Friday, April 27, 2012

Know Your Competition

Do you know who you're competing against? Do you know why?

It doesn't matter if you are in business or involved in a hobby. You're competing with someone. Most businesses are striving to outdo the competition, either in better service, making more money, selling more widgets - possibly all three and more. Most people are doing the same thing, trying to make more money than Bob, have a bigger house, faster car, be a better golfer / artist / tinkerer, have more 'friends' or 'followers', whatever.

Way back in high school, I knew a multi-talented girl. She could draw. She had a beautiful voice. She played half a dozen instruments well and taught violin and piano. She got excellent grades, and she was fun. There were two other girls who each excelled at one of the things Jean did well. Dana was an outstanding soprano. Tina was an outstanding artist.

The animosity between the singers was palpable. They got into arguments, they trash talked about each other, they shared ugly looks in the hallways. They were jealous of each others talent and successes, and reveled in each others failures. Not pretty.

Between the artists, the animosity was all one-way. Jean expressed negativity toward Tina's artwork. Tina said only kind things or gave honest, constructive criticism in a kind manner. Jean might say 'that line looks a bit thick' after searching the work for flaws, and Tina would say 'You might be right, I'll take a closer look.' And if she agreed, Tina would correct the line. However, if Tina pointed out something that might be improved, Jean would snatch away the work and storm off.

Take a few minutes to truly think about who you compete with, on a personal level. Is it possible that either of these scenarios  describe your behavior? Just possible, I'm not asking you to admit that you occasionally act like a spoiled child - though almost all of us do, sometimes. Can you think of others who act this way? It is easier to see it when someone else is doing it than when we do it ourselves.

Now let me ask you a few questions:
Is Picasso a better artist than Rembrandt?
Is Pavarotti a better singer than Carrie Underwood?
Is Lamborghini a better car maker than Ferrari?
The honest answer to each is No, one is not 'better' than the other, they're just different.

This is true of every human being alive. You're neither 'better' nor 'worse' than anyone else. You might be smarter than Bob, but Bob is a lot friendlier than you are. You might be friendlier than Tom, but Tom is smarter than you are. Big deal. All those little variances are what make the world wonderful. Even if Tom knows way more stuff than you know, you know something Tom doesn't, and Bob knows something you don't. There are people who like you that dislike Bob. There are people who like Tom but dislike you. Big deal.

Quit competing with the rest of the world. Do you know who you should be in competition with? YOU. See if you can be kinder today than yesterday. See if you can handle this paycheck better than you handled the last one. See if you make a firmer, tastier meatloaf than you made last week. See if you can learn 3 new words this week, and use them properly in conversation. Draw a prettier rose, stitch a straighter line, perform a cleaner oil change, handle an argument more gently, offer a more sincere apology, be more patient with the kids or cat or your spouse than last time.

Simply spend your energies on trying to be a better person than you were five minutes ago instead of trying to outdo someone else. Out do You. Not only will people like you more, You'll like you more. You'll feel happier, get better at the things you do, and be more forgiving of yourself and others.

That's what I learned from Tina.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Math is...

I use basic math in my job daily. An example: 12/307+5/33+ 3/17+/50+3/33 where X is whole and /x is partial, so that equation = 23/540 ./. 60  = 32.  Because I use this everyday, I do this in my head. Add this, add that, divide, add the whole to the whole /remainder. (In this example, there was no remainder.) To me, this is elementary. I tried to show a co-worker how to do this because I made my calculations in seconds and her method took about 4.5 minutes (of what appeared to be shear torture.) I confused her as much as dy/dx = tan(y) * cos(4x) (0 < y < pi/2) confuses me.

I think math is fascinating. There are vast quantities of it that leave me lost, confused, and frustrated, but it is still fascinating. Math knows everything. A long historical time ago, we didn't have math. We didn't even have +/-. When we got +/-, it was so the money changers could denote overages and shortages in gold weights. A plug was made to be the balance and gold was weighed against the plug. A match was =, a shortage was noted as -, an overage as +. Eventually those symbols gained names.

Imagine this! Until we had +/-, we had no concept of math. We could tell that xxxx was similar to cccc, and that xxxx was the same as xxxx but different from xxx and xxxxx. We could decide we'd rather have xxxxx, and we'd rather trade xxx to get it, but we couldn't say why that was. When I was a kid, my mother said "I don't understand this new math" so she couldn't help my brother with algebra. Algebra was new when I was young. 1+1 was only several hundred years old, but 42y^4+21xy-14x^3+42xy^2-42y^2+6=0   was new. With math, we start understanding space and nature. But math is a language, and a lot us don't speak it. Some are fluent, some are tourists, some are strangers altogether.

I had a fantastic teacher once, Professor MacKenzie, who subbed in my 11th grade psych class for a full semester. He was mind blowing - he forgot we were not grad students and taught us as if we were intelligent beings, unlike the teacher he was subbing for, who treated us like moronic gnats. Anyway, the first thing I remember learning from Prof. MacKenzie - by way of aplogy for getting ahead of our knowledge - is that when the student fails to learn, it is because the teacher has failed to teach at a level the student can understand.  That's right. I had a teacher who said that if I failed to learn it was HIS fault for not teaching me in a way I could understand.

The shows that fascinate me are the ones that play with science and math. Bones, CSI, Lie to Me, Numbers. I'm waiting for some brilliant writer to put them all together. People can understand physics and math. We don't think we can because physicists and mathematicians don't usually know how to speak their language and ours too, but when we get a translator - like Neil De Grasse Tyson, or Michio Kaku - we can. Maybe I'll never solve some scientific conundrum, but I can grasp the idea and so can you. All we need is the right teacher.


 

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Creativity

I'm an artist. As an artist, I draw inspiration from every thing. I see what others do, I am inspired. I hear, I am inspired. I read, I am inspired. In the art world, there is this weird idea that derivative works are theft unless you admit they are derived from someone specific. How do you that? I might have seen something thirty years ago that bubbles up to lend an aspect to something I create today. I'm a compulsive reader, I read probably 300 books a year. Some of those are all words, some are art books, some are a mix of words and images. All that sinks into my brain and percolates. It might inspire immediate response, as this post was inspired by this TED talk. It might simmer for a week or a year, or decades, before bubbling up to influence my words, actions, creations.

I rarely sign my work. I have friends who fuss at me about that - how can I ever get famous if I don't sign my work? My answer is that I am only the conduit, I'm not the art. Ideas float around and some of them enter my head. The only way to get them out of my head is to make them. I might envision one thing, but part way through the creation, the creation takes over and becomes what It wants to be. It develops a voice, a way of moving, a personality that I experience whenever I see it (or read it). That's not my creation, any more than the child you gave life to is your creation. I am only the conduit.

One of the things I love about now, the 21st century I live in, is that art has exploded. Art is every where. Art is The Field. Writers are every where. Artists, musicians, makers of things. In this world, people get an idea and they must create. What brought that about? The internet, computers, global access to inspiration. Disney might get tetchy over someone using a clip from Snow White, but Disney did not create that story, they used it. Can you imagine Shakespeare rising up to protest West Side Story?

When I create something, it is my iteration of a previous concept. I deserve to profit from my iteration. When Harvey comes along, takes a snippet of what I made and uses it within his expression, Harvey deserves to profit from his iteration. I'm not talking about painting portraits of Disney's Snow White and selling them, I'm talking about using her withing a larger framework, such as plopping her image into a stark photograph of a crackhouse to make a new iteration, to express an idea in a way that highlights a concept. If Harvey took my creation and passed it off as entirely his own, Harvey would be wrong. However, if Harvey photographs my sculpture, takes it into photoshop and alters it, then makes the mouth move to a mash up of 'I Feel Pretty' and 'Born This Way', I say Go Harvey, you ROCK! It's nice that Harvey gave credit to me for the sculpture, and to the recording artists for the music. That gives us all a little more exposure. It might make some one look up 'I feel pretty' and expose them to something new. It might inspire someone to be who they are, instead of who they have been told to be. And along the way, Harvey - and the millions of 21st century artists inspired by current technology - has put together something that was not 'drempt of in your philosophy, Horatio.' They have expanded consciousness, awakened awareness, invoked wonder.

Judging our judgments

Everybody judges. It's human nature. I don't think judging is bad, all by itself. Problems arise when we fail to examine our judgements.

'Oh, look at her - can you believe she's wearing that? Doesn't she own a mirror?'
The question here is why shouldn't she dress however she chooses? We're big on dress to impress as long as it impresses us. We're big on dress to express, too - but only when it's our expression or we approve of what the other person is 'saying'.

When I find that my first reaction is 'doesn't she own a mirror?' I give myself a mental shake. I don't know that she isn't looking at me thinking the same thing. I ask me who I am to judge her choices - or anyone's choices.

I don't know what you've been through, how you feel, what you want, I don't really know anything about anyone. I might know what you choose to tell me, but I don't know where that fits in your philosophy. Most of the time, we don't know where our own thoughts fit in our philosophy - that's what life is about: figuring out who we are and how we react to the world around us. Examining our judgements is one way to figure it out.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Who knows Where or When?

  Mysterious disappearances ...There are some other cases when disappearances are really mysterious. Starting from the crew of the ship Mary Celeste ... some people seem to have gone from the face of Earth, leaving absolutely no trace behind them. (Link)

Michio Kaku (Click the link to hear Kaku explain this. His explanations make physics seem quite easy. Just please remember to come back and finish this article! Kaku is fascinating.) talks about how the particles that make up our bodies don't stay in our bodies. Particles wander about. So what if a massive quantity of particles went on walkabout at the same time? Is it possible that the entire crew of the Mary Celeste rode into a particle storm that transported all the living matter elsewhere? Wouldn't that be wild?

As Michio Kaku explains in the video, parts of you and me are conceivably hanging out on Mars right now. I wonder if the probabilities could converge in such a way as to take an entire person elsewhere - or even elsewhen. 

I also wonder if, having picked up all the particles that comprise a single person, would those particles all go to the same place or would they separate and spread out across multiple universes and dimensions?  If so, then maybe the reason two people on opposite sides of the world get similar ideas at similar times is because particles of one being have landed in them both.

Scientists often race to publish before someone else beats them to it because this does happen.  Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace both came to similar conclusions about evolution about the same time. You can see some others here.

I'd love to hear your ideas on this. It seems both farfetched and perfectly logical, so feel free to (rationally) expound in whatever direction it leads you.

Human Memory and Information Processing; The Net's tangled web.

This article, The Google Effect , discusses the effect search engines have on our memories. Basically, we keep information we need but cannot access easily elsewhere in our memories. Before calculators, people could easily spout the answers to 9x6 or 15x5. Now most people either reach for a calculator or pen and paper to find the answer. Prior to spell check, we had to learn to spell each word. (That explains the abundance of then/than, where/wear, and other such errors!) Can you tell me the phone number of someone you call frequently? Without looking it up on your cell phone? Probably not. You don't have to remember the number because your phone does it for you.

That we can easily look up information is wonderful. I'm not sure it's so good for our ability to process information though. As children, most of us learned capitals of states and countries. We used that information to process other information. Imagine reading a news story about Nazi sympathizers Paris and not knowing what country Paris is in. If you don't know it is in France, the you might miss important clues that help you process the story. Knowing, and being able to recall, the location and history of Paris adds layers of meaning to the story.

Additionally, stored knowledge helps us make connections that we might otherwise miss. If you know that Druids wore robes and came from the British Isles, that much of the mountainous south in the United States was settled by Scottish Highlanders, and that those highlanders tended to be quite insular and fractious, then it is easier to make a connection between clan and Klan. If you also understand the ancient need for groups to be insular and tight knit in order to survive, the necessity of distinguishing between 'us' and 'them' in a place and time where competition for scarce resources was heavy, then it becomes easier to understand how human nature leads to exclusionary practices such as racism, sexism, and religionism.

What we understand, we can change. If we can't make the connections, we don't see the bigger picture, and so we lack the information necessary to recognize problems before they get out of hand. I love the availability of information on the internet. I can access books that I would never have known existed, I can learn how to do practically anything, and I am exposed to people and cultures that I might never have imagined without the internet. At the same time, however, I am less likely to clearly recall information because I know I don't have to store it in my memory in order to access it.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

I think, therefore I become what I think.

Your mind changes - literally - as your mind changes.

Change your lifestyle, change your behavior, and you change your genes. Who knew? Your genes do what you tell them!

You are energy. A computer of sorts. Whatever you experience changes your biology based on your perception of the experience. You compute the event and your computation determines the effect the event has on your biology.

You change time with your perceptions. Something fun seems fast, something boring seems slow. Also, something epic seems to make time stand still - because you stopped noticing time. Something horrible can make time seem to speed up - because you perceive time as running out.

Attention, and intention, change you. What you focus on, thrives. Whether you focus on blessing or misery, you get more of the same. Try it. If you think of something that made you sad, you will perceive current events in a way that adds to your sadness. Think of something that pleased you, and current events are more pleasing.

Add these all together - YOU control your destiny, YOU control your perceptions, YOU control your happiness.  No one can MAKE you unhappy, you do it that to yourself by focusing on the actions of others in ways that focus on the misery. No one can make you do anything. You always have choices. By blaming X for making us do Y, we deny our own power and our own responsibility for ourselves.

If you hold a gun to my head, I have the options of: 1) doing as you say, 2) not doing as you say.  Either way, I decide which to do. While I'd like to believe that I'd be brave enough to refuse to do your bidding, I'd probably do as I was told simply because I would be anticipating the pain of being shot. That is 'living in the future' - fearing what might come rather than experiencing what is present.

After the event, I can blame you for forcing me, or I can admit that I chose what I perceived to be the least painful path. I chose. Mind you, my decision was coerced - I'm not saying you have no responsibility. You are responsible for your actions. I'm also not saying that victims always have choices. A baby has no choices, it can't possibly stand up to an adult. But there does come a point when we can stand up and make choices, and we often choose to blame others for the choices we make.

When we honestly don't have a choice, and when we choose to survive, we have to learn to forgive ourselves for having been victimized! And we have to learn to forgive those who wronged us. Otherwise, we remain victims. Those who hurt us don't suffer when we don't forgive them, we do. We suffer because we give the past power over the present. Forgiving is NOT excusing. It isn't saying 'it's okay that you did this', it is saying ' I'm moving on, you have no power over me.'

 So, these two options I have in perception - being the victim or being the one who chose my action - are reflected in my mind and body. I can stand tall or I can huddle into myself. Standing tall is reflected in my health and perceptions - I get sick less often, I have fewer regrets, I feel less fear and experience more joys.  Huddling is likewise reflected. I am more easily frightened, I am more susceptible to illness, I spend a lot of time thinking 'if only'.

The really cool thing about the mind/body connection is that simply standing taller can make you feel better. Try that. Hunch up, like you are afraid someone is going to hit you, and pay attention to your emotional state. Now stand tall, and pay attention to your feelings. One feels much better than the other, doesn't it?

Where ever you are, walk like you own the place. When you do something well, celebrate it, not matter how small it might seem. Finished the crossword? YES! Made a decent scrambled egg? (My personal challenge.) YES! I MADE A GREAT EGG!

Celebrate every single thing you possibly can. Pretty day? Celebrate. raining cats and dogs? Celebrate that too, because rain brings food and flowers, and keeps the dust down. Broke your finger? Celebrate not breaking your arm. The opposite is to moan about the rain and the broken finger, which will only make you more aware of every minor thing that goes wrong.

The other day, I lost an envelope of money. Now, I can dwell on the loss - which definitely annoyed me - or I can be thankful that I had taken most of the money out of the envelope before I lost it.  I am glad of that, and in spite of this long post about how we control our perceptions, I have to admit that being aware of the loss generates feelings of scarcity. So I have to make a conscious effort to focus on abundance to counteract the feeling of scarcity.

Yesterday was a sad anniversary for my family, the birthday of a child who died young. It was also a happy anniversary, the birthday of a child we were allowed to love and cherish. When I paid attention to the loss, the day was miserable. I found dozens of connected memories that exacerbated the misery. When I chose to focus on the blessings attached to the day, everything felt better. There is nothing in the past that we can change, except how we look back.

We can't control the future, we can't change the past, we can only live in this moment, and in this moment, we have to chose whether we are going to be happy or miserable. What we choose alters our brain chemistry, which alters our bodies, which alters our perceptions. It's a circle, and we have to chose which side of the circle to stand on.