Herbert's Dune and Patience: Do Adolescents Have More?

I have faint remembrances of aphorisms about differences between adolescence and adulthood. A theme sticks out to me: adolescents are less patient than adults. This theme probably has some truth to it, but I’m starting to think it’s not all true. Maybe the adolescent impatience of action comes from patient yet stubborn academic curiosity. Maybe it comes part and parcel with human nature and instinct.

A fellow writer and I had a passing conversation on the topic. They mentioned how they read Frank Herbert’s epic Dune at the young age of 12 or something like that. I had read the original Dune series something like seven or eight years ago (at around age 26 or 27).

We had very different reactions to it. They loved the book and couldn’t stop praising it, like many people I’ve met throughout life. Me, I found it compelling thematically but frustrating and a slow read. It also had a bunch of loose ends that Herbert or his son, Brian Herbert, and Kevin J Anderson really never addressed in later books (unless they did in prequels).

My friend and I also had this difference: they only read Dune while I read the whole Dune series. Except for God Emperor of Dune and the last two written by Herbert’s son and Anderson, I thought the writing only got better. It became more concise, clearer and did more showing than telling.

I put God Emperor of Dune in a complete category of its own. It had its own bits of drama, but it’s more of a psychedelic treatise dialogue about social philosophy. Reading it makes the rest of the series resonate. Yet it’s dense and a chore to get through, much like one of Plato’s dialogues. . .or maybe an answer to some of the dialogues.

Dune inspired my writer friend to love science fiction and to one day want to write science fiction works of their own. I understand it. Isaac Asimov gave me the same inspiration. In my teenage years, I only read a couple of Asimov’s works and didn’t really grasp the social philosophy thrown in there. I hadn’t even read his more philosophical work until I was older.

Asimov may not have written the vast epic world building political tracts that Herbert did, and I’m really happy about that. Nonetheless, Asimov imparted a sense of expansive human nature and the possibilities of the natural world. He challenged his humans with the totalitarian genius of robots and even struck fear into his humans by giving his robots creativity and the ability to dream (probably one of the tragic and shortest stories of Asimov’s, “Robot Dreams”).

Near the end of his writing career, Asimov seemed to breach into the same world building vastness of Herbert, just not as hard and dense. I wish Asimov had written more in this vast direction. Even though softer science fiction, Asimov started presenting some interesting ideas.

Frank Herbert wrote hard science fiction and he did it dense. He explained practically everything. The drama and topics didn’t necessarily all grow out of provable science. The whole Dune series had a lot of psychedelia to it and had some interesting theories of human potential. If possible, we have a long way to go to get there.

The aspects of ecology, extensiveness of history and play with politics between royal families and mercantilism feel based in social reality. Putting the interpretation that spice in Dune is comparable to oil in today’s world doesn’t feel like too much of a stretch. Sure, people can’t eat oil, it doesn’t turn their eyes blue and it doesn’t provide the ability of prescience, but petroleum holds a lot of sway over the world and its nations.

In fact, I found all the dense detail Herbert put into Dune the difficult part. The plot wouldn’t go anywhere for pages. The book would go on and on explaining the thoughts of a character, the basis for a royal family’s actions, the existence of a ritual in a culture or go on and on about how a person with prescience experiences the galaxy.

My problem, I think, originates from the fact that I’m a fairly well read person, have read a lot of history and social philosophy, read a fair amount of psychedelia, kept up with politics and anthropology and have an OK grasp of science fiction. Back in the early to mid ‘90s, I even patronized a Bulletin Board System that was very Dune themed. The system operator went by Maud Dib and called something Kwisatz Haderach (but I forget what).

A lot of academia I studied in college had influenced Dune. On the flipside, Dune influenced much of the pseudo-intellectual works I researched in high school. Dune has become a point on the intellectual heritage I have followed. By the time I had read it, I had become familiar with a lot of the ideas around it. By the time I reached Dune, I had something of a skeptical “seen that, done that” attitude.

Only the cynicism of the characters struck me as new, and they just depressed and confused me. I’m an idealistic guy who has a hard time understanding why people can’t realize that if we just get along and do lots of research, we can make the world an awesome place. Why haven’t we done it already?

Otherwise, I got impatient and bored with the exposition. Just get to the plot, show me what’s happening and I can probably figure out the motivations and rules behind things as they develop.

I can also imagine Herbert having a checklist of things that he wanted to have happen in the book, but he would come up with a new idea that he’d throw in, but he had to integrate that new idea and come up with a reason why that idea had been there in the first place.

After reading his Wikipedia entry and learning that Dune started as two serials in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, this feeling makes a little more sense. Even though rewritten for the novel form, Dune still has a few vestiges of “Just in case you forgot this important fact. . ..”

I can see possibly having had a different experience reading Dune as an adolescent. Maybe I would have some familiarity with it, having been exposed to works influenced by the novel. A lot of the stuff pre-dating Dune, however, I would know nothing about.

In my adolescence, I had tons of time and had a hunger for knowledge and novelty. Dune’s vast world of knowledge could have fed me. At worst, it would have inspired me like Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and Cape Cod. In full disclosure, I didn’t finish reading either of those works in my adolescence.

Those two books played a big inspiration for me wanting to be a writer. I could sense the ambition behind them and felt they had a lot of understanding behind them that I just didn’t get. If I just plowed through them, maybe I could reach that understanding, too. I haven’t gotten there with the likes of Thoreau or Ralph Waldo Emerson, though. Somehow they’ve actually become even more opaque as I’ve gotten older.

I don’t know what has changed since I was an adolescent. I’m not saying losing that kind of patience is bad, even though I miss having it. Does that stubborn patience to explore things that make no sense to us come as a human characteristic that dies as we grow older? Or, like my writer friend said in our conversation, do we just not have the time as adults to follow through on this curiosity? Are we so busy working and trying to accomplish things that we don’t have the patience we had once?

I feel like I get a grip on that curiosity and patience again here and there but really only once in awhile. Per the advice of a past college professor, I’ve taken up writing a half hour in the morning on my project. That’s when I think I stumble into that state of mind.

In the past, I could get very frustrated and angry about questions that would arise while writing. Nowadays, though, I’m amazed at how much I’ve written and how much more research I have to do for more understanding. Instead of focusing on not having it done, though, I feel joy that I’ve found a path in the woods that will eventually lead me somewhere.

Who knows? Maybe I’m finding that patience again.


LINKS OF NOTE: Frank Herbert, Dune, Dune series, Brian Herbert, Kevin J Anderson, God Emperor of Dune, Plato, Isaac Asimov, “Robot Dreams”, spice, prescience, Bulletin Board System, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Henry David Thoreau’s, Walden, Cape Cod, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Speculation or Reasonably Logical Connection?

Considering my bad time management and difficulty prioritizing over the last year or so, I think I've made some good progress on my bachelor's project. I've done more research than needed for the level of academic rigor required. With some good advice from a past teacher, I’ve started an early morning writing habit. Work is getting done.

Before this point, I had focused on developing my thoughts and molding the source material into usable form. Trouble now arises when I try to fill conceptual empty spaces between facts and coherent, cohesive conclusions. Each time I make this kind of attempt, I ask whether the new premise comes from utter speculation or whether I've made a reasonably, logical connection.

I don't know of any hard and fast rule for making this determination. In the past, I would research my ass off to find answers. I would follow three directions for my research:

1. Primary and secondary sources directly addressing the historical events and people
2. Materials regarding the phenomena at hand (ie utopianism)
3. From Wikipedia to anywhere on the Internet to the physical library, whatever topic came to mind:
   
   • Social psychology
   • Cognitive science
   • Social/moral/political philosophy
   • Sociology
   • Anthropology
   • Economics
   • Cultural studies
   • Religion
   • Spirituality
   • Literary criticism
   • Literary theory
   • and the list goes on and on ad infinitum

I got some mileage through this approach. However, it got exhausting and results entered diminishing returns, probably about a year ago.

At the point of diminishing returns, I get less out of research the more work I put into it. It takes time to develop ideas and grind out demonstrable work, even if just brainstorming or drafting. Just sitting down at my creative desk with pen and paper at this point would more than likely just frustrate and throw me into a dead end.

At my day job, I have a good opportunity to let my brain free reign to ruminate and develop ideas to say sane. Otherwise I'd just focus on angsty, personal unproductive thoughts.

Brainstorming ideas is fun. My brain, at least, has an excellent talent for it. A lot of great results come from my brainstorming, and much of it has potential, too. These prospects get even better when they have a sound basis.

The problem arrives at this point:

• Are the ideas I'm coming up with pure speculation or a reasonably logical connection?
• Am I pulling an idea out of my ass that just sounds good or would be fun to write about?
• Does my idea have grounding in history and theory, or am I just enamored with a theory that I want to force onto history?
• Am I just using the first idea that comes to mind, or do I have an idea that will stand some test of academic rigor?
• How do you test the academic rigor of these kinds of ideas?

For now, I'm testing these types of ideas by asking

1. Is the idea simple and elegant, does it beg the minimum number of questions compared to other ideas and
   
2. Does the idea lend coherence and cohesiveness to the larger argument and project?

This approach serves my purposes for now. Is it something that can serve your purpose or do have your own approach?

A Researcher's Tribute to the Internet

The growth and development of the Internet and mobile technology has become invaluable for my bachelors project. Online books, some for free on Google Books or for low cost through Amazon, has increased efficiency when it all comes to time, energy and money.

• Google Books archiving old books and magazines
• Academic and industry journals, like JSTOR, making articles available for low-cost purchase as PDFs
• At least the Massachusetts Historical Society providing me with a PDF copy of a historical document for less than plane tickets, room and board

It has all given me access to information so much easier than before. Who knows if I would have found between a quarter to half this invaluable information without the Internet in its current incarnation.

Maybe I could have reached my current point today without the Internet, but I doubt it. I had done a share of Internet research before getting out of college, but I didn’t get far at all. Dead end after dead end sending me in endless circles.

Yahoo!, Metacrawler and the other search tools didn’t cut it. Had they not developed the search algorithms well enough to fit my needs? Had they not developed the subject hierarchies well enough to intuitively lead me where I needed to go? Had the Internet simply failed to reach the critical mass for the information I needed to get posted? Heck, maybe I just didn’t have the base knowledge to ask the right questions.

Who knows how all these factors have mixed and influenced each other? I’d like to think that I could have reached this point on my own without the help of the Internet. I’m hard put to say that would be the case, though. The progress I’ve made acquiring source material in just the last year or so tells me that the Internet contributes a lot to my current accomplishments.

With all this in mind, I’d like to thank the Internet and the people who work hard to create, post and otherwise provide content. If I had reached these heights in some other way, it would take a lot more time and/or money. Thank you for making acquiring this information possible and doing it efficiently. I may not have gotten here without your help. Thank you.


LINKS OF NOTE: Google Books, Amazon

Will Never Look at Bananas in a Supermarket the Same Way Again

Last year, a few friends, my wife and I spent March 16 to March 27 in Costa Rica as first time visitors. More specifically, we stayed on the Caribbean Atlantic Coast resort town of Puerto Viejo de Talamanca and frequented the close by area. We had a lot of fun with the touristy stuff, from partying in Puerto Viejo to snorkeling, hiking to a waterfall and so much more.

After all is said and done, though, the not so obvious environmental and social irresponsibility of international banana conglomerates will stay with me the most. Everyone in our little travel group all agreed that we couldn't look at a banana in the supermarket the same way again.

I can’t claim naïveté to this type of issue. Intellectually, I know the food industry, world-wide, doesn't have a very good history of caring about the small farmer, the community where they grow food or how they affect the world while getting food to the supermarket shelf. Corporations' main goal is to increase profits for themselves and their shareholders in an amoral fashion, non-shareholders and non-humans be damned.

Exposure to confirming concrete experience makes intellectual fact all the more real, including:

• Seeing vast banana plantations
• Hearing from a resident of Costa Rican (albeit an immigrant in the tourist industry) about how mass production of bananas affects the people and environment
• Hearing about the "packaging" of bananas once they hit the supermarket shelf

Probably the most instructive example of this American detachment from the corporate supermarket sourcing of our food comes from Jon Stewart on the Daily Show making fun of skinned bananas wrapped in plastic wrap at the supermarket. Imagine my surprise when our tour guide notified us this plastic-wrapped banana is organic and better for the environment while the banana in its own skin is very likely not!

Bananas are one of Costa Rica's major sources of income, tourism being the biggest and coffee competing with bananas. Unlike coffee, though, the banana industry started in the hands of a United States businessman and stayed in control of the US. Minor Keith, while building the first railroad from the US to Central America/Costa Rica, planted bananas alongside the tracks to provide his workers with an easy source for food. Introducing the bananas to the US, he also found a welcoming market for the tropical fruit.

Fast forward to the present, it's a long way from Costa Rica to the US. Our flight from Chicago to San Jose, Costa Rica, with a quick layover in Miami took a total of five hours. Add onto that time (or extrapolation of time taken to ship non-humans and non-pets), the time it takes to ship bananas from major shipping warehouses or population centers like Chicago, New York, LA, Boston or some small town supermarket.

Most foods, if not properly prepped or treated, will not last the trip, especially not bananas. If anything, lower temperatures will cause too many of them to ripen too quickly. Not enough profit for no frills shipment. Just look at what happens when you put bananas into the refrigerator or freezer.

Form of shipment that exerts least amount of cognitive load is to spray the bananas with pesticides and preservatives, pick and load them earliest possible chance then ship them up to the US quick as possible. Most people, if not all, understand that transporting bananas all that distance doesn't help with the rapid climate change issue we hear about everyday.

Most efficient way to ship organic bananas and not grate on consumer patience is to skin them then vacuum seal them into a tight plastic wrapping. Vacuum seal preserves the profit margin from the elements. Removing the natural skin before wrapping in plastic makes for a better looking product and reduces how much unwrapping the consumer has to do to protect profit margin from consumer irritation and desire for aesthetic pleasure. Who thought plastic vacuum sealing a piece of natural fruit would be the way to go?

Off the cuff facts we heard from the Costa Rican resident in the tourist industry include the following:

• Native Ticos working at banana plantations picking the bananas make the equivalent of $1 to $2 an hour
• Banana industry and plantations monopolized by Chiquita and Dole
• These US-based corporations have no problem crop dusting the banana plantations with pesticides that are illegal in the US, which leak into sources of water and cause all types of health issues for the native population

As if paying native workers substandard wages and exposing them to harmful chemicals wasn't enough, the banana industry took land and repurposed it to something radically different, banana plantations. A particular case sticks in my mind: kilometers of space from a highway to the border of Panama in the southwestern area where we stayed to the border of Panama had started as a river valley where Ticos fished.

The pictures posted show the banana plantation in question from the highway all the way south to Panama.

These pictures don't do justice to the amount of land in question, similar to how no matter how much knowing injustice with intellect doesn't mean understanding. Pictures, themselves, just can't capture the fullness and depth of reality.

A map might provide a little more perspective to how many people were displaced by the market demand for bananas and the kind of drastic change to nature that greed and ignorance can cause:


View Larger Map

As much as I had intellectually known that big multinational corporations don't look out for the common good of communities where materials are sourced, this trip to Costa Rica struck the truth of the matter to my core. Worse than my darkest imagination, social and environmental injustice is real, and part of it is in Costa Rica.

I wish i had this raw perspective before going and hope other people have this real understanding without having to travel long distances. People should still travel to expand their perspective, understanding and resolve. The fact that this kind of expansion has to have negative connotations just makes me a sad.

This experience of mine in Costa Rica makes me proud to participate in a local, fair trade food co-op, Edible Alchemy. The 2-hour commute there and back feels minimal to bring further social and environmental justice to our world. It feels good to

• Keep money in the local economy
• Reduce pollution and the environmental impact of food reaching my belly
• Support community rather than dollar-to-dollar interactions, both between me and the co-op and other members and between the co-op and their food sources
• Encourage multi-culture agriculture practices rather than monoculture (our particular co-op switches up the produce and fruit that gets distributed based on what's available)
• Help reduce farmer industry dependence on government subsidies, thus minimizing artificial manipulations of markets that causes further dependence on government subsidies and tax payer dollars
• Encourage organic, low-impact agricultural methods reducing health and environmental impacts
• Reduce unjust attacks on small farmers by big corporations through patent law to destroy competition
• Reduce humanity's attempt to gain totalitarian control of biodiversity, which could risk the existence of life as we know it or even the chance of life surviving some type of natural disaster
• Increase social and environmental justice in foreign lands by encouraging fair trade during times of the year that Midwesterners can't get proper nutrition from local sources
• And amazing enough, saving on bulk items. Economy of scale doesn’t seem to benefit customers of Whole Foods and other commercial storefronts, but they do at Edible Alchemy

And that's all that I can think of right now! I bet there are plenty more benefits to myself and the world that I can't think of off the top of my head. I look forward to participating and seeing how much the world changes.

They have a saying in Costa Rica: Pura vida. It pretty much means, "It's cool. It's all good." Sadly the state of world agriculture markets suck. With co-ops like Edible Alchemy fighting the good fight, someday we'll be able to say the world agriculture markets are pura vida.


Links to Banana Sources that Help Me Feel Less Guilty:

• Equal Exhange
• EARTH University of Costa Rica

Links of Interest:

• Costa Rica
• Puerto Viejo de Talamanca
• Jon Stewart
• The Daily Show
• The Daily Show: Pantry of Shame
• Lonely Planet: “Banana Empire”
• Minor Keith
• San Jose, Costa Rica
• Ticos
• Chiquita
• Dole
• Panama
• Edible Alchemy
• Pura vida

The Wife's C2E2 Panel: The Geek Girl and the Artist

The wife has become something of a gender geek activist. She has witnessed and heard plenty of frustrations regarding the under representation of female voices in

• Sciences
• Tech industry
• Geek/nerd culture
• Entertainment

The above list is not all inclusive.

She has decided to dip her toe into the arena by putting together a panel at C2E2: The Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo, called The Geek Girl and the Artist.

A quote from the Facebook event page to whet your whistle:

Topics addressed by this panel will include (but not be limited to): how geek culture shaped the panelists interests/focuses as artists; how geek culture shaped their identities as women; how the panelists view gender norms as playing a part in geek culture and vice versa; how to take niche geek interests and use it to inform artistic expression and professional pursuits; what are negative/positive aspects the panelists have experienced within geek culture and how they relate to their identities as both women and artists/communicators.

Oh yeah, she was guest on Loot the Room podcast to promote the panel.

It should turn out be interesting!

LINKS OF INTEREST: C2E2: The Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo, The Geek Girl and the Artist, Facebook event page, Loot the Room Podcast

Ruminations on Sociability in Animals While at the Aquarium

I felt like a human this past Monday at the aquarium watching beluga whales. They had trainers interacting with them and all, but I still felt touched. So touched, in fact, that I came close to tears.

I tend to feel that way when characters in fiction or on TV and movies let their guard down with each other or by themselves. Maybe it comes from some voyeuristic tendency, as I don’t have this reaction interacting with other people in the moment. Maybe it has something to with the privacy created by people focusing totally on something other than me.

The whales and trainers got me going when the explanation of how the trainers win trust of the whales. Giving them fish and scratching their tongues, that’s all I remember from the list of things that the belugas like humans doing for them.

Trust built through bribery, trainers move onto teaching the belugas tricks and simple communication. I jest about bribery. The trainers and belugas reminded me a bit of building a relationship with a cat. More like I remembered someone telling me that cats have strong social tendencies, even though I often thought of cats as loners. Feral cats form colonies, though.

Not to sound like a crazy cat lady, but the wife and I have a great relationship with our cats. It has improved a lot since we had to chase the girl cat around a basement to stuff her in a crate and take her home. Now she sits next to me on a chair when I’m using the computer at the kitchen table. Now, seven or so years later, we have a family of four that loves spending lots of time together.

Per Wikipedia, belugas have strong social tendencies, too. Doesn’t come as a surprise considering their show. I didn’t know it at the time, though.

The trainers and belugas showed their great relationship. Trainers showed tons of warmth, generosity and sincerity. Belugas displayed tons of energy doing tricks and swimming around, only overtaken by their desire for food and affection. Their connection felt authentic, sincere, reciprocal, enthusiastic and warm.

Their interaction brought heart to the idea of a contract. We generally think of contracts as cold, boring pieces of paper that suck life out of people relating to each other. People and non-human entities make contracts to protect themselves from possible abuses or to make sure that one party does what the other wants them to do. Contracts focus on taking from the relationship what each party can get.

The belugas and trainers focused more on giving than taking. Maybe the whales didn’t so much. They REALLY liked getting fish and having their tongues rubbed, but they looked grateful and humbled by all the attention. Even as they looked impatient doing tricks, their irritation seemed not so much about getting food or a tickle. They wanted to engage the trainer and connect.

At the same time, the trainers looked a little bored when the belugas went off to do their tricks. They must have felt proud by the whales wowing the audience, but they looked bored and impatient to get back to connecting and interacting with the belugas.

The show returned life to contracts by focusing more on connecting through giving and taking rather than taking benefit from one or the other. Being social is fundamental for many animals, from humans to whales to cats, even to plenty of fish that come together to form schools.

Social instincts play such a central role, at least for me, that seeing it in action chokes me up a wee little bit. But I could just be sensitive.


LINKS OF INTEREST: beluga whales, Feral cats

Storylab Chicago: Keeping Us Human through Storytelling

Last week at the prompting of a performer-of-many-trades friend, I had the delight of attending Storylab Chicago. The Black Rock Pub & Kitchen hosted the event and apparently welcomes Storylab every third Wednesday of the month.

Six storytellers provided fuel for laughs, reflections to ponder and even some sighs of sadness. The night provided a great opportunity for them to get up in front of the crowd to either have fun performing or challenging themselves with something new. At least one of the story tellers got up there because she challenged herself to do something new everyday in the year before her thirtieth birthday. Another story teller got up there as yet another avenue for creative expression.

I have the feeling my friend did it for a variety of reasons. She wanted to challenge herself. She wanted to share in the experience after spending time in the audience. She wanted to share with friends and strangers. She wanted to practice what she had learned in a class.

They have an egalitarian and populist method to get people signed up for performance at future Storylab events. I would have thought someone would have to take the Storylab Chicago's Storytelling for Everyone class, know someone who organizes Storylab or have some kind of reputation as a storyteller to get up there. After all, the place was packed and there is only so much time.

Anyone can get up there and tell their story. Well, there is a process to get up there, but essentially anyone can. You just sign up for the mailing list and put a star by your name. They probably won't let you get up there right away or at the next storytelling event. As I said, the place was packed and there's only so much time. Indicate you want to get up there and tell a story, though, and the organizers will get you scheduled to get up there at one of the future events. Bunch of people I was with wanted to try reserving a night just for their stories.

I like seeing the organizers of Storylab keeping up an oral tradition that we could see fall by the wayside otherwise. We all spend a lot of time on the Internet, doing the whole social networking thing. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Four Square, name your poison. We can easily spend hour on top of hours on these social network sites, sharing our stories, quips and opinions. A lot of our storytelling has transferred onto the Internet.

Suffice to say, Social Networking and the Internet provides an opportunity for people who don't have access to other people. It even provides an avenue of expression for people who may not care for verbal communication. We have seen great advances in society, science, the arts and a number of things because of the Internet and Social Networking. It has helped the human race evolve faster and more robustly than before. A lot of good has come out of the Internet and Social Networking.

But we can become dependent on these tools and maybe even addicted to them. Just look at people who REALLY get into World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs. Others love to spend tons of time on Facebook and other social networking sites. I can easily spend my time doing research, reading the news, following the stock market.

Heck, I'll admit it, I'd rather communicate through e-mail or chat than talk on the phone. I have no idea why other than I spend too much time on the phone at work already. For many of us, we find a lot of enjoyment while using the Internet and sometimes just plain prefer it over the material world.

I have no grand argument as to why keeping up this kind of oral tradition strikes me as so important. Maybe I will one day. I just think keeping up this type of tradition, even if it has to be done intentionally rather than organically, helps us to hold onto an aspect of what makes us human on a live basis. We share in real time, sometimes without as much of a conscious thought, we're present and we come closer to feeling like there's some sense in the world, even if just for a few hours or even a couple minutes. It's an important feeling and activity.

It's something that makes us, I believe, more human.

QUOTES OF NOTE: Storylab Chicago, The Black Rock Pub & Kitchen, Storytelling for Everyone, storytelling, oral tradition, World of Warcraft

Good Short Literature at Your Fingertips: The Chicago Reader Presents 2012 Pure Fiction

Every year the Chicago Reader, the local independent culture and politics newspaper puts out the Pure Fiction issue. They released the 2012 Pure Fiction Issue this past Thursday.

I probably wouldn't have picked it up from the side-of-the-road box if I had my phone or some other reading material. Being an election year also contributed to my inspiration. I've got plenty of benefits industry magazines to read for staying "ahead of the game" and for decluttering the home that I don't normally read the indepth newspapers. But hey,a fiction issue makes for a good gateway back into reading a newspaper.

The first story alone, Sky Boys: Lunch is served 69 stories above Manhattan by Steve Trumpeter, has easily made up for the cost of a little more clutter. A piece of "ancillary" historical fiction dramatizing Charles C Ebbets' photograph Lunchtime Atop a Skyscraper, it provides a work up to the photograph while also giving the reader perspective on the life and times of someone who had the career of putting together a skyscraper at the 69th story.

I've seen this photo in passing plenty of times. It always just sat in the background without grabbing my attention, though. This story transported me into the photograph. I imagined myself on top of those girders. Actually, more like I felt the fear of someone standing all the way up there. I could feel the paralysis that would overtake me if I looked down. The urge to grab onto a vertical pillar overtook me. Then there was the feeling of falling backwards to my doom after relaxing and trying to eat my sandwich. Pretty scary but a lot more fun to happen in my imagination than to experience it in real life.

The story spans about six or seven magazine-sized pages, and if I didn't have to sit in front of a computer to work or do work stuff at home, I would've flown through the story in about a half hour, enjoying every moment of it.

I've only read that story so far. Hopefully the other ones match it's muster or better. The other stories are:

• "Thank God for Facebook!": Postings from the Grave by Timothy Moore
  
• "Moving on at the Hipster Gym": A cigarette and a boy shirt and you're all better, right? by Tovah Burstein
  
• "The Gentle Grift": Sometimes you've just got to encase the boss's Mercedes in plastic wrap
  
• "Teen Jeopardy": Having the right answers isn't everything by Jessie Morrison
  
• Editor's Pick: "Red Velvet": The bar was closing, and Paul wanted to go home with something sweet by Chris L Terry
• Managing Editor Jerome Ludwig's choice: "The Fall and Rise of 'The Worst Commercial Ever Made'": The epic tale of "Lincoln Carpeting Factory Outlet Superstore: Where We Roll Out the Red Carpet of Nonstop Savings!" by Brian Costello

LINKS OF INTEREST: Chicago Reader, 2012 Pure Fiction Issue, Charles C Ebbets', Lunchtime Atop a Skyscraper

Finding Out I was Trying to Re-Invent the Wheel with My Research

Last night I bought a book for my bachelors project. Nothing too exciting in that statement. In many ways, though, this new book acts as a continuation on a book I bought and read more than ten years ago.

The authors of the new book don't say as much. They say that they're exploring territory that the first book and other books in the field didn't look at. The general field I'm trying to use, the sociology of knowledge, has something to do with my project.

The main thrust of the first book doesn't go in the direction that I need or my project, though. I think the direction of the second book will go where I need to go. Just from the preface, I feel like I'm going to learn the language and vocabulary that I need to talk about my project.

Researching without an instructor or having proficiency in research techniques causes this type of problem. Without either of these types of guidance, learning or coming up with a theory almost turns into re-inventing the wheel. Adult working has taught me that this approach wastes valuable time.

A Java programming book I read introduced the concept to me, but I was too naive at the time to understand. Apparently programmers like to share templates for menial subroutines. Much faster to copy and paste a simple template then move onto doing something more creative and higher level. It's out there. Why waste time re-inventing the wheel?

I have yet to start reading the main body of this new book. I just read the Introduction and Preface. It has gotten me excited so far. My situation frustrates me a little, not having been introduced ten years to this book written in the 1966. It is what it is, though. Life always has lessons for us.

Who's really to say that I have a lesson to learn here, though? I found the book while brainstorming how to articulate some thoughts in my mind by using Wikipedia. Maybe I hadn't found this book more than ten years ago because the technology, Wikipedia, wasn't there for me to explore my thoughts.

I couldn't even intelligently talk about my thoughts or the particular books given to me to read more than ten years ago. Maybe I didn't have the technology available to explore my thoughts in relation to the world of ideas without having to explain and justify myself.

Who knows? I didn't even really know what I was doing with this project more than ten years ago. I just wanted to write a dystopian novel to graduate college. I had primordial ideas. I originally wanted to write a thriller based on angst and boredom than some kind of heady meditation on social justice.

I appreciated what I have learned, though. The process has taught me how to learn. I've had some interesting experiences going through library and historical society archives. I've seen how the growth of the Internet helps researchers engage in more efficient research from their own den or kitchen table rather than having to travel everywhere. I've also learned how to prospect for sources through book references, journal article references and, heck, on Wikipedia!

All in all, I've come out well enough in the deal. And, who knows? Maybe if I hadn't been taking this long to make this progress on my project, maybe I wouldn't have kept up with online research processes as well as I have.


LINKS OF INTEREST: sociology of knowledge, Wikipedia

Tonight There Will Be Adventure that Hopefully Stimulates Me

Tonight I will be Ezekiel, the Elf Avenger, in a home brewed world that I don't know the name of. Ezekiel along with his companions has started a quest to bring the 5 desert sieges together to combine forces against some oncoming Doom (details unknown as of now).

Tonight will be session three of this campaign. Two sessions ago, we proved our mettle against the number 2 ranked gladiator team, negotiated with the leader of our siege and joined a caravan. Last session we fought off scavenger bird men out of their territory that attacked us.

I'm interested in seeing where we'll go tonight. The caravan has crossed the line of no return. We either have to reach the next siege, or we die in the desert. Can we do it?

Hopefully tonight's session will also revive the joy in playing D&D 4th Edition. Nothing to do with my fellow players, I'm feeling a little burnt out by the game. Not totally sure what it is. Could real life outside of the game effect the joy I'm getting out of the game? Is the game getting too repetitive? Is D&D 4th Edition really too combat oriented?

Does the game no longer stimulate me as much because I haven't participated in "real life" so much. I work a lot. I don't really go out so I can save money and pay off credit cards. I haven't read anything all that much for recreation. I frankly haven't done much for recreational activities (doing a lot of reproductive economic work at home like washing dishes, laundry and trying to remove clutter). I haven't worked on my bachelors project consistently for awhile (some amount of procrastination & the reproductive economic work just getting in the way).

Our current economy, personal finances and retirement accounts have sucked in tons of my attention, too. Feels like I'm not giving it enough attention, either. Feels like I should be reading more and keeping up on financial news, so I can make sure to buy and sell at the right times to maximize profit and minimize loss.

Heck, I hardly have the patience to read anything, anymore. Maybe trying to read with a bad cold and sinus allergies doesn't provide the optimum time to read. I remember loving to read at some point in my life.

I could probably go on and on about my time management woes. All I want, though, is to have a stimulating time playing a fantasy role playing game tonight. Hopefully I can get it.

Combining the Powers of iPad & Blackberry

For the last couple months when time has presented itself (seriously, I had no time control or management during July), I've worked on transcribing a handwritten sermon by George Ripley. He was a Unitarian minister at the Purchase Street Church in Boston during the 1830's.

The sermon is called On Common Sense in the Affairs of Religion. The content of the sermon doesn't matter for this essay.

Rather, I want to focus on how my iPad and Blackberry have combined into a useful set of tools. The specific brand and models of the mobile devices probably don't make a huge difference. A Playbook and iPhone may work just as well.

Actually. . .an iPhone may not work as well. I use the Blackberry's Memo app to type in the transcription. Any app that accepts text, saves it and will sync it up with other devices will work fine. Software doesn't cause the issue.

The hardware might. I've encountered people with strong opinions about touch screen keyboards versus hard material keyboards. The dynamism of iPhone screens compared to static unmoving keyboards play a big part. While transcribing Ripley's sermon, I rarely look at the Blackberry keyboard. My thumbs know where to find the right keys, and the keys stay in place.

I'm guessing you can lock the orientation of the iPhone screen and keyboard to keep it from flipping all around. Maybe that's not as big of an issue as I had originally thought. My preference probably has more to do with physically pushing the Blackberry keys.

A tech nerd friend of mine once told the story of Steve Jobs's genius behind getting the iPhone and iPad to click when pushing a key on the virtual keyboard. Apparently people wanted more than just visual feedback when they pushed a key. People wanted some other sensory feedback. The sound of a click made all the difference to people in marketing survey groups.

The feeling of separate keys on the little Blackberry keyboard, however, provides me orientation while typing but not looking. Through my many years of typing and taking a class or two, I've gotten the QWERTY keyboard mapped out in mind and body.

QWERTY keyboards can vary in size. The letters on it don't change position, though. A virtual keyboard can only provide me orientation while looking at it. I don't have to move my eyes around to keep track of my hands and fingers, but I have to gaze at the keyboard while typing to map the board according to key size.

I can feel my way around the letter keys on a Blackberry, though. Put my thumbs on the home keys or even just the space bar, and I know where all the other keys are. I often type on it without looking while I walk down the street or with my hands and Blackberry in a pocket. I can handle the keyboard because I can feel it.

It's just as easy to have my eyes on a monitor with text and type the text into the Blackberry by feel. In the meanwhile, the iPad's direct and intuitive interface keeps cognitive load at a minimum.

A big screened desktop or laptop provides an easy view, as long as I don’t need to change the size of what I’m viewing or change the brightness of the screen. Things get complicated from that point on.

For screen size or degree of zoom on the computer, commands vary by program. Even then, so many ways for making the changes. We have menu tabs at the top of the screen with options under them. Going this route half the time, you then have to choose a value of zoom, usually in the form of a percent.

Or maybe you prefer the icon menu underneath the tabs. You can make your cursor into an magnifying glass then choose where to zoom in. You can click as many times as you like to reach the level of zoom you want. But if you want to zoom out, you have to change the icon then click to go in reverse.

Then we have the keyboard “shortcuts.” Anybody remember the days of DOS when we only had the keyboard as our main input device? Typing ctrl-+ and ctrl-- has its elegance and instant gratification, but the computer decides where to zoom. You get the great challenge of getting to where you want to read or look at afterward.

It’s like a game, but who wants to play a game when reading a document? Especially when the author of the document has horrible, horrible handwriting?

With the iPad, though, you just use your index finger and middle finger. Place them close together and spread them apart or vice versa, wherever you want to zoom. You can also directly manipulate the screen view without using your keyboard or mouse as an intermediary. Your fingers have become a direct input interface to the iPad.

Adjusting the brightness on the desktop or laptop monitor becomes a hassle, too. The laptop at least provides the convenience of a keyboard shortcut. With the desktop, though, you must change paradigms switching from the mouse/keyboard combo to play with some knobs on the monitor. Then for both of them, you go back and forth, tinier and tinier movements until your reach the perfect illumination.

Our operating systems have in-system options for switching brightness, too. Instead of changing paradigms on the keyboard or from two completely different types of controls, you get to jump around from program to program.

With OSes these days, it doesn’t necessarily come off as inconvenient but something new gets to pop up onto the screen. Yay. . .more clutter.

Again, the iPad provides the immediate, direct experience. Adjusting the brightness requires nothing less than pushing the button on the left side of the screen (or whichever side you prefer), swiping the bar that pops up at the bottom in the direction your right then moving a virtual knob to the left and right until you reach the desired brightness.

Maybe the iPad requires just as many steps as the desktop or laptop. But it’s all right in front of you, on one flat piece of technology that you can hold with your two hands. Every step of the way you control it with the tips of your fingers.

The iPad doesn’t leave the user at the mercy of having to interact through two or three layers of interface: hand to keyboard/mouse, keyboard/mouse to cursor, cursor to end result. The most indirect interface on the iPad is when you’re typing. Even then, it’s all on the same screen.

But putting the cursor in the middle of a word can become a hassle. Making corrections can become a problem. Without the sense of touch and consistent spacing between keys, making mistypes becomes easy.

Now I’ve gone full circle. That’s why I’ve got the Blackberry to keep notes and the laptop to write documents. Every paradigm has its strong points and weak points. The laptop/desktop makes for good content creation. The iPad alone (or any tablet?) makes for good content consumption, especially online and out of home.

The iPad/Blackberry combo makes for an awesome transcribing machine: iPad for viewing and Blackberry for transcribing. Even better: they’re both super portable.

A neat feature about this essay: I wrote the first at the beginning of August; the second part at the beginning of September. The passion and excitement for the endeavor remains, even if I never finished the transcription and moved onto a different approach for my project. The method of transcription had nothing to do with the new angle. Maybe the bad handwriting had something to do with losing my interest.

The main thing motivating the change has to do with seeing life pass me by as much as it does. That’s a whole other story, though.

Links of Note: George Ripley, Unitarian, Purchase Street Church, All Things Dork

Benefits and Lure of Flow Experience with My Bachelors Project

Did you know that when you're engrossed in an activity that you enjoy, your brain can enter a near-meditative state, beneficial to body, mind and soul?

- Humana Financial Protection Products brochure

I got this quote from a brochure I received with the policy kit for my Critical Illness insurance policy. It hits upon how I feel about my writing and the type of experiences we should look for in life (as long the behavior, itself, isn't immoral and hurts others).

In full disclosure for those who don't know me: I am licensed as a personal lines, life, health and accident insurance agent in the State of Illinois. It's not my first choice, but I am finding myself enjoying working with people to put together a personal plan of financial protection.

These days I'm working most often with health, dental, vision, critical illness and hospital indemnity plans. I agree that these things can be so intimidating that consumers may grow frustrated, but I feel a good agent can provide access and craft a personal plan to provide great peace of mind. Don't hesitate to e-mail me if you live in Illinois and want to see what peace of
mind could be available to you.

Enough self promotion for my day job.

I've randomly encountered the concept of Flow for the last thirteen years or so. A friend wrote about it in a college paper. I've experienced it here and there. Personalities on TV, generally sports stars, have discussed it. I've tried to mine it for material to write my project.

An insurance company putting it into a brochure legitimizes Flow as something worth looking into and trying to work into life.

I've incorporated it in my life already with my research and writing activities. Throughout the years I've likened my bachelors project as an abusive relationship. The frustration becomes so exhausting sometimes that I feel like it has beat me up.

I can't quit it, though. Reaching the point when I just want to throw it down and move on with life, it sucks me back in. I can't stop thinking about it. I have had great times with it. I've learned a lot while working on it. What does it say about me if I quit it? Will any activities be just a backtrack to look at the project with a new perspective or will it be something independent that I really want to do for its own merits? And think of all the great times I've had with this bachelors project. I've come so far with it, how can I just stop here?

There is an academic paper available for purchase online called The Role of Flow Experience in Cyber-Game Addiction. I haven't read it. Nonetheless, having it come up in a Google search using "flow" and "addiction" illustrates that Flow can have some part in the addiction process.

I don't know. The jury is still out. But Sunday night, I did some intense researching that will hopefully bear some fruit. I wasn't the most pleasant person to be around, and I procrastinated on some of my duties (one which didn't need doing because of fortuitous events the next day, anyway).

I dreamt that night, though. I can't remember having any dreams in a long awhile. I made up for my Sunday night sociopathy on Monday night with the wife. I felt great at work during the day Monday when I would have rather been at home doing some more research or writing about the research I had done. I even had the ability to think about and discuss other things. I'm often obsessed about the project when not in the midst of getting my "fix."

So, who knows? Getting into the Flow greatly improves life, but it has the possibility of addiction? An insurance company, almost inherently a conservative entity, states that the Flow experience (using more words than that) has benefits.

As with all things in life, striking the balance between Flow and everyday life, even joyful parts in life, becomes a challenge. Challenge isn't bad, even when it becomes difficult. What doesn't kill us, makes us stronger, they say.

In my adult life, though, I often feel that it's those Flow experiences that make life worth living. I'll keep pursuing them for now.


Links of interest: Humana Financial Protection Products brochure, Flow, The Role of Flow Experience in Cyber-Game Addiction

Administrative Post: E-Mail Form Seems to Work

E-mail form to the right hadn't been working for awhile. I apologize if you tried to use it and received nothing in return. It works now. Please feel free to send me an e-mail using it.

Thank you.

Review of a Guide to Writing History

Thrashing about to find a workable thesis for my current paper on Brook Farm and utopianism, I found Reading, Writing, and Researching for History: A Guide for College Students by Patrick Rael, Bowdoin College. Looks like they put it in the writing guide section of their Website.

Rael has targeted this guide to students, most likely undergrads. People looking to teach themselves history writing skills or others looking for a refresher, however, will find this Webpage useful.

The guide has provided my autodidactic self a lot of good tips, most especially how to come up with questions and use them to drill down to a workable thesis and a structure for my paper. I haven't experiemented with the tips yet, but I feel more confident just reading them. I plan on developing questions after finishing my praise of the guide.

Coming up with questions and theses plays an important part in history paper writing. History essay writing has plenty of other aspects, too, that need attention. Reading, Writing, and Researching for History: A Guide for College Students introduces and covers them. They include.

• Reading secondary and primary sources like a fierce, effective predator
• Developing and analyzing arguments (including generating questions & theses)
• Research techniques
• Structuring the paper, from the thesis to conclusion to facts to rhetoric
• Presenting and citing sources in the paper
• Editing and revising the essay after first draft
• Even a model to provide inspiration

The layout comes across simple and easy to use. On top find the title and author. To the left, a table of contents with links to different chapters. The main body awaits your reading eyes to the right. Each chapter only takes up a few screens; nothing to worry about.

The Guide has PDF versions available for each chapter and one for the entire work. Just save it to your hard drive or print it out. No need for Internet access!

Rael adopts a great tone. Acknowledging that students often find the discipline of history intimidating, he goes out of his way to make the reader feel comfortable.

The academy talks down to the student. Rael wants to speak with the student as a person. History becomes cold, useless and meaningless to the general student because they can't connect to it. It takes the rare student who already has the history bug to make it through a course and do something with their knowledge. Rael admits this fault with the academy.

He made this guide as a remedy. He writes in everyday language, provides examples and encourages students of history to ask questions of others and of history.

My schooling didn't discourage asking questions. It just didn't teach how to ask questions. From what I remember about writing essays, I remember learning structure for the 5-paragraph essay:

1. Introduce thesis in first paragaph
2. First argument supporting thesis in second paragraph with 3-4 sentences supporting argument
3. Second argument supporting thesis in third paragraph with 3-4 sentences supporting argument
4. Third argument supporting thesis in forth paragraph with 3-4 sentences supporting argument
5. Tie things up in fifth paragraph with conclusion and a couple wrapping up comments

I don't remember spending much time on developing that thesis and argument. We were supposed to just come up with a thesis, arguments and all the support.

Suffice to say, I did fine with this structure on high school tests and even on short essays in college. I can't really say how I did fine, though. It just all worked out.

How much fault can students take if facts just get passively poured into them then receive skeleton instructions to use all that random information to make some kind of argument? Where does their motivation come from if they don't learn the significance of those facts and how to feel that significance? How can we expect them to just throw down historical arguments when they don't learn how to develop historical ideas, questions and arguments?

Teaching them to develop ideas can help to teach them passion for the topic.

Just from the introduction page of Reading, Writing, and Researching for History: A Guide for College Students, Rael shows his hope of transferring his love of history to his students and readers. Readers willing to take the journey will find an inspiring guide for developing questions that will make history more significant, meaningful and, dare I say it, exciting.

Reading, Writing, and Researching for History: A Guide for College Students makes for a great read. It could easily become a go to resource for any student from high school level to the decline of your mental facilities.

In fact, curriculum's should make this guide a must read. It would probably have one drawback, though: too many students will want to become historians, taking away workers from other industries. Oh well, I think our future selves will know how to handle that problem better than we do now. Let's deal with it then.


Links of interest: Brook Farm, utopianism, Reading, Writing, and Researching for History: A Guide for College Students

Writer with Obsessive-Compulsive Tendencies Productively Procrastinating

Lately I've found myself getting more in touch with my Type A personality by productively procrastinating to the nth power.

• Dishes need to get done
• Keep my organization technology all in sync
• Keep in touch with all my social contacts
• Scan tons of documents then shred them to make room in apartment
• Keep dishes washed to keep counter clean
• Put clutter away
• Provide tabletop gaming friends with information to cut down on time at sessions rehashing what's happened before
• Go through e-mails to keep in touch with people, delete a bunch, stay on top of stuff going on in the world
• Cut down on tasks, programs and e-mails that demand CPU resources needed to index information and e-mails
• Keep up with social networking streams to stay up to date with people and news in the world
• Read free newspapers to keep with the world and help prevent world from falling into chaos
• Write in blog to market self for when I finally have something to publish, people will want to read it and to keep self relevant
• Put together some type of tabletop gaming organization because I can sense the need for Chicago gamers to build that kind of community (and yeah, it'd be cool for it to reach the level of receiving compensation for it. . .to be compensated for something I can get excited about is a dream of mine)
• Stay in touch with people
• Keep up with movies and TV
• Keep food stocked but not overstocked
• Laundry
• Career development
• Work on bachelors project (tragic that this item added during an edit instead of rough drafting)

I don't want advice. Maybe a little help with the tedious labor stuff. If anything, I'm looking for understanding or, in this case, even a "Hey, that's just Lex. He's crazy like that." Camraderie with those facing the same issues would be nice.

In long run, though, my personality just thinks "Get as much tedious short term stuff out of the way then move onto the important stuff." I read somewhere that small stuff can actually give building sense of accomplishment and feed self esteem, so the big stuff doesn't seem so intimidating.

Maybe it also creates a sense of security. Sometimes that security, however, comes at the cost of productivity. Or does that productivity go away when you're dealing with all the tedious crap that's built up into a big pile of chores? Nonetheless, I'm actually trying to pare down these lists of mine to only do things truly important to me or will cause difficulty if not done.

Do other writers and creative types deal with this type of issue? Do they get distracted by bunches of little tasks that just add to clutter of cognitive dissonance? Or do the successful ones have the ability to not care about all the clutter and just move forward with putting their creativity out there?

I'd love to hear from other independent creatives out there on this one.

Wibbley-Wobbley Timey-Wimey: Boredom-Inspired Ruminations on Doctor Who

WARNING FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T SEEN SERIES 4 OF THE NEW DOCTOR WHO AND AFTER: SPOI. . .LERS!

With the premiere of Doctor Who Series 6 coming up in a couple weeks (whether I see the first two hours on the big screen or the 30" widescreen at home is still to be seen), I figure now makes a good time to publish these ramblings excerpted from e-mails to the wife one long day at work.

EXCERPT 1

Lately so bored by stuff going on that I'm trying to reconcile something in Doctor Who that's probably irreconcilable. Basically trying to conceive of other than being "anomalies" or a "complex space-time event" how is there a causal consequence to something like the Time Lords destroying time to ascend or the TARDIS exploding at all points in time & space? And also for there to be traces of said event in memories of other people but not the Doctor (especially if the Universe gets re-booted. . .does that mean the Universe is always being re-booted?).

In the idea of a space-time continuum, doesn't something happen or not happen, but at the same time. . .that steals away human or timelord agency. But if there's that agency, do multiple universes get created infinitely?

If that's the case, wouldn't all Universes have been destroyed by the Daleks' reality bomb since, in some reality. . .they would have successfully detonated it & destroyed all universes. . .

At the same time, if universes keep splitting, then there would probably be a subset of universes that get destroyed & a subset of universes that don't get destroyed. But in that case, what is the significance of acting if it all happens, anyway, except to accept that you have to act so might as well be the one trying to actualize the best universe possible.

But what about the Master and the timelords in The End of Time? Why would there be a sense of urgency for Ten to get to that point in time? If he eventually gets there & fixes the problem, wouldn't it be fixed, no matter when the Doctor gets there?

I'm sure most of this stuff is narrative fudging, but it's the type of stuff I think about when I get bored. It would be kind of cool to have an explanation of some type of "absolute measurement" that explains these situations when the author wants the Doctor to have a sense of urgency.

I don't know if this is the nerd in me or the author, though. . .if only I had something better to occupy my time. If I were more awake and alert, though, I'd probably be more likely to not think about this type of stuff.

EXCERPT 2

But of course the Doctor & then the Ood are time-sensitive aliens. The Doctor can see the past, present and future at the same time (but there's some things he can't see. . .how much spice has he eaten?). He can even feel the movement of the planet he's on.

The Doctor is so alien that there's things we can't conceive that he sees as elementary. Just look at what happened to Donna Noble when she had the ability to conceive of such things.

What a convenient out when the author wants to fudge something, eh? Cool to view as an author but friggin' frustrating as a geek!

EXCERPT 3

Now I'm wondering how much of the last Doctor Who season (Series 5) was also a meta-story as a production team transition story.

The Doctor is very much a child when he first shows up on Amy's doorstep, has to grow up really fast in 20 minutes to get on his feet, madcap adventures that tease people with the fun of new Doctor and Production then bang! Reboot Universe to make Universe 2.0, Steven Moffat style with something of an appreciative retrospective in the end to show that he had it all in mind when he started or something.

And Steven is surprised that he and his production team had staying power (Doctor being Steven/production team & Amy being the audience/BBC enjoying & not yanking the show & renewing it [Amy asking the Doctor if she was surprised at her great feat of bringing him back from nothing]. . .could easily take out the miraculous return of the Doctor & have the world going back to normal).

I wonder if Mr. Moffatt had something like that in mind when putting together the season. How postmodern.

LINKS OF INTEREST

Doctor Who, Series 4 of Doctor Who, Series 6 of Doctor Who, complex space-time event, TARDIS, timelord, Daleks, reality bomb, the Master, The End of Time, Tenth Doctor, Ood, time sensitivity, spice [from Dune], Rose, Donna Noble, Series 5 of Doctor Who, Amy Pond, The Eleventh Hour, Big Bang Two, Steven Moffat, The Big Bang

Is There Such a Thing as a Stability Economy?

It's scary how unrest like in Egypt can make the stock market prices go up. Makes you think about how our economy can benefit by unrest in the world since that creates a scarcity and drives up profit margin.

Makes sense, though, since our economy is based on Growth and Manifest Destiny. Last time I was thinking about how we need to figure out a new economy that gets rewarded by stability and peace.

At this point, the human race has access to pretty much all habitable land, which gets more & more concentrated into the less & less hands, along with bunches of other capital since there's too much labor in the world. The only way for the human race to continue on this Growth Destiny economy is to break out into space & get real space exploration going.

Otherwise we're just going to turn inward, destroy the earth and destroy civilization as we know. The human race may continue after a vast population decimation then continue on with its Growth Destiny, but it's not a fun process.

This situation always kind of makes me think of Robotech and other alien invasion stories. When aliens invade, humans shelve their hostilities to fight the greater enemy. Once aliens leave, humans fight amongst themselves again. But while the aliens attack, humans work together and the possibility of good occurs.

Stuff like that often makes me wonder if an aspect of our racial evolution is to learn how to get along. In alien invasions, we could possibly get new tech to move out into the universe, but at what cost?

As it stands now, though, we can't depend on aliens to save us. We have no signs of technology that will take us out into space to continue our Growth Destiny. Maybe the only way we can move on is to learn how to get along & figure out how to have a stability economy that we can use to focus collective human effort onto a greater mission.

Just sayin'. . ..

Inception & Movie Audience: Not a Disappointment, but Could've Been so Much More

My catch phrase when starting to talk about Inception: It was good, but it could've reached for more and been better.

As an amateur writer, story crafter and science fiction fanboy, I appreciate the narrative technique, creation of continuity and sticking to the rules of continuity. To sum it up: THAT SHIT WAS TIGHT!

Coming from the "artist" and "literary critic" in me, though, Inception could have been so much more. It was about dreams. Dreams are loose and free flowing. When it comes to dreams as a central narrative, strict adherence to continuity can make story and depth dry and shallow. It can take the HEART out of story.

Dreams provide insight into our individual psyches and cultural archetypes. A tight psyche and orderly culture without HEART is boring, uninteresting and oppressing.

Plato and The Republic provides good source material from our common heritage to show how taking the HEART out can make something shallow, a failure at reflecting the truth behind reality and unattractive once the facade is taken off. Plato, in The Republic attempts to demonstrate that the fully ordered life is the good and just way to live life by providing the example of an ordered, good and just society. In sum, The Republic.

Plato makes his argument using cognitive biases that come from holonymy and meronymy. Plato bases his argument on the assumption that individuals and society follow the same rules of logic. Common mistake and one that often gets made by decision makers and academics, but we all should know about a rule of crowd psychology that can tear these types of argument apart: An individual alone is smart, that individual in a crowd is a dumb ass.

Suffice to say, Plato makes a good final conclusion for individuals in The Republic if they desire a good, ordered life with as much control over possible emotional turmoil as possible. A couple good tips to extrapolate: If you have some bad habits that you want to stop, use tricks of cognitive therapy to change your habits and develop all the aspects of your body, intellect and psychology.

As a society, however, The Republic repulses modern individuals. For example: The Republic oppresses individuals and has no problem using ideology, in the Marxist sense, to create false consciousness for the maintenance of order in society.

Plato's idea of utopia and individual psychology, itself, would also repulse a lot of people. It's all utility and function, for the great cause of justice, without HEART. This lack of HEART comes from a big issue I have with Plato's ideals of psychology. Lewis Mumford criticized this aspect of Plato best in The Story of Utopias [full text available]:

Plato has his limitations; and here is the principal one: Plato distrusted the emotional life, and whilst he was prepared to do full homage to man's obvious sensualities, he feared the emotions as a tight-rope walker fears the wind; for they threatened his balance. In one significant passage he classifies "love" with disease and drunkenness, as a vulgar misfortune; and though he was ready to permit the active expression of the emotions, as in the dance or the sexual act, he treated the mere play upon the feelings, without active participation, as a form of intemperance. Hence a great deal of music and romantic mimicry was taboo. Foreign as this doctrine sounds to the modern reader, there is perhaps more than a grain of sense in it: William James used to teach that no one should passively experience an emotion at a concert or a play without trying to express that emotion actively as soon as he could make the opportunity. (p. 54-55)

[Off topic non-sequitur: basis for argument against violent and sexually oriented cultural products in the US today?]

I digressed through Plato to make the following point: Something can be crafted where the parts that make the whole are molded to make the whole technically valid and consistent. If the molding of those parts doesn't respect the part's teleological virtues, though, the integrity of those parts becomes compromised.

For inanimate non-sentient objects, they simply wear down faster, hold back the efficiency of the whole and have a high utility cost. Compromising the integrity of animate sentient beings and the culture they create, however, harms the integrity of other individuals around them and that of the whole.

I do not believe in an objective, ultimate, universal teleological goal. Neither do I believe in in an objective teleological goal for each individual. Rather, I believe that individual sentient beings, especially humans, have a psychological need for meaning, teleology and teleological virtue. It is part of what makes us human. Fighting the existence of the need only provides a self-fulfilling prophecy while fulfilling the need for it.

Following this argument, I also believe that have true meaning and teleological virtue for ourselves, we need to assign teleological virtue to other things and social constructs, even just to label them as irrelevant. Without assigning teleological virtue to things around us, we fail to have a sense of continuity with time and space.

Even labeling something as irrelevant or assigning an erroneous label to something can cause failure to truly understand how our own teleological virtue interacts with other sentient creations of teleological virtue. Conflict arises which can cause a disruption in our sense of continuity, never a fun experience. The more we understand the consensual concepts of teleological virtue around us, the more we can understand ourselves and better reach for our own teleological virtue.

So, artistically, I think Inception was simply "not a disappointment" instead of something more positive because it failed to push itself and have HEART. Dreams are the central concept of Inception. The characteristics of dreams are loose, free flowing, free association, ambiguity, subjective and plenty of other adjectives you, the reader, can think up better than me. Taking away these characteristics in Inception violates the teleological virtues of dreams as we have all experienced them.

The majority of dreams in Inception no longer have the characteristics of an act of the subconscious. Dreams simply become an objectively ordered literary device to provide an environment that poses an obstacle for the protagonists. Characters could choose to break away from certain rules of conduct, but doing so would attract attention from the dream defense systems.

Dreams effectively become The Matrix in the sense of acting as a literary tool. The biggest differences being: protagonists in Inception can exert more control over the dream environment but choose not to do so, while protagonists in The Matrix often need to exert reality bending powers to survive in their protagonist roles.

Respecting the teleological virtues of dreams could have produced a movie with more depth, insight into existence, the human condition and the psychology of all characters involved. Inception comes closest to depth with the relationship between Dom Cobb and Mal and the uncertainty of events that transpire with and between them. This whole set up gets kind of annoying if you saw Shutter Island, though. Practically same relationship with significant other, just different circumstances.

I could have gotten beyond the similar character relationships if the teleological virtues if dreams were respected more. Lack of control and lucid dreams fascinate me and a lot of people out there. Unless these behaviors of the dream world and the codes of conduct were created and integrated into wider society by Dom Cobb as reaction against his own negative experiences with dreams before turning to a life of crime. This argument doesn't really hold, though, since public perception of consensual lucid dreaming in relation to this imaginary world was never explored.

In some sense, Inception made the easy choice: have the subconscious try to gain control of the dream again by using conventional real world tactics, have dream constructs or a dream security team try to kill the perpetrators. Goons work for an action movie, but so much more could have been done to freak with the viewers mind. Why not have the subconscious manipulate the dream environment, destroy the physics of the environment, destroy the sense of continuity from moment to moment and test the limits of imagination? Reality bending as a defense mechanism strikes me as much more effective than sending goons after perpetrators.

Again, in terms of craft, I can appreciate the choices made within the lack of ambition (despite the pretensions of ambition released to the media). Christopher Nolan made a tight movie that met the rigors of continuity. For that, he has my admiration. I just think a lot more could have been done to make a more fascinating movie that provides a novel experience.

Nolan has gone record saying that he started writing the movie 10 years ago, but he didn't try to produce it until recently. He wanted the experience and credibility to have it released in the wider, more mainstream market. His two Batman movies did that well enough.

On the same token, I've heard the argument that if Nolan made Inception with the ambition that I would have liked to see, the movie would have been a box office failure. Per Box Office Mojo, the movie pulled in about $290 million domestically, cost approximately $160, so profiting about $130 million. Foreign revenues come to approximately $530 million. I'm not familiar enough with the industry to know whether that's considered a flop, average or really good.

The argument being made is essentially that by making Inception more out there and crazy, box office receipts would have been a lot less. From my perspective, though, the movie didn't even come close to "out there" from what I saw in the previews for the movie. Previews made me think Inception would have been a lot more crazy, freaky and reality bending. I feel like the product itself didn't meet the hype of the marketing.

The argument being made is that movie audiences don't want anything novel, groundbreaking and that will really question our sense of reality. The movie audience doesn't want to be pushed outside their boundaries of comfort. They want to go to action movies that don't have emotional depth, new ideas or question the current status quo, whether it be political, psychological or reality. The audience apparently just wants big explosions, fart jokes and sexy bodies.

I beg to disagree. I've made my argument. People want the movie with better depth and they want to respect the teleological virtues of dreams for entertainment and to better understand their world and themselves. This is just my perspective, though.

More perspective would be useful and interesting. Discuss.


Links of Interest: Inception,
Plato, The Republic, cognitive biases, holonymy, meronymy, crowd psychology, false consciousness, Lewis Mumford, The Story of Utopias [full text available], teleological virtues, self-fulfilling prophecy, The Matrix, Dom Cobb, Mal, Shutter Island, Christopher Nolan, Nolan has gone record saying that he started writing the movie 10 years ago, but he didn't try to produce it until recently., Box Office Mojo