And there was Joy.

Some people feel sad.  And the opposite of that is Joy. Many things make us sad.  Achiving the balance is really what that is needed... I suppose.

Going off grid hours at a time

When Bell received the patent for the telephone, (I say patented, because many other smart fellas worked on the idea during the same era and knowing the worth of intellectual property, I will not give credit to Bell at the expense of the others... but I digress)  I am sure he had the idea that one day, communications technology would come to the point where, you don't even need a physical phone to make a phone call.  Of course he probably didn't know exactly how it would be done, but being a man of science, I sure he thought about the possibility.

Of course now that communications technology has come to the point where we need less physical lines to convey our emotions, voices, and ideas, a new question arises.  Do we always have to be available to receive the communications of others?

Saying this, I am imagining the days before the telephone, heck, before email, or Facebook, or Twitter. Wasn't it just cool to just be at peace? You wanted to say how your family was doing you wrote a letter, and waited weeks, even months for the other to get the message, and even more time to get the response.  Your significant other went off to war you worried in peace, or forgot about them until you got the next letter.  Back then, people had time; time to think, decide, feel, cry, laugh.  Since there was nothing else to be done you could read a letter twice, and replicate, dare, reconsider an emotion to to someones communication.  Disclaimer: I was not there, so I imagine it was so.

Conversely, with the speed of communication in our era, we spend a lot of our time listening to , reading, sharing and re-twitting peoples ideas, and ours too.  Industry is using the same technology to sell us more shit than we need also, mostly because we have become used to deciding instantly.  I can only wonder how life would be if we decided to unplug, to think about nothing for a while. Zero data, form our own opinions based on prolonged analysis of small data sets, moments of time at a time.

Life could be less stressful without people constantly wanting to sell us something,or  tell us and our three thousand friends  about something.  Life could be easy without the constant updates on life or the red car that drove by, or the sandwich that they were having for lunch. Should we really care about latest news in politics or crime, or entertainment? I wonder how much of our sleep time that I was probably dedicated to nerve repair, is spent on processing the daily noise.  I'm sure that a paper will be out on that some day but until the day when a expert says that too much data is bad for our brains, just like too much sugar, and too much fat, I pledge to spend significant amounts of time off grid.

So if I don't respond to your email or phone call, or Facebook status in thirty minutes to a day, no worries mate.   I'm probably off grid, and  I'm sure whatever it is can wait.


The irony here is that I using the same forum to convey my ideas... yea , but I'm no hypocrite I don't expect your immediate response, or even a response for that matter. I'm just adding more data to your REM sleep processing. Do I think that communications technology is bad?  Of course not.  But I am certain that too much of anything will surely kill us sooner.

On value and appreciation.

There are a few things in life that make an individual, speaking generally, feel happy.  In my Survey of the world around me, I have collected sufficient evidence, all be it spotty and unscientific to suggest that as humans, we all need to feel valued. Of course, value is relative, just like love, and expectations, ones value depends on a variety of factors.

Without going in to the philosophy and psychology of ones value, I can say that one important thing for as as individuals is to know our value.  It is beneficial to know or value at work, at home, and every where else.  Also we need to know also how value is rewarded in those various environments.  For example, a question I might ask is:  "Can my employer indicate my value by the salary of bonuses that she gives me?" Or, "how does my significant other show that I am of great value to him?"

In the end the way society as a whole or its actors show appreciation, gives some indication of ones value.  The bigger question in all of this is: Do I know my value, and how do I measure that for myself?

The power of a power nap, and when to use coffee.

So I am feeling sleepy and I have this report to finish before the end of the day..  Being without the utility of human heat to keep me warm at night, reduces my ability to sleep for more than four hours at a time.  As a result, when it is about two pm. my body begins to ask for a nap.  There are a few choices here.  Go to bed earlier, get a Red Bull, some coffee, or take a nap for fifteen minutes.  Or maybe that 5 hour energy drink.... 

 

So I choose a fifteen minute nap, I set the alarm on my phone for 15 mins later, and rest my head.  I had the weirdest dream.  And about two mins later I hear my phone alarming, Nap time over, and guess what feel like I drank coffee.  No calories, No chemicals, feeling refreshed.  Ready to face the rest of the day.

Seven Days

It has been seven days since I have been home alone.  And I am beginning to realize why people look for partnership.  No matter all the stuff there is to do or play with it, nothing beats having some one to boss around, or boss me around.  Or to talk to or to listen to.  We really are social animals. At least I am.

Ageing is cool

There are several opportunities for us to learn from the mistakes or trials or successes in our lives, generally based on the various crossroads that we have encountered on the road of life.  Some philosophers contend that phycoanalysis helps people to understand and deal with the various situations in their lives that have affected them in some way or another.  Of course, information givers- those people who broadcast knowledge to a mass audience, portray aging, especially in american society as an ill, as a place that one should avoid.  This in turn affects many people in  a negative way, causing anxiety, at least to fear of aging.Yet, to me aging is great.  I have learnt a lot, failed a lot cried a lot and dodged many projectiles-both figuratively and physically. And time has taught me how to avoid, make up, work harder, rest, or keep chugging along depending on the situation.

There is no other way to learn about life but through living it for oneself. In the same way, it is highly improbable that we can gain knowledge, wisdom, wealth, and understanding without the help of time.  While it is true that life is a downhill battle, and that certain age points, like sixteen, twenty one, thirty, and sixty-five, are milestones for many, most of these can positive ones if we are willing to believe that our life has a purpose.  Certainly, our purpose is independent of time.

So in essence: ageing is cool. Embrace it. 

Reward... [and punishment]

While I was in grad school, just to piss off my committee, an possibly to learn more about the world, I took a graduate level English class (I'm a chemist... lets just say they didn't like the idea, and wanted to make me take an engineering course to make up for it, but I digress).  I learnt a lot from this class, about the writing process, about logical flow, about the balancing of ideas and such. But, there are two things that i consider the take home lessons for grad-school as a whole:  that we should always take time to walk in the shoes of the other, and that life is made of weird juxtapositions, word, or phrases that go together.  Examples of these are black and white, gold and silver, and reward and punishment.

Rewards are cool.  Rewards are in the purest form, a token of gratitude for doing a task correctly. Note here I said doing, and not completing. The tokens also come in many flavors.  From words to actions to tangible objects, tokens of gratitude are meant to offer praise to one for being considerate, selfless, sharing, kind, and other things like these.  Not surprisingly, our brains have become used to gaining rewards, up to the point where rewards affect our brain chemistry.  Rewards make us happy.

Of course, there is the opposite of reward- punishment. Punishment is bad. Like a reward a punishment in its purest form is a token of disapproval for not completing a task, or for doing something in a way that is not expected or approved by the other. Punishments taste sour, make us sad, mess up our brain chemistry to the point that we feel sorry for ourselves.  Punishments shame us.  Most people despise punishment.

Because these paired words have so much effect on people, the concept of reward /punishment has been exploited for centuries with the main purpose for controlling people.  Religion offers the token of a heaven for people who follow their "moral" ways, credit card companies offer us points to save on more crap that we already have or do not need.  And governments have prisons for those people who royally eff-up.

I just lost my trend of taught.

Anyways, my point is, rewards are cool.  Punishments suck.  People use these to mess with our heads, to the point where we try to reward/punish our selves to mess with our own heads.  Crazy!

Now I need a reward, hmm what will it be?