Like steel

Instead of all this, why couldn’t we be something that lives forever, like a piece of steel, say? They just go on and on, never changing…probably don’t have any emotional problems; they just are, and they can be satisfied with themselves because they’re doing a job, doing it well, and will for, oh, maybe hundreds of years without change. Sounds pretty nice. Smooth, and stable. No daily ups-and-downs. No torture, like we have. Of course, they may have their own time-scale, like maybe a day to us doesn’t nearly mean the same to them. And I guess they do have a rusty or molten death waiting for them eventually. Or maybe…maybe their time-scale is really long, and they think their lives are really short! What a gyp. And of course the scenery never changes, although that’d be ok if you were part of a nice bridge. Who knows what they’re up to? Maybe their time-scale is so stretched out, the first piece of steel ever made has yet to form any thought at all. Maybe that would be the best. It’s the thinking that hurts. We’re so proud of our big brains…who needs it? Wouldn’t you rather be your dog, any day? But the non-thinking piece of steel…I think that’s got it all over us. Just be something, be of use, be part of the big picture, have a useful function. Well, wait a second…isn’t that what we’re trying to do in the first place? Be something, fit into the big picture, be useful? Yeah…oh, to simply be steel.

A beautiful phrase

 

I’ve just read an article in the May 2, 2011 issue of The New Yorker($) here  written by Rivka Galchen, and it contains such a beautiful phrase that I had to pass it on in admiration. It is an article about quantum computing, and it’s a terrific article about the current state of the field, and also about one of the premier theorists.

It contains these words:

“A ten per cent chance of an atom decaying is not arbitrary at all, but rather refers to the certainty that the atom will decay in ten per cent of the universes branched from that point. (This being science, there’s the glory of nuanced dissent around the precise meaning of each descriptive term, from “chance” to “branching” to “universe.”)”

                                                                            - Rivka Galchen

The glory of nuanced dissent. 

I laughed out loud, I was so delighted by that; if I wasn’t holding the magazine I would’ve clapped my hands like a three-year-old. It’s so concise, it’s just beautiful. Here’s what it would sound like if I was the one talking, and wanted to convey as much:

“The theory mentions the ten percent chance of decay across universes, but you know what scientists do with a statement like that…first they have to define all the terms, and since they all have their own backgrounds and experiences in which they formed their own precise definitions, they have to argue every little fine point about what means what, and how this affects that, and how it was used in this famous paper 200 years ago, and while these guys are boring everyone else in the room you realize that they’re having the best time ever, because they LOVE these discussions; it’s the best part. And only after everything’s defined do they even start in on the theory, and what it means and how it relates…yada, yada.”

But, no; just “the glory of nuanced dissent.” That’s all a real writer needs.

Lost love

I can sit here alone and listen to Barber Adagio in tears, thinking of the beautiful curves of her hips, in her skimpy underwear, and imagine kneeling there with my arms around her hips and kissing whatever I can, just pressing my face against her and closing my eyes and wishing it would never ever end, and then opening my eyes right away to see everything I can so I can remember it all forever. Maybe this is the memory, the snapshot, that comes to mind at my end, as I breathe my final few times, and the snow falls silently outside in the trees. It’s all that matters; to love, to have and to hold; to give completely, eagerly, hungrily, to become one with her, and have your creation stand as testimony to the two of you and who you were. One must have this great love. I must have this great love.

There are worn sayings about ‘the love of a good woman’ and references to its ever-presence as a background note…but I believe it’s the melody, it’s the entire substance of the symphony you write. Children and family, of course…but they are on the foundation of the two of you. I have never seen the importance of a woman to a man’s life be given its due. Maybe it will come to the fore, before the age of enlightenment that started in the ‘60s comes to an end. I know I must love somebody, and be loved back, before I’m fit to step out into society. I have no purpose on my own; that part of me does not exist. There are no cures or salves for lack of ambition or for needing encouragement. For me, a great love comes first, and perhaps only; what I do to make our lives possible thereafter is immaterial to me.

Models

We live in a world that’s dominated by the importance of appearance, and naturally, at the pinnacle of that ideal, we have our reverence of  the current crop of “super” models, who’ve been chosen solely for their looks.

There are two things wrong with this picture.

One, the actual rational fact is that looks are not as important as they’re currently made out to be. The cosmetics and fashion industries are huge, and between them they have for many years repeated the same message over and over, almost exclusively to women,”You need to look your best. We can help you. We can make you pretty, and then your life will be better.” I don’t think I’m overstating it. That’s been the message all along, and it’s everywhere all the time, and at this point it’s part of our culture.

The fact is, you look the way you look, unless you’re so obsessed or insecure that you’ll spend thousands of dollars for surgery on your face. Look, some people are born looking (what we call) attractive, and some aren’t. That’s the way it is; big deal. It’s just chance, and you had nothing to do with it. You can keep yourself clean and well-groomed, and that should be enough…and in many people’s eyes, that is enough. That much of your appearance is in your control. At the same time, the person you are, the way you conduct and present yourself, is completely in your control. On this, I yield to Oscar Wilde:

“One’s past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

So in a perfect world, which this ain’t…you are what you do, not what you look like. And we all know perfectly wonderful people who are not gorgeous. Most of us call them “best friends.” It’s what’s inside…

Now the second thing wrong with this picture is the unfortunate elevation of the models themselves to a position of apparent importance. They could hardly be less important. They won the genetic lottery, is the way some people put it, and I like that description a lot. They just happen to look right for the time they’re in; if you look back through history or even just over the last few decades you’ll see that the ideal of beauty has changed over time. And of course it will change again. But if you have the right look for the right time…then you’re the flavor-of-the-month, or of-the-year, or whatever you get away with. These models have a face that some company has chosen to use as part of its own public face; they represent the company in advertising, and sometimes through personal appearances. They are not paid to talk. Probably the opposite is true; they are paid NOT to talk. They are paid to stand where they’re told, and have their face. Somehow, to MY great amusement anyway, models will try to make this sound like a difficult job. Oh, I’m sorry…it is not. Would you switch jobs with them? You’re damn right. We all would. (I should warn you, though…one poor girl said that once when they were shooting in Hawaii it got windy as the sun went down, and she got chilly. You might not want to put up with crap like that.)

How do models get away with the haughty prima donna attitudes? If anything, they should be the most grateful people on Earth, shouldn’t they? You cannot be luckier than they are. Born lucky. They get paid a lot, and they do nothing.

As a culture, sounds like we’ve gotten pretty confused. It wasn’t long ago that Albert Einstein was a national hero for his intelligence and his achievements. His opinions were sought, and heeded. Nowadays, in his place, we have…embarassment, in the form of the poorly scripted and directed “reality” players who celebrate the undisciplined and selfish behavior of teenagers while masquerading as young adults with thoughts and dreams of their own.

It’s an embarassing time to be an American.

A dummy’s introduction to auto racing

This entry is a near copy of something I posted recently to a discussion. It’s mostly basic stuff, and I figured I could get some more mileage out of it here… ;-)

1. NASCAR is a show, first and foremost…and at the same time it’s a race. It’s entertainment, it’s for the fans. So yeah, they throw a yellow caution flag now and then to bunch up the cars, to keep it interesting…of course they do.

2. NASCAR runs simple cars and relatively simple technology; that’s OK. The cars are understandable and relatable to the fans. It’s just an entertainment formula that works. And there is no ‘best’ racing series, either. They’re just different. Watch what you like, and don’t be insulted by the rest. They all serve some segment of race fans, and they all serve different advertisers in particular ways.

3. Every series has at least some world-class drivers…there are special talents everywhere. But no, there’s no fair way to compare them because switching cars requires too much specialized learning about the nuances of each particular car. It does not mean that Driver X suddenly forgot to drive if he goes to a new series and looks lost for awhile. Just accept that the great ones are all up there together at a special level; they’re in the club. And relax.

Orange holes in back window are insert points for suspension adjustment tools

4. You Need To Know if you don’t already: racing is about tires, and how well you use them. All racing is. Surprising fact, critical to understanding car set-up: when you “put a car on the scales”, meaning put a scale under each corner, you can and likely will get 4 different weights. Yes, the weight of the car at each of the 4 corners is different…and it’s adjustable! And that’s the deal (ver-r-ry simplified) in getting a car to work best at whatever course you’re on, because a tire with more weight on it works better; it is less likely to lose traction and begin to slide. And the weight is then managed by springs and shocks, affected by downforce, elevation changes as they happen, #laps on the tire, etc…in NASCAR especially there are adjustments at every stop, and they are reported on during the broadcast, and you can see cars get better, or worse, at each stop. When you get hooked into that level of detail, it gets pretty interesting to watch a race. There are whole books written about how to approach setting up a car; just take away from this that there are many variables and they are interdependent, and it’s difficult.

5. Forgive me for so much NASCAR, but they get dumped on the most…I was in fact up at 3am for live F1 Malaysia, I’ve  raced and won some FF1600, so actually roadracing is my first love.


6. The perfect set-up is almost impossible to hit on because you’re dealing with what’s called a non-linear equation. Or in terms I understand, it’s like the Whack-A-Mole game, where you knock one thing down and another one pops up. For a rough example: you can change tire pressures and the car goes faster but then maybe tire wear gets real bad; switch it back and change the ‘weight jacker’ at the left rear, the car is slower, we need to try some air back into the right rear; now it feels like the car doesn’t transfer enough weight to the right rear, we need to change the Panhard bar adjustment, etc…sort of chasing your tail, but with decades worth of experience and notes, and college-graduate engineers on staff, all trying to find a balance of all the changeable factors to make the car fast. Then you’re the fastest car out there for 10 laps, and clouds move in for the rest of the day. Track temp drops 15 degrees. Start over.

7 and last. Winged cars are solidly planted in high-speed turns, with the wings pushing down and all, which allows them to corner at high speeds. That’s part of the beauty of their show; those things fly. In fact, doesn’t (F1 car designer) Adrian Newey have a background in planes, or aerodynamics? Well, lest you think the stock car fellows are just tooling around in circles, actually these guys are often in a 4-wheel drift at 175-190 mph, if and when they really push for a couple laps, and you know that ain’t easy. It’s Sunday, but it’s no Sunday drive (sorry, couldn’t resist).


If point #4 (or anything else) grabbed your interest and you want to know more, just paying attention all the way through a race will give you a great intro, because the broadcast is dominated by talk of changing conditions and changes to car setups. This is a good thing. There are lots of books that cover it too, and when I think of 2-3 that I think are good ones to recommend, I’ll highlight them in a future entry.

Midlife crisis; a theory

In my world of parallells and comparisons...well, here’s another one.

As anyone who knows internal combustion engines really well will tell you, there is an odd but true phenomenon that is often witnessed in the final seconds or minutes of an engine’s life; it suddenly runs better and smoother and stronger than it ever has, puts out fantastic race-winning power (if that’s what your engine’s doing) and stays like that for an unpredictable but short time until it physically blows up. Something breaks, and pieces scatter. I don’t know if there’s a good explanation for this out there, but I guarantee you this is a real thing.

And it struck me that when you describe that effect, that looks a lot like when a guy reaches the point in his physiological schedule where his testosterone is about to drop from, say, a useful level, to what inevitably, and horribly, feels like a useless level. And that ‘useless’ hits hard. I don’t think you can overstate the magnitude of that event in a man’s life. He’s about to lose a major part of his self-esteem.

So maybe there’s something in the male brain, probably all the way down in there in the original, primal part, where the most basic instincts are, that triggers a final attempt at procreation before the ability is gone. This is just a dumb theory of my own, based on what I know and on what looks to me like common sense, so I have no authors or articles to cite, but I’ll bet there’s stuff out there that sounds like this. The drive to procreate pops up here and there as a primal instinct, and generally looks exactly this out-of-place in our society, but it’s easy to see how necessary it was back when we struggled for survival as a species.

So, maybe it’s a last gasp. And, of course, maybe it’s not this at all. But you need a theory that reaches across the male population and affects nearly all of them, regardless of personality type, or status, or any number of things; it just hits men, period.

I’ll be watching to see how this plays out. Maybe it won’t hold up, or maybe it’ll grow as I learn and see more. It’s a theory.

My Princess

So I saw this little scene in a TV ad: They show some young beauty onscreen, and a guy’s voiceover, obviously to her, is ”You are so beautiful and delicate and wonderful, I want to give you the kind of life you deserve.”  OK, standard fare; guys, we’ve all felt that way at some point, because we think of our special woman as some kind of princess, we want the whole world to treat her as carefully and lovingly as we do. I think we’re wired to exalt our mates that way…history is loaded with stories of what men in power have done for the loves of their life. Do you know how big the Taj Mahal is? Huge; almost 35,000 sq ft. So we’ll say stuff like this now and again, and MEAN IT. The female reaction in the room to that TV ad was “What about the rest of us? So what if we’re not beautiful enough? What do we deserve, then?“

I sure didn’t expect that. So many things hit me at once…like, these women don’t think they’re beautiful? And how was I unaware that women don’t think they’re beautiful? And they are beautiful; I thought they knew that! I thought the ad was about them, but they didn’t! To my eye, women always act like they’re beautiful, and I’ve always thought they all were. Is that why they fuss over hair and makeup so much while we men are always saying you don’t need it? ‘Cause you don’t need it. All women are beautiful, and as a guy I’ll venture to say we’re all crazy about every one of you. So is this why every time I said I think you’re the most beautiful woman in the world you just rolled your eyes and brushed it off? You thought I was lying? You thought I was trying to talk you into something? That’s mean, and that’s really sad. I meant it every time, and I still mean it every time. You are my princess, and like every other guy, I want to have my princess. I need you there to be the focus of some part of my life, I need you there so I can make you happy, I need you there so sometimes I can look over at you in the middle of a crowd of people and think to myself, “That’s my girl. That’s my partner. I make her happy, and I make her laugh.” And as for worrying about how you look, well, sure, when you’re in your best dress and  done up just right in killer mode, hell yeah, you’re breathtaking…but for my 

money, the sexiest and most beautiful you’ll ever look is when you open your eyes in the morning, after a night of lust and love, and your hair’s a mess all over the pillow and your nighty or shirt or whatever is all rumply and sideways and half off, and we look at each other and smile in a plain and simple expression of love and unity that says a thousand wonderful and perfect things; two hearts talking directly where words would surely fall short.  You don’t have to go to great lengths, or any lengths, to “make yourself beautiful,” because you are beautiful; you’re a woman.  And I want to give you the life you deserve, princess, so put on this tiara and let’s get going. You’re making us late for the movie.

Prescription: More sex

 When men and women agree, it is only in their conclusions; their reasons are always different.

                                         George Santayana (1863–1952), U.S. philosopher, poet

At first glance, this looks a lot like the punch line of a joke. The male and female brains are proven to be different, and that is observable in our communications. Seems like communication between any two people is somewhat hit-or-miss, as of course it would be because there are too many variables involved. The key words in what you say may have a slightly different meaning to the listener, or might call up a bad memory that colors the way your statement is received. Your mood or intentions may be misread, and change the interpretation of your words. Or in the case of a male/female exchange, you would likely find on closer examination that your paths to the same conclusion are completely unrelated, and I do mean completely; I’ve seen this for myself. To my astonishment. You can investigate this on your own, if you dare.

I’ll get to the sex part…hang on.

 

So when you talk to your mate, even to carry on about how much you love her, and how wonderful she is, you don’t know exactly how that is received. Worst case example, maybe you use a phrase that she’s heard before elsewhere, in a relationship that ended very badly. She thinks it’s a big lie. You never know. While you think you’re being attentive and loving and all that, you might actually be creating an “issue” that will surface somewhere down the line. The spoken word depends on the listener to extract meaning. It’s a lousy system!

So…what’s to be done?

Enter the wordless realm of sex. Even in the silence (optional), it is still up to each of you to extract meaning from your intimacy. With sex, it’s not just that you feel good physically; aware or not, you are interpreting the attentiveness and care of your partner as messages of love, and the brilliance is that it’s in your own mind, in the words you choose, and the message you receive is exactly what you want to hear. There are no misunderstandings in passionate kisses. As a result, having sex recharges your emotional and mental stores, the innermost parts of your being that benefit from being in love. Self-esteem, confidence, comfort, security, etc…all that good stuff.

Frequent sex serves a vital purpose, then, besides being whole lots of fun. The reinforcement of your love trivializes any petty spats, and periods of intimacy enhance your tendency toward cooperation, to work through the real problems. It creates and maintains a strong undercurrent of unspoken love and understanding, and this force makes it easier for two people to work together on life’s challenges.

More sex: it's good for you. It's what's for dinner. Mmm mmm good. No, wait...umm...

Confused

I’ve been in a daze for the last couple of weeks.

A couple years ago I lost touch with a girl from work that was a good friend of mine. We were very much alike, and we sort of took turns with our depressions and anxieties, if that’s what they really were, and we would cheer each other up. Plus I liked her a lot because she was exceptionally smart, and she was analytical and logical like I am. That’s relatively rare in a woman, the story goes, because their brains develop with strengths in other areas. From what I’ve seen, I think that’s true, so I thought I was real lucky to be friends with her. I was lucky. And plus even further, I liked her…y’know, that way too, because she was a woman and therefore special and wonderful. Well, they are.

So when the emails and phone calls stopped without a word, first I was afraid her husband had seen an email that he shouldn’t have seen, or something like that. Because, once I’d realized that she wouldn’t ever be coming near here on vacation or anything, because her husband would never choose this area to vacation, and I knew I wasn’t going to be back there for any length of time, and never with any free time to do anything bad…I had started flirting some, in both phone calls and email, to make us both feel better. God knows we were both bored lifeless by our daily routines, and by our respective long-term relationships having faded into background noise. I was absolutely sure nothing would happen between us, and I certainly hoped not, so I went and opened that Pandora’s box.

So I thought maybe he told her to break off contact or something, and I couldn’t even come up with a better story than that because I just had no clue. And whatever was going on I knew it was none of my business, so I resolved immediately to respect her silence and wait for as long as it took until I heard from her again.

Well…that’s not going to happen. She’s dead.

I spoke to someone back where we used to work, and in circumstances that don’t seem to add up, in a story that leaves a lot of unanswered questions…she and her husband are both gone. Two years ago. All this time I at least thought she was out there, and still in my future somewhere. And now, with so much about this tragedy still unknown, and unknowable, the story is over. End of chapter.

So I’m left with confusion, emptiness, a dashed picture of the future, questions galore, what might have been, and one less friend. All that stuff that we all feel at times like this…you can imagine. Y’know, I can get used to the idea that this stuff happens, people will die and leave your life at some random point, that’s life, but it’s a loss that you can’t make up for, in my opinion. You invest in your friends and you expect to get something back; you’ve spent time and shared experiences and learned about each other, and you get back the comfort of knowing they’re there, that they care about you, that they will continue to share life with you. Seems like your best friends ever are the ones from high school, who shared the most meaningful times with you. As you get older it’s less possible to create as deep a bond.

And that brings me to the strange-but-true part of this that I’m still not sure about even mentioning, but I’ve lead right up to it, so: no one could say for sure what day they died, so I went back to my unanswered emails to her to see when she stopped writing, and you might guess it was maybe in the next week or so that she was gone? Well, 8 days after my last email is the day my best friend from high school ended his life. Just a coincidence? Of course it is. Does it mean something? Of course not, they aren’t connected. Do I still look for meaning in two friends dying in the same week, maybe on the same day? You bet I do. That’s something we do…look for meaning, look for answers. Because I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know how to process all this. It hurts, and   it just hurts. I was counting on them both being around. Between the two of them I had a soulmate, with a little left over. When I pictured my old and grey retirement years, they were both there. Maybe not right down the street, but always in touch, and always scheduled for at least an annual visit. 

Ahh, well. So I’ve been in a daze; I never know what I went upstairs for, so I come down and have to go up again when I remember. My thoughts are always elsewhere. My comfortable plans for the future are gone and I’m constantly agitated and haunted by the uncertainty and the bleak picture I have instead. Too many questions.

What do I do now?

New stuff is coming

To whom it may concern, or Hey You! if you're interested: yes, I lost focus there for the last month, but I've never stopped being aware of my oBLOGation to keep writing...huh? how about THAT one?! Just thought of it, here and now. Kinda makes one ashamed to get out of bed in the morning ;-)

More of this, coming soon!!

About work

I’m not perfect, and even if I was you’d find something wrong with me.

Because it’s the human condition to eventually designate something as the intolerable problem. That’s the ‘job complaint syndrome’, also; no matter what job you have you eventually settle on something as the biggest aggravation, and that’s your complaint. You find the squeaky wheel in whatever your situation. So there’s always something to complain about, and the same thing happens in a relationship. It’s just *not* human nature to say that everything’s OK, and leave it at that. That’s uncomfortable.

And it's an odd thing is how trivial some of the work problems can be, especially in hindsight, but they are major triggers at the time nonetheless. Compare these two examples from my experience…

When I worked on banking software if our system went down in a live bank production environment, and I was on call, most of our management would be aware of the problem immmediately through a series of phone calls, and the bank executives would mostly all be aware they had trouble, and their on-call staff would be heading in to work in the middle of the night…all waiting to hear what I found and how I fixed it. On the other hand, as a dishwasher, if one more person had the French onion soup tonight I’m going through the roof! Y’know?

Just depends on where you are.

Another thing about jobs is the Repeat Cycle. How long does it take before you’ve done everything once, and now you’re on repeat? A job like dishwashing, you get the basics in 15-20 minutes, and at the end of the night you get the one-time, end-of-the-night tasks, and that’s it. On a construction job you’ve got all the phases of house construction to go through, and that takes months anyway, and not every house is the same, so you could easily go a year before you really feel like you’ve seen everything once. It could be a few years before it feels repetitive. Then, something like programming on software that costs over $1M *never* got repetitive because of the size and complexity of what we worked on. Always a new twist, whether creating or maintaining code. Probably any job where you have “clients” will never repeat…but that’s good. Those are the jobs you can stay with.

I should acknowledge that while building houses is largely repetitive, there are clients to keep you hopping, and technology and materials evolve constantly so you’re always learning. No offense.

Speaking of Egypt

With Egypt in the news, with Egyptians demonstrating/rioting for a better life through regime change, I wanted to tell this story…

A couple years ago I had a short conversation with a man who had moved to the US from Egypt. Something in the news back then, I don’t remember what, prompted him to explain to me what he came here for; I remember I was thrilled that I was actually going to hear, face-to-face, what the US represents to an émigré.

He said it’s not about all the material goods, the wealth, and not really about the opportunities you have to follow dreams and fulfill yourself, although all that is certainly wonderful. It’s more basic than that, and something we might take for granted: respect. Every life here is respected, by law. The police will not arrest you without cause. If you are wronged by someone, or by a company, you can bring suit in a court of law. You always have recourse. You matter; you count. In Egypt, he said, the police can pick you up off the street in the morning, question you and beat you all day, and then dump you back on the street at the end of the day, all for no reason…and there’s nothing you can do about it. Without explanation! Imagine!? You are powerless, and you have to accept it. Day after day, year after soul-crushing year, it’s your way of life.

But not here. Here, you have value, you have your self-respect. Your dignity is assured, and that’s a powerful draw for the rest of the world. Some of the things we complain about within the context of our lives can look awfully petty and whiney to people from other countries. That’s just human nature: no matter what you’re doing or where, you will become aware of the aggravations that come with the situation. But it was nice to hear this man’s larger perspective on things, to

a) be reminded of just how good we have it, and

b) view the current struggles in Egypt with greater understanding.

Online comments

I like to spend time on  the Internet reading, following links almost at random, jumping from one subject to another and another. What I find as a maddening constant throughout is the quality and the tone of the comments.

There doesn’t seem to be any interest in civil interaction. Or worse, it doesn’t even appear to be an option. Nearly everything I see out there, at a common site like YouTube for instance which draws heavily from the 30-and-unders from around the world, is an insult about either someone’s looks intelligence, or lifestyle. And it’s not dismissable with, “Oh, kids can be insensitive.” This is firmly rooted in the culture of the next generation. Everywhere, all the time.

Take, for instance, this comment I always remember…someone had posted a thought that was obviously based on a misunderstanding, and there were 4 or 5 comments after it that had just ignored it, but then came the comment, “I can’t believe nobody’s buried this guy. Don’t you see what he said?” Like that’s what we’re supposed to do. We’re missing an opportunity! We weren’t following the rules, and this poor guy wants to know, “Am I missing something?” Yeah, you are.

Or this one…I don’t remember which actress was mentioned in the article (plus I wouldn’t say anyway) but the comment was, “When is she going to get a boob job? What’s she waiting for?” Again, the assumption: like that’s what she’s supposed to do. Like everyone should, or will. Like he’s insulted that she hasn’t, because he thinks those are the rules, and how dare she not follow along. As if we’re owed that. And the arrogance of the constant clinical discussion of women in that manner is disgusting, and so very wrong. Sad.

That’s the common persona, people looking for any “wrongdoing” in order to blast and dismiss the offender, based on such superficialities.  Comment sections are combat zones. They should be communal, like sitting around the campfire. They’re places to discuss ideas with your peers from around the world. What an opportunity…in my dreams. Sure, some good stuff goes on, but not a lot. With everybody hiding behind an alias, they’re free to act any way they want to, and you know what happens then…people don’t exactly give their best.

What a waste.

 

The civilization formula

 

I’m going to start with a little auto racing talk, but don’t worry, it comes right back around to real life.

The top racing series in the world is Formula One. Most people have heard of it. Or maybe you’ve heard of Formula Ford, a very popular and somewhat affordable starter class for the same kind of roadracing. Or you’ve certainly heard of NASCAR, the extremely popular oval track (and a couple road courses) series for “stock cars.” NASCAR is also a formula car, although it didn’t start out that way, and is not usually referred to as such. So…what’s the deal? Well, in the context of auto racing, a “formula” is a set of rules established by the organizers of the series which define all the specifications, and set all the parameters, to which the cars will be built. These are very much purpose-built cars, defined and created out of thin air, usually with an eye toward attracting factory (major auto makers) participation by giving them an arena in which to showcase their products and/or technology.

I love the parallels between that and a society, a civilization…because one way to define a civilization is that we are a group of people who function by agreeing to and operating under a set of rules. Some are codified in written law, some are accepted moral standards, some just implicit in our group understanding of acceptable conduct, but taken all together, they make up Formula Human. That’s how we all manage to coexist; the rules are clearly defined, we’re all aware of them, and we’re all aware that they are enforced. We don’t have to worry that our land will be stolen from us, or our house will, or our business, or that the angry guy at work keeps a butcher knife in one hand all the time…we operate at a higher level than that; we’re civilized.

Of course, other civilizations have evolved differently in various parts of the world. They still operate under a set of rules, just not the same ones we have. Maybe Formula Human is the name of the umbrella organization, and the individual societies are named Formula UK, Formula USA, etc. Same deal, different country.

To say that one is civilized or not refers to one’s ability to adhere to the laws and rules we’ve agreed upon…the formula. That’s the key to how we live. The formula gives us the framework for our lives. It gives us the structure to live closely with one another, the freedom to live as we choose, and the security we need to enjoy it all.

Through the ages we’ve defined and refined the laws we live by, while at the same time the formula has always defined us.

Formula Human.

Perspective…on perception

Reality comes to us courtesy of our five senses, and from the way our brains process the incoming stream of data. Our senses each receive observable data in a particular range of values according to the abilities and sensitivities of our human sense organs. We can see, hear, touch, smell, taste…we know what’s going on around us.

Let’s put that into perspective.

The key phrase in that opening: human sense organs. Turns out, because of our particular set of sensory organs, we humans have a unique reality. No animals on the planet are experiencing what we experience. Dogs, as we all know, can hear the high pitch of a certain whistle that is used to call them, and we can’t hear it. They also have a sense of smell that is hundreds of times better than ours. There is a hovering bird-of-prey that can take up a position over a field, hang motionless while looking down, and see only what moves…like for instance a mouse. When it looks at a fixed scene the stationary objects and background fade away to grey, and only movement is detected. Further examples abound…point being, there’s nothing superior or special about our senses; what we have are the ones that serve the survival of our species, just as it is with animals.

 

Another way to look at our perception can be seen here in the chart of the electromagnetic spectrum. Note that the color bar representing our visual range is a breakout of that little sliver between ultraviolet and infrared. Out of that  whole range of energies/wavelengths, we’re equipped to see only a tiny little bit. It makes our capabilities look so random-ish and insignificant, and by extension so do we find that our  perception of reality is nothing special. Maybe we don’t, so much, know what’s going on around us; there’s more to it than meets the eye!

And with all that, I think, larger points can be made:

   In the grand scheme of all the species on earth, and the millions of years we’ve all been here, we normally exaggerate how special and important we are.

   There are things happening around us all the time that are beyond the range of our senses.

From that perspective, that there’s always more than meets the eye, it is easier to think broadly and stay open to possibilities…to think outside the box.

Perspective…on driving fast

perspective:  the state of one's ideas, the facts known to one, etc., in having a meaningful interrelationship

If there is one concept to keep in mind to help make sense of the daily grind, it is perspective. It has a few meanings, most concerned with art and perception, but the useful one here is largely a synonym for point-of-view. Referring back to my initial posts, “we’re all in this together but we’re all on our own,” to get along together in the first part it helps to keep in mind the different perspectives we all have in the second part.

For instance…let’s talk about the issue of “driving too fast.” We should start by defining the term: not mental fast, or as fast as you can go, but 10-15 miles over the posted limit, which is a speed that statistically a great many people (though still a minority) are comfortable at, including me. I think it’s perfectly fine to go 75-80mph, that it’s not dangerous, and that speed limits are too low. Most people think otherwise. We have different perspectives.

In fact, the issue here is our perspectives. The meaning of “driving too fast” is the hidden problem, because both sides assume that their definition is the topic at hand.  It’s not, and it hit me like a ton of bricks when I suddenly realized… I borrowed a friend’s car a few years ago, a new luxury-type car from one of the Big Three (Ford,GM,Chrysler), and I thought, “OMG, I wouldn’t go over 65 in this thing, either.” It plowed in the turns, the brakes were mushy, the suspension too soft, etc., and I was shocked at how bad I thought it was. Meanwhile, being an “enthusiast,” a winning road-racer, an extremely focussed and attentive driver, I have always driven performance cars. For 25 years, every car I’ve had is further from its limits and more in control at 80mph than the average car at 65mph. You look at the two sides of the argument…(for the most part) we don’t drive the same cars! It makes the discussion of driving too fast an “apples-n-oranges” deal. If you say you would never drive 80mph, well, neither would I, if I was you. And I’ll bet if you drove my car for a day, you’d see the rationale in my (wait for it) perspective.

Perspective is everything

This is an awfully clean and tidy example, but still useful as a reference model for any discussion or argument. We might be using the same phrases when we talk, but they don’t necessarily mean the same thing. Depends a lot on our respective experiences, on how and where we learned something. It doesn’t hurt to ask a few questions up front to help ensure we’re all on the same page. I know now the few speed limit discussions I’ve had were just a waste of time. 



Enjoy the impressive dioramas of '50s and '60s America by Michael Paul Smith, seen here in one of his settings.  

What the fuck?

As I page forward from my blog to “Next Blog,” it appears that I’m in with a group of religion-oriented writers. What the fuck?

NOT WHERE I BELONG.

No offense…just not who I am. I suppose I have used tags that put me there; they’ve been changed, and I expect to be reclassified soon enough, in a periodic index sweep. I hope this posting helps to send me on my way.

I’m tempted to review George Carlin’s 7 words that can’t be said on television 8D

Remember those? Let’s see…gotcha.

Not necessary to offend anyone further right here.

You go on your way, and I’ll see you when we get to the 11-dimensional space.

I’m off.

Later, chief.

Apologies and all due respect to Marc Maron's WTF podcast (on iTunes), but I needed it here!