Category: adventures in my brain

  • “Quick Takes”

    Well, it’s a good thing Rachel is awesome and won’t mind that I’m totally stealing her idea… ’cause I am. 😀

    Ah, hang on, backtracking a bit:

    “Quick Takes” are actually, as far as I know, Rachel’s and my mutual boss’s idea. To fill in the dead air between the longer “proper” weekly(ish) posts on his blog, we typically post a few Quick Takes over the course of the week, usually short responses to other bloggers’ posts (that we also post as comments on the originals).

    Rachel adopted the concept for her own blog, but with a twist: not responses or one-offs, rather, sometimes instead of a regular “full length” post on one general idea/theme, she’ll put up a “7 Quick Takes” post, containing seven sort-of mini-posts on whatever seven things are on her mind / going on in her life that week!

    Now, I realized, that’s perfect for me. See, as all 4 of you who read this sucker have probably noticed, I’m not exactly the world’s most consistent blogger. >.< I'll be all gung-ho about it for a while, but then silly things like work and even – *gasp* – actually occasionally having a life will keep me from writing for a while, and it flatlines. But the real blog killer isn't lack of time, or even lack of motivation (usually), but lack of inspiration. Scratch that, no, that's not really it either. It’s lack of a single item of inspiration that overwhelms the rest of the inspiration-bits flitting about my head. I always have things I want to write about or share with the interwebs, but I only very occasionally have a thing that I am sufficiently compelled to and have enough to say and think would be interesting enough reading to devote a whole post to. And while (clearly), I could set to rambling and make words on any gorram thing, I can never choose from amongst the 17 half-baked talking points taking up residence in my skull at any given time.

    So I choose none, and that’s just stupid. And then I spend the first bit of the eventual post-gap post apologizing for the gap and swearing I’ll be better about it (which we all know just isn’t true), which is even more stupid and pointless.

    I’ve tried trying to convince myself that there’s no minimum length for a blog post. I can, and on occasion have, posted very short posts, sometimes nearly tweetable. But I just don’t like it, most of the time. It feels like when somebody tells you they need to tell you something, but not here, drags you down five hallways past numerous perfectly acceptable places to have a private conversation, sits you down, and tells you something like, “I saw your mother in the grocery store last week!” or “You have a hair on your shoulder.” I’d rather not be that person. 😛

    BUT. Seven little tidbits of news? That’s more… conversation-esque. Granted, kind of a weird, one-sided conversation, so maybe more like a letter, but still! People like letters. (I like letters. Let’s be penpals?) Seven (or otherwise several) little postlets in one post is great, because I don’t have to come up with a whole post-worth of interesting things to say about any one idea, and I don’t have to prune the idea-sprigs quite so violently!

    Well, uh, now that I’ve rambled an ranted an intro long enough to actually be a decent blog post, I think I’ll save the actual Quick Takes for tomorrow or later this week! (I can’t remember what most of them were going to be anyway…) So in the meantime… uh… here, have a random sheep doodle:

    sheep

  • Gwenny’s Blanket

    If you’ve seen me for any length of time in the past year or two, particularly if it was a situation which involved sitting, chances are you’ve seen me working on it, either plotting and scheming with a notebook full of squares and trees, or actually crocheting the little beastie.

    The notion was to make a baby blanket, hopefully as a shower gift for Rachel, but the shower(s) came and went, and the baby made her debut long before the blanket did. About a year and a half before, as it happens. But it’s done now! (Well, actually a few weeks ago, but I didn’t want to show it to the internet before showing it to its new owner, and then when that happened I forgot to get a picture, and since I finally did, work has just been using up all my time and brain juice, so there’s been none left for blogging!) Anyways…

    The Idea

    I’m a nerd and a bit of a crochet rebel, and I knew this kid was bound to be awesome, so when trying to decide what to do design-wise, I knew I wasn’t going to be following anybody else’s pastel baby blanket pattern. It occurred to me that Fibonacci squares would make for a pretty neat blanket. You know, like this:

    Each unit would be a single crochet stitch, so I’d start with a 1 (which was actually a tiny little square of 4 single crochets around, so I’d have something with a little substance, but still a side with 1 stitch to start with. Into one side of that, I’d make another little square of side length 1. I’d turn it, and on what was the side of the stack, crochet into those two stitches to start a square with side length 2.

    Turn it 90 degrees counterclockwise, and I’d have 3 stitches on which to crochet a square of 3 rows of 3.

     

     

     

    Another counterclockwise turn and a 5×5 square:

     

     

     

     

     

    Turn, 8×8 square.

     

     

    Turn, 13 square. Turn, 21. Turn, 34. And so on, working outward from the center, following the Fibonacci sequence until the blanket was big enough!

    The Actual Blanket

    Rachel already knew what crib set she was getting, and it was clear why – freakin awesome hippos.

    So I found the yarn to match – the two shades of green, soft brown, buttery yellow, pale sort of sand/stone color, white, and I threw in a nice dusty purple to add a little slightly-more-girly twist… and off I went!

    The first few squares were each a solid color, but I didn’t want to do just giant squares of solid colors, so I decided to make them striped. And to up the nerd ante, I decided each stripe had to be a Fibonacci number as well. I’d do a “random” looking assortment of stripe widths (either 2, 3, 5, 8, or 13 rows), but they had to add up to the right number for that square’s total! So it kind of turned into a puzzle for me as I made it, and I ended up with this (plotted out on graph paper and then MS Paint!:

    The crocheting up to that point went pretty quickly, comparatively. I mean, it was a large area all in tiny single crochet, but except for the first row of each square (which took a bit of concentration since I was working into the side of previous rows) and remembering to change colors every so-many rows, it was all just long rows of single crochet – requiring abosolutely no concentration. So I’d just tote it around to work on while listening in church, chatting with a friend, watching tv, sitting in a cafe, whatever. And thus, good progress was made.

    When I’d finished crocheting that chart – up through the 89 square, it’s long side was a pretty good width for a little kid’s blanket, so adding one more square (144) would make the blanket big enough, give or take a border around the whole thing, maybe.

    However, a square of 144×144 single crochet, even striped, was just too boring for this blanket…

    So I decided to put a tree in it!

    …uh, sure, why not?

    So I spent the better part of the next year trying to draw the tree I saw in my mind. Eventually, I came up with a decent sketch, and gradually shrunk, converted, re-colored, pixel-by-pixel adjusted, begged, pleaded, and beat it into a 144 pixel by 144 pixel square (one pixel per stitch) in MS Paint – a rather elaborate 8-bit tree, with the two shades of green strewn among the leaves – and in a fit of lunacy, even arranged the striping non-pattern pattern to continue as the backdrop, trying not to the greens or browns muck around too much with the visibility of the tree:

    Frankly, at that point, I was pretty darn proud of myself! …Until I got a few rows into crocheting the leaves (working top down, since I obviously wanted the tree upright, and decided the smaller squares should be the top of the blanket). I still just kept toting it around everywhere I went, but now also had to tote a giant, taped-together, blown-up printout of the chart, and mark each tiny little square so I knew what came next!

    It was a little absurd, but by this point its intended recipient was almost a year old, completely adorable and funny and sweet and smart and absolutely worth it. So I didn’t mind at all. 🙂 And then I finished it! Wove in a thousand little yarn ends, added a border, gave it a good wash so it’d be nice and soft, and gave it to lovely Gwenny!

    The Finished Product

    Gwenny inspects her new blanket
    Gwenny dances on her new blanket

    Its funny, the design is actually more fitting than I realized (until it was very nearly done. Gwenny’s full name is Gwendolyn Shiloh which means “beautiful peace” – and so does this blanket, in a quirky, nerdy sort of way! To me, and I’m sure I’m not alone, trees represent both stability and growth. They’re sturdy and strong, full of life, and calming. They represent peace.

    They’re also beautiful. But part of what makes them beautiful, visually, along with so much of nature, is – oddly enough – directly related to the Fibonacci sequence and that arrangement of squares!

    The way a tree’s branches divide and where they are placed around the trunk, how the leaves are arrayed, flower petals, a sunflower’s seeds, the spiral of a snails shell or a hurricane, even the relative lengths of the bones in your finger, all of these patterns can be described by the golden ratio (the ratio between to adjacent numbers in the Fibonacci sequence – or the length and width of this blanket) and/or the spiral formed by the squares. So much of nature, and so much of beauty, shares this pattern. It’s beautiful. The tree is peaceful. It works. 🙂

    The End. 🙂

  • Ack!

    Crap on a cracker! I knew it’s been a while since I blogged, but didn’t realize it’s been since frakking NOVEMBER. Egad.

    Not that I even have anything to say at this exact moment. Epic blogger’s block remains… all my creative juices have been diverted to work, non-work work, and one completely insane crochet adventure. But! That crochet beastie is completed, so as soon as I deliver it and get some pictures of it with its adorable new owner, I will post about that! (Including some patternyness for my fellow crocheters!) Huzzah!

    So, until then… pineapples!

  • Thirteen Things I’m Thankful For

    If I tried to list everything I’m thankful for, it would end up being either really abstract (silliness, grace, love, freedom, etc.) or downright molecular (oxygen, water, carbon…)

    (Also, infinitely long… moreso because I’m a super-analytical, detail-oriented perfectionist, than actually because I’m grateful for that many things. I mean, I am, but what would really kill the list is the precision and thoroughness with which I would list them, and 2 feet of text later I’d give up, having only described the things that I’m thankful for that are presently on my desk.)

    I’m obviously incredibly grateful for the big things like my home and my job and those abstract and molecular things, and most of all, family and friends and puppy obviously top the list, so we’ll skip them for this list, and I’ll attempt to avoid listing components and prerequisites and broad categories, SO…

    Thirteen specific, tangible(ish), pretty random things that I am particularly grateful for at this relatively arbitrary moment in time! Alternately titled,

    “13 Assorted Nouns Lauren Gets Inordinately Excited About.“

    (in no particular order, just as they come to mind. ):

    1. My dog, Rocky.
      Ok, I just said I wasn’t going to list the dog, (twice, since he is also family… or maybe thrice since he’s also my friend!) but he is fuzzy and cuddly and delightful (and in snuggle range as I start typing this post), so apparently he’s getting included anyway. He’s a Bichon Frise, almost 12 in human years, and an impressively good communicator for someone who neither speaks words nor writes. Sometimes he’s a bad dog, but mostly he’s just a big fluffy pile of love and adorableness.
       
    2. Apple Soy Chai Lattes
      A couple months ago, I discovered Burlap & Bean offered apple among the many flavor syrups available to add to your coffee or whatever beverage. I thought, “Hmm, I bet that would be good in chai…” and holy hello was I right! It instantly became my “usual”! It is also amusing to see the baristas react, as I seem to be the first to think of it (there, at least), and they’re all intrigued, always saying, “Ooh, I’ll have to try that!” and today one guy told me he finally did, and confirmed it is absurdly delicious. Also, the one girl calls me “Apple Soy Chai Girl,” which makes me smile!
       
    3. Crochet/Knitting
      I sometimes say my attention span is as long as my yarn. My Grandma taught me the basics of crochet when I was like, 6 or so, and I figured out how to knit a few years later, so I’ve been making things with yarn long enough that it’s second nature– the simple repetitive motion only occasionally requires conscious thought, but keeps my hands busy while I pay attention to other things (teachers/presenters/tv/conversations/etc.). It provides a point of focus — a sort of tether to reality, keeping my scatterbrain from wandering — and you get a scarf or something out of it! And I’m the sort who mostly makes up my own patterns, so the figuring out a project/design is a fun, half art/half math puzzle to solve!
       
    4. Graph Paper
      For the aformentioned design puzzling, not just for crochet projects, but for sketching out layouts and all sorts of ideas!
       
    5. Comfortable Shoes
      Almost every day, I wear either my tan sneakery shoes or my black sandals. The sneakers are barely sneakers… soft lightweight almost sock-like sort-of running shoes with elastic instead of laces. The sandals are near-magical slides which I’ve worn pretty much nonstop when its warm-ish for the last 5 years, including a month in Taiwan where we walked way too much, and they’re holding up really well, and perfectly molded to my feet. Every time I wear any other shoes, I’m reminded of how awesome these two pairs are! They feel less like shoes, and more like hugs for my feet.
       
    6. NASAtweetups and such
      NASAtweetups, CSAtweetups, NASAsocials, rogue tweetups, really any gathering of “people from the internet” is bound to be a good time! I’ve written about this before, but I’m especially and specifically grateful to NASA and CSA (and other space agencies doing the same that I haven’t been to yet) for hosting us spacetweeps, educating and entertaining us — and showing us how amazing both the universe, and mankind’s endeavors to explore it, are. And generally making field trips for grown-ups a thing that exists.
       
    7. Electric/Heated Blankets
      The heat in our house doesn’t really reach upstairs (which is confusing, since I was pretty sure heat rises), so a blanket that actually produces heat is very welcome in my bed!
       
    8. Netflix/Hulu/TV on the internet in general
      I love tv, but I can never remember to watch current shows when they air, so I’d miss at least half the episodes if that was the only option. And since I’m all about character development and the long-term plot, I can’t stand seeing episodes out of order or missing them, so I’d pretty much just never watch anything good until it came out on DVD. And since I’m broke, that wouldn’t happen either. So Hulu and individual networks’ steaming video (and occasionally filling in the gaps with sources of questionable legality) are miraculous for keeping up with current shows. And if it’s too old for Hulu, it’s probably on Netflix or will be soon. I can mad marathon all previous seasons of as many shows as I want (and movies too) for a very reasonable $8 a month (which I have now roped my parents into paying, since the whole family started using my account)!
       
    9. My Car, Neil
      I like him. He is cute and shiny and blue and has a cd player and everything works! But I’ve already rambled on about that a bit too… it’s nice having a car that isn’t perpetually breaking!
       
    10. Tote Bags
      There is something to be said for purses and computer bags and cases for various things — consistency and organization and such. But I’m a big fan of simple tote bags. Like one giant-ass pocket you throw everything you need in, sling it over your shoulder, and off you go! Any shape/size/color/design you want, they probably make that tote bag, and if not, you can get one printed! And they’re cheap, so you can keep a bunch handy! And if you spill something on it, or something leaks inside it, just throw it in the wash and dump your stuff in another one. Plus, unlike more structured bags, which stay pretty much the same size whether they’re empty or full, a simple cloth tote bag only takes up as much space as the stuff inside it! *magic*
       
    11. Connectivity
      Ok, this is getting dangerously close to that abstract territory I said I’d avoid, but it’s simultaneously astounding and easy to take for granted, so it’s worth a mention. It’s tangible in smartphones and tablets, anyway. So many places have WiFi, and cellular data networks are finally getting fast enough to be worth using, so the internet is accessible pretty much anywhere, any time! And with technical connectivity comes human connectedness. A certain amount of paradoxical disconnectedness too, but things like Twitter and Skype and Wikipedia and Coursera and Trello and a thousand other sites and apps connect me with people and books and knowledge and tools in every area of human experience and the world geographically! Clearly, I’m a nerd about these sorts of things (and all the things!) but it makes me happy!
       
    12. Ukulele!
      I got a cheap but decently nice uke off eBay a thousand years or so ago, and mostly it has sat on a shelf collecting dust, but lately I’ve been playing it more, and while I still suck, it’s fun! Small enough for my stupidtiny hands to handle easily, and only four strings to keep track of, so I’m having better luck learning than on guitar. I wrote a song for/inspired by Rachel’s sweet kiddo, Gwenny, about a sassy pterodactyl, and managed to figure out a suitable chord progression for it! And theoretically, some day, I will know more than 4 chords! It’s fun!
       
    13. Cup-a-noodles
      Yes, instant ramen in a styrofoam cup. For 50 cents or less. I am poor and like hot food at work. Don’t judge me. Mmm salty chicken-flavor noodles of cheapness.
       

  • Pushing and Pulling: Part 1

    At the suggestion of my lovely friend Nicole, what was going to be one massive, convoluted post, is now going to be a series of three or four, maybe more later on! For now, the basic idea…

    I’ve heard it said—or likely more accurately, read it written—that in life, you’re always either running to or running from something.

    I’m not sure I entirely agree (mainly because that sounds like way too much running!), but it fits well enough with what’s been running through my head.

    There are things in life that pull you—goals, desires, ambitions, interests, affection…—and things that push you—dissatisfaction, problems, circumstances, things you want to avoid, even people (intentionally or otherwise).

    Things that pull you pull you toward something. It’s more directional. Things that push you are less directional, just sort of pushing you away. Toward has a destination in mind. Away doesn’t care where you go as long as it’s not here.

    Like with magnets! if you have them oriented with opposite poles facing, so the force between them is attractive, they pull to each other. If you let go of one, you know exactly where it’ll end up—right up against the other! If you have them oriented so the force between them is repulsive, they push away from each other, and if you let go one one… who knows where it’ll go?! Maybe directly opposite the other magnet, but it could veer off to either side, or flip around or over…

    It works the same way with people. Physically poking, prodding, nudging, or shoving someone is at best an ineffective way to move them (as they can’t tell if you’re trying to get them to go somewhere specific or just somewhere else), and at worst, outright hostile. You take someone by the hand or arm to lead them somewhere, perhaps just to draw closer.

    Less concretely, we talk about being drawn to someone (perhaps someone with a magnetic personality), or feeling like a loved one is pushing us away. This pushing and pulling is a notion that’s already ingrained in our language. Words like attractive and repulsive are used far more often in emotional contexts than in reference to actual physical forces!

    My thought, though, is that just about everything in life—not just interpersonal relationships, but all the events, circumstances, reactions, etc. that affect our lives—can be thought of as either pushing or pulling. And which one? Depends on the situation.

    Say you leave your job at an office and go to work at a bakery. Were you pushed or pulled?

    • If you made the switch because decorating cupcakes is your passion: pulled.
    • If you left because you were fired and the bakery just happened to be hiring: pushed. (Maybe literally?)

     
    I go hang out at a coffee shop for a few hours. Push or pull?

    • If I go because I’m in the mood for a lovely cup of chai and a nice place to sit and read or crochet: pull.
    • If I go because I’ve been cooped up in my house or office all day and I just want out: push.

     
    You’re at a party, and spend most of the evening chatting with a person we’ll call Sam. Pushing or pulling?

    • If you’re hanging with Sam because Sam is cool and you’re enjoying Sam’s company: pulling.
    • If you’re just hanging with Sam because you don’t know anyone else there: pushing.
    • If you’re hanging with Sam because an ex or otherwise someone you wish to avoid is present: pushing (and you’re pushing back).

     

    Thoughts? More examples? Do share!

  • How I Accidentally Out-Introverted Myself. (And am undoing it…?)

    It’s kind of nuts how it seems like everything happens all at once, or nothing happens at all. For most of the last few months, it’s been the latter. But last week was all crazy social, and it was weird.

    For the full picture, allow me to backtrack a bit. Up until junior year of college, it wasn’t obvious, even to me, that I was an introvert — but that fall absolutely broke my brain (and maybe my soul?) to the point where I couldn’t stand my apartment or the people in it so hard that I basically moved out without having anywhere else to live. I just… left. (I slept on couches in deserted lounges or on friends’ dorm room floors for almost 2 weeks, until the housing lady hooked me up with an empty room for the last month or so of school, so I retrieved the remainder of my belongings and lugged them across campus, and proceeded to pretty much hibernate, except for classes.)

    Senior year was not nearly so drastic/traumatizing, but I got roped into living in an overcrowded apartment again, when I had desperately wanted to just stay in a comfy dorm room with one good friend. The roommates were all people I liked this time, and I made good use of the kitchen and living room in the fall and was reasonably social, but there were just too many of us in not enough space, and there were almost always people who didn’t actually live there hanging around, so it was not particularly conducive to de-stressing this frazzled introvert.

    I loved my friends (now that I had fine-tuned the selection of humans I was willing to spend time with) and really enjoyed my classes, but I was absolutely thrilled to graduate and move back home and have a whole room all to myself! Between my church friends (a handful of whom I consider close friends), three jobs (including Borders and a temporary office gig), and a whirlwind of NASAtweetups and such, I had plenty of human interaction, and was happy to retreat to (/ hide in) the bat-cave in whatever time remained.

    However, eventually, my contract at the office job — and Borders entire existence — ended, there are lulls in between NASA adventures, and my friends are busy people. The third job stuck around, ramped up to pretty much full time, and moved to an actual office, but most days it’s just me and my boss. I’d see church friends at church and occasionally manage to hang out otherwise, and NASA funs do pop up now and then, but after a while, I realized that the vast majority of days, I don’t see anyone but my boss and my parents.

    I gradually realized I had pared-down my social life a little too well.

    As I embraced my introvert-y-ness, I had given up on maintaining friendships that weren’t worth it. I sort of released myself from feeling obligated to spend time with people I just didn’t really like, but had put up with because of mutual friends or because I used to enjoy their company — and I stopped clinging to old friendships with people who didn’t seem to reciprocate.

    This was good. Like weeding the friendship garden. (Holy pants, that was corny!) But, to continue this slightly terrible metaphor, having weeded and pruned, I did not plant anything new, so once a few other things were removed, it was just a little too empty.

    And at that point, I realized I didn’t really know where to go to find new [plants]. The friends I have and have had in the past, I met through school, or church, or work, or some church-or-school-related trip/event. Now that I’m not in school, the folks at church in my age group are both limited and remarkably constant, and there aren’t exactly hordes of new faces at work… well, that’s not particularly helpful.

    I asked my handy dandy internet, and the consensus was basically, “Go do/to things your interested in, and you’ll meet people who share that interest!” Good advice, but as far as I knew, all that fit the bill were NASAtweetups, and at those I mostly befriend people who live far away. Awesome people, but not particularly helpful when you want to hang out at the spur of the moment. I didn’t have any other things to go to to make friends, so not so helpful. So, I remained a bit befuddled.

    But then I wasn’t anymore.

    It occurred to me that the problem probably wasn’t that there weren’t other events/gatherings relevant to my interests, but just that:

      a) I didn’t know what/when/where they were
      and
      b) I had only ever really gone to things that I had some connection to– either it was affiliated with my school or church or something, or I knew someone else there.

    I was used to incrementally expanding my social circles, not randomly jumping into new ones.

    So I decided to just go to things. Do things. ALL THE THINGS.

    Between finding a few random things to go to, and plans with existing friends coming together, last week was the most ridiculously social week in probably at least a year! (Minus NASAtweetup trips, of course!)

    On the way to work the other Friday, I saw a sign announcing a church coffeehouse concert thing that night. So on the way home, I decided to stop, and heard some good music, and ran into some folks I knew from helping with kids’ musicals a few years ago (apparently longer ago than I thought, as their teeny children are now basically grown men… weeeeeeeeird! o_O).

    An email from Bethlehem Brew Works informed me there was a knitting club called “Pints ‘n’ Purls” which meets there on Monday nights, and sounded mighty intriguing. Turned out my boss was going away on Tuesday, so I didn’t have to go into the office, creating the perfect opportunity for a later night in which I could drive up and check it out. I did, and it was quite fun! A little far to be a regular thing for me, but I met some cool people and was sort of inspired by the phenomenon!

    When Marian Call was here the week before, she highly recommended I attend the upcoming Ladies of Ragnarok concert in Norristown on Wednesday, so I thought I’d check that out. I did, and it was awesome! Molly Lewis and The Doubleclicks are awesome, talented, nerdy musicians (instant fan!), who draw a pretty cool and geeky crowd! (Who happened to mention some sort of game gathering at the bar/restaurant I pass going to/from work, that I look forward to checking out soon!)

    Note the cat keyboard. <3[/caption]

    I got to hang out with Rachel and sweet little Gwenny on Thursday afternoon, which happens semi-regularly and is always delightful.

    …As well as Lisa on Saturday, which has been a gorram long time coming!

    And then Sunday, I went to see Looper with a random guy I befriended at the Marian Call show! See? The plan is working already! A new friend! Victory.

    Of course, my reward for all this socializing? A cold. Figures.

  • Not Quite Writer’s Block…

    More like… Writer’s Banana Peel?

    “Banana Peel” by Black Glenn, on Flickr

    Yep, that figures! While this little blog was in transition, I had so many things I wanted to blog about. I finally get it moved over to its new home (here!), all spiffed up satisfactorily, the epic backlog of posts and photos posted, so I’m finally feeling free to blog regularly… and I suddenly have nothing to say.

    Then I’ll be driving to/from work, or in the shower, or something – anywhere i can’t type or write anything down – and remember everything I wanted to post, and come up with six new great ideas… but as soon as I stop the car or whatever, nothing. My mind is instantly blank, void of any eager scrap of creativity or inspiration! Of course!

    In the last week or so, I’ve been through this cycle so many times that I at least can remember the topics I had in mind, broadly, but still have nothing to say about them! Or I just, at that moment, think they’re incredibly stupid, uninteresting ideas no longer worthy of being bloggified.

    So after musing on that predicament for a while, I decided that it was, itself, decent [if viciously meta] blog fodder, and here we are. (Yes, it now seems kind of silly and stupid and not nearly as interesting as it did ten seconds before I started writing. But hey! Words.)

  • It's official, I live in the future!

    I was in middle school, I think, when I read Ender’s Game and the rest of the series…es (there are two distinct but intertwined storylines in Ender’s universe – one following Ender, the other following Bean). Anyway, the story is set in a future in which exceptionally bright kids are recruited to go to “Battle School” on a space station, to train for a war with an insectoid alien species usually referred to as “Buggers,” but aside from that, everyday life on Earth doesn’t seem to be too different. Besides living in a space station and playing war games in zero gravity, the one thing that stuck in my mind a brilliantly futuristic were the “desks” that everybody had.

    “Desks” were basically small, portable, internet-connected computers with a touch-screen. I remember thinking that was very nearly magical, and pretty much the coolest thing ever. When I was reading that, tablet PCs did exist, but were fairly new still, and bulky, awkward, expensive, and not very powerful. Even laptops were still something I only dreamed about having, the internet was slow and texty, and WiFi (as far as consumers were concerned, anyway) didn’t exist yet. So, this fictional always-connected computer with the form factor of an Etch-a-Sketch became my benchmark for the future.

    And I just got an iPad(2) for Christmas.

    I can take notes, send email, read books, take pictures, draw pictures, watch movies, look up information, play games, and easily access the whole of the internet, any time, anywhere, from this screen thing in my hand, roughly the size of a college-ruled notebook (thinner than an Etch-a-Sketch)! Mission accomplished. Clearly, I am living in the future.

    (Further proof, also based on juvenile fiction: I remember watching the Disney Channel movie “Zenon, Girl of the 21st Century”, and they had little discs that stored data or music or whatever – basically CDs, except they were the size of a quarter. I was storing my school papers on floppy discs, so had a little nerd aneurysm at the thought of fitting all that data on something so tiny… 12 years later, I have a 16gb micro SD card in my phone, full of dozens of CDs-worth of music, a bunch of photos, full TV episodes, and other data, on this little flake of plastic the size of my fingernail. *brainasplode*)

  • It takes laziness to a whole new level

    when you look down at your tied shoelaces

    and think,

    “Oh, I tied my shoes!”

    feeling both surprised and accomplished.

  • On Decisions, Habits, and Intentionality.

    I’ve had this pile of thoughts floating around in my head for a while, but couldn’t peg what they were actually about. Now I’ve figured it out… I think. Pretty sure they’re mostly just an explanation of basic decision making. Well, a really thorough systemization of basic decision making, with a little analysis of habitualness, a hint of philosophy, and a splash of rant. Kind of long and abstract, sorry. If you don’t feel like reading the whole thing, skip the first two sections. The end is what matters.

    Consider a choice.

    Any choice. Just one. A single solitary decision. What it’s about doesn’t matter. Every choice has a purpose, for lack of a better word, or some set of criteria to be met, and at least two alternatives. (The purpose may not be immediately obvious… it might be the best use of your time, for instance, if you’re deciding whether or not to do something, or it might be a complex combination of criteria. Some or even all criteria may be preferences, what appeals to you, even what appeals to you at the moment.) You need to decide which of those two alternatives best accomplishes that purpose/fulfills the criteria.

    You consider every facet of the expected outcome of each alternative– both the positives, like how well it does what it’s supposed to and additional benefits, and the negatives, such as costs (financial, time, or otherwise) and other consequences. You weigh these out, and see which option comes out on top. A lot of the time, it will be a trade-off, so you keep your specific criteria in mind– which are more important to you, and which you are willing to potentially compromise on. One option might be objectively better in general, but another is better suited to your particular situation/criteria.

    Sometimes, things come out more or less even. Maybe you started trying to make a decision objectively, the options are very similar or its a fairly even trade off, so they you add in another criterion, perhaps preference, to tip the scales one way or the other. Or the whole decision is about preference, but you weren’t sure which alternative you actually liked, so you tried eliminating that as a factor and look at which is objectively better. Once in a while, of course, it just comes down to a whim.

    Now, all of life is a series of these choices.

    Everything you do, you make a choice to do, and then you make choices regarding how to go about doing that thing.

    People think about the major decisions they need to make as choices, and most would agree it’s best to use this sort of logical reasoning in making those decisions (or at least consider what logic would tell you). Sometimes your heart or instinct might override, but you probably won’t intentionally go for an irrational choice, unless you have some other reason that makes it make sense to you, and just appears crazy to other people.

    What is often overlooked, however, are the little choices, especially things you do frequently or habitually. You do them a certain way. Always have. Except not always. Unless you are a pre-existent eternal being not bound by time, there was a time you didn’t exist, so you probably weren’t doing whatever you do however you do it. There was a moment you first existed, and some time later, you did that thing you do for the first time. And at that point, you had to decide how to go about doing it, maybe even learn how to do it.

    That first time, the choices, every step of the way, were conscious. They probably were the second time too. You could do it the same way, or try something differently. The decisions may have been conscious the third time too, maybe the fourth or even longer. Sooner or later, though, you probably established the pattern of how you do that, and stopped thinking about each decision.

    We live so much of our lives on autopilot.

    The thing is, after people have been following a pattern for a while, they forget that they’re just subconsciously repeating the same decisions over and over again. I’ve always done it this way. But does that mean that’s the best way to do it? Not necessarily. Maybe the situation in which you do that has changed. Maybe the information or tools you have have changed. Maybe the outcome you’re looking for has changed. Maybe you have changed, and will think of a better or just different way to go about it.

    If you can remember why you chose to do something a certain way, and present-self agrees with past-self’s reasoning, maybe you do want to keep doing it that way for now. But if you can’t remember why you do it the way you do, or some factor may have changed, try thinking through it again.

    Set aside your pattern, start from scratch.

    Try to “forget” what you normally do, and approach it anew, systematically and comprehensively. Break it down into purpose and specific criteria, and outcomes for each alternative (function and benefits, costs and consequences).

    • Establish what the relative weights of your criteria are.
    • Now evaluate what they should be– did you miss something worth considering, or let something less important or even irrational take priority?
    • Look at the alternatives you’re selecting from. Are there any other ways of doing what your doing, or things you could do instead to fulfill the same purpose? (They don’t have to be good ways, that’ll get sorted out in the next step.)
    • Rework your criteria as needed and analyze the elements of each alternative accordingly.
    • Make your decision. Which is really the best option?

    Work through the decision-making process again, with a fresh perspective, and determine what’s really the best way to do whatever it is you’re doing. Write it down if that works for you. Is it the same as you’ve been doing? If it is, cool, as you were. If it isn’t, are you willing to try the new way? (After all, you’re own brain just told you it’s better.) Or will you be stubborn and stick with the way you’ve “always” done it, just because it’s the way you’ve always done it?

    This is not hypothetical; this is a challenge.

    I’m serious, try it. Pick something you do fairly often. It can be the way you get to work, what beverage you drink, how you spend your first hour of “free time” in a given day, the way you organize your bookshelf, putting on pants, I don’t care. Just pick something, ponder why you do it the way you do. Actually think through the decision once, instead of going on autopilot. When you figure out the best option, try it that way. See if it works for you. Heck, try a different option even if it’s not better, maybe you’ll discover something interesting.

    Maybe you’ll make your life a little bit easier, or better in some small way. Maybe even a big way, who knows? Maybe you won’t, this time, and you’ll go back to your pattern. Try it with something else. Make a pattern of challenging your patterns. I bet sooner or later you find something you can improve on. (;

    But maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll keep finding the way you’ve been doing things is the best way, or at least works for you, and never change a thing… but wouldn’t it be nice to know that? To know that you have gone through life intentionally, thinking through and testing your decisions, and are confident that you are living the best life possible?

    Try it. Be intentional. Live intentionally. Live on purpose, not on autopilot.

    </motivational speech> But for serious, give it a go. (I’m going to!) Ready for this? I DARE YOU. Tell me about it in the comments!

    • What are you going to / did you try it on? After you do, what’s the result?
    • Did you learn anything in the process?
    • Am I a total and complete moron? (It’s okay, you can tell me. -_-)
    • How about your ideas, how else can we live on purpose?