This dream can spread the sands of time
And seduce your soul with words in rhyme
Whisper sweet nothings into your ear
Make you content and void of fear
Give you the strength to be all you can
Make the rest of your life an open plan
Free as birds you and I will fly
Not for a moment shall we question why
Up to the heavens and down to the seas
Our lust for adventure we shall appease
Upon all four corners of this Earth we shall rest
Wrapped in one another's arms we shall nest
Through your eyes I shall see the nature of your heart
And know in that moment that we should never part
I will know that your love is pure and true
In my eyes you will see. I feel the same for you
How are you?
I go through periods of Philosophical mindsets, they come and go once a month sometimes less often sometimes more frequently. I have had this referred to as my "Man Period" by a former flatmate which made me smile.
I recently went through this Philosophical phase during which a friend sent an inane text, nothing out of the ordinary all it said was "How are you?" and my reply verbatim was "I don't know really, I can never really answer that question", his reply which I will share and which forms the focus of this post was thus: "Me neither. There's always something making me feel anxious, depressed, happy, sad, or hopeful. Only thing that changes is the order I'd rank them in".
That's an interesting concept and the more I think about it the more I would identify with the assessment. I have a number of core moods or core emotions that define me, some negative and some positive. There is always something attached to each of them, the only thing that changes is which one I focus on. If you ever had the feeling that "you move from one thing to the next, there's never a break" then you will probably relate to this. Each emotion in essence is a queue, when the first item is dealt with the next one falls into place and we consider how important it is and whether or not it should take priority over the others.
The length of the queue does not imply priority, we chose to give priority to whichever queue we are predisposed to focus on, through a combination of our overall cynicism, pessimism, naivety, and optimism. As we experience life and gather things to contemplate and mull over in our spare time they are added to the appropriate queue - indifference being the longest as we are most likely to experience many things which we do not hold any specific view upon - things which do not directly affect our mood but are things that we will continue to contemplate after we have experienced them, one would hope this blog post would be included in that queue, something to think about after you have read it.
Note: This idea of 'Emotive Queues' should not be confused with Emotive Cues - an existing principle under which a person's feelings are controlled by stimuli intended to provoke a given reaction i.e. a 'cue' to that emotion.
I recently went through this Philosophical phase during which a friend sent an inane text, nothing out of the ordinary all it said was "How are you?" and my reply verbatim was "I don't know really, I can never really answer that question", his reply which I will share and which forms the focus of this post was thus: "Me neither. There's always something making me feel anxious, depressed, happy, sad, or hopeful. Only thing that changes is the order I'd rank them in".
That's an interesting concept and the more I think about it the more I would identify with the assessment. I have a number of core moods or core emotions that define me, some negative and some positive. There is always something attached to each of them, the only thing that changes is which one I focus on. If you ever had the feeling that "you move from one thing to the next, there's never a break" then you will probably relate to this. Each emotion in essence is a queue, when the first item is dealt with the next one falls into place and we consider how important it is and whether or not it should take priority over the others.
The length of the queue does not imply priority, we chose to give priority to whichever queue we are predisposed to focus on, through a combination of our overall cynicism, pessimism, naivety, and optimism. As we experience life and gather things to contemplate and mull over in our spare time they are added to the appropriate queue - indifference being the longest as we are most likely to experience many things which we do not hold any specific view upon - things which do not directly affect our mood but are things that we will continue to contemplate after we have experienced them, one would hope this blog post would be included in that queue, something to think about after you have read it.
Note: This idea of 'Emotive Queues' should not be confused with Emotive Cues - an existing principle under which a person's feelings are controlled by stimuli intended to provoke a given reaction i.e. a 'cue' to that emotion.
Sunday Shuffle
Every Sunday I will post the first 6 songs my iPod throws up on Shuffle mode.
Blah Blah Blah - Ke$ha
Toy Soldiers - Martika
When The Money's Gone - Cher
Don't Wanna Go - Jason Derulo
Snow Mountain - Mario 64**
I am - Chakra
Blah Blah Blah - Ke$ha
Toy Soldiers - Martika
When The Money's Gone - Cher
Don't Wanna Go - Jason Derulo
Snow Mountain - Mario 64**
** There are a few Game Soundtracks in my music library, expect to see more.
False Hope
False Hope is defined as hope within someone or something which is known to others but not you as being in vain.
A common example of false hope would be a child's belief in Santa Claus. They write letters each year to Santa asking for the presents they want. Their parents know that Santa is not real, but choose to let the child believe the lie in the name of maintaining the magical illusion of Christmas. This in itself isn't necessarily false hope, however what would be false hope would be if the child asked for something from Santa that their parents knowingly cannot afford and choose to allow the child to continue in the hope that Santa will bring their present for Christmas.
This is only one of many scenarios in which we employ false hope. You can question the morality of the parents for allowing the child to build up their hope if you wish but the real question here should be turned on hope itself. That question: Is it better to live with false hope than to live with no hope at all?
To answer this question you need to consider the positive influences hope has upon your life and consider the negative influences encountered through the sudden realisation that occurs when you discover the truth. Weigh these two factors against one another and decide which you would rather live with. In many ways this question is akin to that of love, "Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?".
My personal view is that it is better to live with false hope than to live with no hope at all. I see a life without hope as one without direction and one without aspiration which ultimately leads to depression, self-depreciation, feelings of inadequacy - in other words, hopelessness. I see hope, whether true or false, as being the polar opposite. Optimism, self-belief, motivation and ambition. Hope is often all we need to motivate us in life. Then again I have never been a self-motivated person, I have always needed something to focus on or work towards, a goal or a target to be reached. I know others who are self motivated who need no other motivation in their lives than the desire to "better themselves".
That last point could take up a whole post in itself as it leads on to a question of society as a whole and the impression of what makes one person better than another, something which I have never believed in. I have always believed that all men [and women] are created equal and that no one person was better than another, through background, race, creed, fortune or wealth. I have always accepted myself and my life for what it is and I have never seen it as something that I should "better" - I have never bought into the capitalist belief that you should accrue as much property as you could and rise up to great personal wealth - all I have ever wanted in life was to be happy. Yes, money can help you achieve that by increasing what you can consume but I have never let it consume me.
I am not a product, I am a consumer.
A common example of false hope would be a child's belief in Santa Claus. They write letters each year to Santa asking for the presents they want. Their parents know that Santa is not real, but choose to let the child believe the lie in the name of maintaining the magical illusion of Christmas. This in itself isn't necessarily false hope, however what would be false hope would be if the child asked for something from Santa that their parents knowingly cannot afford and choose to allow the child to continue in the hope that Santa will bring their present for Christmas.
This is only one of many scenarios in which we employ false hope. You can question the morality of the parents for allowing the child to build up their hope if you wish but the real question here should be turned on hope itself. That question: Is it better to live with false hope than to live with no hope at all?
To answer this question you need to consider the positive influences hope has upon your life and consider the negative influences encountered through the sudden realisation that occurs when you discover the truth. Weigh these two factors against one another and decide which you would rather live with. In many ways this question is akin to that of love, "Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?".
My personal view is that it is better to live with false hope than to live with no hope at all. I see a life without hope as one without direction and one without aspiration which ultimately leads to depression, self-depreciation, feelings of inadequacy - in other words, hopelessness. I see hope, whether true or false, as being the polar opposite. Optimism, self-belief, motivation and ambition. Hope is often all we need to motivate us in life. Then again I have never been a self-motivated person, I have always needed something to focus on or work towards, a goal or a target to be reached. I know others who are self motivated who need no other motivation in their lives than the desire to "better themselves".
That last point could take up a whole post in itself as it leads on to a question of society as a whole and the impression of what makes one person better than another, something which I have never believed in. I have always believed that all men [and women] are created equal and that no one person was better than another, through background, race, creed, fortune or wealth. I have always accepted myself and my life for what it is and I have never seen it as something that I should "better" - I have never bought into the capitalist belief that you should accrue as much property as you could and rise up to great personal wealth - all I have ever wanted in life was to be happy. Yes, money can help you achieve that by increasing what you can consume but I have never let it consume me.
I am not a product, I am a consumer.
Competitions and their Prizes
Every year McDonald's runs a competition called McDonald's Monopoly. As an incentive to buy meals from them you can get a free Monopoly leaflet marking out all the properties. You then buy meals from MccyD's where you get stickers, 2 for a regular and 3 for a large, and 1 on a medium drink and 2 on a large drink. The stickers are of the properties on the board and you have to collect 3 of any given colour group or 2 depending on the colours, and for doing so you win the prize for that property group. A few years ago while at University the top prize for managing to collect Mayfair and Park lane [the highest properties on the UK edition board] you won a house.
Whenever you fly, whichever Airport you go to there seems to always be a Car parked in the middle of the Departures, this car is the top prize in a raffle, you buy tickets and if you win you get contacted. Many shopping centres in the UK also run these Car raffles. The UK National Lottery sells scratch cards as well as their normal games. The top prizes of these scratch cards vary. But they can be as much as £250k or £500k.
I think I have named enough to illustrate my point so I'll continue. In all these competitions, I don't know anyone who has ever won the top prize, nor do I know anyone who knows someone that did. Although my experience may be limited it is enough to cast doubt in my mind and pose the question, how do you know if these competitions are real? I know there are several laws that protect against scams like them but how could you ever prove it? The Data Protection Act among other things protect the competition organisers from having to give out the details of the winners publicly, so real or not you can't exactly demand they tell you who won. Short of knowing someone who works for the competition organiser or an independent adjudicator there isn't much you can do.
In the case of the National Lottery at least an adjudicator can be called upon to verify the claims - partially owing to the fact that Camelot is partly owned by the Government.
It's interesting to note that the notion of faith in the organiser seems deeper rooted in the real world than online. We are intensely cautious of scams and fraud online, for some reason we seem to accept that it's more likely to happen online than it is off-line - is that really the case though? If I saw a website with a competition "Win an iPad 2" - I would be very sceptical, the likelihood of me entering that competition would be around 1% I would only ever enter it if it was run by a reputable site such as Amazon even then I would be very wary. However walk into any shop or local business, see a promotion for a chance to win an iPad 2, the likelihood of entering would instantly rocket, and if the entrance was free, the chance of entering practically inverts to 99%. Beggars the question, are we more conscious of fraud online?
So, what have you won? What's the biggest thing you have ever won and do you know anyone that has ever won something big?
Edit: Since writing, I have now found out I do know 1 person who has won a car from a shopping centre
Whenever you fly, whichever Airport you go to there seems to always be a Car parked in the middle of the Departures, this car is the top prize in a raffle, you buy tickets and if you win you get contacted. Many shopping centres in the UK also run these Car raffles. The UK National Lottery sells scratch cards as well as their normal games. The top prizes of these scratch cards vary. But they can be as much as £250k or £500k.
I think I have named enough to illustrate my point so I'll continue. In all these competitions, I don't know anyone who has ever won the top prize, nor do I know anyone who knows someone that did. Although my experience may be limited it is enough to cast doubt in my mind and pose the question, how do you know if these competitions are real? I know there are several laws that protect against scams like them but how could you ever prove it? The Data Protection Act among other things protect the competition organisers from having to give out the details of the winners publicly, so real or not you can't exactly demand they tell you who won. Short of knowing someone who works for the competition organiser or an independent adjudicator there isn't much you can do.
In the case of the National Lottery at least an adjudicator can be called upon to verify the claims - partially owing to the fact that Camelot is partly owned by the Government.
It's interesting to note that the notion of faith in the organiser seems deeper rooted in the real world than online. We are intensely cautious of scams and fraud online, for some reason we seem to accept that it's more likely to happen online than it is off-line - is that really the case though? If I saw a website with a competition "Win an iPad 2" - I would be very sceptical, the likelihood of me entering that competition would be around 1% I would only ever enter it if it was run by a reputable site such as Amazon even then I would be very wary. However walk into any shop or local business, see a promotion for a chance to win an iPad 2, the likelihood of entering would instantly rocket, and if the entrance was free, the chance of entering practically inverts to 99%. Beggars the question, are we more conscious of fraud online?
So, what have you won? What's the biggest thing you have ever won and do you know anyone that has ever won something big?
Edit: Since writing, I have now found out I do know 1 person who has won a car from a shopping centre
Flashback
A few months ago I wrote a post about Unwritten Words - that is to say the posts, drawings, writing and other forms of artistic expression that I have created at some point then undone - unwritten in the case of writing i.e. deleted.
I was having a root around my external hard drive, which in itself is an Aladdin's Cave of goodies. Buried in the far reaches of some obscure folders I found a few Word documents one of them entitled 'Autumn is Here'. I thought I would share it. This is a poem, admittedly not my best but I am 23 years old now and this was written when I was all of 8 or 9 years of age. My teachers were always quite supportive of anything I or my classmates wrote, stories and poetry included. In high school one of my classmates even wrote a play while a few wrote fan fiction, wholeheartedly encouraged by our teachers. I remember one guy bringing in a story he wrote that must of been somewhere between 300 and 500 pages long, typed on A4 regular sized font etc no attempt to cheat to make it seem more.
So here is a little flashback for you to share with me: [unedited]
I was having a root around my external hard drive, which in itself is an Aladdin's Cave of goodies. Buried in the far reaches of some obscure folders I found a few Word documents one of them entitled 'Autumn is Here'. I thought I would share it. This is a poem, admittedly not my best but I am 23 years old now and this was written when I was all of 8 or 9 years of age. My teachers were always quite supportive of anything I or my classmates wrote, stories and poetry included. In high school one of my classmates even wrote a play while a few wrote fan fiction, wholeheartedly encouraged by our teachers. I remember one guy bringing in a story he wrote that must of been somewhere between 300 and 500 pages long, typed on A4 regular sized font etc no attempt to cheat to make it seem more.
So here is a little flashback for you to share with me: [unedited]
'A Year Has Passed'
Autumn is here
Have no fear
In come the dark nights
Hallows eve with spooks and frights
Delicious food
The Christmas Prelude
Burnt orange and sunny amber
Cool crisp nights of September
Winter is here
Have no fear
Reds and greens of Christmas Lights
Wrapped up in bed on the cold dark nights
A marvellous spread
All the things we did and said
Christmas day so full of presents
All the day we feel Christ's presence
Spring is here
Have no fear
The lambs are born
Early in the Morn
Bright sky at night
The sailor’s delight
The rivers run
Feel the heat of the rising sun
Summer is here
Have no fear
Holidays full of fun
No worries just lie in the sun
The longer days have come
Loved but hated by some
A year has come and passed
But our memories will always last
Have no fear
In come the dark nights
Hallows eve with spooks and frights
Delicious food
The Christmas Prelude
Burnt orange and sunny amber
Cool crisp nights of September
Winter is here
Have no fear
Reds and greens of Christmas Lights
Wrapped up in bed on the cold dark nights
A marvellous spread
All the things we did and said
Christmas day so full of presents
All the day we feel Christ's presence
Spring is here
Have no fear
The lambs are born
Early in the Morn
Bright sky at night
The sailor’s delight
The rivers run
Feel the heat of the rising sun
Summer is here
Have no fear
Holidays full of fun
No worries just lie in the sun
The longer days have come
Loved but hated by some
A year has come and passed
But our memories will always last
Sunday Shuffle
Future Shock
From 1965 up until 2003 BBC aired a Television programme called 'Tomorrow's World', on which the latest technology and predictions for the future of technology were shown. Looking back on the show there are many things they got completely wrong and there are many things that we would now laugh at. However there is something we forget quite easily - we live in The Future. That is The Future from the perspective of someone who was alive in 1965.
Recently the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-Il passed away and when he did the attentions of the world once again focused on the most secretive Nation on Earth. One of the interesting things I saw during that brief time of media fixations that made me think was the story of how defectors - people who flee North Korea to the South - have to attend re-education centres. Reason being they have lived in a country that for so long has been decades behind the rest of the world - even third world countries. There are starving impoverished nations in Africa, yet even those nations have Internet access and Electricity. North Koreans perhaps have one of the greatest juxtapositions to overcome when defecting, in that they defect to South Korea, a nation which for all intents and purposes is one of the most technologically forward moving in the world.
I can't imagine trying to explain how to use the Internet to someone who I also have to explain what a Computer is, a Keyboard and a Mouse etc. When you stop and think about how technology has enveloped our lives, to someone from a 1960's mindset we are quite the conundrum. Can you imagine what our phones would appear to them? Roll back 20 years alone and Mobile Phones weren't that common, in 1992 Tim Berners-Lee's baby the World Wide Web was only learning to crawl. Roll back 50 years to 1962 and ARPANET [the precursor to the Internet] was only just being developed. To imagine telling one of those researchers, 50 years from now people will hold devices in the palm of their hand that lets them use this Network anywhere in the world, to communicate instantaneously with billions of others around the globe. The technology we have at our fingertips, the amount of information so readily accessible and the ease of communication across continents are things that we never really stop and appreciate.
To think without technology you would never know I existed - me specifically; yet here you are reading my thoughts, seeing what I think about life, love, money, happiness and all manner of things.
Recently the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-Il passed away and when he did the attentions of the world once again focused on the most secretive Nation on Earth. One of the interesting things I saw during that brief time of media fixations that made me think was the story of how defectors - people who flee North Korea to the South - have to attend re-education centres. Reason being they have lived in a country that for so long has been decades behind the rest of the world - even third world countries. There are starving impoverished nations in Africa, yet even those nations have Internet access and Electricity. North Koreans perhaps have one of the greatest juxtapositions to overcome when defecting, in that they defect to South Korea, a nation which for all intents and purposes is one of the most technologically forward moving in the world.
I can't imagine trying to explain how to use the Internet to someone who I also have to explain what a Computer is, a Keyboard and a Mouse etc. When you stop and think about how technology has enveloped our lives, to someone from a 1960's mindset we are quite the conundrum. Can you imagine what our phones would appear to them? Roll back 20 years alone and Mobile Phones weren't that common, in 1992 Tim Berners-Lee's baby the World Wide Web was only learning to crawl. Roll back 50 years to 1962 and ARPANET [the precursor to the Internet] was only just being developed. To imagine telling one of those researchers, 50 years from now people will hold devices in the palm of their hand that lets them use this Network anywhere in the world, to communicate instantaneously with billions of others around the globe. The technology we have at our fingertips, the amount of information so readily accessible and the ease of communication across continents are things that we never really stop and appreciate.
To think without technology you would never know I existed - me specifically; yet here you are reading my thoughts, seeing what I think about life, love, money, happiness and all manner of things.
The Psychology of Fear
Fear falls into one of two categories, rational and irrational. A rational fear is one that a person experiences as a result of exposure to a particular stimulus, as a result fear is caused by this previous traumatic experience associated with the same stimulus. Take an individual who experiences an earthquake during which they get hurt or experience a scene of great horror. When exposed again to the same stimulus, another earthquake the individual experiences immense panic, a state of disorientation and excited breathing - adrenaline surges through the individual causing them to shake as they are filled with excess energy in a stagnant situation.
Irrational fear has no known cause. There is no reason behind the individual's fear of the stimulus to give an example, an irrational fear of jelly [jello for the American readers] or of feathers etc, these fears are often held against objects which could not within reason cause any harm to the individual. For all intents and purposes irrational fears are deemed irrational as a result of the collective opinion of those who observe those who experience the fear. A fear with no known cause other than anxiety in itself cannot be considered irrational, for example a fear of Snakes in an individual with no past experiences positive or negative involving Snakes.
I would add a third category to fears, one that could be considered a sub-category of irrational fears depending on your point of view. This category I would call "Illogical Fears" - that is to say fears that don't follow logic. The best example I could give to demonstrate the distinction here would be to say that I see illogical fears as being a fear of something you do want, but for some reason fear. The most common illogical fear would be a fear of commitment, many want commitment and want a relationship but on some level hold a fear of that commitment which can provoke the same responses as listed above. That is an uneasiness when put into a situation involving commitment, a desire to escape that situation and above all else a desire to prevent themselves from being put in that situation again. That last point is the greatest point of note surrounding illogical fear, in that although this is how the subject would behave they aren't always conscious of the fact they behave in this way and even when they do they don't fully understand why, nor can they stop themselves - in other words their reactions are involuntary.
In all three categories one question remains, a question that for many writers of self help books proves to be a proverbial oil well of riches to be struck as it is confronted - the question: How do you conquer a fear?
A quick search for books on fears will show there exists a plethora of resources that all pose different methods and approaches to conquering fears, yet ultimately fear boils down to one thing, determination. You will only conquer a fear if you are determined to conquer that fear. If you are not determined to conquer your fear then the real issue is not the fear itself but what the fear represents and why you choose not to confront it.
Irrational fear has no known cause. There is no reason behind the individual's fear of the stimulus to give an example, an irrational fear of jelly [jello for the American readers] or of feathers etc, these fears are often held against objects which could not within reason cause any harm to the individual. For all intents and purposes irrational fears are deemed irrational as a result of the collective opinion of those who observe those who experience the fear. A fear with no known cause other than anxiety in itself cannot be considered irrational, for example a fear of Snakes in an individual with no past experiences positive or negative involving Snakes.
I would add a third category to fears, one that could be considered a sub-category of irrational fears depending on your point of view. This category I would call "Illogical Fears" - that is to say fears that don't follow logic. The best example I could give to demonstrate the distinction here would be to say that I see illogical fears as being a fear of something you do want, but for some reason fear. The most common illogical fear would be a fear of commitment, many want commitment and want a relationship but on some level hold a fear of that commitment which can provoke the same responses as listed above. That is an uneasiness when put into a situation involving commitment, a desire to escape that situation and above all else a desire to prevent themselves from being put in that situation again. That last point is the greatest point of note surrounding illogical fear, in that although this is how the subject would behave they aren't always conscious of the fact they behave in this way and even when they do they don't fully understand why, nor can they stop themselves - in other words their reactions are involuntary.
In all three categories one question remains, a question that for many writers of self help books proves to be a proverbial oil well of riches to be struck as it is confronted - the question: How do you conquer a fear?
A quick search for books on fears will show there exists a plethora of resources that all pose different methods and approaches to conquering fears, yet ultimately fear boils down to one thing, determination. You will only conquer a fear if you are determined to conquer that fear. If you are not determined to conquer your fear then the real issue is not the fear itself but what the fear represents and why you choose not to confront it.
Happy Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day can be quite depressing if you are single, either that or you can be quite bitter about the whole thing and express various statements of discord and disapproval of the day itself. To me Valentine's day represents a few things but above all else it represents the celebration of love both amorous and amicable. Love of a lover, Love of a friend, a family member or a pet etc.
This year I am still single for Valentine's Day - no surprises there. So to all those I love, and if I love you, you will surely know! I simply wish a Happy Valentine's day. To all those who are single like me I wish you a Happy Valentine's Day too whether you like it or not I wish you happiness and good luck for the future. Today is not a day for ill feelings.
I leave you with one of my favourite videos on Youtube, every time I watch it I well up and want to cry in a good way
This year I am still single for Valentine's Day - no surprises there. So to all those I love, and if I love you, you will surely know! I simply wish a Happy Valentine's day. To all those who are single like me I wish you a Happy Valentine's Day too whether you like it or not I wish you happiness and good luck for the future. Today is not a day for ill feelings.
I leave you with one of my favourite videos on Youtube, every time I watch it I well up and want to cry in a good way
Sigh and Breathe
I don't know if I am the only one who experiences this but there are times when I have something to say or something to tell someone when the words will run through my head a thousand times over. I plan out what I would say like an editor of a newspaper making revisions adding things and removing things until I think I have it perfect.
Then in the moment something happens where a bubble within me bursts and everything is forgotten and I just sigh then breathe and in that moment my mind is clear. I am completely calm and all pretense drops and my words become heavy yet understood entirely with little thought as the truth comes out, sometimes with a profound tone others with an air of prophetic wisdom that seems to spell the end.
In the moments that follow the words hang in the air often bringing epiphany for myself as much as the person they were intended for. In these rare moments I am incredibly sedate and often air feelings I didn't realise I had yet once spoken I find that I mean every word.
These moments of sedation as you may sense from the tone of my writing are often those borne of negative feelings or situations that have negative repercussions on me - most often being stress. Perhaps then the moment when the bubble bursts, this is my mind giving up, abandoning all reason and logic and letting go, what comes next is spoken from the heart, uncensored and unyielding.
Then in the moment something happens where a bubble within me bursts and everything is forgotten and I just sigh then breathe and in that moment my mind is clear. I am completely calm and all pretense drops and my words become heavy yet understood entirely with little thought as the truth comes out, sometimes with a profound tone others with an air of prophetic wisdom that seems to spell the end.
In the moments that follow the words hang in the air often bringing epiphany for myself as much as the person they were intended for. In these rare moments I am incredibly sedate and often air feelings I didn't realise I had yet once spoken I find that I mean every word.
These moments of sedation as you may sense from the tone of my writing are often those borne of negative feelings or situations that have negative repercussions on me - most often being stress. Perhaps then the moment when the bubble bursts, this is my mind giving up, abandoning all reason and logic and letting go, what comes next is spoken from the heart, uncensored and unyielding.
Sunday Shuffle
Nicknames and Pseudonyms
In my '30 Days of Funny' challenge I mentioned that I had the nickname 'Dave' in High School which was a mixture of annoyance and pleasure. To go further than that I have a pseudonym I use online sometimes, I won't share the full name but the first name is Adam - some of you will know the full name others won't and for those that don't, please don't take it as any betrayal of trust. It's a name I sometimes use for writing etc where I wouldn't want to be personally identified.
In terms of a pseudonym there are many views that can be taken in terms of Psychology. Some can argue that the name is in effect a Masquerade and therefore brings with it the same liberties being masked, unknown and free of predefined or predetermined expectations. It can also be seen as a guise and therefore grants the writer freedom to entertain thoughts and feelings that they otherwise wouldn't. In my case the reason I use it is that it provides a level of privacy and anonymity.
Another use for pseudonyms is that born of the desire to create a faceless individual or a faceless entity. This can best be illustrated by groups using a single pseudonym as a collective guise such as a team of writers co-writing a book then released under a pseudonym to prevent knowledge of the fact it was not a single writer's work. Or to take the desire for anonymity to a further point such as the hacktivist group Anonymous whose collective refer to themselves simply as Anonymous or Legion. Despite Anonymous using Guy Fawkes masks as a symbol of their unity and as a privacy precaution the group remains faceless. It remains faceless as the character of Guy Fawkes masks the true identity of the individual and the collective.
Another interesting point about Pseudonyms and Nicknames that it is also worth mentioning is the psychology behind our perceptions of names. That is the impression of "strong" and "weak" names - often defined as names that strongly or weakly imply a native ethnicity of the country in general where they are used. To give an example I have met a few people who have come to the UK to live, often with names that are not ethnically native to the UK. I often hear of these people Anglicising their names for a number of reasons, often primarily touted as being "easier to pronounce" but can actually be argued as a sub-conscious desire for respect.
Whatever the reason for a pseudonym or a nickname, every year in the UK thousands of people issue requests to change their names by Deed Poll although their choices are often varied in motivation, there are those who choose to make their nicknames or pseudonyms their formal legal names.
Do you have a nickname or a pseudonym? Would you ever make it your legal name?
In terms of a pseudonym there are many views that can be taken in terms of Psychology. Some can argue that the name is in effect a Masquerade and therefore brings with it the same liberties being masked, unknown and free of predefined or predetermined expectations. It can also be seen as a guise and therefore grants the writer freedom to entertain thoughts and feelings that they otherwise wouldn't. In my case the reason I use it is that it provides a level of privacy and anonymity.
Another use for pseudonyms is that born of the desire to create a faceless individual or a faceless entity. This can best be illustrated by groups using a single pseudonym as a collective guise such as a team of writers co-writing a book then released under a pseudonym to prevent knowledge of the fact it was not a single writer's work. Or to take the desire for anonymity to a further point such as the hacktivist group Anonymous whose collective refer to themselves simply as Anonymous or Legion. Despite Anonymous using Guy Fawkes masks as a symbol of their unity and as a privacy precaution the group remains faceless. It remains faceless as the character of Guy Fawkes masks the true identity of the individual and the collective.
Another interesting point about Pseudonyms and Nicknames that it is also worth mentioning is the psychology behind our perceptions of names. That is the impression of "strong" and "weak" names - often defined as names that strongly or weakly imply a native ethnicity of the country in general where they are used. To give an example I have met a few people who have come to the UK to live, often with names that are not ethnically native to the UK. I often hear of these people Anglicising their names for a number of reasons, often primarily touted as being "easier to pronounce" but can actually be argued as a sub-conscious desire for respect.
Whatever the reason for a pseudonym or a nickname, every year in the UK thousands of people issue requests to change their names by Deed Poll although their choices are often varied in motivation, there are those who choose to make their nicknames or pseudonyms their formal legal names.
Do you have a nickname or a pseudonym? Would you ever make it your legal name?
Fate
Doctor: You didn't always take me where I wanted to go!
TARDIS: No, but I always took you where you needed to goTo borrow this quote from Doctor Who, there have been a lot of things in my life that never went the way I wanted them to, but on some level I have to think if they always turned out the way I needed them to. There have been things in the moment that I have missed and been upset but down the line whether it be years, months, days or even hours later realised that it was actually a good thing I did miss out.
If you have read my blog or know a bit about me you will know that I believe in fate, again borrowing from Doctor Who I believe we are born at point A and die at point Z and along the way there are certain points that are fixed in time, things that will happen, will always happen regardless of what we do to try and stop them. We have free will and the path we take is ours to choose, those points that are fixed will move with our choices, the Universe compensating around them to ensure those fixed events still happen. Point Z may or may not be fixed.
This bout of philosophical retrospection has come about as a result of yet another attempt by me at trying to make something happen, at the time it seemed like a good idea and I was upset when it didn't happen, but now, hours later with a clearer mind I think perhaps it is a good thing it didn't happen. It beggars the question though, at what point do you stop seeing gathering obstacles and complications as a challenge and start seeing them as a sign things aren't meant to be?
You don't always get what you want in life, and you don't get everything you want handed to you, all this I know, if you want some things you need to put time and effort into it - but it's also true to say at times "it shouldn't be this hard".
If the amount of work required to achieve something continues to rise to the point where it far outweighs the reward, implying, it's not worth it, does that mean it's not meant to be?
In a business sense at least if the cost of a project increases to an excruciatingly high level and the time devoted becomes tantamount to an investment that far outweighs the return, the project would likely be abandoned and losses cut. If we negate emotions and treat our lives as businesses then there are many things we would never pursue.
Our Bubbles
What can I say to catch your eye? I could list all the Artists and Musicians I like, I could list the Movies I love and so on but what would that really tell you about me? It would tell you what I like, but a visit to any website on the Internet will show you what people like. You can see countless pages of videos on Youtube of things people like, you can see endless pages on facebook of things people "like" but what does it really tell you about the person?
You and I could have a lot in common, all of the above for each of us could be perfectly overlapped, everything you like and everything I like equal, but does that mean we would get along? Can you honestly say every one of your friends like everything you do? The statement is laughable at best, because we are all different. There will inevitably be things we don't like that our friends do, does that mean we stop being friends with them? Well if it did it would probably cast us in quite a shallow light. I admit there are certain interests which can tear friendships apart but for the most part, having different interests shouldn't mean that you can't get along.
If I listed my interests and they were to overlap yours, would you feel an affinity with me? Would it motivate you to attempt to form a friendship with me? What if I listed my interests and you did not like any at all? Would that deter you from taking the same course of action? If opposites do attract and if we are ever to break out of our bubbles of segregation we shouldn't use commonalities as a deciding factor in whether or not we want to form a friendship with someone.
In most cases people use commonalities to form friendships for one reason, it is a talking point. Something to start a conversation about with the other person. Commonalities are often brought up out of circumstance and situation, more so when the other person is a complete stranger. Examples being, when starting a new job people often talk about their jobs and the company when getting to know their colleagues. Or perhaps starting University, students get to know one another asking the bog-standard questions, what course, what subject, why did they choose it etc. Leave those situations and environments and venture online and the potential topics shift.
As far as dating sites are concerned among other sites intended to form some level of connection between strangers, the common environment becomes incredibly limited, at its simplest point the only commonality is that both people are using the same site. That leads you to read profiles, hoping their profile lists something for you to pick out or something that makes you smile or hooks you in, to the point where you want to stop reading and start talking.
It is hard to sum up a person and their being. We are so much more than text, we are so much more than Music and Movies, Hair colour, Eye colour, Body Type and the endless list of 'stats' these websites like us to list. Think now of your closest friends and how you met them, think of when you first spoke and of what you knew about them before you did.
We form friendships by getting to know one another. We form friendships by talking to one another and finding out our interests, what we share and what we don't, and in some cases learning new things about others interests, things you probably never thought about but may actually find interesting. The Internet and dating websites and social networks are killing our ability to form friendships with people who don't share our interests. We judge before we get to know them whether we would like them, based on whether or not they like what we like. We are breeding segregation.
You and I could have a lot in common, all of the above for each of us could be perfectly overlapped, everything you like and everything I like equal, but does that mean we would get along? Can you honestly say every one of your friends like everything you do? The statement is laughable at best, because we are all different. There will inevitably be things we don't like that our friends do, does that mean we stop being friends with them? Well if it did it would probably cast us in quite a shallow light. I admit there are certain interests which can tear friendships apart but for the most part, having different interests shouldn't mean that you can't get along.
If I listed my interests and they were to overlap yours, would you feel an affinity with me? Would it motivate you to attempt to form a friendship with me? What if I listed my interests and you did not like any at all? Would that deter you from taking the same course of action? If opposites do attract and if we are ever to break out of our bubbles of segregation we shouldn't use commonalities as a deciding factor in whether or not we want to form a friendship with someone.
In most cases people use commonalities to form friendships for one reason, it is a talking point. Something to start a conversation about with the other person. Commonalities are often brought up out of circumstance and situation, more so when the other person is a complete stranger. Examples being, when starting a new job people often talk about their jobs and the company when getting to know their colleagues. Or perhaps starting University, students get to know one another asking the bog-standard questions, what course, what subject, why did they choose it etc. Leave those situations and environments and venture online and the potential topics shift.
As far as dating sites are concerned among other sites intended to form some level of connection between strangers, the common environment becomes incredibly limited, at its simplest point the only commonality is that both people are using the same site. That leads you to read profiles, hoping their profile lists something for you to pick out or something that makes you smile or hooks you in, to the point where you want to stop reading and start talking.
It is hard to sum up a person and their being. We are so much more than text, we are so much more than Music and Movies, Hair colour, Eye colour, Body Type and the endless list of 'stats' these websites like us to list. Think now of your closest friends and how you met them, think of when you first spoke and of what you knew about them before you did.
We form friendships by getting to know one another. We form friendships by talking to one another and finding out our interests, what we share and what we don't, and in some cases learning new things about others interests, things you probably never thought about but may actually find interesting. The Internet and dating websites and social networks are killing our ability to form friendships with people who don't share our interests. We judge before we get to know them whether we would like them, based on whether or not they like what we like. We are breeding segregation.
Sunday Shuffle
This post is the first of many posts that will be made every Sunday. Quite simply it is an extension of the iPod Shuffle Game but this time ongoing. Every Sunday I will use the shuffle feature of my iPod and post the first 6 songs that come up. I will endeavour to find Youtube videos for each but there are some obscure tracks in my music collection that I may not be able to find.
Here we go:
Here we go:
Star - Bryan Adams
Tell It To My Heart - Taylor Dayne
The Sound Of Goodbye - Armin Van Buuren
Baby It's Fact - HelloGoodbye
Forever Young - Interactive
Uninvited - Freemasons
Favoritism
We all have things we like, foods music, movies, games and even web sites included. We can encapsulate ourselves within bubbles of favoritism however as a result.
The thought occurred to me when I was listening to music on my ipod, there's a playlist that lists the top 25 played songs. That's a brilliant thing to have because I get to listen to my favourite songs but it occurred to me that if I always went to this playlist then ultimately those 25 tracks and their play counts would go up and up until they became the only 25 tracks that would be listed there. For any new track to make it into that list I would have to listen to it in a short period of time so many times to outnumber the play count of the lowest track in the list which would encompass plays from the entire length of time it had been in my library. There in lies the problem of favoritism.
Even on the various video sharing web sites online there is in most cases a most viewed section. The same problem occurs there, if the most viewed section becomes the go to point for the majority of users it will sooner rather than later establish a near static chart which will only continue to rise in views making it harder for new content to break through.
Go beyond the internet and we can extend this to other things, anything ultimately that is associated with a definitive ranking system, even a system that becomes highly regarded but not an authority. Take university league tables. Are those at the top truly the best or did they reach their spot and become established as the most popular leading anyone who regards the league table to apply for them first again the league table establishing a "go to" relationship.
Is it really prudent to use ranking systems, for anything? How do you prevent ranking systems from causing bias and influencing their own ranks?
The thought occurred to me when I was listening to music on my ipod, there's a playlist that lists the top 25 played songs. That's a brilliant thing to have because I get to listen to my favourite songs but it occurred to me that if I always went to this playlist then ultimately those 25 tracks and their play counts would go up and up until they became the only 25 tracks that would be listed there. For any new track to make it into that list I would have to listen to it in a short period of time so many times to outnumber the play count of the lowest track in the list which would encompass plays from the entire length of time it had been in my library. There in lies the problem of favoritism.
Even on the various video sharing web sites online there is in most cases a most viewed section. The same problem occurs there, if the most viewed section becomes the go to point for the majority of users it will sooner rather than later establish a near static chart which will only continue to rise in views making it harder for new content to break through.
Go beyond the internet and we can extend this to other things, anything ultimately that is associated with a definitive ranking system, even a system that becomes highly regarded but not an authority. Take university league tables. Are those at the top truly the best or did they reach their spot and become established as the most popular leading anyone who regards the league table to apply for them first again the league table establishing a "go to" relationship.
Is it really prudent to use ranking systems, for anything? How do you prevent ranking systems from causing bias and influencing their own ranks?
The Internet is for . . .
What is the Internet for? Well if you believe the common perception as demonstrated by the video you would say the Internet is comprised mostly of porn and that the remaining uses would account for a fraction of the overall content.
You might believe that but it's not true. Porn on the Internet actually accounts for 1% of the content [this figure is taken from the US Government survey in 2006. Of the remaining 99% 29% is genuine content and the other 70% is spam. The only logical conclusion is that the Internet is for spam. That in itself makes you wonder what this says about us as a collective conscious. Of that spam I would believe a large part would be scams and cons intended to take money from you, the remainder simply being useless pointless content.
I have a problem with procrastination and I don't think I am alone in this, you only have to speak to a few people and you'll soon find that almost everyone does. Maybe these figures dividing the content of the Internet could in theory be turned back on us, maybe 70% of our time is spent procrastinating and doing things that are basically a waste of time. 29% of our time spent doing something worthwhile and the remaining 1% spent having sex.
There are probably a few people out there immediately jumping in with a defence to say they have more sex than that, well I would ask you, "Are you sure?". In a post I made a while ago about my life in numbers I asked people how exciting their lives were and broke down my life into figures, if we do a little Maths here we can have a quick glance:
Let's say you live to the age of 100 [I say that cause its the easiest figure to work with]. 1% of that life would mean you spent 1 solid year having sex, 29 years doing something worthwhile and 70 years wasting time.
1 year amounts to 8,766 hours. With 100 years of life, each year having 365.25 days you live 36,525 days, divide 8,766 hours by that figure and you get 0.24 exactly. That means you spend 14 minutes and 24 seconds having sex every single day of your life if you have sex 1% of the the total time you lived. Take out the childhood where one would hope you weren't having sex, that daily time period slowly increases. I doubt there are many people who would have sex every single day of their life without fail through sickness and injury. It is entirely reasonable to accept that we spend 1% of our lives having sex.
What about the others? 29% doing something practical and 70% doing useless time wasting crap. I could easily accept that to be true without even doing the maths to figure it out. Read the post I linked above about how much you have actually "lived" and if anything you would probably wonder if you have even made it anywhere near 29%
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