Different day, over zealous in a whole new way

I had occasion to meet up with a former high school classmate of mine recently. We talked for, oh, about 15 or 20 minutes, maybe 25 at most.

It was a business transaction of sorts, and a planned meeting. Still, I was anxious going in. I'm anxious about 100 things all the time. And this is especially true of things that involve meeting new people or new situations.

But the meeting went well. We had a nice talk. Not awkward at all, as I feared it could be.

And it got me thinking about my high school self, as compared to current self. And I realized that I took some stuff entirely too seriously in high school. I suppose that is an occupational hazard of being in high school.

But then I realized I probably take some stuff too seriously now, as well. It's in a less aggressive form, and much, much more personalized and private. I rarely feel that the world revolves around the proper solution to issue X. Though I suppose I still believe that it does in that making the proper choice is what is good for the betterment of society and mankind.

For someone who doesn't believe that they have a soul to save, I'm preeminitely worried, not about saving my sould per se, but about making sure I'm the person I can be.

Two things about this post: Despite its somewhat public nature, it's not for public discussion outside this board. For various reasons. Secondly, this is the second time in a week that I've stream of concious'd something, and ran flat into a dark void of which I couldn't seem to write my way out.

Two great posts

A hilarious one about meditation at a Buddhist resort; and one on agnosticism that seems to me to be spot on.

Life without the Web

This guy here is doing what all of us have probably wondered about but would never really ever be crazy enough to dare to do: Go without the internet.

Not just for a day.

Or a week.

But for more than a month (he's cheating somewhat, in my estimation, but that's a discussion for another time).

Its a well written piece, and if you have the time and the inclination, I suggest you take 10 minutes and read the first piece in the series. As I said, well worth your time.

Anyway, this was originally intended as just a "what I'm interested in RIGHT NOW" post, but it got me thinking. Over the last year or two or three, I've gone from reading large quantities of books, to being a voracious reader of online content. Most of its news. Probably about 55% straight news, actually. Another 20% is political news or analysis.

But the remaining 25%, like the piece discussion above, is only news adjacent. Its more of a feature. Sort of a short story, almost. Or a series of short stories. Is that the result of immersion in the InterTubes? Or is it just a change in reading habits that accompany age and the nature of my life at this point in time?

Good question.

Differing opinions; but please, make it factual

I don't want to get into this too much or too deeply. There are certainly two viewpoints as to which direction the United States and more specifically U.S. industrial might is headed.

This guy takes one more aligned with my outlook. Its that things aren't as bad as they are sometimes portrayed. And while he makes some good points, he misses the obvious: If we make 15% more than 20 years ago, but are 50% more productive, we need less workers in manufacturing. As the economy grows and adds new kinds of jobs, workers in manufacturing jobs make up less and less of the workers around us.

I'm not going to rant. I'm just pointing that out as my stance. Trying to give a reasoned outlook for why I believe what I do. As I said, you can certainly have a differing opinion, and I'm sure there are stats to back you up.

There is no way to link to the comments to taht article, but you can scroll to the bottom and see the first group. Its worth scrolling through the 5 or so pages of virtrol and spittle-flying anger. Maybe the commentators (well, 95% of them) are right. Maybe the U.S. is doomed.

But their arguments whining isn't convincing me in the least. My guess is that they don't even see the holes in their arguments. Meanwhile, at least one of commenters, while supposedly arguing against him, makes the author's point from the second and eight paragraph.

Friday Fun Links

Some nice light reading for a sunny Friday and hopefully what will be a nice weekend...

A neat story on why Google won't kill book authors ...

The Personality Forge: An interesting artificial intelligence chat bot site where you can create your own chatting 'bot or chat with bots created by others (the ones I tried out don't pass the Turin test) ...

A story that could help with breaking a writer's block, if only you could/would put it use: Walking backwards ...

Cisco sees the light at the end of the economic dark tunnel...

... but some warn that it might just be a firefly and that the mess could continue for a while

The power of roots

I guess it turns out ...

... you can do strikes in blogger.

... and you can do half powers, too. A number to a half power is actually the equivilent of the square root of the number. For instance, 25 to the half power would be 5.

So in my little hypothetical, 2 to the power of 4.5 would, I guess, be (2 x 2 x 2 x 2) x 4 (root of the resulting 16) = 64. Not the answer I was looking to arrive at, but it works. *

Or I guess it could be (2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 1.41421 35623 73095 04880 16887 24209 69807 85696 71875 37694 80731 76679 73799.... = 22.627. *

* Disclaimer - I'm not a math genuis, or really even a math... above normal? Not even a math slightly above average. I'm pretty much a math adequate. Therefore, I disclaim any liability or contention that the above numbers, formulas, theories or ideas are presented logically, accurately, intelligently or coherently. They could be spot on. They could be off by a factor of 1,000. I have no real idea. I have presented them to the best of my abilities, that is all.

"This [is] life itself"

Nice little slideshow from Happiness Project author Gretchen Rubin here. I won't ruin the entire thing so you can go see it. But the titular line "this was life itself" shows up and it caught my eye. Why? Well, because I think all too often we ignore that fact. We ignore Rubin's sixth personal commandment of happiness, which to paraphrase, is that its the choices and journey, not the destination. This living thing we do daily is life itself. Sometimes I get the feeling people feel like living life isn't so great - they aren't happy because they don't have the life they want. And they don't just want another career or decision they could choose or undo, but some vague situation where they are free from the restraints of life itself. Its kinda hard to explain, but they are out of touch with what "life" is. They are ignoring reality. The kids, the job, the wife, the house. This is all "life." But sometimes its like people can't be happy, can't have a "life," until they are multimillionares who can do nothing but lie around all day and eat bon bons without worry. That, to me, ignores the fact that its the journey, that the choices, the kids, the job, the husband, the house, the good AND the bad - they are all "life."

Now, certianly, some of this comes with stress, and I'm not suggesting that sometimes people won't or shouldn't get angry or upset about each individual part. But I think sometimes people decide to get married, or have kids or they choose a job, and either it was the wrong choice (this is especially true, I find, in spouses and jobs, not so much with kids) or somewhere along the line, they forget why they chose these things. Life is all about these choices. But somewhere along the line it becomes routine and boring and not "life." But "this [is] life itself." Being unhappy with the "mundane" tasks ignores that its the process; that's what life is.

That's why I think life, every part of it and every choice, even the seemingly mundane, is heroic in nature. People often overlook the fact that every choice is somewhat of a moral decision: What do I want; what is best for me?

Quoting Ayn Rand:

"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute. "

Ignoring these questions, or blindly chosing without considering them, leads to unhappiness. So while the decision may not always seem big and important - like whether to rush into a burning building to save a baby - the reality is the 100s of little choices we make add up and can save our soul from being trapped in a small, dark, unhappy box. That's pretty heroic.

Alright, big finish with the Happiness Project article that initiated the entire post: For most of the choices above, you have to know yourself, and that's not as easy as it sounds. But its crucial, becuase its hard, very hard, to choose what makes you happy, what is best for you, if you don't know yourself, AND REALITY, and its pretty easy to think you do when you really don't. Especially if you are ignoring reality. Another heroic aspect: once you shut off reality in one place, it becomes increasingly easy to it in others. The cognitive dissonance is hard to handle at first, but you grow accustomed; then it spreads, and pretty soon, you're unhappy and so disconnected that you don't even know how to get back on the track to happiness.

* I owe a special debt of gratitude to Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy for much of this post and philosophy. Its my own take on it and I doubt hard-line Objectiviststs would agree with everything I posit or that its even Objectivism, but its largely built on her foundations.*

Is this blog different from stupid, narcissistic Twitter/Facebook updates?

I mean, how is this blog significantly different than the pointless, mundane to the point of trivial to the point of the "I'm awake" post every 5 minutes in the chattering on Facebook?

I'd like to think this is a little more intellectual. A little more thought out. A lot more focused. A little less mundane, even if its only a "little less." Maybe a hair professional. But the reality is, I could post a Facebook update with just about everything I post here. Except it would have readers.

Narcissism (n):

"inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity."

Weighing in on the non-narcissistic side: Few readers. Who would construe this tiny, tiny pixel on the face of the internet as vain? Weighing in on the narcissistic side: Few readers, its of little import (yet!) and yet I keep at it the self-important posts, don't I? It's all me, all the time. I mean, who but a narcissist would do this with so few readers without income or fame from it?

The blog certainly could be considered to demonstrate an inordinate fascination with myself. But what exactly is inordinate. If I was alone out here in the interGoogle, I might say "yeah, this is a pretty vain process and inordinately about me." But since millions of us are blogging; many with as little notice as I've garnered; is it all that inordinate, comparitevely? Does it matter that I have few readers?

As Helen Popkin said in OMG, Shut up about twitter already:

"Baby fingers fit in light sockets. Should you put them there?"

I'm pretty sure she's suggesting you don't. And while her point is that just because you can post by-the-second updates on twitter, you probably shouldn't. So, just because I can blog, does that mean I should? So blogger and its millions of bloggerites exist, does that mean its not narcissistic of me to blog?