The Baby and the Bathwater

When you die the problems all go away, but then again so do the good bits. When things go terribly awry I guess you can console yourself that the bad parts are an inevitable companion to the good parts. Rejoice that you aren't dead, I guess. Here are the lyrics to my latest song about it.

Sex, like perspective, is harder to get the more you need it.
So when will we all get what we need?
Only in death when we don't need anything.
Rejoice!

History repeats again and again unless you regret.
So when will we all lose our regret?
Only in death when we forget everything.
Rejoice!

Sunshine is to rain what pleasure is to pain.
And when will we finally let go of pain?
Only in death when we don't feel anything.
Rejoice!

I'm my mother's son and I pushed away because that's how it's done.
So when will all of our love return?
Only in death when we don't love anyone.
Rejoice!

Big Red Flashing Nerd Sign

In Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee (probably the greatest programmer of all time. And by that I mean he could literally kick any programmer's ass) tells us that the greatest form is to have no form. You're just supposed to do what is perfect.

So what's the perfect language? To not care what language you're using, just program perfectly in whatever language you're using. I'm blowing my mind.

The Weeds in the Wheat

There's this idea of the weeds and the wheat, or the chaff and the grain, or the lambs and the goats. You've got good and bad mixed together. Part of you wants to pull out the bad stuff as early as possible. Watch out though, you can't remove one without risking destroying the other. So what do you do? You let them grow together and sort it out in the end.

I think this is a great picture of what it is to be human. We've got these good and bad bits mixed up inside us, but you can't just yank out the bad parts because you'll destroy essential and good parts of who you are. David Bazan has a lyric that really appeals to me: "God bless the weeds in the wheat." So you're a little fucked up, but you know what? God bless the bad parts, because you wouldn't be who you are without those flaws, and if I somehow removed those flaws I'd kill off a bunch of the good parts too.

Maybe you're manipulative, but without such a great intuition for what people need you'd be less empathetic. Perhaps you drive yourself crazy with your over thinking, but then you wouldn't be such a thoughtful interesting person. What if you're lazy, but if you were motivated your friends wouldn't like how inaccessible you were.

What are your weeds?

What exactly is a crackpot theory?

I'll define a crackpot theory as:

1. An idea which makes you say, "Well that explains it."
2. An idea with a complete lack of testable evidence. Or, in other words, it doesn't really have a leg up on a completely different crackpot theory that explains it just as well.

Both this blog and humanity are all about crackpot theories.

Now go read my band's blog.

The Point of Most Things

The point of most things is to enjoy them. Friendships, family, hobbies, projects, marriage, and so on. That's even a pretty decent take on the meaning of life. I'll admit that sounds a little hedonistic and selfish on first pass, but hear me out.

1. My best friends are the ones who really enjoy my friendship.
2. If you love what you're doing, you're generally a more interesting, positive, fulfilling person to be around.
3. I don't want to trade places with anyone who disagrees with me.

In other words, by being selfish in a healthy kind of way, you become happier and you make those around you happier. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that in order to be ethical, you must strive to enjoy yourself because your happiness directly affects the happiness of those who love you.

Now you can make a convincing case that enjoyment is not the point of your job. You need to make money and it's amazing if you can not want to kill yourself doing it, but frankly who really wants to work.

Dumb Questions

There is absolutely such a thing as a dumb question. I want to smack lecturers who spout nonsense about there not being any dumb questions because they probably only encourage more dumb questions. Some day when I'm in charge, I'm going to call out the dumb questions and compliment the good ones.

Here are the categories of dumb questions as determined by me, most important first. Most bad questions fall into multiple categories.

1. Questions with the objective of pointing out how smart you are.
   Q: As I'm a Ph.D. in marketing, I was wondering how this applied to synthesizing global model market regressions.
   A: This is a real reverse psychology kind of moment, because now I think you're a pompous idiot.
   
2. Questions that aren't questions.
   Q: This applies to local model market progressions.
   A: Thanks for not asking a question.
   
3. Questions that ramble on.
   Q: I sat here thinking to myself, "Myself," I thought to myself, "How do you suppose this topic deals with some similar other topic?" Because, you see, other topics in the blah blah blah...
   A: Hey! Who paid you to give this lecture?
   
4. Boring questions.
   Q: Could you could repeat that middle, boring part of your lecture?
   A: No.
   

Good questions are

1. Short.
2. Interesting.

So what do you do when you find yourself in an audience asking stupid questions? I have several strategies, none of which work. Also, all of them are a bad idea unless you, like me, have the need-attention gene, and don't really mind being controversial. And by controversial, I mean refreshing to people who hate dumb questions, and and asshole to everyone else.

1. Call out the questioner. Around minute two of a question say, "Hey, let Ms. Whatever teach the lecture."
   
2. Plead with the lecturer. "Do you suppose we could move on?" or "Could we do one question and answer period at the end of the lecture?"
3. Talk with the questioner after. This really never works.
   
4. Ask good questions. Actually, this is probably the only one that does any good. It's not because it encourages the people to ask better questions, rather, it just makes less time for dumb questions. It's really hard to come up with good questions though, so good luck there.
   

What's missing?

In Art

I have a book of short stories by Tom Paine and in one of the stories he describes a film maker working for the state news station in a communist country. The only way this dude can come up with to be subversive is to make a film with happy people and no mention of communism. He doesn't get away with it, and the film never airs, but that got me thinking. You can probably say a lot in your art through what you exclude. How subtle. I've probably seen lots of paintings, films, stories, and so on that conspicuously left something out, and I completely missed it. Hence, I can't really think of many examples. If you come up with something good, put it in the comments. You'll sound extremely smart. I guess it's because you understand the work so well that you know know what's supposed to be there, and therefore what's intentionally missing.

You: I thought it interesting that he didn't mention sex at all. Do you suppose he was trying to make a point?
Me: You're blowing my mind.

In Relationships

If you know somebody really well, you can notice when they conspicuously don't do something. I understand exactly one person at that level. I instantly pick up on when she's upset in how she doesn't smile at a stupid joke, doesn't chat, or doesn't make eye contact. She can do the same for me, even when I try to hide it.

You: Wait, you're not complaining about that ice cream truck. Are you high?
Me: Are you psychic?

Back story: In case you've never been to my fair city, the ice cream trucks blare the same fucking song all summer long. And by summer I mean February to October. Sure if you grew up with it, it could be nostalgic, or if you haven't heard it much it can be quaint. But many immigrants like myself plant a seed of deep seated hatred for the ice cream trucks that slowly grows into a mighty forest of loathing by the spajillionth time we've heard the same jingle.

In Science

I don't really travel in science circles these days as I have to make money. I'll confess, I wrote that to tease any PhD-ers who read my blog. Rest assured that it was out of jealousy. Anyway, when I did, I was always really impressed with the folks who understood the subject so well they could critique papers based on what the author forgot to take into account, or what they didn't discuss, or what related papers they clearly didn't read.

Also sciency but less esoterically, we all have something called a confirmation bias. When we have an idea about how something works, we tend to only look for evidence that supports our idea, and neglect evidence that disproves it.

I have a friend who never learned to ride a bike as a kid, so I took her out for a lesson. We went to a rubber track and worked our way around and around until we eventually got to the point where she could mostly stay up on her own for almost a full lap. There was a soccer game that day, so lots of dads were hanging out. They cracked me up. They had completely random, sometimes conflicting advice. "You HAVE to keep your head up, looking strait ahead! Don't even look down a little bit! That's how I taught my son, and he did great." "Keep your eyes on the road, otherwise you'll fall over." "Hold on to the seat to help her balance, then she'll learn faster." "Don't hold on to the seat, she'll learn slower." Here's the thing. All these dads managed to teach their kids to ride bikes. They got some idea on how they should do it, they tried it out, and it worked! Hence, their way must be the correct way to do it. What's missing? They didn't try anything else, and now I'm blogging about how silly they sounded.