. This happens most when an event or choice is followed by a long period where I have nothing to do, but think. Over analyzing is dangerous as well, because you begin to second guess yourself and your actions. And once you start to second guess your actions you've stopped learning from them and can become mired in self doubt.
The trouble with doubt is it's like a cancer, it spreads and eats away at you. You begin questioning first one decision and then another. This can in turn shake your confidence and cause more doubt. Doubt undermines self confidence further, which in turn effects your ability to be decisive and make decisions. This causes more doubt and less confidence. If you let it, this can become a vicious downward spiral. Luckily all it takes to break out of a cycle like this, is to get out of your own head. Frequently going and talking to someone is all it takes. Getting a second opinion on your decision will give you the perspective you need to stop questioning yourself.
This is why it's so important to have friends who will talk strait with you. Because while introspection is good, having someone who can hopefully, look at your situation objectively and tell you strait out, that you made a mistake and where you went wrong, is a great thing.
So to sum up take some time to examine your life, so you can learn from your mistakes, but don't spend too much time there, because its easy to get lost in your head and that can have dangerous results. And if you don't have friends to give you perspective, find some.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Wisdom
What is wisdom? Wisdom is insight and understanding. The ability to make the right choice in a difficult situation, the ability to look past everything to the core of an issue. To perceive, not just simply see. Wisdom is applied knowledge, but more than that, it's properly applied knowledge. History is filled with examples of intellectually brilliant people who were also utter fools. So rampant is this in fact that we could perhaps even say that folly is part of the human condition.
So then how does one gain wisdom, how does one become wise? To be wise one must be perceptive, able to analyze a situation or problem. For without a thorough understanding of the problem at hand it is impossible to make a wise choice. At this point you might ask what about someone who makes a wise choice without knowing it? I would say that the person was lucky but that luck is not wisdom. They could have just as easily made the wrong choice, and in fact very likely will, the next time they are confronted with a problem. I would rather be wise than lucky.
We must perceive so we can understand, because once we understand a problem we can begin to solve it. Take a mathematical equation for example. Without an understanding of how the equation works you would have trouble trying to solve it. If you can perceive and understand the problem then you can apply the appropriate knowledge to solve it. If you find a toilet that wont flush, you have perceived the problem. If you check the tank and find that it has water, you now understand that the problem is likely with the lever and that the stopper is not being lifted when the lever is depressed. With this knowledge and understanding it is a simple matter to check and find that, in this case the chain connecting the lever to the stopper has fallen off and simply hooking it back up will fix the problem.
Now in the case of the toilet you might say well that's just common sense. I believe that common sense is just the simple version of wisdom. You are considered wise when you make a smart choice in a difficult situation and you are considered to have common sense when you make a smart choice in a simple situation. Both require the same set of skills. The ability to look at a situation and analyze it and apply the knowledge you have to the situation at hand.
But we still haven't answered the question of how one actually gains wisdom or becomes wise. The most common way we gain wisdom, is by simply living. Nothing teaches wisdom like experience. As long as you are able to learn from your mistakes, life is perhaps the greats teacher there is. The only problem with learning through experience is that it's slow. You can only learn as fast as your experiences teach you. Another, faster way to gain wisdom is by learning from others, either by observing the cause and effect of their actions or by talking with those who are older and wiser than you.
You could call the things you learn from others borrowed wisdom but weather it's borrowed or learned the hard way all knowledge has the capacity to make you wiser; as long as you take it to heart and learn from it.
A keen perception and ability to analyze are both important to analyzing situations as they present themselves, allowing for proper application of wisdom, and also for analyzing the aftermath of choices and actions, to gain further wisdom.
It is my personal preference to learn from others mistakes and save myself the trouble and pain of making them myself. I am also all to glad to help others not make the mistakes I have, by sharing with them what wisdom I can. And I hope that I never stop learning and never stop gaining wisdom
So then how does one gain wisdom, how does one become wise? To be wise one must be perceptive, able to analyze a situation or problem. For without a thorough understanding of the problem at hand it is impossible to make a wise choice. At this point you might ask what about someone who makes a wise choice without knowing it? I would say that the person was lucky but that luck is not wisdom. They could have just as easily made the wrong choice, and in fact very likely will, the next time they are confronted with a problem. I would rather be wise than lucky.
We must perceive so we can understand, because once we understand a problem we can begin to solve it. Take a mathematical equation for example. Without an understanding of how the equation works you would have trouble trying to solve it. If you can perceive and understand the problem then you can apply the appropriate knowledge to solve it. If you find a toilet that wont flush, you have perceived the problem. If you check the tank and find that it has water, you now understand that the problem is likely with the lever and that the stopper is not being lifted when the lever is depressed. With this knowledge and understanding it is a simple matter to check and find that, in this case the chain connecting the lever to the stopper has fallen off and simply hooking it back up will fix the problem.
Now in the case of the toilet you might say well that's just common sense. I believe that common sense is just the simple version of wisdom. You are considered wise when you make a smart choice in a difficult situation and you are considered to have common sense when you make a smart choice in a simple situation. Both require the same set of skills. The ability to look at a situation and analyze it and apply the knowledge you have to the situation at hand.
But we still haven't answered the question of how one actually gains wisdom or becomes wise. The most common way we gain wisdom, is by simply living. Nothing teaches wisdom like experience. As long as you are able to learn from your mistakes, life is perhaps the greats teacher there is. The only problem with learning through experience is that it's slow. You can only learn as fast as your experiences teach you. Another, faster way to gain wisdom is by learning from others, either by observing the cause and effect of their actions or by talking with those who are older and wiser than you.
You could call the things you learn from others borrowed wisdom but weather it's borrowed or learned the hard way all knowledge has the capacity to make you wiser; as long as you take it to heart and learn from it.
A keen perception and ability to analyze are both important to analyzing situations as they present themselves, allowing for proper application of wisdom, and also for analyzing the aftermath of choices and actions, to gain further wisdom.
It is my personal preference to learn from others mistakes and save myself the trouble and pain of making them myself. I am also all to glad to help others not make the mistakes I have, by sharing with them what wisdom I can. And I hope that I never stop learning and never stop gaining wisdom
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Relationships
Love them or hate them relationships are always complicated. It's a miracle any of us manage to find someone to marry. Even fewer manage to do it for life. Making a life long marriage to one person work, takes a supreme commitment, lots of patience and stubborn dedication, to not give up.
Statistics say that less than 50% of marriages survive the difficulties and challenges of merging two lives. A pessimist might say that two people were never meant to know each other on such an intimate level. That knowledge, especially of each others flaws, is the downfall of relationships. And they might be right, knowledge of one another's flaws may well be the cause of many a failed relationship. But I disagree with the premise that we were not meant to be known intimately.
Humans are meant for relationships. Babies don't develop properly unless they have physical contact, unless they are held. People go slowly insane when isolated from contact with others. We need people, we need relationships, we crave to be know.
There are many reasons why relationships fail. One of the biggest reasons is that people move too fast. They get caught up in the way the relationship makes them feel and they let their emotions overrule their mind. Ignoring logic and rushing in. Commitment in a relationship should never overreach knowledge and vice versa. It's a fatal decision to build a relationship solely on emotions, because emotions fade and change. Any lasting relationship must be based on more than what you feel. It must be build on commitment and knowledge. Love is not blind, it does not ignore faults and wrongs, but it does accept and forgive.
So when you start a relationship it should progress slowly, not rushing ahead to the bedroom on the first date. Give your hormones time to cool before making any decisions. Keep it light to start with, have some fun. Why take everything so seriously. Loading a relationship down with expectations is another sure way to kill it before it has a chance to start. First dates should be for having fun and getting a feel for each other not delving deep into each others pasts.
Sharing deep and personal information like childhood traumas or physical abuse should probably wait till a rapport has been established and trust gained. Share too much too fast and you can build false intimacy. Which makes you feel close like you know the person and might incline you to take actions, or place trust, you might not otherwise.
Every time we meet someone new we put our best foot forward and hide our flaws. It's human nature to do so, especially if it's someone we like or are attracted to. Yet another reason to wait and get to know someone. As their guard comes down their flaws will begin to emerge and you will get a better idea of who the person really is. There can be no relationship without trust and there can be no trust without truth and knowledge. Truth and knowledge are both things that can not and should not be rushed.
A friend is someone who makes you better than you are. If someone is hurting you or tearing you down, they aren't your friend, this goes doubly for boyfriends/girlfriends/spouses. If they hurt you, walk away, no matter how nice or perfect they seem, there is nothing that makes that okay. It doesn't matter if it's physical or emotional; abuse is not an acceptable trait.
If you rush a relationship you might miss the warning signs that would have otherwise tipped you off to these tendencies. By the time you find out, it may be too late, you may feel trapped because of commitments you've made.
A significant other should be more than a friend, they should be a partner, a teammate. They should build you up, support you, strengthen you. They should be your compliment, holding you accountable. Helping you to stop bad habits, and start good ones. They should be a sounding board and a listening ear. They shouldn't be afraid to tell you when you are wrong.
A good relationship provides shelter and strength, it provides a firm foundation and a safe haven from which both partners can achieve greater things than they could on their own. Nothing inspires a man to greatness more than having a woman for which he is fighting and there is little that gives a woman more confidence than knowing she is loved and protected.
We can attain more together than apart, so take your time to build a solid foundation of trust and honesty. Take the time to see if someone is a good fit before making commitments, before giving away part of yourself.
When you do find that person who is a good fit, that is your other half, that compliments you, bringing their strengths to our weaknesses, be willing to commit. Don't go in with the mindset that you can bail if it gets hard. Really commit to it, go all in! Pour your all into the relationship. Love is a choice not an emotion, if you make that choice, commit to it.
I can't think of anything more exciting than spending a lifetime learning about my partner, and not just a knowledge of the facts about them, but who they are on the inside, what makes them tick, how they think, and what their dreams are. An intimate knowledge, beyond facts into the essence of the person. I could spend a lifetime learning and still have more to discover.
Statistics say that less than 50% of marriages survive the difficulties and challenges of merging two lives. A pessimist might say that two people were never meant to know each other on such an intimate level. That knowledge, especially of each others flaws, is the downfall of relationships. And they might be right, knowledge of one another's flaws may well be the cause of many a failed relationship. But I disagree with the premise that we were not meant to be known intimately.
Humans are meant for relationships. Babies don't develop properly unless they have physical contact, unless they are held. People go slowly insane when isolated from contact with others. We need people, we need relationships, we crave to be know.
There are many reasons why relationships fail. One of the biggest reasons is that people move too fast. They get caught up in the way the relationship makes them feel and they let their emotions overrule their mind. Ignoring logic and rushing in. Commitment in a relationship should never overreach knowledge and vice versa. It's a fatal decision to build a relationship solely on emotions, because emotions fade and change. Any lasting relationship must be based on more than what you feel. It must be build on commitment and knowledge. Love is not blind, it does not ignore faults and wrongs, but it does accept and forgive.
So when you start a relationship it should progress slowly, not rushing ahead to the bedroom on the first date. Give your hormones time to cool before making any decisions. Keep it light to start with, have some fun. Why take everything so seriously. Loading a relationship down with expectations is another sure way to kill it before it has a chance to start. First dates should be for having fun and getting a feel for each other not delving deep into each others pasts.
Sharing deep and personal information like childhood traumas or physical abuse should probably wait till a rapport has been established and trust gained. Share too much too fast and you can build false intimacy. Which makes you feel close like you know the person and might incline you to take actions, or place trust, you might not otherwise.
Every time we meet someone new we put our best foot forward and hide our flaws. It's human nature to do so, especially if it's someone we like or are attracted to. Yet another reason to wait and get to know someone. As their guard comes down their flaws will begin to emerge and you will get a better idea of who the person really is. There can be no relationship without trust and there can be no trust without truth and knowledge. Truth and knowledge are both things that can not and should not be rushed.
A friend is someone who makes you better than you are. If someone is hurting you or tearing you down, they aren't your friend, this goes doubly for boyfriends/girlfriends/spouses. If they hurt you, walk away, no matter how nice or perfect they seem, there is nothing that makes that okay. It doesn't matter if it's physical or emotional; abuse is not an acceptable trait.
If you rush a relationship you might miss the warning signs that would have otherwise tipped you off to these tendencies. By the time you find out, it may be too late, you may feel trapped because of commitments you've made.
A significant other should be more than a friend, they should be a partner, a teammate. They should build you up, support you, strengthen you. They should be your compliment, holding you accountable. Helping you to stop bad habits, and start good ones. They should be a sounding board and a listening ear. They shouldn't be afraid to tell you when you are wrong.
A good relationship provides shelter and strength, it provides a firm foundation and a safe haven from which both partners can achieve greater things than they could on their own. Nothing inspires a man to greatness more than having a woman for which he is fighting and there is little that gives a woman more confidence than knowing she is loved and protected.
We can attain more together than apart, so take your time to build a solid foundation of trust and honesty. Take the time to see if someone is a good fit before making commitments, before giving away part of yourself.
When you do find that person who is a good fit, that is your other half, that compliments you, bringing their strengths to our weaknesses, be willing to commit. Don't go in with the mindset that you can bail if it gets hard. Really commit to it, go all in! Pour your all into the relationship. Love is a choice not an emotion, if you make that choice, commit to it.
I can't think of anything more exciting than spending a lifetime learning about my partner, and not just a knowledge of the facts about them, but who they are on the inside, what makes them tick, how they think, and what their dreams are. An intimate knowledge, beyond facts into the essence of the person. I could spend a lifetime learning and still have more to discover.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Confronting Truth
When you are presented with a truth or fact that contradicts what you believe to be true, you have three choices. Accept it and change what you believe, deny it and claim it isn't true, or ignore it and refuse to acknowledge that you ever encountered the truth. This last option is really just another form of denial. Rarely we will even encounter something so counter to what we know or believe that our mind rejects it outright, our mind literally can't believe that it is true.
But what happens when we are faced with a choice that requires action? What then? What happens when we are faced with a moral choice, one that has to do with what we believe to be true? If you believe that taking a human life is wrong, would you kill in self defense? To defend another? What happens if you do kill someone? Again you have two basic choices, accept it or deny it. Denying an action is much harder than denying a thought or idea. You have taken action and hard as you might try you can never take that choice back. You might be able to deny and ignore it for a short while, but the longer you do the more it festers unresolved.
You can try to rationalize it. "I killed that person because I had too", "I stole the food because I was starving". Humans are masters of rationalization, many could rationalize any action if the need arose. But rationalization is like painting over rot, the rot remains, even if you can no longer see it. Perhaps you don't feel as bad about it because it's out of sight, but your house is still structurally unsound.
Alternately you can accept what you did, accept the choice you made and deal with the consequences. What ever choice you make, you must decide what you believe about the moral or truth involved. Is it still true? To decide to change your beliefs may ease your guilt or shame over the action you took, but denying a wrong choice to save yourself guild does so at the cost of your morality and truth.
If you believe there is no absolute truth or morality, this isn't much of a problem. But then if truth is relative, why did you hold to the initial moral standard you believed. If truth is relative why have standards, why draw a line at all.
If truth and morality are absolute and you decide to change what you believe, you sacrifice your moral character and fiber. You might be able to live with this at first but each time you give ground on your beliefs, your morality erodes away. Till finally after time you look at where you are and where you came from and you have a crisis of faith or belief. You must now face the shame of your actions and what you have become, or decide that your morals don't matter to you as much as you say or think they do. Each choice makes the next that much easier. It may not be that your choices run directly counter to your beliefs either, they may be only slight compromises. But it's just as easy to find yourself going the wrong way as a result of a chain of small compromises as it is from one big one.
What ever the cause you have to deal with the result of your actions, whether, sooner or later. Accept, rationalize or deny, your choices will catch up with you eventually, and when they do you have to face the emotional and mental conflict and strife they bring. Without forgiveness there is no way to escape it.
But what happens when we are faced with a choice that requires action? What then? What happens when we are faced with a moral choice, one that has to do with what we believe to be true? If you believe that taking a human life is wrong, would you kill in self defense? To defend another? What happens if you do kill someone? Again you have two basic choices, accept it or deny it. Denying an action is much harder than denying a thought or idea. You have taken action and hard as you might try you can never take that choice back. You might be able to deny and ignore it for a short while, but the longer you do the more it festers unresolved.
You can try to rationalize it. "I killed that person because I had too", "I stole the food because I was starving". Humans are masters of rationalization, many could rationalize any action if the need arose. But rationalization is like painting over rot, the rot remains, even if you can no longer see it. Perhaps you don't feel as bad about it because it's out of sight, but your house is still structurally unsound.
Alternately you can accept what you did, accept the choice you made and deal with the consequences. What ever choice you make, you must decide what you believe about the moral or truth involved. Is it still true? To decide to change your beliefs may ease your guilt or shame over the action you took, but denying a wrong choice to save yourself guild does so at the cost of your morality and truth.
If you believe there is no absolute truth or morality, this isn't much of a problem. But then if truth is relative, why did you hold to the initial moral standard you believed. If truth is relative why have standards, why draw a line at all.
If truth and morality are absolute and you decide to change what you believe, you sacrifice your moral character and fiber. You might be able to live with this at first but each time you give ground on your beliefs, your morality erodes away. Till finally after time you look at where you are and where you came from and you have a crisis of faith or belief. You must now face the shame of your actions and what you have become, or decide that your morals don't matter to you as much as you say or think they do. Each choice makes the next that much easier. It may not be that your choices run directly counter to your beliefs either, they may be only slight compromises. But it's just as easy to find yourself going the wrong way as a result of a chain of small compromises as it is from one big one.
What ever the cause you have to deal with the result of your actions, whether, sooner or later. Accept, rationalize or deny, your choices will catch up with you eventually, and when they do you have to face the emotional and mental conflict and strife they bring. Without forgiveness there is no way to escape it.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
The Zone
No I’m not talking about the twilight zone. One of my friends calls it the “coder’s trance”, most people refer to it as being in the zone. The zone, is a trance like state where all distractions and external input fall away and you are able to focus with single mindedness on the task in front of you. As an artist and writer, I am intimately familiar with this phenomenon and it is an interesting occurrence. When I’m there, I lose all track of time, tune out all sound and noise, and devote 100% of my attention and focus to the task at hand. This allows me to work with an incredible level of detail, and not get bored, as many people might. Each person has their own way of getting into this state, I tend to prefer to work late at night when the world is quiet and peaceful and there are few distractions. There isn’t even the sun to tell you the passage of time. I will often listen to techno, both because I like it and because I think the repeated rhythmic nature of the music helps with the focus, as well as it drowns out any remaining distractions. Though once I am in the zone, I often no longer consciously hear the music anymore.
There is something simple and beautiful about being in that state. It’s restful, and pleasant. It can even make mind numbingly dull repetitive tasks tolerable. How you ask? Well once you know how to get into the zone, it can be used on just about anything. I have worked as a stock person, and there really is nothing more mind numbing then organizing an entire stockroom worth of product, by size, style and color. But if you get into the zone, shut all distractions out and focus, you lose track of how long it’s taking you and you just do it. Typically when I do this it’s a bit different than when I’m working on art, though. When I am in an art trance, I’m 100% focused on the art, while when I am in a work zone, I will often put my body on autopilot and let my mind wander. Partitioning off a small portion of my brain to work on the easy task at hand, while devoting the remainder of my mind to thinking about other things. Weather that be analyzing my life, planning my novel, or just pondering random things, like those posted here on this blog, but sometimes, the brain just shuts off all together and I just work. I don’t think, I just do.
I’ve found in my personal experience that most activities, even complex ones, once learned take a small portion of the brain to repeat. The trick is to then learn how to divide your focus, allowing the part of your brain that needs to focus on the task at hand to do so, while allowing the rest of your mind to do whatever it wants.
I’m curious if other peoples experience of being in the zone are similar or if it’s different for each person. Please I’d like to hear from readers about this one.
There is something simple and beautiful about being in that state. It’s restful, and pleasant. It can even make mind numbingly dull repetitive tasks tolerable. How you ask? Well once you know how to get into the zone, it can be used on just about anything. I have worked as a stock person, and there really is nothing more mind numbing then organizing an entire stockroom worth of product, by size, style and color. But if you get into the zone, shut all distractions out and focus, you lose track of how long it’s taking you and you just do it. Typically when I do this it’s a bit different than when I’m working on art, though. When I am in an art trance, I’m 100% focused on the art, while when I am in a work zone, I will often put my body on autopilot and let my mind wander. Partitioning off a small portion of my brain to work on the easy task at hand, while devoting the remainder of my mind to thinking about other things. Weather that be analyzing my life, planning my novel, or just pondering random things, like those posted here on this blog, but sometimes, the brain just shuts off all together and I just work. I don’t think, I just do.
I’ve found in my personal experience that most activities, even complex ones, once learned take a small portion of the brain to repeat. The trick is to then learn how to divide your focus, allowing the part of your brain that needs to focus on the task at hand to do so, while allowing the rest of your mind to do whatever it wants.
I’m curious if other peoples experience of being in the zone are similar or if it’s different for each person. Please I’d like to hear from readers about this one.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Skin
Random thought for the day, Have you ever just stopped and marveled at the miracle that is your skin? Think about it for a second. Your skin is your largest organ. It can be as soft and supple as your lips, or as callous, thick and unfeeling as the soles of your feet. It's elastic, yet rigid at the same time. It moderates your body temperature, reacts to the sun to protect you, and synthesizes vitamin D from sunlight. If you get an injury as small as a paper cut or even as large as a burn, it will scab over and knit itself back together. And lets not forget that it provides you with your sense of touch, without which we would all be in a world of pain, or more precisely, not be. Simply amazing! :D
Thursday, April 29, 2010
What defines us?
What defines us, what makes us who and what we are? What makes us good or bad? Is it our actions, our thoughts? Is someone who kills others better or worse than someone who only thinks about it? The courts make a distinction between premeditated murder and homicide. It’s somehow worse if you thought about it before hand. What if you plan it out but never follow through? In the eyes of the law you are a better person if you don’t take action, but do you feel better? What about say pornography and fantasizing? In most places that’s either frowned upon or a crime, and it most definitely is if it involves children. But it’s more of a thought crime than one of action. The person isn’t committing the act’s they fantasize. Is that any better?
We all wish someone would die from time to time, usually as a fleeting thought. I feel safe in saying few people would condemn you for that, so where is the line in our minds that once crossed moves you into the territory of being a “Bad Person”?
We consider soldiers to be good people, yet they kill people. What makes them different than a murderer? Is it because it’s for a cause, or because they don’t like doing it? Are you a bad person if you do “Bad things” but don’t want to, or don’t like it? Are you a good person if you do good things but think, “Bad thoughts”? What is the line, the convergence of thought and action that defines who we are? If you can do all the right things for all the wrong reasons, can you also do all the wrong things, for all the right reasons, and if so where would that leave you?
We all wish someone would die from time to time, usually as a fleeting thought. I feel safe in saying few people would condemn you for that, so where is the line in our minds that once crossed moves you into the territory of being a “Bad Person”?
We consider soldiers to be good people, yet they kill people. What makes them different than a murderer? Is it because it’s for a cause, or because they don’t like doing it? Are you a bad person if you do “Bad things” but don’t want to, or don’t like it? Are you a good person if you do good things but think, “Bad thoughts”? What is the line, the convergence of thought and action that defines who we are? If you can do all the right things for all the wrong reasons, can you also do all the wrong things, for all the right reasons, and if so where would that leave you?
Monday, April 12, 2010
Extended cost
Extended cost or cumulative cost, how much do we spend on small things over a month or year? How much are you really spending on coffee at starbucks, drinks at the bar, or cigarettes. How much are we spending on our habits?
Let’s start with coffee drinkers. According to http://www.e-importz.com/Support/specialty_coffee.htm “Over 50% of Americans over 18 years of age drink coffee every day. This represents over 150 million daily drinkers. 30 million American adults drink specialty coffee beverages daily; which include a mocha, latte, espresso, café mocha, cappuccino, frozen/iced coffee beverages, etc.” Let’s say you’re one of those 30 million, and you buy a grande mocha from starbucks every day. In Seattle that will now run you a whopping $3.91. After buying one every day for a week, you’re looking at a cost of $27.37. By the end of the month you would have spent $109.48 and by the end of the year your total would have risen to $1313.76. That’s a lot of money.
Ok then how about smokers. In a 2003 survey smokers age 12 and up smoked an average of 13 cigarettes a day on the days they smoked and the same age range of smokers, smoked an average of 23 out of the last 30 days. 13 cigarettes every day for 23 days is 299 cigarettes. In the US, a pack of cigarettes has to be at least 20. So at 20 per pack, the average smoker will smoke about 20 packs in a month. Tobacco Free Kids.org lists the average pack price at $5.26. Multiplied by 20 packs a month and you find you will be spending $105.2 per month and by extension $1262.4 every year on your habit.
God forbid you smoke and drink coffee daily, at which point you would be spending about $2500 annually on your habits.
Next, going to the bar? Let’s assume you go out on the town on Friday nights and drink moderately, having only 2 to 3 drinks. If you like mixed drinks you’re paying at least $4 and probably closer to $6 for a drink, so one night on the town will run you $12-18. Though I expect that’s probably on the low end. If you go out every Friday for a month, you’ve now spent $48-72 and if you go every Friday all year long, $624-936. Not as bad as coffee either but this is assuming you drink moderately.
How about other monthly expenditures, like cable tv, or Netflix? Comcast’s digital preferred service is $39.99 for the first 6 months, after which it jumps to $56 a month, so a year of cable TV costs $576. Netflix basic subscription of 3 movies at a time runs $16.99 a month or $203.88 a year. A movie once a month at $7 a ticket, $84 a year.
Fast food lunch every day, at minimum $5 a meal each day of a 5 day work week, $25 a week, $100 a month, $1300 a year. Gym membership at 24 hour fitness to work off the weight you put on by eating fast food every day, $30 a month, $360 a year.
So what you say? Everything you choose to do, eat or drink costs money. Not exactly a new idea, but each of those expenses means you have to make more money to support your lifestyle. This may mean working more hours or working harder, which in turn means you are tired when you get home. If you’re working hard to pay for entertainment, but are too tired to enjoy that same entertainment is it worth the cost? How much do you value your free time, time with family and friends? What is time worth to you? Is it worth a cup of coffee or, your cigarette? And this analysis isn’t even considering the physical effects that some of these habits have on your body. Time has value and is becoming a commodity in our increasingly busy lives. Take some time to think about the choices you are making and the extended costs of things in your life.
Let’s start with coffee drinkers. According to http://www.e-importz.com/Support/specialty_coffee.htm “Over 50% of Americans over 18 years of age drink coffee every day. This represents over 150 million daily drinkers. 30 million American adults drink specialty coffee beverages daily; which include a mocha, latte, espresso, café mocha, cappuccino, frozen/iced coffee beverages, etc.” Let’s say you’re one of those 30 million, and you buy a grande mocha from starbucks every day. In Seattle that will now run you a whopping $3.91. After buying one every day for a week, you’re looking at a cost of $27.37. By the end of the month you would have spent $109.48 and by the end of the year your total would have risen to $1313.76. That’s a lot of money.
Ok then how about smokers. In a 2003 survey smokers age 12 and up smoked an average of 13 cigarettes a day on the days they smoked and the same age range of smokers, smoked an average of 23 out of the last 30 days. 13 cigarettes every day for 23 days is 299 cigarettes. In the US, a pack of cigarettes has to be at least 20. So at 20 per pack, the average smoker will smoke about 20 packs in a month. Tobacco Free Kids.org lists the average pack price at $5.26. Multiplied by 20 packs a month and you find you will be spending $105.2 per month and by extension $1262.4 every year on your habit.
God forbid you smoke and drink coffee daily, at which point you would be spending about $2500 annually on your habits.
Next, going to the bar? Let’s assume you go out on the town on Friday nights and drink moderately, having only 2 to 3 drinks. If you like mixed drinks you’re paying at least $4 and probably closer to $6 for a drink, so one night on the town will run you $12-18. Though I expect that’s probably on the low end. If you go out every Friday for a month, you’ve now spent $48-72 and if you go every Friday all year long, $624-936. Not as bad as coffee either but this is assuming you drink moderately.
How about other monthly expenditures, like cable tv, or Netflix? Comcast’s digital preferred service is $39.99 for the first 6 months, after which it jumps to $56 a month, so a year of cable TV costs $576. Netflix basic subscription of 3 movies at a time runs $16.99 a month or $203.88 a year. A movie once a month at $7 a ticket, $84 a year.
Fast food lunch every day, at minimum $5 a meal each day of a 5 day work week, $25 a week, $100 a month, $1300 a year. Gym membership at 24 hour fitness to work off the weight you put on by eating fast food every day, $30 a month, $360 a year.
So what you say? Everything you choose to do, eat or drink costs money. Not exactly a new idea, but each of those expenses means you have to make more money to support your lifestyle. This may mean working more hours or working harder, which in turn means you are tired when you get home. If you’re working hard to pay for entertainment, but are too tired to enjoy that same entertainment is it worth the cost? How much do you value your free time, time with family and friends? What is time worth to you? Is it worth a cup of coffee or, your cigarette? And this analysis isn’t even considering the physical effects that some of these habits have on your body. Time has value and is becoming a commodity in our increasingly busy lives. Take some time to think about the choices you are making and the extended costs of things in your life.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Cost of Entertainment
Ack, it’s been way too long since my last post. So this one’s probably going to be short but it’s an interesting idea, the cost of entertainment and what we are willing to pay. With the cost of movie tickets slowly rising, I’ve started to limit the number of movies I go to. Tickets are just about $10 non matinee where I live and I’ve heard they’re up to about $20 in big cities like LA and NYC. So a dinner and movie, for two would run 40 for the movie, and as little as $10 if you went to fast food. Assuming your date would let you get away with that, so about $50, for a cheap date. That’s getting a bit nuts, and makes me glad I don’t live in a big city.
I am willing to pay $10 for about 2 hours of entertainment. This has kind of become my base line. Video games at $40-$60 are a bargain when you consider I’ll likely get 60 to 100 hours from a game, if not more and a subscription game like World of Warcraft isn’t a bad investment at $14 a month for the nearly unlimited amount of entertainment one could get if that was all you did in your free time. But that’s measuring quantity of entertainment by the dollar. What about quality of entertainment. Going to a concert, or a play, will get you about the same length of entertainment as a movie, but will hopefully be better entertainment. Cheap tickets to see U2 in concert are $64. Assuming about an hour and a half to two hour show, that’s over three times the cost of a movie in LA and six times as much as one at my local theater. But there is an experience to be had there that you can’t get from listening to CD’s. Cheap tickets to see Wicked in San Francisco are $142, over twice the cost of seeing U2. You pay more for these kinds of entertainment because they are “Art”. You are paying for the talent of the performers and for the ability to see it live.
Can we expect to see the cost of movies continue to climb? I think so, will it get as high as a concert? Perhaps. Considering the ballooning cost of making movies in the US, I could see ticket costs continuing to rise. The trick is that movies were supposed to be a cheap form of mass entertainment. The first movies were in machines called Nickelodeon’s. They were short, a few min at best, videos that you hand cranked and they cost 5 cents, thus how they got their name. In 1932 the first real theater charged 3 cents per person. By 1967 the average ticket price was up to $1.22, 1977 it was $2.23, only a dollar more in 10 years, where as by 1987 it was up to $3.91, $1.72 more. In 2000, the price was an average of $5.39 and has risen to an average of $7.50 as of 2009. For a further break down go here. The average cost includes all ticket sales together, whether they be matinee, children’s, discount or normal.
I don’t know what prices are going to do in the future, but if they continue to rise at the rate they are, I’m not sure how much longer I will be willing to see a movie. For comparison the UN World Food Programme, estimates it costs about 25 cents a day to feed a child, or 50 dollars a year. That means if I see 5 fewer movies a year I could feed a child for the same amount of time. So then, what is the value of our entertainment?
I am willing to pay $10 for about 2 hours of entertainment. This has kind of become my base line. Video games at $40-$60 are a bargain when you consider I’ll likely get 60 to 100 hours from a game, if not more and a subscription game like World of Warcraft isn’t a bad investment at $14 a month for the nearly unlimited amount of entertainment one could get if that was all you did in your free time. But that’s measuring quantity of entertainment by the dollar. What about quality of entertainment. Going to a concert, or a play, will get you about the same length of entertainment as a movie, but will hopefully be better entertainment. Cheap tickets to see U2 in concert are $64. Assuming about an hour and a half to two hour show, that’s over three times the cost of a movie in LA and six times as much as one at my local theater. But there is an experience to be had there that you can’t get from listening to CD’s. Cheap tickets to see Wicked in San Francisco are $142, over twice the cost of seeing U2. You pay more for these kinds of entertainment because they are “Art”. You are paying for the talent of the performers and for the ability to see it live.
Can we expect to see the cost of movies continue to climb? I think so, will it get as high as a concert? Perhaps. Considering the ballooning cost of making movies in the US, I could see ticket costs continuing to rise. The trick is that movies were supposed to be a cheap form of mass entertainment. The first movies were in machines called Nickelodeon’s. They were short, a few min at best, videos that you hand cranked and they cost 5 cents, thus how they got their name. In 1932 the first real theater charged 3 cents per person. By 1967 the average ticket price was up to $1.22, 1977 it was $2.23, only a dollar more in 10 years, where as by 1987 it was up to $3.91, $1.72 more. In 2000, the price was an average of $5.39 and has risen to an average of $7.50 as of 2009. For a further break down go here. The average cost includes all ticket sales together, whether they be matinee, children’s, discount or normal.
I don’t know what prices are going to do in the future, but if they continue to rise at the rate they are, I’m not sure how much longer I will be willing to see a movie. For comparison the UN World Food Programme, estimates it costs about 25 cents a day to feed a child, or 50 dollars a year. That means if I see 5 fewer movies a year I could feed a child for the same amount of time. So then, what is the value of our entertainment?
Friday, March 19, 2010
Silicon World
Click for full size.
Attractive isn’t she, It’s a shame she’s not real. What you see above is the result of about 10 hours of work in Photoshop. The whole piece is a composite or collage if you will. The face alone is made of 7 different pieces.
We are living in a world where it’s becoming harder and harder to tell the difference between what’s real and imaginary. As Eiffel 65 put it, we're living in a Silicon World. While their song might not have been about digital falsehoods, I like the mental image and I think the analogy applies. The chorus says “I want a girl with silicon lips and silicon hair” and now, every day when you look at print ads, whether that be magazines, billboards, or banners, it’s all silicon. Nothing makes it to print without first being digitally touched up, or re-mastered.
We are being presented with a false ideal of what beauty is. Don’t believe me? Go watch the Dove, Evolution add. Don’t worry we’ll wait while you do. That and more, goes into what you see every day.
But it’s not just our advertising, it’s our entertainment too. I will assume most people have seen Avatar. I spend a good majority of my time dealing with this kind of thing and even I had to stop at times, during the movie and remind myself that what I was looking at was 100% fake, created from someone’s imagination. We herald it as innovative and groundbreaking when it’s in our entertainment but for the most part, we don’t notice when it’s in our every day life.
Personally I like the fact that technology is catching up to our imaginations. It is now possible, with enough money, to make just about anything come to life on the silver screen and the kid/ artist inside me, loves it.
Up until recently we were limited in our representations of human beings. We just couldn’t make them look real enough. I know that sounds kind of silly but here’s the thing. The closer something resembles a human the more we identify with it. This is called personification. The problem is, at a certain point it looks enough like a human that the brain starts to try and identify it, as an actual person and that’s where we hit the sticking point. If it’s real enough but not perfect, the attraction becomes revulsion, as it ends up looking like a zombie, or a distorted monster. It looks human but something isn’t quite right. You get this nagging feeling in the back of your mind that something is off. Sometimes you can’t quite put your finger on it, but you know something is wrong. That’s your brain telling you it’s not real. Your subconscious looks at reality everyday, and then when it encounters something that’s off, it bugs you. This is called the Uncanny Veil. It’s the reason that for a long time computer animation steered clear of attempting realistic representations of humans. Because we couldn’t cross the veil and so as a result companies like Pixar created stylized version of humans. But now with avatar and other recent films like Benjamin button we have been able to push through and create false realities that are good enough to trick the mind, at least for a little while.
Now there is talk of resurrecting dead actors to make new movies. Bringing back Bruce Lee to make more martial arts films, but now the actor is digital and can do all their own stunts, work any hours you want, and do just about anything you want them to. All you have to do is hire a voice impersonator to do their lines and you’re good to go. Personally I think we’re still a ways off from this technology, but think about what that will do to Hollywood. As much as I love technology, I personally think we will never fully replace real actors. Actors who spend their whole lives learning to most minute control of their emotions and muscles to be able to evoke anything they need on film. I just don’t think we’re going to reach that level of control, at least not in our lifetime.
But where does it stop? With the advancement of technology progressing at the rate it is. Will we soon be seeing videogames that look like movies? We are already close. But will we see the return of Virtual Reality and actually live the games? What will that do to us? If people spend more time playing games then going outside where will the line between self and avatar begin and end? If we can create a digital person who looks real, what’s to stop advertising companies from using computer models instead of real ones? No longer would they have to worry about aging or weight gain.
Are we as a world culture going to continue to accept the advancement of technology or will there be a point where we say no, and draw a line at the level of involvement we allow technology to have in our lives.
Already we have begun to see a back lash against the digital altering of images for advertisements. Will we have a “Bra Burning” of the 21st century, where we reject the standards that media is trying to sell us, the ultra thin, ultra low-rise jeans? Or will we go blindly on into one of Hollywood’s cyberpunk futures, like Surrogates, where we live our lives vicariously through technology, never leaving our homes?
Already we live lives connected to the global community, via the internet, through the umbilical’s of our computers and cell phones. We pour our lives into ones and zeroes, into face book and myspace. People have been known to lose friends, jobs, even marriages to games like World of Warcraft.
Truly we live in a silicon world, but where does it end?
Monday, March 15, 2010
Convergence of Sight and Sound
I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon; I can watch a movie, a TV show, a youtube clip, or a trailer and really like the music that accompanies it, but when I go look the song up online and listen to it, I find that I don’t like the song as much. Because of this, I became more aware of the effect that the convergence of Sight and Sound can have. There’s a synergy between the two.
For example try watching a movie trailer with the sound turned off. It’s boring isn’t it? Now watch it again with the sound on, much better right? This isn’t exactly earth shattering news to anyone, but it is an interesting occurrence and I thought I would spend a little time mulling it over.
Anyone who has ever listened to music can tell you, it has a way of touching the emotions within you. It’s possible for a song to move you to tears, or make you laugh. Music is a highly emotive medium. On the flip side, our vision is slightly less tied to our emotions, or at least seems to be. Now perhaps that’s because we’ve become visually desensitized, through repeated bombardment of our ocular senses. Or maybe it’s because visual input gets filtered more than auditory, I’m not sure. Whatever the reason, images have less impact. That’s not to say they don’t effect us. If you look at pictures of the devastation in Haiti and you will likely feel pity or sympathy for the people in there.
So why do I like a song when it’s with a video, but not when it’s alone? To answer this let’s look at the example of classical music. Classical music can be highly emotive, and is excellent music, but for the most part I can’t just sit down and listen to it. Why? Maybe it’s because I have a short attention span, or it’s just not interesting enough to me. But set that same piece of music to say, the skating performance of a pairs team in the Olympics and suddenly, the song is very emotive and I am caught up in the whole event. Turn off the sound and the performance in interesting but not captivating. The video gives the music context. It gives a frame of reference in which to interpret the music. It narrows the scope of what the song could mean. Take the same song and set it to something different and it might be just as interesting but it may evoke different emotions. Why? Because the video is giving you a different context under which to interpret the music.
Music provides emotionality to the video and makes it far more impactful then it would be on its own, but the video gives the music context and flavor.
On the flip side, music can provide context to the video. Take a video of a car crash, back it with a sad song and the video is about a tragic accident. Switch the sad song for upbeat carnival music and suddenly you have a slapstick routine.
Alone music and video are limited in their interpretation and effect. But together they synergize to create manifold opportunities and amplified impact. It should be noted though, that a poor choice of video or music can utterly ruin any possible benefit the accompanying piece might have.
This convergence is something that advertising companies have known for a long time and can be seen every day on TV and in movies. Used to manipulate us into feeling what they want us to, so we will buy their products.
Be aware of the affect media can have on you and perhaps you can avoid its manipulation.
And now you know.
For example try watching a movie trailer with the sound turned off. It’s boring isn’t it? Now watch it again with the sound on, much better right? This isn’t exactly earth shattering news to anyone, but it is an interesting occurrence and I thought I would spend a little time mulling it over.
Anyone who has ever listened to music can tell you, it has a way of touching the emotions within you. It’s possible for a song to move you to tears, or make you laugh. Music is a highly emotive medium. On the flip side, our vision is slightly less tied to our emotions, or at least seems to be. Now perhaps that’s because we’ve become visually desensitized, through repeated bombardment of our ocular senses. Or maybe it’s because visual input gets filtered more than auditory, I’m not sure. Whatever the reason, images have less impact. That’s not to say they don’t effect us. If you look at pictures of the devastation in Haiti and you will likely feel pity or sympathy for the people in there.
So why do I like a song when it’s with a video, but not when it’s alone? To answer this let’s look at the example of classical music. Classical music can be highly emotive, and is excellent music, but for the most part I can’t just sit down and listen to it. Why? Maybe it’s because I have a short attention span, or it’s just not interesting enough to me. But set that same piece of music to say, the skating performance of a pairs team in the Olympics and suddenly, the song is very emotive and I am caught up in the whole event. Turn off the sound and the performance in interesting but not captivating. The video gives the music context. It gives a frame of reference in which to interpret the music. It narrows the scope of what the song could mean. Take the same song and set it to something different and it might be just as interesting but it may evoke different emotions. Why? Because the video is giving you a different context under which to interpret the music.
Music provides emotionality to the video and makes it far more impactful then it would be on its own, but the video gives the music context and flavor.
On the flip side, music can provide context to the video. Take a video of a car crash, back it with a sad song and the video is about a tragic accident. Switch the sad song for upbeat carnival music and suddenly you have a slapstick routine.
Alone music and video are limited in their interpretation and effect. But together they synergize to create manifold opportunities and amplified impact. It should be noted though, that a poor choice of video or music can utterly ruin any possible benefit the accompanying piece might have.
This convergence is something that advertising companies have known for a long time and can be seen every day on TV and in movies. Used to manipulate us into feeling what they want us to, so we will buy their products.
Be aware of the affect media can have on you and perhaps you can avoid its manipulation.
And now you know.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Truth, Lies and Orders of Intent
So in Philosophy there is a concept called Orders of Intent or Intentionality. This concept states that there are ascending orders of intent. Great, so what, you ask? Let me give you an example.
Order 0: I will eat the apple or I exist.
Order 1: I know that I will eat the apple or I know that I exist.
Order 2: I know, that you know, that I will eat the apple or I know, that you know, that I exist.
Order 3: I know, that you know, that I know, that I will eat the apple. I know, that you know, that he knows, I exist.
Etc... According to the theory, chimpanzees can handle perhaps two orders of intentionality, and humans can handle at max about five orders of intentionality (example: "I can't believe that you would think me capable of hating Fred just because he failed to defend Mary when John called her a dummy." It’s confusing but you can just begin to follow it. Another example or good way to think of it is like chess. How many moves ahead do you think? Or even rock, paper, scissors. When I play rock, paper, scissors, I frequently think, ok last time I did rock, so they will likely do paper, thus I will do scissors, but they will know that, so they will do rock, so I will do paper. In chess it looks like this, if I take his queen with my bishop, the only smart move is for him to then take it with his rook, which opens his king up for check from my queen, and so on.
So what does this have to do with anything? It has to do with how we communicate. Say I want the chair you’re sitting in. If I were to come up to you and say “May I have your chair?” That would be 3rd order intent, because you now know, that I know, that I want the chair. Conversely I could come up to you and say there are brownies in the kitchen. I know, that you now believe, that I know, there are brownies in the kitchen (3rd Order) But really, I just want your chair (1st Order)
So you could say that 1st order is awareness of self. 2nd order is awareness of others, and 3rd order is where true communication begins. But 3rd order is also where we begin to be able to deceive. Deception and lies are about making people believe what we want them to believe. Telling you there’s food in the kitchen isn’t a lie (if there really is food) but it is deception, if what I really want is your chair. This makes deception harder to spot than a lie. Why? Because, lies are not based on anything and thus can eventually be seen through, which is why the “best” lies are ones based on the truth, because they hold up longer under scrutiny.
As humans we like to get our way and so through the course of our lives we all learn to a greater or lesser degree how to manipulate, because the purpose of manipulation is to get your way. If you are passive aggressive you do this without direct confrontation. If your aggressive you might do it by force, and then there are those who master manipulation and do it without others even realizing they are being manipulated. Even believing they want to do what you, want them to do. I would say that these people probably work on 4th order most of the time. Intents are not about what you know as much as they are about what you believe. So let’s look at and example. Say there’s a girl (Suzie) in high school who likes a guy (Ben), but he’s already seeing someone (Lisa). Suzie, might start a rumor that Lisa has been unfaithful to Ben, making the person she tells, believe she’s telling the truth, which then makes the general population believe the lie, which in turn makes the Ben believe it and break up with Lisa. Or yet more deceptive Suzie might convince, the person she confides in, to believe she’s broken up over the fact that Lisa is cheating on Ben. From what I have read it gets hard to define the higher level intents. But I would consider this a 4th order, because after Ben breaks up with Lisa, Suzie can go to Ben and console him over the recent break up without Ben having any idea it was really all Suzie’s fault.
Back again to the chess example, the person who typically wins in a game of chess is the person who can think one step, or turn farther ahead than their opponent and the same is true in life. When it comes to manipulation the person who can think one step further, is the one who gets their way, at least when it comes to direct competition. But life is rarely a direct competition.
Now manipulation doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. Here’s another example. John and Beth are supposed to hang out, but John suspects that Beth might like him and wants to both find out if this is true, and not end up alone with her while hanging out. So John asks Beth if he can bring a friend, telling her that Jake likes bowling as well and they haven’t hung out in a while (which in this case is true). Now Beth has limited choices. She can say no, and have to explain why, thus letting John know that she likes him, or say sure, and now John isn’t alone at bowling with Beth. John has just effectively executed a 3rd order intent to get his way, manipulating Beth, while making her think that all he wanted was to hang out with more friends.
We do this sort of thing every day, often without thinking about it. We attempt to control our environment and thus the people around us. Some people are open about it and others aren’t. Perhaps one of the most effective methods of deception is, believe it or not, telling the truth. By telling the truth most appropriate to your situation and making others believe what you are telling them (which if you’re telling the truth they typically will), then you can get what you want without people realizing they have been manipulated. Back to the example of the chair, telling you there are brownies in the kitchen so I can have your chair, isn’t a lie and odds are you will enjoy the brownies. I haven’t lied and you probably won’t even think twice about it. The more you tell the truth the more people are inclined to believe what you say and the more they take it at face value. The more people take what you say at face value, the less they look for deception and thus the easier it is to manipulate them. This is perhaps the most deceptive and hardest to spot kind of manipulation. If the person doing the manipulation knows you well and knows your week points, interests, etc. They can convince you that you’re doing something of your own volition, because you want to. Giving you what you want to get what they want.
But how do we learn these kinds of behaviors? I think it, like almost everything begins in childhood, with how we are raised. If you as a child are in a store and really want a toy, what do you do? You throw a tantrum. Now how do your parents react, if they give in, you’ve learned that throwing a tantrum gets you what you want, and you will try it again the next time you want something. Congratulations you’ve just learned emotional manipulation. If your parents ignore you and let you tire yourself out, or spank you right there in the store isle, you learn that tantrums don’t work and will instead try something different next time. If your parents are good at not giving in to your manipulation and at teaching you, they may eventually convince you that the best way to get what you want is to simply ask for it, maybe even give a logical argument for why you should have whatever it is you want. But it’s also possible that you will simply learn to be craftier in your manipulation.
I think that those people who learn to be truly masterful manipulators do so throughout the course of their lives. It’s no one event or chain of events that teaches them. But I think that children who grow up in unstable or abusive homes likely learn manipulation as a defensive mechanism. If you know what makes your parents tick, if you know what they like or hate. Then you know what buttons to push, how to distract them when they’re angry or how to get them to drop an uncomfortable topic.
It’s amazing the things we learn in self defense, the things we learn in the course of life. So next time you’re interacting with someone, stop and think about your interaction. Stop and think about the way you communicate and maybe even how you came to have the communication style you use.
This has been a 3rd Order Intent
And now you know.
Monday, March 8, 2010
METS
So a couple of weeks ago I was using wiifit plus, and the game popped up a little box that said "Hi were now using these things called METs to calculate the estimated number of calories you're burning during each activity.
Being the curious person I am, I immediately went, what the heck is a MET. So I poked around in the game and found an area that talked about them... but it basically retold me the same information. So I decided to do some research and this is what I found.
MET stands for Metabolic Equivalents, with 1 MET equal to 3.5 milliliter oxygen per kg of body weight per minute. It's a gauge of how hard your body is working, and thus by extension how much oxygen your body burns to release the energy you need to do said activity. The maximum amount of Oxygen your body can use is called your VO2 max.
At rest every human being is uses roughly 1 MET and your average middle aged man or woman has a peak MET output of 8 to 10. Right now that doesn't mean much so let me give you some examples.
Walking = about 3 METS
Hiking = 7 METS
Swimming at a moderate speed = 8 mets
The sustainable MET output for your average human is 60-80% of their maximum METs. At 80-100% output the activity is not able to be sustained for any significant length of time.
So that's the bad news. The good news is the more fit you are the higher your maximum METs and the longer you can sustain a given output. This is because the more fit you are the higher your VO2 max.
Lets take a quick look at VO2 max. This represents the capacity of your body to deliver oxygen to your cells and the ability of your cells to use that oxygen. In an unfit body, the cells make poor use of oxygen and the cardiovascular system doesn't supply enough oxygen to the muscles. Where as in an someone who's fit, a greater volume of oxygen is delivered to the cells and the cells are more efficient in their use of that oxygen. A normal VO2 max for a 20-29 year old male is 43-52 ml/kg/min where as a male soccer player age 22-28 by contrast, is able to use 54-64.
So how do you use all this to calculate calories burned? For that we use the equation 1MET = 1cal/kg/hr. But since we use lb in the US, we have to divide that by 2.2, since 1kg = 2.2lb. So for us its going to be 1MET = .45cal/lb/hr. There for a 200 lb person hiking at 7 METs for an Hour would burn an estimated 630 cal or about 10.5 cal/min.
Lets extrapolate this. If you burn 1MET at rest. That means a 200 lb person is burning 90 cal/hr sitting on their but, or a total of 2160 cal in a day by doing nothing. This explains why when you look at the back of any food product the daily allowed numbers are based on a 2000 cal diet. Because the average human will burn more then 2000 cal by simply living. So to not waste away to nothing, we must consume at least 2000 cal a day. Which in the US, isn't much of a problem.
If you want to know what the MET value's are for just about any activity you can imagine just follow this link. Take a look you might be surprised at how high some of the activities you enjoy are. Also if you want to read more about VO2 Max follow this link. and a link to some one of the pages on METs I looked at.
And now you know. :)
Being the curious person I am, I immediately went, what the heck is a MET. So I poked around in the game and found an area that talked about them... but it basically retold me the same information. So I decided to do some research and this is what I found.
MET stands for Metabolic Equivalents, with 1 MET equal to 3.5 milliliter oxygen per kg of body weight per minute. It's a gauge of how hard your body is working, and thus by extension how much oxygen your body burns to release the energy you need to do said activity. The maximum amount of Oxygen your body can use is called your VO2 max.
At rest every human being is uses roughly 1 MET and your average middle aged man or woman has a peak MET output of 8 to 10. Right now that doesn't mean much so let me give you some examples.
Walking = about 3 METS
Hiking = 7 METS
Swimming at a moderate speed = 8 mets
The sustainable MET output for your average human is 60-80% of their maximum METs. At 80-100% output the activity is not able to be sustained for any significant length of time.
So that's the bad news. The good news is the more fit you are the higher your maximum METs and the longer you can sustain a given output. This is because the more fit you are the higher your VO2 max.
Lets take a quick look at VO2 max. This represents the capacity of your body to deliver oxygen to your cells and the ability of your cells to use that oxygen. In an unfit body, the cells make poor use of oxygen and the cardiovascular system doesn't supply enough oxygen to the muscles. Where as in an someone who's fit, a greater volume of oxygen is delivered to the cells and the cells are more efficient in their use of that oxygen. A normal VO2 max for a 20-29 year old male is 43-52 ml/kg/min where as a male soccer player age 22-28 by contrast, is able to use 54-64.
So how do you use all this to calculate calories burned? For that we use the equation 1MET = 1cal/kg/hr. But since we use lb in the US, we have to divide that by 2.2, since 1kg = 2.2lb. So for us its going to be 1MET = .45cal/lb/hr. There for a 200 lb person hiking at 7 METs for an Hour would burn an estimated 630 cal or about 10.5 cal/min.
Lets extrapolate this. If you burn 1MET at rest. That means a 200 lb person is burning 90 cal/hr sitting on their but, or a total of 2160 cal in a day by doing nothing. This explains why when you look at the back of any food product the daily allowed numbers are based on a 2000 cal diet. Because the average human will burn more then 2000 cal by simply living. So to not waste away to nothing, we must consume at least 2000 cal a day. Which in the US, isn't much of a problem.
If you want to know what the MET value's are for just about any activity you can imagine just follow this link. Take a look you might be surprised at how high some of the activities you enjoy are. Also if you want to read more about VO2 Max follow this link. and a link to some one of the pages on METs I looked at.
And now you know. :)
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Social Leprosy Flip Side
Okay now for the flip side to my previous post.
Email is a great invention. While it doesn't have the same sentimental value as receiving a hand written letter in the mail, it has the bonus of being almost instantaneous, as long as people actually check their mail regularly. And in many ways its easier to hold onto your old emails than perhaps it is to hold onto old letters.
Cellphones, while they can be annoying at times, are very convenient. There is little better than a cellphone when you are in an emergency and need to reach someone. Or even just the simple convenience of trying to find someone you're trying to meet up with. No longer do you have to designate a time and a place to meet. You can now just call and ask, where are you?
Texting is perfect when you only need to send a simple message, like "I'll be there in 5 min" or "Don't forget to get milk."
The internet has brought us the useful tools of video chat and skype. Now you can call someone anywhere in the world for free as long as you both have internet. You can chat face to face across long distances if you both have cameras. This technology really does bring people closer together.
Dating sites are becoming more popular and more useful as our society gets busier and more isolated. It gets harder to meet people as life moves on. Without social gatherings the only way to meet someone is through your friends, family, or job. And that's a limited grouping of people. So the internet provides a way to look for others with similar interests. And not just on dating sites. Now you can use it to find other people who like to hike or quilt, or whatever hobby you are interested in. New ways to make connections and potential friends. People that you can then choose to meet in real life if you want.
The technology is expanding our ability to connect. But I think we must remember that technology is only a tool and not a replacement for having an actual relationship with living people. Use these tools to connect, but don't limit your interactions to those done solely through these tools.
Email is a great invention. While it doesn't have the same sentimental value as receiving a hand written letter in the mail, it has the bonus of being almost instantaneous, as long as people actually check their mail regularly. And in many ways its easier to hold onto your old emails than perhaps it is to hold onto old letters.
Cellphones, while they can be annoying at times, are very convenient. There is little better than a cellphone when you are in an emergency and need to reach someone. Or even just the simple convenience of trying to find someone you're trying to meet up with. No longer do you have to designate a time and a place to meet. You can now just call and ask, where are you?
Texting is perfect when you only need to send a simple message, like "I'll be there in 5 min" or "Don't forget to get milk."
The internet has brought us the useful tools of video chat and skype. Now you can call someone anywhere in the world for free as long as you both have internet. You can chat face to face across long distances if you both have cameras. This technology really does bring people closer together.
Dating sites are becoming more popular and more useful as our society gets busier and more isolated. It gets harder to meet people as life moves on. Without social gatherings the only way to meet someone is through your friends, family, or job. And that's a limited grouping of people. So the internet provides a way to look for others with similar interests. And not just on dating sites. Now you can use it to find other people who like to hike or quilt, or whatever hobby you are interested in. New ways to make connections and potential friends. People that you can then choose to meet in real life if you want.
The technology is expanding our ability to connect. But I think we must remember that technology is only a tool and not a replacement for having an actual relationship with living people. Use these tools to connect, but don't limit your interactions to those done solely through these tools.
Social Leprosy
So I thought I would rabbit trail off my previous topic for this one and talk about social leprosy, about our fear of connection. I'm not really sure where this particular issue started. I think it may have originated in a fear of rejection. I think it would be safe to say everyone has been rejected in one way or another during their life. Whether it was being picked last for Dodge-ball in school, or being told that a relationship just wasn't going to work, we've all felt the bitter sting of rejection to greater and lesser degrees. As I discussed in my last topic we are a generation averse to pain and as a result we try to mitigate and limit the ways we can be hurt, and fear of rejection springs from that.
One of the biggest ways you can be hurt is in relationships. Because, by the nature of relationship you must put ourselves out there, and must open up and share part of yourself. If you can't do this, then a relationship will never progress and you end up with empty shallow interactions.
So hypothetically we have a guy, we will call him Bob. Now for the sake of this exercise Bob is an average looking guy, he's not one of the guys that girls really notice and so he's going to have to work a little. Speaking from a guys perspective here, it takes a lot of guts to approach a girl and talk to her, especially if A. Your not very good at it, B. You don't know the girl well, and C. You like the girl even the littlest bit. So bob likes a girl. We'll call her Nancy.
Bob spends part of his time thinking about Nancy and how much he likes her and finally works up enough nerve to go talk to her. This is the crucial moment where Nancy has all the power and can crush him with little or no effort. In this case she does, well say because she happens to like another guy, and so she turns down Bobs invitation to coffee.
That rejection hurts and the next time Bob likes a girl he's likely to be a little more cautious before he approaches her and in how he does when he finally works up enough nerve to do so. In high school we see this play out endless times, and we see it on both sides. People become cautious and they start to try and feel each other out, they start to play games, like dropping hints and looking for reactions, they send friends to ask if the person likes you. This way the rejection is once removed and insulated. And these behaviors continue into adult hood. But as we age we get more crafty and perhaps fear rejection more. Cause now the clock is ticking, the older you get, the more society looks at you and wonders why you're still single and if perhaps there's something wrong with you. Because lets face it we live in a relationship based society. We've even built an entire industry around it, and gave it a holiday.
So we were happily playing our games, when along came the internet and we thought it was our salvation. A new and glorious way to communicate. Now you don't even have to talk to the person face to face. You can send them an email, and it's so much better then writing a letter because its fast. Then email was fallowed by cellphones and now we could be reached any where, any time of the day, but it didn't really bring us closer. Now instead of sitting down and having a conversation we could just call someone at the drop of a hat and ask them what we needed to know.
But then came texting and internet chat. Heralded as revolutions. With chat you can have the impersonality of text with the instantaneous quality of a conversation. You can talk to people from all over the world, but with the catch that now you don't know what they look like.
However text has its problems. For all its words, its imprecise. Text fails when it comes to conveying emotions. It lacks the nuance of voice. Without knowing how someone talks, you can't know for sure if something is a joke or not. So we resort to the ever present LoL or :D But really these emoticons fail. Rarely do I truly lol, but its what I type when I chuckle or smirk because its the accepted sign for, that was funny.
We hide behind text because it insulates us, but really it breaks down communication and as a result relationship. And texting is worse, now you can instantly annoy someone with a question or comment any time of the day without have to actually talk to them or wait for a reply. Sure its convenient but again it cuts down on real interaction.
And last but not least we developed Social Networking sites, where we can now feel like we're connected to other people because we can follow their thoughts and actions through the internet. Without ever talking to them. But hey, at least now we know what people look like. We can have hundreds even thousands of friends and not "know" any of them. It's so bad we've even coined phrases Like facebook friend. It's not official, your not really friends, until your friends on facebook.
I think we need to step back and reassess what it means to be a friend. All this technology and what have we gained. Distance, we no longer have to interact face to face, we can now sit at our computers in our homes and have "relationships". But now because we don't leave our houses we don't meet new people and without meeting new people how do we find a significant other?
Introduce the dating site, where you can be "scientifically" matched based on your selections from a drop down menu, with people in your area. You can click a button that says yes I think I might like to meet this person and if they click the same box on the other end you both receive a message saying you might be a match, now talk it out. Great we've just digitally recreated the high school equivalent of sending your friend to feel out the person. We've cushioned and insulated ourselves from rejection.
I'm not saying that these sites can't be good and helpful but I just think we should stop for a second and really ask ourselves if they're improving the quality of our relationships.
What happened to going for a walk, or sitting and chatting over coffee or tea. I personally miss late night conversations. Sure you can have a late night chat on your computer but it's just not the same as sitting curled up on opposite ends of a couch, philosophizing into the wee hours of the morning. There's no digital equivalent to a physical hug when you aren't feeling well, or just lost a loved one. You can't cry on someones shoulder through the internet. You can't hear the glorious tones of someones laugh through text and chat. And you can't hear the tones of soft loving care when someone says I love you. Text just isn't adequate to convey the depth and breadth of human emotion.
The phone is better but it's still impersonal and you still can't touch our interact with the person. You can't see their reactions or body language. I would personally say that at least 50 percent of communication is non verbal and you loose all of that. And for what? So we can be less vulnerable? I'm calling BS.
As Westly in The Princess Bride so perfectly says "Life is pain, anyone who says otherwise, is trying to sell something." I think its time we embrace what it means to be human. Stop hiding behind technology and get out there. Take a risk and feel some pain, and for God's sake, please can we stop playing childish games?
I think we end up causing just as much if not more pain by playing games and sending mixed signals, in relationships. Why can't we just be upfront, blunt and honest. Say what me mean, and mean what we say. Yes it hurts but in the long run it saves more pain and more trouble then all the lies and maneuvering. It saves a lot of time too.
So my challenge to you should you accept it, is to go out and live life a little. Talk to someone face to face for at least half an hour. Ask them how they are doing and mean it. And look them in the eye. I mean really look them in the eye.
I'll leave you with this, most people can't sustain direct eye contact for more then a few seconds at a time? Try it. Why is that? Are we afraid of what we will see, or what others might see in us?
One of the biggest ways you can be hurt is in relationships. Because, by the nature of relationship you must put ourselves out there, and must open up and share part of yourself. If you can't do this, then a relationship will never progress and you end up with empty shallow interactions.
So hypothetically we have a guy, we will call him Bob. Now for the sake of this exercise Bob is an average looking guy, he's not one of the guys that girls really notice and so he's going to have to work a little. Speaking from a guys perspective here, it takes a lot of guts to approach a girl and talk to her, especially if A. Your not very good at it, B. You don't know the girl well, and C. You like the girl even the littlest bit. So bob likes a girl. We'll call her Nancy.
Bob spends part of his time thinking about Nancy and how much he likes her and finally works up enough nerve to go talk to her. This is the crucial moment where Nancy has all the power and can crush him with little or no effort. In this case she does, well say because she happens to like another guy, and so she turns down Bobs invitation to coffee.
That rejection hurts and the next time Bob likes a girl he's likely to be a little more cautious before he approaches her and in how he does when he finally works up enough nerve to do so. In high school we see this play out endless times, and we see it on both sides. People become cautious and they start to try and feel each other out, they start to play games, like dropping hints and looking for reactions, they send friends to ask if the person likes you. This way the rejection is once removed and insulated. And these behaviors continue into adult hood. But as we age we get more crafty and perhaps fear rejection more. Cause now the clock is ticking, the older you get, the more society looks at you and wonders why you're still single and if perhaps there's something wrong with you. Because lets face it we live in a relationship based society. We've even built an entire industry around it, and gave it a holiday.
So we were happily playing our games, when along came the internet and we thought it was our salvation. A new and glorious way to communicate. Now you don't even have to talk to the person face to face. You can send them an email, and it's so much better then writing a letter because its fast. Then email was fallowed by cellphones and now we could be reached any where, any time of the day, but it didn't really bring us closer. Now instead of sitting down and having a conversation we could just call someone at the drop of a hat and ask them what we needed to know.
But then came texting and internet chat. Heralded as revolutions. With chat you can have the impersonality of text with the instantaneous quality of a conversation. You can talk to people from all over the world, but with the catch that now you don't know what they look like.
However text has its problems. For all its words, its imprecise. Text fails when it comes to conveying emotions. It lacks the nuance of voice. Without knowing how someone talks, you can't know for sure if something is a joke or not. So we resort to the ever present LoL or :D But really these emoticons fail. Rarely do I truly lol, but its what I type when I chuckle or smirk because its the accepted sign for, that was funny.
We hide behind text because it insulates us, but really it breaks down communication and as a result relationship. And texting is worse, now you can instantly annoy someone with a question or comment any time of the day without have to actually talk to them or wait for a reply. Sure its convenient but again it cuts down on real interaction.
And last but not least we developed Social Networking sites, where we can now feel like we're connected to other people because we can follow their thoughts and actions through the internet. Without ever talking to them. But hey, at least now we know what people look like. We can have hundreds even thousands of friends and not "know" any of them. It's so bad we've even coined phrases Like facebook friend. It's not official, your not really friends, until your friends on facebook.
I think we need to step back and reassess what it means to be a friend. All this technology and what have we gained. Distance, we no longer have to interact face to face, we can now sit at our computers in our homes and have "relationships". But now because we don't leave our houses we don't meet new people and without meeting new people how do we find a significant other?
Introduce the dating site, where you can be "scientifically" matched based on your selections from a drop down menu, with people in your area. You can click a button that says yes I think I might like to meet this person and if they click the same box on the other end you both receive a message saying you might be a match, now talk it out. Great we've just digitally recreated the high school equivalent of sending your friend to feel out the person. We've cushioned and insulated ourselves from rejection.
I'm not saying that these sites can't be good and helpful but I just think we should stop for a second and really ask ourselves if they're improving the quality of our relationships.
What happened to going for a walk, or sitting and chatting over coffee or tea. I personally miss late night conversations. Sure you can have a late night chat on your computer but it's just not the same as sitting curled up on opposite ends of a couch, philosophizing into the wee hours of the morning. There's no digital equivalent to a physical hug when you aren't feeling well, or just lost a loved one. You can't cry on someones shoulder through the internet. You can't hear the glorious tones of someones laugh through text and chat. And you can't hear the tones of soft loving care when someone says I love you. Text just isn't adequate to convey the depth and breadth of human emotion.
The phone is better but it's still impersonal and you still can't touch our interact with the person. You can't see their reactions or body language. I would personally say that at least 50 percent of communication is non verbal and you loose all of that. And for what? So we can be less vulnerable? I'm calling BS.
As Westly in The Princess Bride so perfectly says "Life is pain, anyone who says otherwise, is trying to sell something." I think its time we embrace what it means to be human. Stop hiding behind technology and get out there. Take a risk and feel some pain, and for God's sake, please can we stop playing childish games?
I think we end up causing just as much if not more pain by playing games and sending mixed signals, in relationships. Why can't we just be upfront, blunt and honest. Say what me mean, and mean what we say. Yes it hurts but in the long run it saves more pain and more trouble then all the lies and maneuvering. It saves a lot of time too.
So my challenge to you should you accept it, is to go out and live life a little. Talk to someone face to face for at least half an hour. Ask them how they are doing and mean it. And look them in the eye. I mean really look them in the eye.
I'll leave you with this, most people can't sustain direct eye contact for more then a few seconds at a time? Try it. Why is that? Are we afraid of what we will see, or what others might see in us?
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Soft People
A topic I've been mulling over for a while is the idea that we as Americans are soft. I can't speak for other countries as I don't have much experience with them, but here in America, we're soft. We spend most of our lives trying to avoid or minimize pain and suffering. On the whole I'm not saying this is bad, but I think we may have gone too far.
Pain is the body's way of telling you something is wrong. Pain is meant to be a good thing. It tells us we're still alive and it's trying to keep us that way. Pain tells you when you've put your hand down on a hot stove, pain tells you when you've miss stepped or stubbed your toe. Pain is a great teacher. But we ignore it.
Take the painkiller commercials for example. Have back pain? Take Tylenol so the pain goes away and you can continue to lift those heavy boxes that are straining your back.
But it's not just physical pain, it's emotional pain too. We avoid real commitment and relationships because we don't want to get hurt. People don't put themselves out there because they don't want to be rejected.
Instead we cocoon ourselves away behind social media and texting. God forbid we actually have to interact with someone face to face. But it's more systemic then that. We don't want to feel even the least bit uncomfortable. We live in climate controlled houses, and go to work at climate controlled buildings in climate controlled cars, lest we ever be cold or hot. Lest we be uncomfortable and maybe even perspire. We don't work out, because we don't want to be sore and we are constantly eating because we never want to feel hungry.
If we do something that's hard, or pushes us beyond our comfort level, we give up, we quit. We are a generation that doesn't know what we are capable of because we are too afraid to try, because it's not comfortable.
I've had the pleasure to facilitate rock climbing outings, and mountain hikes. I'm not talking a short walk in the hills, I'm talking 20 miles in one day with heavy elevation gain. And this is what I see. I see people who get halfway up a rock face and want to quite, because it's too hard, and their muscles have begun to ache. I hear complaints of I can't do it, but you know what I've found? It's a lie. 90% of the time, it's not that they can't, it's that they don't know they can. They've never challenged themselves, they don't know their limits and what they are capable of.
On rare occasions I have seen something else though, I've seen someone achieve far beyond what they thought possible, because they dared to say, No, I don't care what I think I can do, I don't care that it hurts, I will do this. Too often we stop, or give up at the first sign of adversity or pain, when we can accomplish so much more, more then we ever imagine, if we are just willing to push. To go beyond what we think we can do, what we are comfortable with.
It's like building a muscle. You exercise and there is pain, because the muscle is breaking down. But the miracle of the human body is that when it heals, it does so stronger. Pain can be a good thing, it's telling you your pushing your limits. But you don't have to stop. Don't ignore the pain, don't shut it out, or dull it with drugs. Listen to it. Know your body.
There is no growth without pain. Without pain we are lepers, destined to repeat the same mistakes, to continue re-injuring the same wounds, till our fingers fall off.
I would rather push myself, past the pain, to the limit and learn. Learn who I am, and what I'm capable of. We need to stop ignoring or avoiding pain and discomfort, I think it's time we embraced the pain.
Embrace the pain and live a little.
Pain is the body's way of telling you something is wrong. Pain is meant to be a good thing. It tells us we're still alive and it's trying to keep us that way. Pain tells you when you've put your hand down on a hot stove, pain tells you when you've miss stepped or stubbed your toe. Pain is a great teacher. But we ignore it.
Take the painkiller commercials for example. Have back pain? Take Tylenol so the pain goes away and you can continue to lift those heavy boxes that are straining your back.
But it's not just physical pain, it's emotional pain too. We avoid real commitment and relationships because we don't want to get hurt. People don't put themselves out there because they don't want to be rejected.
Instead we cocoon ourselves away behind social media and texting. God forbid we actually have to interact with someone face to face. But it's more systemic then that. We don't want to feel even the least bit uncomfortable. We live in climate controlled houses, and go to work at climate controlled buildings in climate controlled cars, lest we ever be cold or hot. Lest we be uncomfortable and maybe even perspire. We don't work out, because we don't want to be sore and we are constantly eating because we never want to feel hungry.
If we do something that's hard, or pushes us beyond our comfort level, we give up, we quit. We are a generation that doesn't know what we are capable of because we are too afraid to try, because it's not comfortable.
I've had the pleasure to facilitate rock climbing outings, and mountain hikes. I'm not talking a short walk in the hills, I'm talking 20 miles in one day with heavy elevation gain. And this is what I see. I see people who get halfway up a rock face and want to quite, because it's too hard, and their muscles have begun to ache. I hear complaints of I can't do it, but you know what I've found? It's a lie. 90% of the time, it's not that they can't, it's that they don't know they can. They've never challenged themselves, they don't know their limits and what they are capable of.
On rare occasions I have seen something else though, I've seen someone achieve far beyond what they thought possible, because they dared to say, No, I don't care what I think I can do, I don't care that it hurts, I will do this. Too often we stop, or give up at the first sign of adversity or pain, when we can accomplish so much more, more then we ever imagine, if we are just willing to push. To go beyond what we think we can do, what we are comfortable with.
It's like building a muscle. You exercise and there is pain, because the muscle is breaking down. But the miracle of the human body is that when it heals, it does so stronger. Pain can be a good thing, it's telling you your pushing your limits. But you don't have to stop. Don't ignore the pain, don't shut it out, or dull it with drugs. Listen to it. Know your body.
There is no growth without pain. Without pain we are lepers, destined to repeat the same mistakes, to continue re-injuring the same wounds, till our fingers fall off.
I would rather push myself, past the pain, to the limit and learn. Learn who I am, and what I'm capable of. We need to stop ignoring or avoiding pain and discomfort, I think it's time we embraced the pain.
Embrace the pain and live a little.
Mission Statement
As this is my first post I thought I would start off by explaining why I'm here. I got the idea for this blog because I like to analyze and mull over questions or ideas in my mind. I like to think and observe, and I like mental exercises. But of late I find myself not using my mind as much as I would like, so this blog is going to be a collection of observations, what ifs, and analysis. I'll take an idea, thought, word, what ever I fancy at the time and run with it. I will try to look at it from every angle and mentally work through it.
I will try to do this several times a week, but no promises. :)
I hope you will read and enjoy. I hope these posts spark you interest and your mind. I hope they get you thinking as well.
I will try to do this several times a week, but no promises. :)
I hope you will read and enjoy. I hope these posts spark you interest and your mind. I hope they get you thinking as well.
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