Root Causes

Is the source of injustice in the world? Is it something "out there?" Would you eliminate injustice by changing "the world?"

Is the source of conflict in the world? Is it something "out there?" Would you create peace by changing "the world?"

Are the sources of poverty and greed in the world? Are they something "out there?" Would you eliminate poverty and greed by changing "the world?"

Is the funny noise your engine makes in the world? Is it something "out there?" Would you fix your car's engine by changing "the world?"

Can anyone else change your heart? Do you think you can change anyone else's heart? Which do you think might be easier, changing the world or changing your heart? Is changing your heart not a big enough challenge? No opportunity for heroism there? No chance to be at the top of the hierarchy of gratitude? These are disappointing things, yes. But what is it you really want? Answering that question honestly for yourself is a big start. And the answer to that question won't be found in the world.

Just some things to think about when you worry that focusing inward is surrendering to injustice, conflict, poverty and greed.

Incidentals

I guess we're about to put the lid on February for another year. So will March come in like a lion? Beats me. We'll see soon enough I guess.

It was pretty miserable here today though. Fortunately, it wasn't cold; but it did rain all day.

I made arrangements to fly up to upstate New York with my kids to see my parents next month. They've got a week off the third week in March, so we're going to go on up so they can see their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins they seldom get to see. I used Travelocity to book the reservations and that seemed a bit more complicated than it needed to be. I had to create a new account and it kept barfing on the password I was trying to use without telling me what the problem was. I gather they only wanted alphanumeric characters, and no punctuation. I'm so sick of passwords. Ugh. Then the price of the tickets went up as I was booking them. How could I not feel as though I was being taken? It wasn't a lot, but still, it seemed ridiculous. As I was requesting the reservations, the form requested whether or not the other people in my party were adults or children. Anyone 17 and under is considered a child. So I identified Chris and Cait as children and continued on with the process. When it came time to confirm the reservations, Chris and Caitie's appeared with a radio-button selected indicating they were adults. I tried to click on the button to toggle it off to indicate they were not adults, but it wouldn't toggle, it remained selected. So that was frustrating. I just went ahead and confirmed the reservations. Hopefully a photo ID will eliminate any confusion at the gate. I don't travel much, but I don't think I'll use Travelocity again if I can find a better service elsewhere.

I watched Battlestar Galactica Friday night. Wasn't a bad episode, but it was one of the slower ones. It seemed as though it was more of a transition piece, setting up for something downstream. A Cylon undergoing interrogation may have planted some doubt in the president's mind about whether Adama is a human or not; and Starbuck seemed to be set up to grapple with issues of faith, which might be interesting. Of course, Gaius discovers Boomer is in fact a Cylon, but we don't know what he'll do with that information yet. He kept it from Boomer. And the voyage continues.

It was kind of a big weekend for movies for me. I also watched I Heart Huckabees. That was a pretty fun movie. Some depth, some chewy philosophical nuggets; but mostly just a lot of fun watching Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman do their thing. I even liked Mark Wahlberg, though he still reminds me too much of Matt Damon. This movie won't be to everyone's taste, but I liked it a lot.

Secondhand Lions

A simple Buddhist, er, American parable about two old monks, er, men, who raise a boy in an isolated temple, er, house...

Desire, loss, suffering, redemption. Martial arts. Many laughs, a pig and a lion.

Well worth your time and attention.

Thanks, Eric.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring

A gift from friend, I watched this movie this afternoon. A simple Buddhist parable done beautifully in film. It's the story of an old monk who raises a boy on a small floating temple. Set in Korea, the scenery is rich and beautiful.

It's the story of life, a reflection of the cycle of samsara; desire and loss; suffering and redemption.

There's very little spoken dialog. It makes Cast Away seem like an extremely "talkie" movie by comparison. And what dialog there is is spoken in Korean, with English subtitles. But the lush visuals, the story and the pacing keep the movie engaging.

There's no message to beat you over the head with (I can hear your sighs of relief from here!), the movie is its message. It's both less and more than you might expect. The part I had the most difficulty with was the death of the old monk. The part that I found most affecting was the scene where the boat would make no progress from the temple. I'd tell you more, but it would be a spoiler.

If I tell you there's some martial arts, would that make you more inclined to see it? Well, there is, but again, it's probably both less and more than you might expect. Probably mostly less.

The end of the movie left me with a feeling of serenity. Not inspired, not perplexed, not agitated, not exhausted. Like a good meditation. Which it probably most closely resembles. Worth your time and attention.

"One sees clearly only with the heart."

"Nothing's perfect," sighed the fox. But he returned to his idea. "My life is monotonous. I hunt chickens; people hunt me. All chickens are just alike, and all men are just alike. So I'm rather bored. But if you tame me, my life will be filled with sunshine. I'll know the sound of footsteps that will be different from all the rest. Other footsteps send me back underground. Yours will call me out of my burrow like music. And then, look! You see the wheat fields over there? I don't eat bread. For me wheat is of no use whatever. Wheat fields say nothing to me. Which is sad. But you have hair the color of gold. So it will be wonderful, once you've tamed me! The wheat, which is golden, will remind me of you. And I'll love the sound of the wind in the wheat..."

The fox fell silent and stared at the little prince for a long while. "Please... tame me!" he said.

"I'd like to," the little prince replied, "but I haven't much time. I have friends to find and so many things to learn."

"The only things you learn are the things you tame," said the fox. "People haven't time to learn anything. They buy things ready-made in stores. But since there are no stores where you can buy friends, people no longer have friends. If you want a friend, tame me!"

"What do I have to do?" asked the little prince.

"You have to be very patient," the fox answered. "First you'll sit down a little ways from me, over there, in the grass. I'll watch you out of the corner of my eye, and you won't say anything. Language is the source of misunderstandings. But day by day, you'll be able to sit a little closer..."

The next day the little prince returned.

"It would have been nice to return at the same time," the fox said. "For instance, if you come at four in the afternoon, I'll begin to be happy by three. The closer it gets to four, the happier I'll feel. By four I'll be all excited and worried; I'll discover what it costs to be happy! But if you should come at any old time, I'll never know when I should prepare my heart... There must be rites."

"What's a rite?" asked the little prince?

"That's another thing that's been too often neglected," said the fox. "It's the fact that one day is different from the other days, one hour different from the other hours. My hunters, for example, have a rite. They dance with the village girls on Thursdays. So Thursday's a wonderful day; I can take a stroll all the way to the vineyards. If the hunters danced whenever they chose, the days would all be just alike, and I'd have no holiday at all."

...

And he went back to the fox.

"Good-bye," he said.

"Good-bye," said the fox. "Here is my secret. It's quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes."

"Anything essential is invisible to the eyes," the little prince repeated, in order to remember.

"It's the time you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important."

"It's the time I spent on my rose...," the little prince repeated, in order to remember.

"People have forgotten this truth," the fox said. "But you mustn't forget it. You become responsible forever for what you've tamed. You're responsible for your rose..."

"I'm responsible for my rose...," the little prince repeated, in order to remember.

From: The Little Prince, by Antoine De Saint-Exupéry, Copyright 1943, 1971, and 2000 by Harcourt Co., Consuelo De Saint-Exupéry, and Richard Howard (translation), respectively.

Sort of the anti-manifesto.

The Novelty of Authentic Experience

Reality! It's what's hot! Hot! HOT! Well, maybe not. But funny things happen when the lights go out, or you forget your iPod. Things like life. Link courtesy of Jonathon Delacour.

Link'em, Dink'em and... Whatever

Real people got you down? Can't get a date? Busy corporate drone, and don't have the time to spend nurturing a real relationship? Well, fret no more! Technology has come to the service of a suffering humanity once again! Meeting your needs better than nature ever could! That's right people, a close, intimate relationship is as near as your cell phone! Act now! Quantities limited. Results not typical. Void where prohibited by law. Not to be used if you are taking anti-depressants. Package sold by bits, not by atoms. Your mileage may vary.

More Random Stream of Consciousness

Why shouldn't people be able to do what they want to do? Leave aside for a moment the fact that they pretty much do anyway. But what difference does it make if someone is an alcoholic or a drug addict? So what if they want to belong to a cult that believes the spaceships are coming to take them to some better world? If somebody wants to invest their life, their existence, in the pursuit of wealth and material possessions, why should anyone care? If someone wants to seek attention and pose as an authority on something, what's the harm? Who is anyone to suggest that any of these might not be the best way to live one's life? If someone wants to eat pastries every day, and weigh 400 pounds and become diabetic and die at 60, well, what of it? If someone wants to play video games 19 hours a day, and if somebody else is willing to pay for it, so what? If someone wants to stand on a street corner and tell you the world is a hypercube, should we say anything? What if people started to believe him? Maybe he was really attractive and popular and charismatic, does that mean it doesn't really matter if he's wrong? What if he was in the Technorati Top 100, does that change your answer? What's really "wrong" anyway? Who gets to decide? Me? You? Wouldn't it be better if we all just minded our own business? What would we have to talk about?

Markets are not conversations. But don't take my word for it, I don't know jack shit and I make all this stuff up. See, the wise ones tell us that marketplaces "are places (whether in virtual or physical space) where people meet to do business and make culture." Well, I'll buy the "do business" part, but "make culture?" People make culture in their homes, and in their schools and in their churches. They make it in their studio lofts, and in their notebooks and sketchbooks and on the sides of buildings; they make it in their families, and in their halls of government. They make it in their minds and in their souls. But I suppose the wise ones may be onto something because the marketplace has intruded into virtually all of those social and civic, and spiritual refuges. And now they want the marketplace to intrude into our conversations too. That's because anyone talking to you these days is trying to sell you something. Never forget that. Except me. I have nothing you'd want to buy anyway. Fortunately, talk is cheap. But also bear in mind that the finger is not the moon, and I am giving you the finger. That was zen, this is tao.

Do we really want corporations to be more like humans? Or would we prefer that humans be less like corporations? If you ask me, it's the latter. But what do I know?

Does the networked, wired world facilitate wisdom more than stupidity? Why should it? Does the abundance of information mask our own ignorance and therefore give us the impression we are somehow wiser now? Isn't it just as likely we can now make mistakes faster and on a vastly wider scale than ever before? Does that trouble anyone besides me?

Somebody made me laugh when they said a poor person in a developing nation would probably prefer a goat to a cheap laptop computer. Such insight is rare on the internet.

I'm your friend if you let me puke in your car. You're my friend if I let you puke in my car. Let's not treat the word "friend" the shabby way we do the word "conversation," okay?

Well, I didn't think it would do any good, but I felt like I had to try.

I don't object to strong words, but I kind of prefer strong ideas and strong thinking behind them. Merely reciting empty sarcasm fails to move me.

The virtue of low-cost, low-investment, virtual online relationships is that after they implode, you never bump into them at the market (where, presumably, you might have to have a conversation or exchange genuinely insincere pleasantries).

Being an asshole isn't being authentic. Unless it is your intent to be an asshole, as is mine here. In which case, I expect you to do a decent job of it. Either bring your A-game, or stay home. The world has quite enough genuinely half-assed assholes. Authenticity is not an excuse for ill manners. One can be a genuinely ill-mannered asshole and not be authentic.

This post is unquestionably material for The Cooler, but every now and then you have to consciously break your own rules.

Stop Energy

Dave Winer makes a reasoned argument against Google's new tool-bar that can add links to any web page for information it recognizes in some way. ISBN book numbers can be turned into Amazon links, street addresses may link to map sites, etc. I don't have any strong feelings on the issue, pro or con; but I think Dave Winer makes a reasonable case.

I think it would be a better world if every technological innovation was subjected to that level of scrutiny by the leading lights of the technology world. Everything internet-related is seemingly expected to lead to a new and better world. Well, maybe not. But you seldom see the leaders, the authorities, posing questions or objections, unless it's in the context of some zero-sum contest. Other than that, it's mostly just cheerleading and back-slapping (and sloganeering). So it's kind of refreshing to see someone saying, "Wait a minute..."

Immunity from Humanity

There is no immunity from humanity. No vaccine. No technology which will relieve us of our ignorance, hubris, greed and ceaseless, grasping desire.

Every shiny new technology or ideology or theology that happens to catch our eye, or is put before us by the authorities who tax our attention as well as our authority, is but another distraction, a zero-sum transaction with an opportunity cost measured in life not lived.

They craft clever turns of phrase, warm, intimate, soothing sweet nothings to slip into your mind and keep your attention turned toward them. They wish you to believe you're simply having a conversation. Or they act outrageously, but only outrageously enough, to get and keep your attention. Because they know what you want, and they pretend to be able to give it to you.

But have some compassion for them, because they have to work all the harder just to keep fooling themselves. Unless they have their own authorities they rely on to keep the bitter disappointment of the world at a distance; to maintain a gel filter of supposed unrealized potential between their beliefs and the hard edges of reality.

There is no immunity from humanity. No easy fix. The finger is not the moon. And everyone is giving you the finger. Including me. Especially me. So perhaps you might wish to think for yourself. It's not easy, but it's more interesting and worthwhile than attaching yourself to some other person's thoughts, which aren't so much about you or your life as they are about taking your attention from your life.

There is no immunity from humanity. It's a chronic condition. There's a protocol, but it's not easy. The alternative is to just keep dying. Don't despair. Everybody gets to die. The authorities will do their best to keep you comfortable. And these days, they do that pretty well. All they ask in return is just a little more of your attention.

What are you doing here?

The Power of Imagination... Or Ego

Real people, with imaginary authority, often exercise their imaginary authority by carrying out imaginary employee terminations.

It's all the same to the dopamine. At least, at first.

"Bummer, sir."

I suppose it had to end this way.

While Caitlin Sleeps

I've got a few minutes, so here's what's on my mind.

I like impersonal corporations. In my opinion, it's already bad enough they're called corporations and treated as though they were individuals anyway. I think it's a little ironic that we treat them that way, yet the idea that there may actually be super-organisms, or social-organisms, that act that way is somehow a stretch for most people. I don't need anyone humanizing them for me. There are quite enough humans to go around, (whom we mostly ignore or neglect) thank you very much. We really don't need to be teaching these organisms how to fool us even more into thinking they can be our friends, with whom we might have conversations. So much the easier for them to manipulate our attention and our beliefs in order to influence us to act in ways that advance their agendas, usually at the expense of our own. Say what you will, but life in the foodchain is still mostly a zero-sum affair.

It's not that corporations and big business are evil, mind you, they're not. No more than tigers, strep bacteria, and crocodiles are evil. They all have vital places in the eco-system. But I wouldn't want to pretend they're my intimate friends either.

I resent the efforts by some, mostly to promote themselves and the brand they've allowed themselves to become, to try and make things which are decidedly not the same things as people, into ersatz versions of people, with whom we might wish to have things like conversations. But maybe that's just me. I'm not one of the hip, the cool, the savvy. I'm just a lowly prole with the tediously annoying propensity to think for himself, and not, you know, get onboard with the whole memetrain.

And as tired as some people are of the word content, I'm sick of the word authenticity. "The key to success in life is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made." You can say the same thing about authenticity. Here's the thing about authenticity - it shares the same etymological roots with authority. To be authentic, one must also be an authority, specifically on oneself. This is no trivial task. One can be genuine, that is, not fake, as in genuinely oblivious, or genuinely angry; but it takes authority, as in self-knowledge, to be authentic. And one sees precious little in the way of self-knowledge exhibited by the people who are supposedly so authentic, at least, in the high attention-earning segments of the blogosphere.

So the next time you see some corporate drone on a web page or a podium, appearing abashedly authentic, keep in mind they're just being genuine corporate drones, genuinely reciting whatever the latest counter-intuitive, agit-prop the hive mind has come up with to make you all swallow whatever it is they're selling. And make no mistake, they're always selling something.

Carry on.

Me Too

Took Caitie to Target today and noted they had the iPod Shuffle. I caved. It was an impulse buy. Bought the 512MB model.

I listened to my iPod 3G on the flight out to California for more than two hours until the ear buds and the ear-popping made listening too painful. I had initially clipped the iPod to the pocket in the seat in front of me. But when the folks next to me had to make their way to the aisle, it became something of a frustration to juggle the tray table, the iPod and the wires. An iPod Shuffle would have been a lot less hassle. As small as it is, the regular iPod was too large to wear on my belt or carry in a pocket while seated in an airline seat.

Back Where I Belong

It's great to be back home. I guess I passed Doc Searls somewhere over North America. His longish western transcontinental dash contrasted with my very quick 3.5 hour sprint in the other direction. Funny how wind and drag work. It was very wet and cloudy in San Diego when I left, with a weekend forecast for more of the same, and some very bumpy air through most of the climb to altitude. But this flight home with an empty adjacent seat in a nice, wide 767, was much better than the eastern leg, which was 4:40 of 757-cramped, fevered, congested, ear-popping drudgery.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The romance and adventure of air travel are things of the very distant past.

Wasn't much of a visit, recreationally-speaking. I had free wi-fi in the room, which was nice. But I was in bed pretty much by 8:00PM every night, trying to beat this cold. Probably saved a bit of money that way. Mission accomplished, though. Well, except for the beating the cold part.

Had some mechanical trouble with the 767 down from Atlanta that delayed us for more than an hour. Had an interesting seat-mate though. Sleep therapist out of San Francisco headed to Amelia Island for a weekend conference. We had an interesting conversation.

Conversations, say, you remember what those are, don't you? The things that are, most assuredly, not markets. Well, we had a nice one.

We were chatting about consciousness and physiology and the weather, you know, the usual stuff, and she pulled out this book, The Molecules of Emotion by Candace B. Pert, Ph.D. and asked me if I had read it. Indeed I had, so she asked me what I thought of it. I said I thought it was a wonderful book, but it would have been much better if Dr. Pert had bothered to write two books, one about the molecules of emotion and another one about how she got cheated out of a Nobel prize. My neighbor laughed and said, "Exactly!" (Or words to that effect. I am not a journalist.) She said she felt badly because she had recommended it to a colleague based on only reading the preface and the back cover (she had bought it, but hadn't had a chance to read it yet), and on reading it through was, much as I was, dismayed by the many digressions Dr. Pert takes on her misadventures with her research team and the nominating committee. It was an interesting conversation, though I'm afraid I probably did too much of the talking. I know what you're thinking, "Inconceivable!" But still...

And it's great to be back. Even if I am still sniffling and coughing. The sneezing has stopped.

It's great to be back.

I Still Miss You, Charlie Brown

Five years ago today. It's kind of interesting, and a little bit, I don't know... sad? reading these old posts. I miss my son the 12-year-old. The last paragraph about the Pokémon league is in reference to something I took my son to for many weekends. I try to treasure my present daughter the 12-year-old. My son's still a pretty good kid as a 17-year-old, but it's different.

Half-fast

The crud isn't slamming me too hard at the moment. I hope that doesn't mean the worst is yet to come. Feverish, headache, body aches, usual flu symptoms. Still, I'm able to get things accomplished. Most of today is going to be travel preps and housekeeping. The biggest hurdle is likely to be getting out of bed tomorrow morning at oh-dark-thirty and making it to the airport on time. If I feel no worse than I do now, that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

I'm bringing along a couple of books to read since I don't anticipate doing a lot of socializing or taking in any of the local nightlife next week. I've got Dr. Antonio Damasio's The Feeling of What Happens, and Jon Kabat-Zinn's Coming to Our Senses. One small success story thus far into the new year has been achieving a daily meditation practice. Nothing spectacular, but being competitive about meditation is kind of missing the point, isn't it? I debated not buying Kabat-Zinn's book, it's mostly very short little chapters and it looks like it repeats much of the material from his other books, Wherever You Go, There You Are, and Full Catastrophe Living, which I have already read. So it was mostly just an impulse purchase, which is the kind of thing mindfulness is supposed to help you guard against. Just goes to show, everything takes practice.

Pascale pointed to this fascinating report. It's about some research using electronic "black box" random number generators, and observing deviations from expected random outputs in response to external events. I'm not sure what it means, if anything; but I am persuaded that there is more going on here than meets the eye.

I happened to catch part of Diane Rehm's interview with Deepak Chopra on Friday on my way to taekwondo. I listened to the entire interview Friday night from her web site. I know who Deepak Chopra is, but I've never read any of his books or ever heard him speak before, so it was kind of interesting. Perhaps worth your time if you're interested in "changing the world." Then again, maybe not if you're counting on "changing the world" increasing your rank in the hierarchy. I'll save you the trouble, if you're not so inclined - you don't change the world by changing other people. You begin changing the world by changing yourself. One is very hard to to, the other is impossible. I'm not trying to change anyone. But I'm not going to ignore opportunities to point out why someone might wish to consider changing themselves.

Changing the World

Robert Scoble, of late the darling of both mainstream media and the blogosphere, tells us in a comment that people at his "level" at Microsoft can "change the world." I commented that I thought that was overstating things a bit, and Robert replied that no, I was wrong. "I've seen it happen dozens of times in just the 20 months I've been at Microsoft (and it certainly happens all the time in Silicon Valley)."

This is the kind of stuff that just blithely flows off the fingertips of Microsoft's "Chief Humanizing Officer." I guess I just haven't been paying attention because the world looks pretty much the same to me today as it has for most of my life, let alone the last 20 months. Sure, some lines on the maps have changed, we're frightening ourselves about a different group of people, and we're much more "wired" now, but what has that really changed? Not much. It's changed how some people, a relative few by the "world's" standards, do things. Whether or not those changes will be for the better remains to be seen. Of course, all the people who have invested their authority, their rank in the hierarchy, on selling this vision will tell you, unquestionably, the changes are for the better. There's little juice in uncertainty in the blogosphere. No "buzz" in asking questions that aren't probing someone else's personal failings. No "wuffie" in skepticism. No dopamine for the receptors in expressions of doubt or reservation. Unless it's in the context of competing standards, formats, or technologies for moving the internet, and presumably by extension, the world, forward. Lot's of zero-sum questioning in those contexts.

Look around and mostly what one observes is self-promotion, self-justification and self-righteousness. Not all of it, to be sure, but most of the so-called "A-List," the guys who are interested in branding themselves and who exercise the greatest authority are pretty much in that category. You won't see much self-examination, self-deprecation, or self-denial.

What was that quotation from Schopenhauer we read last month? "Every person takes the limits of their own vision to be the limits of the world."

People confuse attention with authority. People who receive attention begin to believe they are authorities.

Under the Weather

This crud that's been going around has finally made its way to me. The timing could have been better. I'm supposed to be heading out to California on Monday. It's not the kind of trip I can just not take. Pretty much sucks. So I guess I'll just do the usual self medication thing, and try not to infect too many other people.

Still Checking...

Well, this Myth of the Intimate Planet thing is taking even longer than I'd hoped. It's probably going to have to come with a Surgeon General's Warning that reading it may bore you to death. I shoved it down into The Cooler so I could pop in here and share my deathless prose with the universe. Well, actually, to give Mom something to read.

Had a brief, if rather one-sided, discussion with Dave Weinberger on the value and utility of $100.00 laptops placed into the hands of millions of children. It seems almost a default view of many that this would be a "good thing," because it promotes, among other things, "connection." I wonder how it might interfere with already-functioning connections? This may or may not make it into The Myth, but if it doesn't, I'll make it a separate post.

Speaking of the value of "connection" (Not all connections are equally valuable.), there was this report about the same time I was questioning the wisdom of Negroponte's vision.

In the area of "reasoning backward from our feelings," there's this bit of research being reported at Science Daily magazine. Seems like "guilt" is one of those feelings. This is an interesting twist I hadn't thought about, but it seems to remain consistent with my feeling that emotions govern most of our decision-making. (There's kind of an oblique pun in there. I know, it takes away all the fun when I point them out.)

Then there was this amusing article about attention and the computer. All those children in developing countries will become much better doctors, and nurses and engineers, attending to all those "connections," and won't be distracted in the least from their studies. I know, I'm sounding cynically sarcastic (or is it sarcastically cynical?) now. The money quote? "'Deep thought for a half-hour? Boy, that's hard,' Mr. Hecker said. 'Does anyone ever really have deep thoughts for half an hour anymore?'"

I'd say the greatest part of the evidence available in the blogosphere suggests the answer is no, Mr. Hecker.

No.

Checking In

They're gone!

The Super Bowl people, that is.

I've never seen so many limousines in my life. Sheesh.

Apart from seeing so many mutant cars, an increase in traffic, the odd electronic sign telling people where the Sports Illustrated party was, and an abundance of green Eagles jerseys, the impact of the game at the beach was pretty minimal. I didn't go out, so I don't know what the impact at the local bars and restaurants might have been, but my guess would be along the same lines as the TPC (Tournament Players' Championship, I think. It's a golf thing.) at Sawgrass, which is bad enough. (Good, if you own a bar or a restaurant. Bad, if you're a local just looking for an enjoyable evening. But let's not get too wrapped around the whole good/bad duality thing this early in the morning.)

Anyway, we live to blog another day. Or two. Maybe.

I've got a few things I want to kind of go on about at length, dealing with the seductive myth of the intimate planet (as portrayed by webloggers), and another on authority and authenticity. I've been having something of an ongoing discussion with an e-mail correspondent which has, for the moment, absorbed much of my writing time/energy. But I think I can reuse some of that material here. I'd also like to recapitulate, to some extent, what this blog is kind of about, as it has developed over the last five years, the major ideas behind it - if "major ideas" isn't too great a conceit. I hope to get to that soon too.

Somewhat impairing that effort is the greater effort I'm putting into taekwondo at the moment. Said effort serves a number of goals or wishes, one of which has recently become to attend to "real" relationships in close physical proximity; and must be supported from the same finite pool of time and attention resources that supports writing longish pieces for this place. So, this may take a while. On top of all that, I have to take a journey out to the left coast in connection with my job next week, and I don't know how productive I'll be here while coping with all that.

Something that perhaps wouldn't find its way into any of the longer pieces kind of assembling themselves in my head at the moment, is a certain curiosity about why we don't write more about questions? I suspect that it's because many of the models for blog-writing are from the editorial pages of newspapers. To the extent that some bloggers view themselves as "journalists," I suppose that too supports writing declarative sentences in the service of particular assertions, but I'm not sure. In any event, most of what I seem to read is usually of a point/counter-point dynamic, where would-be authorities vie for rank in the hierarchy. Fisking, anyone? I don't think one looks like much of an authority if one is only raising questions and not answering them.

A related question might be when did we all get so certain? It would be nice to read an occasional qualifying "I think," "I feel," or, "in my opinion." Well, it would be nice for me. I think. But again, such statements tend to mitigate against the appearance of authority, so I think we're less inclined to employ them in an environment where much of the effort is part of a competition for authority.

I wonder about how much effort we genuinely make at trying to perceive where all this is going, which would seem to require asking questions. Or does it seem we're mostly about projecting our desires and wishes onto a future we can't clearly perceive. To what extent does such an effort support bringing those projections to reality, and to what extent does it impair our ability to foresee the unintended consequences of our beliefs about our technology? Did the advocates of the automobile envision suburban sprawl, the change in scale of architecture to support the automobile? Did they anticipate traffic jams and road rage and tens of thousands deaths each year? Or was it all going to be just grand? I don't know.

Anyway, that's enough from me for now. It was probably enough from me long ago.

Keeping Up Appearances

I've been reading a lot about folks using these Moleskine notebooks. I have a Moleskine notebook. Well, not a real Moleskine notebook. It's a Moleskine-compatible. Same basic engineering.

Recently I learned that a Fisher Space Pen is the preferred writing instrument for use with Moleskine notebooks. I have a Fisher Space Pen. I found it on the sidewalk at the airport a couple of years ago while I was waiting for the bus to take me out to long-term parking.

Firefly in Galactica

That, boys and girls, is a Firefly-class spaceship, and the frame grab is from Battlestar Galactica.

As one might expect, someone first noticed this right after the mini-series aired in 2003. I never saw it until last month, and didn't know of the cameo before I happened to notice a very familiar looking spacecraft moving through the frame. I think it was on screen for all of 2 or 3 seconds. The first thing I did after I received the DVD was look for this scene to see if it was, indeed, a Firefly. I could have saved myself the trouble by just searching the web, but I didn't think to do that until I thought about posting it. Still, it was quite cool to see; and I'm pleasantly surprised that I am still alert enough to catch little things like this.

Same company does the CGI effects for both series.

Happy Groundhog Day

It's cold out there every day.

The point is, every day is Groundhog Day for most of us, a chance to see our own shadow and perhaps work on becoming the person we could be. Naturally, it's more complicated than that, and less. It's about extinguishing the ego. "I've killed myself so many times, I don't even exist anymore." That's the capital "I" - the ego, the thing that always desires and is never satisfied, the thing that is always about me. Once that's gone, we see it isn't about me. It's about us.

I'm not there yet. Maybe got close once or twice, then back to the wasteland with occasional day trips to anger and bargaining. Don't think I've been to denial in a long time, and don't really care to go back. But I think this time I know where I "want" to go. Rather, I think I'm ready to go where my life takes me. See? There's a bit of a difference. We'll see how true that is. Time is mostly a trick of the mind anyway.

I ordered The Little Prince from Amazon the other day. I must apologize to all my Amazon friends because I don't recall getting the opportunity to "share the love" where you are offered a 10% discount by e-mail. Maybe they dropped that feature, or maybe I didn't pay enough attention. I haven't read it in a while, but I think it's a humane response to many of the things I read that I don't agree with about the nature of our experience on the internet. It's been a while since I last read it, so it's possible I'm all wet, but it's good to read in its own right.

Just noticed I'm going to have to make room for February, but I don't have time a the moment. This permalink will change later today (2 Feb), not that I expect anyone to link to it, so it's hardly worth mentioning. But it will be incorrect once I get February up, so, whatever.

"Too early for flapjacks?"

It's Cold Out There

I was going to write an essay about Groundhog Day, the movie, but I decided to just watch it instead.

Besides, someone already did. It's not exactly what I would write. It's probably better. Anyway, you can read it here.