Category Archives: bookworthy

the internet is killing computers

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So I was thinking…I have my computer open all the time and I go check it a million times a day.

But what am I really checking? What work am I doing?

It seems that all I do is throw away spam mail, re read the stuff my friends sent me, and follow intriguing links on the margins of my email homepage.

I pride myself on not spending time on reality tv, but I’m just as much a consumer of mental cotton fluff as any national enquirer reader.

I am a consumer of content father than a creator of content. I think it’s time to step away from the internet. I shoudl not be wired.

Having a computer in front of me, and NOT having it connected is almost as antiquated as a fountain pen.

But what is this coming to?

Computers, and the people who love them, should not need the internet. Have we forgotten how powerful this device is all on it’s very own?

I have. I think I need to shut it off. Unplug and go play with some SOFTWARE for a while.

where does it fit

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Well, I tell you…

I talk about work very seldom on this site. Mostly because this site is supposed to be my creative outlet, which is quite separate from work.

But work this week is super busy. And I am feeling sick. I am popping cough drops and have a scarf wrapped around my throat. Nothing this week, and probably next, can wait. I have to get this stuff done.

I hate being irreplaceable. I try very hard to have a backup for myself, but it doesn’t always work that way.

But that’s not what I came here to write. I am writing because I am losing my voice.

Get it? Can I flash the neon lights on that metaphor any brighter?

Yes, my voice is receding back into my throat. My throat aches with the burden. So, I can’t speak well, and i am writing on this blog.

I was looking at other, better and more popular blogs. I’ve had this blog for forEVAH. I like my blog, but It is not at all organized around a theme. It just acts as a scratch pad for the most part.

I kinda feel like I need to grow up and make something of myself. SIGH.

But you know what? I somehow doubt that even the best writer in the world ever grows out of the need for a scratch pad.

Just because this scratchpad did not produce the works of shakespeare doesn’t mean it is not a good thing to use.

can you tell I’m sick, feeling a bit of self-pity?

i bought O magazine, and Elizabeth Gilbert had a piece in it about how we ladies need to GIVE OURSELVES A BREAK ALREADY! She listed some amazing friends who had impressive achievements. And she said that each of them spent time agonizing over whether they should have gotten that French literature PhD (for example) or should be working on losing those 10 pounds.

So, this country, this state of mind–dissatisfaction and not-enough-itude–is a highly populated one.

I just pictured a bunch of people in the “Thinker” pose, feeling TOTALLY alone, but frustrated at the other people pushing against them. ‘I’d be able to concentrate on how deficient and lonely I am if only all these other people would leave me alone.’

well, that makes me smile anyway. Maybe I’ll drink some tea and that will help.

Strange twists

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So…I was listening to another podcast of “Stuff you Missed in History Class” and this one was on the history of Vaudeville. Just something to keep my mind entertained as I follow my daughter around to keep her out of danger.

One thing really jumped out at me. Vaudeville, as they explained, was meant to be a clean, family-oriented entertainment. Storng language, such as “son of a gun,” was forbidden. Double entendre and low-brow bodily noise jokes, also a no-go.

Let me say, these rules were not completely followed. But the management of the theaters that held vaudeville acts did try to keep the bar high.

So, they could sneak things in, but the main point of an act had to be clean by the standards of the day. Comedic acts were very common, which is sort of amazing from my perspective today, because if you have no sexual double entendre, and no fart jokes, what have you got?

I will tell you what you’ve got: humor based on stereotypes. Remembery, vaudeville invented minstrelsy–otherwise known as black-face. They had to have a racial stereotype off which to bounce jokes. True, they did not only joke about black people (African-americans). Will Rogers was a “cowboy comedian” in vaudeville, and I’m sure he played up all the stereotypes of the western cowboy. And there were all kinds of ethnic types.

I’m sure that the audience was in many ways educated in what stereotypes they were supposed to hold about various ethnic types.

It seems to me that racial stereotypes were very very fostered by the censors who were trying to create ‘family’ entertainment. I doubt they had any intention of doing so, but I think racial stereotypes took root in our culture in a way they would not have without these restrictions.

If you had two months to live

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..other than the obvious, what would you do? The obvious being saying goodbye to loved ones.

That was the question at Toastmasters and it really sunk in. I am lucky enough to have more than two months to live…

or at least THINK that I have more than two months. Who knows these things?

But it sums up the problem of life. We humans are not ants and we know that we die. We know that we have a span of life, and we think about what we want out of it.

The person who responded to the question said he would travel and see everything. He’d run up his credit cards to the max and live it up.

I was thinking the whole time of what I would do, but I couldn’t get past the ‘obvious’. All the people I would want to say goodbye to…

But what is the point of that time? correspondingly, what is the point of life?

If I knew I only had two months to live, perhaps I would try all the drugs that people lose their lives to. What is the deal with heroin, cocaine, meth and crack? If they bring so much delight and the only downside is addiction…Sounds like a pleasant way to spend two months. Maybe…

But what am I on earth for? What do I spend my next two HOURS on, other than the obvious (sleeping, eating, etc.)?

I spend a lot of time on trying to finish projects. Almost all the projects are particular ways of expressing my individuality.

Presidents and other like important people get to talk about their legacy as if it were a weighty responsibility. Well, it’s a responsibility for everyone, you know! I get to think about my legacy too. How would I like to be remembered, or even more relevant, how would I like to to improve the lives of those that come after me?

I can say that I leave a legacy of a child behind. I have propagated the species! And so far, she is a great benefit to the world, if only in that people smile when they see her. On the other hand, having progeny is the legacy of an amoeba. It’s not that distinctive. I would like to leave MORE behind.

I have only 24 hours a day, regardless of how many days I have. So what else would I do with this time?

How do the people that I admire make an impact on the world? They seemed to give a perspective on the world, or find a way of fitting things together that helped people do what they needed to do. In retrospect the pieces all fit together, but I bet while it was happening they didn’t feel so tidy.

Saving up our daylight for a rainy day…?

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Veronica is one year old. Technically. But really, she arrived quietly and then left a subtle little double blue line a couple weeks later to let us know she was here.

I keep counting back 2 years ago. Two years ago when ‘normal’ happened.  I very seldom had trouble sleeping 2 years ago. I had more trouble staying awake.

But things are not normal. Or, they are a new undiscovered normal.

Daylight savings switch just happened. I remember last year spring forward was a terrifying event. How could I possibly keep track of the sleep and feeding schedule? I didn’t put the clocks forward for 2 weeks, I think. Because my baby came first. And I wasn’t back on the job yet, anyway.

Last friday I had to get up at 3:20 to go do a work thing that was time sensitive and HAD to happen right then. Unfortunately, I hadn’t really been sleeping well prior to that either. I think it was the book I was reading…I don’t know. But now that 3 am wakeup, and daylight savings…ugh

I love a schedule. I LOVE a schedule. It’s like a grapple hook over the wall of the unknown. If I go nuts and think “HOW CAN I GO ON!?!?!?!?” a schedule tells me how.

I despise daylight savings. Let the seasons be what they are.  The daylight can’t be saved.

and stop f–ing with my schedule!

Strategy

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The lieutenants were conferring, and it didn’t sound good.

“The plan is scrapped! There is no way this mission can succeed!”

“The General will not be pleased. How did we let it get this far? Our plans were so clear and perfect!”

“Surely we have missed something. Surely it can’t be that far off course. Didn’t we think of everything?”

No, they hadn’t. Everything had been considered. And no, there was nothing they’d missed. They were far off course and nothing would save their mission’s success.

Fail. Failure. Failed.

The General called them in. Quiet voices and heads hanging low, the situation was explained. The General sat the whole time, not responding only asking questions. Is this verified? Is there any question left unanswered?

Yes. No. It is solid and unmovable.

Now the General stood. Slowly and with gravity.

We are soldiers. You have all done good work on this mission. Yes, it will fail. That is always a possibility on the field of battle. But failure is never an excuse to do poor work. And you have not.

The cost of battle is high. Bravery is needed. Right now we are called upon to endure failure. But that failure is not the end. The war is still before us.

Learn from this. If nothing else, learn that failure won’t kill you. Be proud. Don’t give up. We are soldiers, the failure has not erased that.

This is the time to move forward. Let us sit and plan for a new strategy. Failure will not be our end. We shall not let it be.

A hundred little hugs

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Merlin Mann, in his talk to Google about Zero Inbox, described how he first encountered email. He said that only he and a very few other friends would have email (back in’93) and they would communicate to one another for free over distances.

He said it was like an international society of little hugs.

The point of his discussion was how to get over the inbox plaque that builds up and we do nothing about. That Email should simply be enacted upon, HANDLED and gotten over.

but i remember the email society of little hugs. I miss it. And in fact, i think that is why my email piles up. I wish for the times when my email would be a friend with well-wishes. and it’s not anymore.

not nearly as often, anyway.

I wonder if Facebook is the new international society of little hugs. People keeping track of people, checking in on those we care about. It’s a better platform than 1-to-1 emails from friends.

Communication Technology, when it first came into my life, was unprecedented in it’s ability to connect me with like-minded people. I certainly had no like-minded people close by.

I’ve collected a few more like-minded friends, and as a matter of fact I’ve broadened my mind so that I have like-mindedness with an even broader swath of humanity.

But I wonder if it isn’t just a little needy and pathetic to rely on Facebook for little hugs throughout my day.

is it time to buy some stationary and a nice pen?

Creative impulses and bloody knuckles

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AUTHOR NOTE:

This is an email I wrote to my brother Bryan. But the ideas were broad enough to share.

Godin on the lizard brain
Elizabeth Gilbert on Creativity

So Bryan…if we are exchanging inspirational media from the internet, here’s some  more.

Let me give the context here too.

You told me you were interested in writing, and you wished you would write more. I said you don’t have the bug to write, you don’t HAVE to write on your blog like I do. But you said you did, that you thought about it all the time and had ideas but didn’t get them down.

But Bryan, you DO program. You cannot STOP programming. I cannot program, though I often wish I could. You make money programming, and I envy that you have a creative outlet that you can monetize. I have never made money on my writing. I’ve gotten a couple free meals and a tank top once. But that’s it.

You however, pay your mortgage with your creativity. I admire that a lot. Don’t roll your eyes! Don’t denigrate what you do. it is, I firmly believe, a necessary thing for the world to become a better place. You do your small part.

Godin mentions that at the end of his lecture. What you do with your programming is art. And you should congratulate yourself, give yourself credit for it. The world NEEDS you.

The world may need what I write, but very very very few people appreciate it yet. I need to find a way to package it so that it can be digested and used by the human race.

But like Godin says, it’s not the creativity that is the problem, it’s the shipping. Getting the creative idea from birth to delivery is the rare thing.

The part about this creative endeavor that’s so confusing is that the arrival of the idea is so different than the implementation–the shipping–of it. The idea arrives like an angel on the tips of our fingers. The implementation is bloody knuckles.

How on earth does one person capture the ethereal and then turn around to sweat and bleed over the physical reality of it? And yet we are a hybrid race, spirit and flesh.

I talked to my friend Jay about this. He’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, tenured Stanford professor of Health Economics. Isn’t that exactly exactly what our country and THE WORLD needs right now? Someone who understands this mess of health and money on the level of the whole population? Every time I see him I tell him that he’s got what we need. I say the world needs his throbby brain.

Not because it’s a brain that is so superior to everyone else’s. It might be, but that’s not the point. He took the time, read all the books. He got his medical degree and then went on to learn economics. There are very very very few people on the planet who took that time. Stanford let him in and entrusted him with this training and education, and made this supergenius to come out and save the world.

or at least save our healthcare system.

Thing is, Jay mastered the art of packing his brain full of the knowledge. He got his doctorate after all. But the art of unpacking his brain is different. Going in front of the press and Congress (they could use his throbby brain) to let them know what’s really going on is way different than staying up late in the library.

The first part is very different from the second. Just like with all vital creative production.  I don’t mean to trash Jay, he’s doing a good job and striving to do better. He just did a thing for Huffpost on the Health care Meeting. He’s also working on a book about what health care can do for obesity, very timely. He’s not phoning it in after he got tenure, no way.

But my point is that it’s HARD. It takes more than one hand to get from start to delivery. The thing is being open to change and dedicated to completion. It takes willingness to face failure and move beyond it.

And to get back to the bloody knuckle part. It takes sitting down and doing it. Even if you are tired and think you deserve to relax after all the other work you just did.

To bring it around to your desire to write. I encourage you to start. Leave some deposits on your blog. They will probably stink and not be what you want them to be at first, but if you want to get better you have to start. Your coding used to stink, but now it is sweet-smelling. Feed the part of you that wants to do this creative thing, and the effort will bear fruit. Not only in the product but in your character too.

Write on!

The Fourth Man

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It’s weird week again, same song second verse.

Profoundly uncomfortable as I wait for what’s going to happen. I know what I’ve done, and I am sure that I have done the right thing.

That’s the most important part, you know? Doing what’s right. I just have to

SHHHHHHHHSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

just have to not talk about it.

SSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH

So, I’m left thinking. and pondering. And trying not to let my stomach  hurt too much.

It helps my stomach to think about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Their stories happened in a dark time. Hostile environment, sure. They were important guys in the Babylonian empire.

BABYLON

They were working hard and had gained some prestige. They were not Babylonian. They were Jewish, God’s chosen people. They were so good at their jobs that their Babylonian peers wanted to take them down. The Babylonian jack-offs went up to Nebuchanezzar and suggested this scheme.

“Build an enormous idol and have all your lead guys bow down to it!” it was supposed to be an affirmation of the authority and communication protocols. Not to mention a team-building activity.

Certainly, no Babylonian thought twice about it. Bow, yeah, whatever. This is the royal fad this week? *yawn*

But Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego had their principles. Those very principles which had led them to succeed and be so valuable to the King. They had their God, and idols were forbidden.

If Nebuchanezzar had thought about it, he would have realized the ridiculous scheme was exactly tailored to hurt his 3 Jewish guys. But he was busy, and all these new requirements for the kingdom were pressing and all these VPs and directors or whatever they called them then needed to remember that HE was in charge, and this was a great idea.

So the idol was built. And the punishment for disobedience was being thrown into a fiery furnace.

Day came, the band hired to pump up the heads of the kingdom for this team-building exercise was playing. And at the downbeat..BAM…they all bow.

‘cept our three guys.

How much you wanna bet that Nebuchanezzar right that second remembered that they had special diversity requirements for the Jewish men? He knew that they were good at their job, but it’s not always fun to have them remind you about this one little detail to take care of. Maybe he was sick of having to put up with their efficiency and their WEIRDNESS.

“DAMMIT! I”M KING, AND YOU HAVE TO BOW!”

small thing to ask. Nobody believed in this idol anyway.

But they wouldn’t bow.

HEAT UP THE FURNACE SEVEN TIMES HOTTER!

..now will you bow, you annoying men of character?…

The three men stood.

Well, now Nebuchanezzar had done it. He’d put his ego on the line and he had to throw them in. Didn’t they realize how hard it is to be a King? why where they making him HAVE to throw them to their deaths?

This was such a downer, he was going to feel bad about this for weeks and it would really affect productivity. But he would lose face if he didn’t do it.

THROW THEM IN!

Now back to me. My stomach has had a long time to clench during the last several days. A lot of days. While they say “Try to relax! Enjoy your time at home!”

I don’t think our three men were very relaxed at their team-building exercise.

Then I thought about it again. They were focussed on doing the right thing. They could live in the moment, concentrate on the moment because they could just think about doing the right thing.

I am doing the right thing, and I am going to keep doing the right thing wherever that takes me.

Meanwhile, back in Babylon…

they were thrown into the fiery furnace. The Fire roared, and the soldiermen who threw them in died. That’s hard core

Nebuchanezzar regretted it the instant he’d done it. As soon as he could get close enough, he looked to see what was happening to Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego.

Here’s the KJV quote (Dan 3:25):

He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”

I have a lot of fear I could concentrate on in this hard time. But I don’t want to be afraid. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I want to be strong.

Thing is, our three men were not thinking about the flames and how much it was going to hurt. I don’t think they were anyway.

THEY WERE CONCENTRATING ON DOING THE RIGHT THING.

They didn’t bow. I will not bow to the pressure either. It was clear to them, and it’s clear to me, what the right thing is.

I will not bow. Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego were not afraid of losing their jobs. They didn’t even falter at losing their LIFE.

So I won’t bow. I will not give in to the pressure. And I will do my best not to think about the flames. If it gets really hot, I can talk to the fourth man.

My stomach thanks me for it.

weird week

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Well, readers…

All three of you

…it’s been a weird week. I was put on paid administrative leave last friday, so all week I’ve been waiting to find out what the HR department discovered in their investigation of the “complaint.”

It turns out I will not be terminated. I am slightly disappointed. At least it would be a clean end to the hell.

You know, I try to be an optimist. What would an optimist say in hell..?

“Hang in there, camper. Maybe this is just purgatory…couple of thousand years, it will all turn out…”

…which is pretty much how my thoughts went as I’ve been commuting to my golden stockades for the last several years…

I guess I am trying to be optimistic about my return to optimism. But I’m not back to optimistic YET…