Tag: philosophy

I’ve made my choice

For many years now I’ve struggled with which direction to take my life – devote it to service of others, or keep my life to myself. I’m going with the latter. I don’t want my self-worth to be tied to what others think of me, and that’s the metric I would use if I was a public servant. I’m going to do what makes me happy, and I’m ok with that.

It’s no surprise, really. I’ve spent much more time thinking about this kind of a life than the alternative. Back when I was in college I was doing the math on how to live on as little as possible (figures that I still use daily). I still want to retire by the time I’m thirty. I still think it’s possible.

I’ve been looking for work for about two months now, without much luck. I have a plan, and I hope I can realize it. I’m looking for a part time job, close to home, that pays a reasonable wage. I’m sticking by my usual “no sales, no retail” rule. While I work this throw-away job to make ends meet, I’ll bone up on my front-end developer skills. I’m good, but I’m just hobbyist good. To get hired doing Web Design I’ll need a few more tricks up my sleeve. I can learn this stuff fairly quickly, and if I stick to this plan should be ready by this time next year.

If I can stay on top of my game, that’s a profession I can do from anywhere, and pays very well. I think I can be happy with that, as well. It’s a better option than going back to school to learn a trade which would take more time and money. My self-esteem has been pretty low lately, and the thought of working at a crappy part time job for a year doesn’t really help. I’ve gotten to where I am right now by striving for the big picture, and I’ll only reach it if I keep dreaming big.

This is the plan. I’m gonna make it.

Good news, everyone!

I’ve stopped caring about anything. I think it’s best described by how a friend summed up Schopenhaur‘s philosophy: he did a lot of thinking, and eventually decided that we can’t really know anything and should just listen to music. Probably a bit oversimplified, but it’s about where I’m at.

In one of the books I’m reading, I had a sudden flash of insight that I shouldn’t be reading this trying to figure out how to serve my projects, but to make all projects better, easier, whatever. Instead of writing a great piece of music, make a new instrument, or a new theory. Something that other people can take and run with.

It is really the idea behind open source, and the Creative Commons, and even the very internet. Now I just have to remember it.

Philosophy

Everything is subjective. Absolutely everything. It cannot be proven otherwise. Everything in the world is perceived through your own senses that are unique to you, and are then filtered through your experience and knowledge which are also unique to you. This means that you perceive an event in a different way than someone else would. There are probably things that could be agreed upon, between different people, but the perceptions are not identical. Over time, these unique experiences build a person’s identity, which is applied to and revised by new unique experiences.

Of course, the fundamental problem with this is that it is based on circular logic. If this, and all other worldviews cannot be proven true, then you have to accept it before you can believe it. I found this conclusion through personal reflection, slowly building up to this complete idea.

Now, if everything is subjective, it is important to remember that we have control over how we perceive things – at least to an extent. This means that the world around us can be as interesting or uninteresting as we want it to be. It also means things can matter as much or as little as you will it to. When this is realized, you can really create the world as you wish it to be. Whether your goal remains to help other people see the world as you do or not is up to you. One thing that has to be remembered, is that this philosophy cannot be forced upon anyone, and they are probably better off going in the direction they see is right.

Clarification

For me, not for you.

Excitable Boy by Warren Zevon
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/wz1978-07-27.sbeok.flac16/wz1978-07-27t05_64kb.mp3]

For a while I took the whole idea of subjectivism (?) to an extreme, where I figured since there isn’t an objective ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ you ought to do what you think is right. The problem with this is since nearly all actions are made out of self-interest, tolerance is unaccounted for. And that just can’t be.
So now there is the exception to the rule.

Potential Energy

Quick and Painless by RAQ
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/RAQ2007-04-21.raq2007-04-21.flac/raq2007-04-21_bowery_matrixc_flac/raq2007-04-21_bowery_matrixc_flac/raq2007-04-21_S1/raq2007-04-21_S1_t10_quick_n_painless_64kb.mp3]

My parents recently finished an addition to the garage, giving them space for their business, and a room on the second floor for the family.

Downstairs, its clear they run their business from that room. But upstairs, there is no clear purpose. It is mostly empty space, with enough furniture to make it comfortable.

Whenever people enter the upstairs, they immediately see possibility for it. “You should live up here.” It would make a great apartment. “You could have a pretty cool studio up here.” Its true.

The lack of a clear, well defined purpose for that room lets people see what it could be. But I’m happy with it the way it is. If it stayed a blank slate, couldn’t it be all of those things, in turn?

Imagine if people saw the potential they see in an empty room, in something that already has a purpose. I hope you’ll join me in my mall.

Definitions

Dondante by My Morning Jacket
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/MMJ2006-06-16..4011s/mmj2006-06-16.4011s.flac16/mmj2006-06-16d2t04.4011s_64kb.mp3]

What if a programming language could be made using nothing more than the English language? No, I’m not talking about something like Applescript which just replaces programming syntax with words, but I’m talking about a programming language which could actually understand English.

I don’t think this is as difficult as it sounds, at least not the creation of it. The hardest part of this would be making definitions for words in the English language. I would hope that such a creation would use something like Wiktionary, which uses collective input to establish a definition. I’ll be looking into this.
I want to learn more about linguistics; this sort of thing fascinates me.

Big Talk

The Charmer by The Family Grove Company
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/fgc2007-05-27.shnf/fgc2007-05-27-t09_64kb.mp3]

So I went to my cousin’s wedding this weekend. Turns out I don’t like weddings all that much. I should clarify: traditional weddings. Formal affairs with lots of things done for no reason other than they have been done for years and years. Silly.

Anyway, today I was considering the reception, where I met a lot of people who may/may not be related to me. I talked to a lot of them, and forgot almost everything they said. I’m not big on small talk. Finding out what people are doing, how they are, how their mother is, just doesn’t interest me. I don’t care. So I don’t ask those questions. When people ask me, I tell them that there isn’t much happening. My answers aren’t longer than a few sentences. And its the truth. I’m not doing much this summer. But what got me thinking about this was a guy named Mike.

I think he was a friend of my cousin, but I’m not sure. Anyway, he talked to a lot of people at our table, and was really pleasant. A good guy to talk to. Why? Because he asked, and listened, and responded relevently. Simple. But everything that he was talking about falls into the category of small talk. I was thinking about how he could possibly be interested in these things in the lives of people he doesn’t even know.

I find people I don’t know facinating, but not because I don’t know what they’re doing, but because I don’t know how they think. Everyone has a different philosophy on life, and that is what I like to take from any conversation I have with someone I’m just meeting.

What prompted me to write this blog post was the biography on Mister Rogers I read last night. He did the same thing Mike did, but on a much larger scale. Mike and Mister Rogers reminded me of a lot of the principles from Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win Friends & Influence People. If you haven’t read it, I would suggest it.

Definition of Numbers

Big Mon by the String Cheese Incident
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/sci2007-03-27.Schoeps/SCI2007-03-27.Schoeps_d2t01_64kb.mp3]

First off, happy Friday the 13th. Seems like an appropriate day to talk about the meaning of numbers. This is a subject so simple, it doesn’t seem to be worth the time thinking about. If I have one of something, and I get one more of something, I now have two of something. Easy, right?

What if someone viewed the concept of ‘one’ as something other than what is the generally accepted definiton? How would that change the way they went about their life?

After watching the first part of The Trap, whose argument is based almost entirely on the certainty of numbers, I got to thinking: We take numbers entirely for granted, even though they mean different things to different people. An easy example is the number 13, which is a famously unlucky number to some. This definition has nothing to do with its quantitative definition, and fundamentally changes the meaning of this number.

I don’t have anything but questions in the post, but as I spend more time thinking about it, I hope I’ll be able to post some answers.

Creativity and Ignorance

The American Dream by Particle
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/particle2006-02-10.akg460.flac16/particle2007-02-10set1t02_64kb.mp3]

In one of my lectures today, I was vaguely paying attention when either my professor or a fellow student said something which intrigued me. So I started down this thought process which vaguely makes sense, and keep going. The further I went, the more interesting and entertaining it was to think of these things. The only problem is, I had no where to write anything down, so I scribbled

creativity = ignance (not a spelling error)

on my hand. I’ll try to remember and convey these wonderful things I thought, but I make no gaurentees, and it is far more likely that I will finish this with a different conclusion than the one I reached earlier.
Moving on.

I think the idea started from my musings on jargon (which I also have scribbled on my hand). I was thinking about how certain groups use jargon to limit the information which others can gain from their thoughts, either written or spoken. I understand that the primary use of jargon is a straightforward one: an attempt to define a concept otherwise undefined in the English language. But the fact that those outside of a certain circle are ignorant of the meaning of these words, is always used for advantage.

A great contemporary example is computer jargon. These concepts are fairly simple to understand, but they’re hidden behind foreign words, which scare people who don’t know their meaning. They’re too intimidated to try and determine these things for themselves, so they turn to someone inside the circle, who understands the jargon. This is why hiring a guy to fix your computer costs so damn much. He has information which you don’t possess, and he knows it. He also knows that you have no alternative. I’m the computer guy, by the way, so I know all about exploiting people’s ignorance on the topic. It is a lot of fun, and profitable, but in the end I am gaining from what I withhold from people. I could answer questions or fix problems and explain what went wrong and how they can prevent it in plain english, but then why would I been needed?

So these were my musings on ignoranceand jargon and the like when something was said in class which made me connect ignorance and creativity. At first, I was thinking about how something otherwise ignorant, when seen in a certain light could be seen as creative. I thought about how creative people may put themselves in a childlike amazement of the world around them in order to create things. I thought about how their wonder and awe transfered to the observer through their work, and the observer would be reminded of their own childlike wonder and awe.

Then I realized that it wasn’t the creator who was ignorant, it was the observer. The creator had done something to make the observer think in a way they hadn’t expected to. This defience of expectations is what makes something creative, or not. So the observer isn’t just reminded of their own childlike wonder and awe, they actually are awed.

Just a bit more food for thought.