Every now and then I get an itch that needs to be scratched. Not a literal itch but a figurative itch, one that centres around mental exercise. I wouldn't call it boredom as such, because I wouldn't exactly say I don't fill my time with plenty of things to keep me busy. No this is more of a desire or a craving for something mentally challenging; like a craving is a desire for a certain type of food, this is a desire for a certain type of thought.
When I get a mental itch the things I scratch it with are strategic, mathematical, or logical. Real Time Strategy games are a great place to start but like most things I am often left to look for older games as newer ones tend to be less challenging. Mathematical puzzles like Sudoku are also very effective, as are logic puzzles. One of my favourite PC games when it comes to strategy is Caesar III, which was developed in the late 90s by a company called Impressions Games and published by Sierra Entertainment. They created a whole series of City Building games but the Caesar series was my favourite and Caesar III was the best of the series in my opinion. I get an urge to play this game every now and then because it challenges me. Despite knowing some optimum strategies there are still ways in which the game can challenge me mainly through challenge maps created with the Map Editor which can be used to set ridiculously high goals with the odds stacked against you.
I've always had this itch come back. Whenever I feel like I haven't been challenged much or if I feel like I'm reaching a point where I'm just going through the motions. Like I said I wouldn't call it boredom because it's not a lack of things to do, I have plenty and I immerse myself in that work until it's complete, this is more about having something different to focus on that presents me with something dynamic to engage with.
The strange thing is, while you'd probably associate this with attention and distractions, I wouldn't view it that way. These aren't things I do to procrastinate, on the contrary they are things I do after I have completed my work to unwind. I've never quite understood how something that makes me think and focus helps me unwind but it does. Then again I guess the fact it occupies my mind to a point where I don't think about the work I was doing or anything else for that matter, could perhaps explain it, but it's still increased activity with the aim of decreasing activity - it's a contradiction I know, but it works.
One thing I do notice when I go through phases such as this, is that I find myself a lot more coherent which helps increase my productivity and this actually accelerates the work I was doing in the first place. I've touched on this wave of energy before when writing about awakenings I just wish there was a reliable way to reproduce it. This behaviour without the precedent of the itch doesn't lead to the same outcome if anything it has the opposite effect. The mind really is an unusual thing, at times I often wonder if there really is such a thing as a soul, and that the will of the body and the will of the mind represent the conflict between the two. I know some people don't believe in any such thing I just feel there are times when you can feel like a completely different person and be entirely conscious of that yet powerless to control it.
Dance like nobody is watching
Do you dance when you're alone? When no-one else is around and you listen to your favourite music, do you ever get lost in the moment and feel free?
One of the things I see a lot in single people is the anxious feeling that others will judge them for how they behave, so they alter their behaviour to be close to what they think attracts others. On the flip side what I see from people in long term relationships and those who are married is an honesty and openness about each others' behaviour.
Some people say you find love when you stop looking for it, or that it finds you. I have a theory the reason that's true for some people is down to this alteration in behaviour. When you're not looking, you stop trying to be something you're not, and embrace who you are. You stop trying to be the person that you think attracts others and just be yourself.
If openness and honesty, and above all else, self-acceptance, is what ultimately leads you to happiness then I think the only path you can really pursue is the path of least resistance. In other words, stop listening to what other people tell you to do or say, and do what feels right to you. Trust your own judgement.
So dance like no-one's watching, because that's what feels natural to you, don't dance the way others want you to, or stop yourself from dancing at all. At the end of the day all that achieves is to turn yourself into a puppet, of which you let everyone but yourself pull the strings.
One of the things I see a lot in single people is the anxious feeling that others will judge them for how they behave, so they alter their behaviour to be close to what they think attracts others. On the flip side what I see from people in long term relationships and those who are married is an honesty and openness about each others' behaviour.
Some people say you find love when you stop looking for it, or that it finds you. I have a theory the reason that's true for some people is down to this alteration in behaviour. When you're not looking, you stop trying to be something you're not, and embrace who you are. You stop trying to be the person that you think attracts others and just be yourself.
If openness and honesty, and above all else, self-acceptance, is what ultimately leads you to happiness then I think the only path you can really pursue is the path of least resistance. In other words, stop listening to what other people tell you to do or say, and do what feels right to you. Trust your own judgement.
So dance like no-one's watching, because that's what feels natural to you, don't dance the way others want you to, or stop yourself from dancing at all. At the end of the day all that achieves is to turn yourself into a puppet, of which you let everyone but yourself pull the strings.
Sleep
I have written about my eye condition (Nystagmus) on this blog before and the impact they have on my life. In particular I have mentioned my struggles with insomnia and sleep patterns in general. I've been thrown out of sync the last week or so to the extent that I find myself awake and 3 a.m. wondering about the most random things. The problem with my insomnia isn't the fact I can't sleep however, it's the prolonged tiredness that inevitably ensues since I can't get enough sleep. That can be battled to an extent with energy drinks etc but you can't use them indefinitely and they only make things worse in the end so they aren't a practical solution.
I started to think about what it is I actually do with my time when I can't sleep. I listen to music, I watch old TV shows, I play games, I write, or do puzzles like crosswords and sudoku to try and slip away. I don't have the energy in those moments to do much that's in any way productive. This is when I stopped to wonder, if you could abolish the need for sleep, without any negative consequence, what would you do with the extra time?
I have been asking this question of others and the answers are for the most part inspiring and optimistic, but in other cases they are somewhat depressing. The most depressing answer I have had people give is that they would spend longer in work. That to me is conflicting because the thing most people complain about in relation to their jobs is their work-life balance, and the fact that their lives are often put in second place with work first. I can't imagine why you would want to spend even more time in work if you suddenly found yourself with 8 to 10 extra hours to do whatever you wanted each day.
Some of the more inspiring ideas are those which seek to further themselves through studying or through increased activities. Learning new skills, languages, getting physically fit, even just having the time to spend cooking food you actually want to eat, and spending time with family and friends are among the replies that make me smile.
On the other hand I have to think about expectations. While we may think about what we would do with that extra time, I have to stop and think about what others would expect of us if we had that extra time. "There aren't enough hours in the day" is a phrase that is repeated many times but what if there were more hours suddenly for everyone, would the extra time we gain actually be our own, or would society change to compensate for that? Would we be expected to work longer days in work because we don't need sleep and rest? With many people working 12 hour shifts sometimes more as it is in the current environment, what would they do under another? Would 24 hour shifts become a reality? Could you realistically be expected to work an entire day? I am not saying you'd work 24/7/365, but the maximum duration of a single shift instead, would it rise to 24 hours rather than 12?
This question is very reminiscent of "And then what?" posed in many works of fiction. In the movie 'Death Becomes Her' starring Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, and Bruce Willis, the former two take a potion that lets them live forever, young and beautiful, but not without impunity; they then try and convince the latter to take the same potion but he poses the same question "And then what?" - if he lived forever he'd never grow old, he'd have to watch everyone else grow old and die. The reality of the question hits and he refuses to take the potion. I find myself wondering whether sleep isn't just something we have to do to stay alive, but whether it's something we need to stay sane.
I started to think about what it is I actually do with my time when I can't sleep. I listen to music, I watch old TV shows, I play games, I write, or do puzzles like crosswords and sudoku to try and slip away. I don't have the energy in those moments to do much that's in any way productive. This is when I stopped to wonder, if you could abolish the need for sleep, without any negative consequence, what would you do with the extra time?
I have been asking this question of others and the answers are for the most part inspiring and optimistic, but in other cases they are somewhat depressing. The most depressing answer I have had people give is that they would spend longer in work. That to me is conflicting because the thing most people complain about in relation to their jobs is their work-life balance, and the fact that their lives are often put in second place with work first. I can't imagine why you would want to spend even more time in work if you suddenly found yourself with 8 to 10 extra hours to do whatever you wanted each day.
Some of the more inspiring ideas are those which seek to further themselves through studying or through increased activities. Learning new skills, languages, getting physically fit, even just having the time to spend cooking food you actually want to eat, and spending time with family and friends are among the replies that make me smile.
On the other hand I have to think about expectations. While we may think about what we would do with that extra time, I have to stop and think about what others would expect of us if we had that extra time. "There aren't enough hours in the day" is a phrase that is repeated many times but what if there were more hours suddenly for everyone, would the extra time we gain actually be our own, or would society change to compensate for that? Would we be expected to work longer days in work because we don't need sleep and rest? With many people working 12 hour shifts sometimes more as it is in the current environment, what would they do under another? Would 24 hour shifts become a reality? Could you realistically be expected to work an entire day? I am not saying you'd work 24/7/365, but the maximum duration of a single shift instead, would it rise to 24 hours rather than 12?
This question is very reminiscent of "And then what?" posed in many works of fiction. In the movie 'Death Becomes Her' starring Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, and Bruce Willis, the former two take a potion that lets them live forever, young and beautiful, but not without impunity; they then try and convince the latter to take the same potion but he poses the same question "And then what?" - if he lived forever he'd never grow old, he'd have to watch everyone else grow old and die. The reality of the question hits and he refuses to take the potion. I find myself wondering whether sleep isn't just something we have to do to stay alive, but whether it's something we need to stay sane.
How are you?
There's a fine line to walk between what people can take and what you can give. The two aren't always equal, and when you are someone like me, who doesn't really hold back, there's a consciousness you have to hold when you meet new people for the first time. That line is defined by a question, which version of "you" do you want them to know? The real you? Or the outer shell of you?
This isn't about deception, or the desire to mislead people, or even the desire to be something you're not. It's not even about sexuality, although arguably there are parallels there for people still in the closet. What I am actually talking about is that line between answers given to the question "How are you?" there's two answers you can give really, one is a short answer, usually a pleasantry, that you don't really mean "Yea, I'm good thanks", a shallow reply, the other is the actual answer, how you really feel, what you really think, the depth. Which we give tends to rely on whether we think the question was asked with a genuine interest in the answer, or just someone making small talk.
Personally this is something I have always struggled with. I'm not very good at pretending I am okay, when I am really not. I'm not very good at pretending there's nothing on my mind when there is - I tend to be a lot quieter than usual and people that know me well know straight away something is going on inside my head. I'm not very good at holding back when I have an interest in things. When I was a kid, my greatest aspiration was to know everything about everything. I realised as I grew that this wasn't possible, so I settled for knowing as much as I could about the things that interest me. As a result I ask a lot of questions, and I find it hard when to know when to stop.
When I ask people how they are, it's because I'm genuinely interested in the answer. The real answer, I don't care about the face you present to the rest of the world, I can see through that. I learned a long time ago people don't like it when they know you can, so I tend not to comment on it, I just bear it in mind. There's a song I love called "I See Right Through To You" and it's something I've tried to do with people I meet, I try to ignore what they present to the rest of the world and actually look at the person. I try to ignore what other people say about them because I know how wrong people have been about me and I know how detached from the shell a person's core can actually be.
I find it hard to feign interest in things I am not interested in - which is part of the reason I realised it would never be practical to know everything about everything, apart from the issue of the magnitude of that task, the reality that some things will be boring as hell to you hits you quite early.
With all this in mind, I know that the things I am interested in aren't going to appeal to everyone. That's part of the reason why I don't see a point in hiding them. I prefer to be honest about the things that interest me and accept that some people will have zero interest, and I don't mind that, because I know there will be some people out there that are interested, and to be honest I'd rather talk about my interests with people that share them than try and make someone talk about them who doesn't care.
That doesn't mean I write off people that don't share my interest though, and it doesn't mean they have to share mine in reciprocation if I happen to share theirs. I don't think polar opposites ever truly exist. No matter how different two people can seem, there will be something, somewhere, that they are both interested in.
The thing that sparked this entire post off was a reflection on the nature of the topics I write about here. I've been reading other peoples' blogs and they all have themes, narratives that loosely, or tightly, link their posts together, whereas this blog is basically a prime example of cognitive dissonance and disarray. On the other hand though, that does reflect me as a person. I have a wide range of interests and I have a wide range of beliefs, many of which on the face of it conflict with each other. I like the description "a swirling mass of contradictions" - it doesn't all make sense or tie together, but, that's life really, there will be times when every day feels the same and other times when you'll find yourself in situations you never saw coming.
2016 has been a year of uncertainty. Some will roll their eyes here, but I'm a Taurus, and while I don't put a lot of stock in horoscopes one thing I do identify with is the stubbornness of the Bull, the disdain for change and upheaval, and the understanding that a Bull can be intimidating to people that don't know it. I am under no allusion, some people who don't know me can find me hard to take, or just too much. This year has been a year of uncertainty which was a change for me and I didn't like that. In time though I've become a lot more comfortable with it because in a way, having constant uncertainty, actually provides a degree of certainty.
So the question "How are you?" the short answer, is "I'm okay, thanks" and the long answer, is this entire post. I'm actually smiling for the first time in ages.
This isn't about deception, or the desire to mislead people, or even the desire to be something you're not. It's not even about sexuality, although arguably there are parallels there for people still in the closet. What I am actually talking about is that line between answers given to the question "How are you?" there's two answers you can give really, one is a short answer, usually a pleasantry, that you don't really mean "Yea, I'm good thanks", a shallow reply, the other is the actual answer, how you really feel, what you really think, the depth. Which we give tends to rely on whether we think the question was asked with a genuine interest in the answer, or just someone making small talk.
Personally this is something I have always struggled with. I'm not very good at pretending I am okay, when I am really not. I'm not very good at pretending there's nothing on my mind when there is - I tend to be a lot quieter than usual and people that know me well know straight away something is going on inside my head. I'm not very good at holding back when I have an interest in things. When I was a kid, my greatest aspiration was to know everything about everything. I realised as I grew that this wasn't possible, so I settled for knowing as much as I could about the things that interest me. As a result I ask a lot of questions, and I find it hard when to know when to stop.
When I ask people how they are, it's because I'm genuinely interested in the answer. The real answer, I don't care about the face you present to the rest of the world, I can see through that. I learned a long time ago people don't like it when they know you can, so I tend not to comment on it, I just bear it in mind. There's a song I love called "I See Right Through To You" and it's something I've tried to do with people I meet, I try to ignore what they present to the rest of the world and actually look at the person. I try to ignore what other people say about them because I know how wrong people have been about me and I know how detached from the shell a person's core can actually be.
I find it hard to feign interest in things I am not interested in - which is part of the reason I realised it would never be practical to know everything about everything, apart from the issue of the magnitude of that task, the reality that some things will be boring as hell to you hits you quite early.
With all this in mind, I know that the things I am interested in aren't going to appeal to everyone. That's part of the reason why I don't see a point in hiding them. I prefer to be honest about the things that interest me and accept that some people will have zero interest, and I don't mind that, because I know there will be some people out there that are interested, and to be honest I'd rather talk about my interests with people that share them than try and make someone talk about them who doesn't care.
That doesn't mean I write off people that don't share my interest though, and it doesn't mean they have to share mine in reciprocation if I happen to share theirs. I don't think polar opposites ever truly exist. No matter how different two people can seem, there will be something, somewhere, that they are both interested in.
The thing that sparked this entire post off was a reflection on the nature of the topics I write about here. I've been reading other peoples' blogs and they all have themes, narratives that loosely, or tightly, link their posts together, whereas this blog is basically a prime example of cognitive dissonance and disarray. On the other hand though, that does reflect me as a person. I have a wide range of interests and I have a wide range of beliefs, many of which on the face of it conflict with each other. I like the description "a swirling mass of contradictions" - it doesn't all make sense or tie together, but, that's life really, there will be times when every day feels the same and other times when you'll find yourself in situations you never saw coming.
2016 has been a year of uncertainty. Some will roll their eyes here, but I'm a Taurus, and while I don't put a lot of stock in horoscopes one thing I do identify with is the stubbornness of the Bull, the disdain for change and upheaval, and the understanding that a Bull can be intimidating to people that don't know it. I am under no allusion, some people who don't know me can find me hard to take, or just too much. This year has been a year of uncertainty which was a change for me and I didn't like that. In time though I've become a lot more comfortable with it because in a way, having constant uncertainty, actually provides a degree of certainty.
So the question "How are you?" the short answer, is "I'm okay, thanks" and the long answer, is this entire post. I'm actually smiling for the first time in ages.
Insurance vs Assurance
Insurance is a safety net, there in case of the event in which you fall so that it can catch you. Assurance is the feeling you get knowing the net is there, which fills you with confidence. Assurance of knowing that should you fall you will survive is what leads you to take greater risks and accomplish tasks which otherwise you would never dream of doing. Except, while all this revolves around possibilities, the only way you can actually know if the safety net actually works is to test it out, which involves consciously deciding to fall to see what happens. In that moment your doubt is what comes to mind, the assurance of the net is suddenly taken away even though the net remains, you don't know whether it will work or not.
In life there are many times we seek assurances from others. In love, in work, in finance, and even just from our friends and family through emotional and physical support when we need it. The question is how do you know who and what is strong enough to support you, if you never test the net? There are times when it's impractical or unthinkable to even engineer the scenarios where you would need the net to begin with. For example the emotional support you would need in the event of a close loved one dying, there's no way in good conscience to actually test that net. What you are left with is the realisation that some nets are never going to be tested until the moment you actually need them and if they don't work then you will hit the ground hard.
In these scenarios where you can't test your net, you place faith in others. You do so blindly, and without assurance. For many of us this comes to represent our lives and the choices we make as we walk along our tightrope. No matter how close anyone is to us, we still walk alone. They can't walk our path for us all they can do is offer encouragement and the promise of the safety net if you should fall. There is of course another possibility in these scenarios one which we tend to avoid thinking about in advance of what can go wrong and only think about in that moment when we feel ourselves fall - do we want to be caught?
You might be asking yourself what is the point of having insurance if you don't use it? What's the point of a net if you don't want to be caught? The answer can be found when you look quite literally at insurance itself, specifically the insurance industry. When taking claims against your insurance regardless of who was at fault, by doing so your premium usually rises. If you translate that into the concept of insurance as a whole you could argue that perceptibly we believe the more we have to use our insurance the more it costs us in the long-run. If this mentality takes over then even with a safety net in place there's no guarantee we'd ever use it even if we did fall which brings us back to the distinction between the two, insurance vs assurance. If you know in advance that you probably won't use the net, or that you don't trust the net because it has never been tested, then you find yourself in the bizarre situation of having insurance without assurance.
That raises the question, what is the point of insurance if it does not reassure, and you don't actually use it when you need to?
In life there are many times we seek assurances from others. In love, in work, in finance, and even just from our friends and family through emotional and physical support when we need it. The question is how do you know who and what is strong enough to support you, if you never test the net? There are times when it's impractical or unthinkable to even engineer the scenarios where you would need the net to begin with. For example the emotional support you would need in the event of a close loved one dying, there's no way in good conscience to actually test that net. What you are left with is the realisation that some nets are never going to be tested until the moment you actually need them and if they don't work then you will hit the ground hard.
In these scenarios where you can't test your net, you place faith in others. You do so blindly, and without assurance. For many of us this comes to represent our lives and the choices we make as we walk along our tightrope. No matter how close anyone is to us, we still walk alone. They can't walk our path for us all they can do is offer encouragement and the promise of the safety net if you should fall. There is of course another possibility in these scenarios one which we tend to avoid thinking about in advance of what can go wrong and only think about in that moment when we feel ourselves fall - do we want to be caught?
You might be asking yourself what is the point of having insurance if you don't use it? What's the point of a net if you don't want to be caught? The answer can be found when you look quite literally at insurance itself, specifically the insurance industry. When taking claims against your insurance regardless of who was at fault, by doing so your premium usually rises. If you translate that into the concept of insurance as a whole you could argue that perceptibly we believe the more we have to use our insurance the more it costs us in the long-run. If this mentality takes over then even with a safety net in place there's no guarantee we'd ever use it even if we did fall which brings us back to the distinction between the two, insurance vs assurance. If you know in advance that you probably won't use the net, or that you don't trust the net because it has never been tested, then you find yourself in the bizarre situation of having insurance without assurance.
That raises the question, what is the point of insurance if it does not reassure, and you don't actually use it when you need to?
Alice And The Apple
If an apple can be red or yellow or green, and Alice would like an apple so she asks for an apple and receives an apple; then, if Alice is disappointed because she wanted a red apple, what colour is the apple if the apple is what it is but what it is isn't what it should be nor what it could be, and therefore wouldn't be what it should be but couldn't be what it could be, that is to say it isn't what it should be and it is what it shouldn't be but what it shouldn't be isn't what it could be but is what it couldn't be?
A) Red
B) Yellow
C) Green
D) Blue
A) Red
B) Yellow
C) Green
D) Blue
Token Knowledge
I have written before about intelligence, specifically the point that intelligence and knowledge are not equatable. Intelligence is about thought processes not about what you actually think. It is measured through abstract tests which assess your ability to comprehend complex concepts, not your level of prior knowledge. Yet despite this distinction there seems to be a misbelief which is perpetuated that knowledge implies intelligence. I can write a program that can list every single word in the dictionary, its meaning, and use in sentences, that doesn't mean that program would be intelligent, all it is doing is reiterating information. Intelligence would be embedded into the program if it was able to learn new words for itself, comprehend their meaning, and use them in sentences without the programmer having to provide that information explicitly, but rather through self discovery and exploration.
There are a lot of people who cling to this idea that the more knowledge you attain the "smarter" you are, it's the driving force behind some forms of education which completely discard comprehension and simply test the student's ability to regurgitate what they were fed in class. It's also the way in which people try to convince others of their intelligence and I see it quite a bit on social media and in real life in the way people speak and what they speak about. While the facade can be quite convincing it occasionally cracks when you see people who think they know everything about a particular subject speaking with an authority that betrays the shallow pool of knowledge they actually hold on a subject. These are the people who when questioned about the things they say aren't able to explain their point of view beyond a few stock question and answers, and ultimately the reason is because they don't actually understand what they claim to.
For me personally this is easiest to identify when I see people speak about things I know quite a bit about. As an example when I first went to University, one of the modules we covered was programming in Java. I knew quite quickly who actually knew what they were talking about versus those who tried to convince others that they did. As a disclaimer here I should point out I have written a book on Java, I have contributed to open source community development in the past as part of Open JDK. I had a level of understanding that surpassed the module when I was at University, something which was quickly noted by the lecturer to the point where I was asked to provide support on student forums. If you are wondering I passed the module at 95%, my 5% failure came from lack of documentation on my coursework, something which I have always found difficulty with. I find it hard to draw a line between too little and too much. That in itself will be apparent from many of the posts on this blog.
What I find the most interesting about this pretence is the concept of token knowledge. That is to say, pieces of knowledge that people cling to and reiterate time and again to try and make themselves appear smarter than they are, the failure comes when they apply that knowledge to situations where it's not relevant at all. Even when challenged on that point they still can't accept or admit that failure. Situations like this often result in hostility or the base form of defence - personal attacks. The reason they resort to personal attacks in those situations is because they themselves see it as a personal attack for someone to point out the fact they are wrong.
There's one example I find the most prevalent and that's the use of the word "ironic" and the perceived meaning of the word. Those who understand the word rarely use it, which is in itself ironic since the vast majority of people who use it have no idea what it actually means. This can be epitomised by Alannis Morissette. She and Glen Ballard wrote a song called 'Ironic' in which there is a series of lyrics that detailed unfortunate events and instances of bad luck. Lyrics such as: "Like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife" - not one of these lyrics is actually an instance of irony. They are all simply bad luck and misfortune. The irony to be found in the song is the fact that the title implies one thing, and the literal words imply the complete opposite. That, is the definition of irony, yet you can see people who have heard the song or perpetuate the idea that things which are unfortunate or bad luck or bad timing constitute irony. They are the people who misuse the word and demonstrate the cracks in their facade. They are the people who think they do a good job of convincing others of their intelligence when in reality anyone who really is, can see right through the facade.
There are a lot of people who cling to this idea that the more knowledge you attain the "smarter" you are, it's the driving force behind some forms of education which completely discard comprehension and simply test the student's ability to regurgitate what they were fed in class. It's also the way in which people try to convince others of their intelligence and I see it quite a bit on social media and in real life in the way people speak and what they speak about. While the facade can be quite convincing it occasionally cracks when you see people who think they know everything about a particular subject speaking with an authority that betrays the shallow pool of knowledge they actually hold on a subject. These are the people who when questioned about the things they say aren't able to explain their point of view beyond a few stock question and answers, and ultimately the reason is because they don't actually understand what they claim to.
For me personally this is easiest to identify when I see people speak about things I know quite a bit about. As an example when I first went to University, one of the modules we covered was programming in Java. I knew quite quickly who actually knew what they were talking about versus those who tried to convince others that they did. As a disclaimer here I should point out I have written a book on Java, I have contributed to open source community development in the past as part of Open JDK. I had a level of understanding that surpassed the module when I was at University, something which was quickly noted by the lecturer to the point where I was asked to provide support on student forums. If you are wondering I passed the module at 95%, my 5% failure came from lack of documentation on my coursework, something which I have always found difficulty with. I find it hard to draw a line between too little and too much. That in itself will be apparent from many of the posts on this blog.
What I find the most interesting about this pretence is the concept of token knowledge. That is to say, pieces of knowledge that people cling to and reiterate time and again to try and make themselves appear smarter than they are, the failure comes when they apply that knowledge to situations where it's not relevant at all. Even when challenged on that point they still can't accept or admit that failure. Situations like this often result in hostility or the base form of defence - personal attacks. The reason they resort to personal attacks in those situations is because they themselves see it as a personal attack for someone to point out the fact they are wrong.
There's one example I find the most prevalent and that's the use of the word "ironic" and the perceived meaning of the word. Those who understand the word rarely use it, which is in itself ironic since the vast majority of people who use it have no idea what it actually means. This can be epitomised by Alannis Morissette. She and Glen Ballard wrote a song called 'Ironic' in which there is a series of lyrics that detailed unfortunate events and instances of bad luck. Lyrics such as: "Like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife" - not one of these lyrics is actually an instance of irony. They are all simply bad luck and misfortune. The irony to be found in the song is the fact that the title implies one thing, and the literal words imply the complete opposite. That, is the definition of irony, yet you can see people who have heard the song or perpetuate the idea that things which are unfortunate or bad luck or bad timing constitute irony. They are the people who misuse the word and demonstrate the cracks in their facade. They are the people who think they do a good job of convincing others of their intelligence when in reality anyone who really is, can see right through the facade.
The Cost of Learning
One thing that annoys me about my time at University is the fact that other people seem to think it was easy. When it comes to finance, myself and many others came out the other side of University with a degree and a mountain of debt. Time and again I hear the same response, usually from people who have never been or who went a very long time ago: "But you only pay it back when you earn so much" - bitch University is expensive, the loans are not enough to live off, most students have part time jobs, or full time jobs, and they have credit cards and overdrafts to be able to survive. It takes more money to make it through University than you get in loans. It is not possible to make it through University on student loans without another source of income, either from savings, or employment, or support from family and friends.
I went to University in 2006 and in order to get there I had to sell shares and use an overdraft on my bank account until my student loan came in. Once it did, the bulk of it disappeared immediately in accommodation fees to the University. It was only by getting a student account with an interest free overdraft that I was able to survive my first year. At the end of the year that student account was overdrawn by almost a thousand pounds. My first year wasn't exactly wild either, the only social events I really went to were during freshers with friends from halls and beyond that mostly events run by the LGBT Society at University.
While the first year of University left a financial impact on me it was only the beginning. In my second year my rent in London was £552 per [4 week] month which was £7,176 for the year, that was excluding bills and was a sizeable step up from my first year. Overdrafts increased, credit card usage increased, and I worked a full time job in retail at Woolworths to make it through and I still came out of second year in more debt than I had after my first year.
My final year was a similar story and by the end I was in almost £6k debt. While the bulk of that was interest free it did not stay that way. Some began charging interest after graduation, some deferred it for a year. I walked away from University with a degree and a mountain of debt, real debt, not student loan debt. The latter of which if you are interested sent me my annual statement a few weeks ago letting me know I owe them just under £32k. I studied at University when tuition fees were £3k a year, and when maintenance grants were still a thing - which I qualified for on top of my loans and did not have to repay. If I had studied at University just a few years later after reforms were made I would have had to pay fees of £9k a year, and I would have to repay higher maintenance loans wich were introduced to make up for the grants that were scrapped. All in all, with interest my student loan balance today would be sitting at £58k.
University costs money and the loans do not cover all expenses. Education is treated as a commodity and there are often times I find myself asking what was the point. There are dozens of Universities in the UK who confer degrees that are not worth the paper they are written on. There are thousands of graduates every year who leave University to find themselves unemployed. Students are sold a degree on the promise of the better chance at employment it gives them and the higher up the career ladder they can climb and the promise they won't have to repay their debts until they earn a certain amount. Students are being mis-sold their degrees. Thousands graduate University to unemployment, their degrees don't help them enter their fields, employers want experience not education, and they leave with a mountain of debt on top of their student loans which they do have to repay immediately regardless of income, and when you are unemployed that seals you into a debt trap.
If I was to reform higher education I would introduce a higher education curriculum and a University license which every higher education institution would have to adhere to and hold respectively. Failure to adhere to a standardised curriculum to ensure quality and failure to retain their license would result in Universities being closed. Education needs to have its benefits restored. The purpose of education is to give people a better chance in life, if it isn't doing that it's not working. People often get lost in criticism of primary and secondary education and scrutiny of their national curriculum and the relevance of the subjects they are taught - this scrutiny needs to be applied to further and higher education as well. The same arguments levied at compulsory education as to relevance, and quality, and accountability of those delivering the courses needs to extend to all education. The fact that higher education has survived this long escaping that scrutiny when it costs so much to pursue not just to the individuals but to government and to taxpayers is nigh on incredulous.
I went to University in 2006 and in order to get there I had to sell shares and use an overdraft on my bank account until my student loan came in. Once it did, the bulk of it disappeared immediately in accommodation fees to the University. It was only by getting a student account with an interest free overdraft that I was able to survive my first year. At the end of the year that student account was overdrawn by almost a thousand pounds. My first year wasn't exactly wild either, the only social events I really went to were during freshers with friends from halls and beyond that mostly events run by the LGBT Society at University.
While the first year of University left a financial impact on me it was only the beginning. In my second year my rent in London was £552 per [4 week] month which was £7,176 for the year, that was excluding bills and was a sizeable step up from my first year. Overdrafts increased, credit card usage increased, and I worked a full time job in retail at Woolworths to make it through and I still came out of second year in more debt than I had after my first year.
My final year was a similar story and by the end I was in almost £6k debt. While the bulk of that was interest free it did not stay that way. Some began charging interest after graduation, some deferred it for a year. I walked away from University with a degree and a mountain of debt, real debt, not student loan debt. The latter of which if you are interested sent me my annual statement a few weeks ago letting me know I owe them just under £32k. I studied at University when tuition fees were £3k a year, and when maintenance grants were still a thing - which I qualified for on top of my loans and did not have to repay. If I had studied at University just a few years later after reforms were made I would have had to pay fees of £9k a year, and I would have to repay higher maintenance loans wich were introduced to make up for the grants that were scrapped. All in all, with interest my student loan balance today would be sitting at £58k.
University costs money and the loans do not cover all expenses. Education is treated as a commodity and there are often times I find myself asking what was the point. There are dozens of Universities in the UK who confer degrees that are not worth the paper they are written on. There are thousands of graduates every year who leave University to find themselves unemployed. Students are sold a degree on the promise of the better chance at employment it gives them and the higher up the career ladder they can climb and the promise they won't have to repay their debts until they earn a certain amount. Students are being mis-sold their degrees. Thousands graduate University to unemployment, their degrees don't help them enter their fields, employers want experience not education, and they leave with a mountain of debt on top of their student loans which they do have to repay immediately regardless of income, and when you are unemployed that seals you into a debt trap.
If I was to reform higher education I would introduce a higher education curriculum and a University license which every higher education institution would have to adhere to and hold respectively. Failure to adhere to a standardised curriculum to ensure quality and failure to retain their license would result in Universities being closed. Education needs to have its benefits restored. The purpose of education is to give people a better chance in life, if it isn't doing that it's not working. People often get lost in criticism of primary and secondary education and scrutiny of their national curriculum and the relevance of the subjects they are taught - this scrutiny needs to be applied to further and higher education as well. The same arguments levied at compulsory education as to relevance, and quality, and accountability of those delivering the courses needs to extend to all education. The fact that higher education has survived this long escaping that scrutiny when it costs so much to pursue not just to the individuals but to government and to taxpayers is nigh on incredulous.
The Right Way
In life there are many things we have to do which come with instruction manuals detailing the steps we must follow to complete the tasks. For every task that comes with an instruction manual however there are hundreds more that come with no instruction at all. This is where education comes into play, both formal through academia at schools, colleges, and universities, and informal through life experience, or as some call it "The University of Life" both play the same role. What we learn through both routes can fall into three main areas, the right way, the wrong way, and your way. While they may often overlap, for the most part we never truly adhere to one and only one.
We could spend an entire series of posts debating the definitions of right and wrong but for the sake of brevity, for now, let's just define 'right' as the way in which the task was intended to be completed, either by design or precedence. We can define 'wrong' in this sense as the way that was never intended to be used. It's important to stop and note here that we are only addressing the "how" of this process, and not the "what" of the result, in other words we're not concerning ourselves with whether or not these methods work or achieve the task we set out to accomplish, we're only concerning ourselves with the way in which we try to do so.
When it comes to your own way of doing things, often this is the most fluid of the three, forever adapting to changes and developing micro-solutions to micro-problems that evolve over time. I have a strong background in programming so I can speak from a software development perspective one area these divergences are prevalent is in the software development life cycle. Software development is discussed in an academic setting in terms of paradigms, set methodologies with steps to be followed to achieve the task. The problem is that most of these paradigms aren't followed in practice, and even when corporations try to follow them the practical application is at best, barely relatable to the paradigm supposedly in use. In software development as with everywhere else in life, "my way" wins out in the end. You end up weaving between right and wrong and adding alterations to your process until eventually it does not resemble either.
While this is the way we pursue many things in life, it poses a question, at what point should you stop trying to pursue your way and accept the "right" way, even when it seems wrong to you? Some might argue that as long as the same objective is met then how you achieve it is irrelevant but there are so many instances where you can demonstrate the negative consequences of failing to consider the ramifications of your actions that the argument of how short sighted this is seems self evident. If we go beyond theory however we can demonstrate with simple examples how doing something the wrong way, can achieve a goal yet produce an entirely different experience.
To pick perhaps the most relatable example you can look at Ice Cream. As children we learn very quickly that there is a right and a wrong way to eat ice cream. The reason we learn this quickly is because it punishes you immediately for eating it the wrong way. You need to pace yourself when you eat ice cream and if you don't then brain freeze immediately sets in and punishes you for doing it wrong. If you only ever ate ice cream quickly you would forever experience pain from doing so and never experience the pleasure others get from it. It is only through eating it slowly that you learn to appreciate its flavour and gain pleasure in the process.
One of the things I enjoy most in life is trance music, and it's also one of the things I find others are very critical of because they see it from a different perspective. Like ice cream which punishes you for eating it fast, they try to listen to trance music the way they do any other music and fail to gain any pleasure from it, in many cases they outright say it causes the opposite. Trance music is like ice cream, if you try to listen to it the way you listen to all other music you'll never appreciate it. Just as you other foods quickly and must make exceptions for ice cream to discover its finer points, you have to make exceptions for trance music and approach it with a different mentality.
The purpose of trance at its core is to induce a trance like state, hence the name. Repetition in trance music originates in the same concept of chanting and tantric meditation; the purpose is to help you let go and embrace a state of oblivion and nirvana. Trance music requires the listener to abandon their other senses and embrace the music itself. To feel the rhythm of a bassline dance with your heartbeat, to feel the sweet kiss of the hi-hat on your neck, whilst synthesisers whisper sweet nothings in your ears as the touch of the treble creeps and crawls across your skin tickling your hairs as they stand on end, the sweet sensations caressing you as you feel it build in anticipation of the moment when finally you hear the break and you feel yourself lifting and falling into fervent phonic euphoria.
To achieve this requires much more attention and dedication than other genres of music. Trance is active it is not passive, you must engage with it, like a lover beckoning you to dance with them, trance holds out a hand for you to hold. The reason drugs are so often associated with this style of music is because they offer a shortcut, allowing you to quickstep into the mentality required to appreciate this music. I've never needed that personally, music has always been my drug and when I need to let go it has always been there for me with open arms to fall into. The lack of appreciation others have I find comical at times because the same belief permeates their impressions, that they should be able to experience something without having to learn how to do it first. Trance is like ice cream. If you don't consume it right then you're destined to feel nothing but headaches and find yourself at a loss to understand why other people love it so much.
It is the lack of punishment that can make us pursue the wrong way without recourse. We have to remember just because there are other ways to do something does not mean they are right or wrong. This isn't even about asserting which is right or wrong this is about making people open up to the idea that there are other ways to do things and when you follow them your experience can completely change. So maybe you should stop and think about the things you have tried in life that turned out to be entirely negative and ask yourself whether you did it right and whether your experience was the same as others.
We could spend an entire series of posts debating the definitions of right and wrong but for the sake of brevity, for now, let's just define 'right' as the way in which the task was intended to be completed, either by design or precedence. We can define 'wrong' in this sense as the way that was never intended to be used. It's important to stop and note here that we are only addressing the "how" of this process, and not the "what" of the result, in other words we're not concerning ourselves with whether or not these methods work or achieve the task we set out to accomplish, we're only concerning ourselves with the way in which we try to do so.
When it comes to your own way of doing things, often this is the most fluid of the three, forever adapting to changes and developing micro-solutions to micro-problems that evolve over time. I have a strong background in programming so I can speak from a software development perspective one area these divergences are prevalent is in the software development life cycle. Software development is discussed in an academic setting in terms of paradigms, set methodologies with steps to be followed to achieve the task. The problem is that most of these paradigms aren't followed in practice, and even when corporations try to follow them the practical application is at best, barely relatable to the paradigm supposedly in use. In software development as with everywhere else in life, "my way" wins out in the end. You end up weaving between right and wrong and adding alterations to your process until eventually it does not resemble either.
While this is the way we pursue many things in life, it poses a question, at what point should you stop trying to pursue your way and accept the "right" way, even when it seems wrong to you? Some might argue that as long as the same objective is met then how you achieve it is irrelevant but there are so many instances where you can demonstrate the negative consequences of failing to consider the ramifications of your actions that the argument of how short sighted this is seems self evident. If we go beyond theory however we can demonstrate with simple examples how doing something the wrong way, can achieve a goal yet produce an entirely different experience.
To pick perhaps the most relatable example you can look at Ice Cream. As children we learn very quickly that there is a right and a wrong way to eat ice cream. The reason we learn this quickly is because it punishes you immediately for eating it the wrong way. You need to pace yourself when you eat ice cream and if you don't then brain freeze immediately sets in and punishes you for doing it wrong. If you only ever ate ice cream quickly you would forever experience pain from doing so and never experience the pleasure others get from it. It is only through eating it slowly that you learn to appreciate its flavour and gain pleasure in the process.
One of the things I enjoy most in life is trance music, and it's also one of the things I find others are very critical of because they see it from a different perspective. Like ice cream which punishes you for eating it fast, they try to listen to trance music the way they do any other music and fail to gain any pleasure from it, in many cases they outright say it causes the opposite. Trance music is like ice cream, if you try to listen to it the way you listen to all other music you'll never appreciate it. Just as you other foods quickly and must make exceptions for ice cream to discover its finer points, you have to make exceptions for trance music and approach it with a different mentality.
The purpose of trance at its core is to induce a trance like state, hence the name. Repetition in trance music originates in the same concept of chanting and tantric meditation; the purpose is to help you let go and embrace a state of oblivion and nirvana. Trance music requires the listener to abandon their other senses and embrace the music itself. To feel the rhythm of a bassline dance with your heartbeat, to feel the sweet kiss of the hi-hat on your neck, whilst synthesisers whisper sweet nothings in your ears as the touch of the treble creeps and crawls across your skin tickling your hairs as they stand on end, the sweet sensations caressing you as you feel it build in anticipation of the moment when finally you hear the break and you feel yourself lifting and falling into fervent phonic euphoria.
To achieve this requires much more attention and dedication than other genres of music. Trance is active it is not passive, you must engage with it, like a lover beckoning you to dance with them, trance holds out a hand for you to hold. The reason drugs are so often associated with this style of music is because they offer a shortcut, allowing you to quickstep into the mentality required to appreciate this music. I've never needed that personally, music has always been my drug and when I need to let go it has always been there for me with open arms to fall into. The lack of appreciation others have I find comical at times because the same belief permeates their impressions, that they should be able to experience something without having to learn how to do it first. Trance is like ice cream. If you don't consume it right then you're destined to feel nothing but headaches and find yourself at a loss to understand why other people love it so much.
It is the lack of punishment that can make us pursue the wrong way without recourse. We have to remember just because there are other ways to do something does not mean they are right or wrong. This isn't even about asserting which is right or wrong this is about making people open up to the idea that there are other ways to do things and when you follow them your experience can completely change. So maybe you should stop and think about the things you have tried in life that turned out to be entirely negative and ask yourself whether you did it right and whether your experience was the same as others.
Fantasy Worlds
Sometimes reality can seem depressing. There are times I stop and ask myself why I bother to read the news. Everytime I open a news website it's filled with stories of horror, sadness, violence, infuriating political posts, basically everything negative and wrong with the world. It's very rare that news channels or websites bother covering stories that are even remotely positive. When you stop and think about this and our behaviour - returning time and again to read these stories - it doesn't really seem that healthy. We make excuses of wanting or needing to stay informed on what is happening in the world, but how true is that?
With more than 99% of the stories we read no matter how infuriating they may be for us we rarely do anything about it. We say with most of these stories "well there's nothing I can do" and resign ourselves to the fact we can't change the world. Sometimes the stories we read move us enough to be vocal about them, sharing them to social media and commenting on them voicing our disdain but what do we actually do about it? I'm guilty of this myself, I am not trying to judge other people for reacting the same way, I understand that mentality. What I don't understand however is why I and others continue to subject ourselves to it. If we aren't going to do anything about the things we read about then why do we read about them at all when the only thing it achieves is to make us feel an array of negative emotions?
I ran a poll on twitter a month or two ago asking if people could go a month without reading the news. I would define that as visiting news websites, or watching news feeds, or following news feeds through other sites. Research on specific stories would be permitted insofar as needed for professional reasons. The response was roughly 25/75 yes vs no. I've done digital detoxes before in which I abstained from using certain sites for a month at a time. I have no plans to do one for news if that's what you are expecting, the answer is no because I don't actually believe I could do it. As much as the rest of the world can be depressing, the idea of completely cutting myself off from it and living in quiet isolation is even more depressing.
I love to write and I love to read, and when I am feeling lazy and don't want to do either, I watch instead. Whatever the focus on my attention I find myself getting lost in other worlds. In the worlds I create, the worlds I read about, or the worlds I see when I watch TV shows or Movies. They are a welcome break from the reality of the world we live in. Rewatching older shows also brings a comfort since you know what to expect, sometimes you can even quote dialogue word for word. There have been a number of fantasy TV shows that have been vying for ratings, presenting elaborate worlds of lore for us to get lost in, perhaps none more so than Game Of Thrones. While some might ask why is the show so popular, and why are people so fascinated by it, I think the answer is simply that it presents a world so vast and complex and detailed that you can get lost in it and forget about the real world.
With Game of Thrones I know the story lines are not all happy, if anything Game Of Thrones is perhaps one of the darkest TV shows to have gained such popularity in a long time. Getting lost in the worlds these stories portray isn't about getting lost in a happy or a sad setting, but simply forgetting reality. I would argue the reason why people get enjoyment even when the stories are dark and littered with death is because it's "safe" in the respect that you know what you see is fiction, it's not real and that makes it easier to deal with difficult subjects. The topic of death for example is introduced to the viewer very early in the series with such frequency that it makes the viewer become desensitized to it over time. You go from "They'll be there to the end" to "They're probably going to die, I wonder how they're going to die..." remarkably quickly, so much so that you reach the point where you realise no character is safe and that any character can die, yet without the anxiety that is usually attached to such thoughts.
With more than 99% of the stories we read no matter how infuriating they may be for us we rarely do anything about it. We say with most of these stories "well there's nothing I can do" and resign ourselves to the fact we can't change the world. Sometimes the stories we read move us enough to be vocal about them, sharing them to social media and commenting on them voicing our disdain but what do we actually do about it? I'm guilty of this myself, I am not trying to judge other people for reacting the same way, I understand that mentality. What I don't understand however is why I and others continue to subject ourselves to it. If we aren't going to do anything about the things we read about then why do we read about them at all when the only thing it achieves is to make us feel an array of negative emotions?
I ran a poll on twitter a month or two ago asking if people could go a month without reading the news. I would define that as visiting news websites, or watching news feeds, or following news feeds through other sites. Research on specific stories would be permitted insofar as needed for professional reasons. The response was roughly 25/75 yes vs no. I've done digital detoxes before in which I abstained from using certain sites for a month at a time. I have no plans to do one for news if that's what you are expecting, the answer is no because I don't actually believe I could do it. As much as the rest of the world can be depressing, the idea of completely cutting myself off from it and living in quiet isolation is even more depressing.
I love to write and I love to read, and when I am feeling lazy and don't want to do either, I watch instead. Whatever the focus on my attention I find myself getting lost in other worlds. In the worlds I create, the worlds I read about, or the worlds I see when I watch TV shows or Movies. They are a welcome break from the reality of the world we live in. Rewatching older shows also brings a comfort since you know what to expect, sometimes you can even quote dialogue word for word. There have been a number of fantasy TV shows that have been vying for ratings, presenting elaborate worlds of lore for us to get lost in, perhaps none more so than Game Of Thrones. While some might ask why is the show so popular, and why are people so fascinated by it, I think the answer is simply that it presents a world so vast and complex and detailed that you can get lost in it and forget about the real world.
With Game of Thrones I know the story lines are not all happy, if anything Game Of Thrones is perhaps one of the darkest TV shows to have gained such popularity in a long time. Getting lost in the worlds these stories portray isn't about getting lost in a happy or a sad setting, but simply forgetting reality. I would argue the reason why people get enjoyment even when the stories are dark and littered with death is because it's "safe" in the respect that you know what you see is fiction, it's not real and that makes it easier to deal with difficult subjects. The topic of death for example is introduced to the viewer very early in the series with such frequency that it makes the viewer become desensitized to it over time. You go from "They'll be there to the end" to "They're probably going to die, I wonder how they're going to die..." remarkably quickly, so much so that you reach the point where you realise no character is safe and that any character can die, yet without the anxiety that is usually attached to such thoughts.
Reality TV vs TV Reality
I have been having a revival of sorts when it comes to old TV shows I used to watch. The past month or so it has been the turn of Sex And The City. Seeing the show evolve through six seasons makes me acutely aware of the time frame in which it was set. Although I look back on the part of my life the show reminds me of most - my time as a senior in High School - the show itself was produced and aired over a longer time frame than that period of my life. The show lasted six years in all, from 1998 to 2004. My life completely changed during that time yet when I look back at the show I tend to associate more with a few fixed points and key moments, forgetting the fact that between those times much more happened.
This got me to thinking about how duration is a concept that is only relevant to us in the present and in anticipation of the future. Beyond these two frames of reference, duration has little meaning to us when we look back at our lives. When we rewatch old TV shows we can binge on them and watch the whole thing in one go if we really want to, it's only when we watch shows that are now airing or will soon air that we begin to associate time with them, more specifically the time between episodes and awareness of the fact that for many shows being a week between each episode, you actually have a life to live - we don't automatically extend our points of reference in the same way when we look back at old shows.
However, it is important to add, how long something lasted doesn't necessarily imply significance - perhaps that is why when things often come to an end in our lives we have a hard time finding closure because finding a balance or an emotional equilibrium depends on many other factors yet duration is the one we jump to most. There's one little nugget of advice Charlotte York said in Sex And The City "It takes half the total time you were going out with someone to get over them" that epitomises this misdirection. I don't believe that's true at all, I think the amount of time it takes to get over someone relies more on how much they meant to you, with duration having very little significance. What she said however, ultimately being what the writers had penned in the script represents something I like to call "Hollywood wisdom" - thoughts, ideas, and beliefs that are presented to us through Movies and through TV shows [not necessarily produced in Hollywood of course] and try to influence our thinking, or which draw on perceived notions of popular thought, in other words what is deemed to be reality within the show itself.
The wisdom we see conveyed in TV shows is something which you would expect most people to take with a pinch of salt and actually think for themselves, contemplating the idea presented but ultimately forming their own. That is what you would expect but I have the feeling that for most people that's not true. Nowhere is this more evident than with reality TV where people completely buy into what they see and think because it's a reality show that it is unscripted and ultimately genuine. That isn't strictly true though as you will find out if you read some of the auto biographies of people who have presented those shows, the reality is that everything first and foremost is cut for entertainment purposes with the aim of providing the most value to the production companies. The likes of The Apprentice for example take contestants that will be the most entertaining, not those that would be best in business. People fixate on the idea that only people who lack any real talent apply to be on these shows, dismissing the idea that an auditionee would or could be dismissed for being "too good" at the audition stage.
Once you are aware of the fact that everything is done for entertainment value and not for the sake of accuracy or sincerity you must then realise that the same applies to scripted TV shows. The dialogue of characters isn't meant to sound as true to life as it can be, it's meant to be entertaining. The more you hold this as true in your mind the more aware you become of how people talk to one another. Even when you are a writer and you try to write natural dialogue there comes a point when you have to consider readability over reality. To convey everything that needs to be conveyed your characters inevitably, invariably, end up talking to one another with language and detail that most people never will.
This same deniability is true for characters on TV shows, as realistic as people like to believe they are, the more attention you pay to what they actually say the more you repeat the same thought "you wouldn't actually say that though" - the biggest flaw in on-screen dialogue however, once again, is a question of time. If you want reactions and responses to be natural then there should be natural pauses. Most people don't have conversations that flow effortlessly with immediate responses, even if they are completely engaged in the conversation the only time you actually respond with that immediate flow is during an argument because in those moments you let go of all reason and say the first thing that comes to mind.
All of this beggars the question, what "wisdom" have you learned from fictional characters in TV shows? Does that wisdom stand up to scrutiny when you stop and break it down?
This got me to thinking about how duration is a concept that is only relevant to us in the present and in anticipation of the future. Beyond these two frames of reference, duration has little meaning to us when we look back at our lives. When we rewatch old TV shows we can binge on them and watch the whole thing in one go if we really want to, it's only when we watch shows that are now airing or will soon air that we begin to associate time with them, more specifically the time between episodes and awareness of the fact that for many shows being a week between each episode, you actually have a life to live - we don't automatically extend our points of reference in the same way when we look back at old shows.
However, it is important to add, how long something lasted doesn't necessarily imply significance - perhaps that is why when things often come to an end in our lives we have a hard time finding closure because finding a balance or an emotional equilibrium depends on many other factors yet duration is the one we jump to most. There's one little nugget of advice Charlotte York said in Sex And The City "It takes half the total time you were going out with someone to get over them" that epitomises this misdirection. I don't believe that's true at all, I think the amount of time it takes to get over someone relies more on how much they meant to you, with duration having very little significance. What she said however, ultimately being what the writers had penned in the script represents something I like to call "Hollywood wisdom" - thoughts, ideas, and beliefs that are presented to us through Movies and through TV shows [not necessarily produced in Hollywood of course] and try to influence our thinking, or which draw on perceived notions of popular thought, in other words what is deemed to be reality within the show itself.
The wisdom we see conveyed in TV shows is something which you would expect most people to take with a pinch of salt and actually think for themselves, contemplating the idea presented but ultimately forming their own. That is what you would expect but I have the feeling that for most people that's not true. Nowhere is this more evident than with reality TV where people completely buy into what they see and think because it's a reality show that it is unscripted and ultimately genuine. That isn't strictly true though as you will find out if you read some of the auto biographies of people who have presented those shows, the reality is that everything first and foremost is cut for entertainment purposes with the aim of providing the most value to the production companies. The likes of The Apprentice for example take contestants that will be the most entertaining, not those that would be best in business. People fixate on the idea that only people who lack any real talent apply to be on these shows, dismissing the idea that an auditionee would or could be dismissed for being "too good" at the audition stage.
Once you are aware of the fact that everything is done for entertainment value and not for the sake of accuracy or sincerity you must then realise that the same applies to scripted TV shows. The dialogue of characters isn't meant to sound as true to life as it can be, it's meant to be entertaining. The more you hold this as true in your mind the more aware you become of how people talk to one another. Even when you are a writer and you try to write natural dialogue there comes a point when you have to consider readability over reality. To convey everything that needs to be conveyed your characters inevitably, invariably, end up talking to one another with language and detail that most people never will.
This same deniability is true for characters on TV shows, as realistic as people like to believe they are, the more attention you pay to what they actually say the more you repeat the same thought "you wouldn't actually say that though" - the biggest flaw in on-screen dialogue however, once again, is a question of time. If you want reactions and responses to be natural then there should be natural pauses. Most people don't have conversations that flow effortlessly with immediate responses, even if they are completely engaged in the conversation the only time you actually respond with that immediate flow is during an argument because in those moments you let go of all reason and say the first thing that comes to mind.
All of this beggars the question, what "wisdom" have you learned from fictional characters in TV shows? Does that wisdom stand up to scrutiny when you stop and break it down?
Untold Future
Time is a strange thing when you stop and think about it. The fact that you are forever conscious of the present, and that we can fixate on our past and relive our memories, this makes our future become a mystery. The present isn't always known to us, and sometimes events in our lives come and go before we realise the true extent of their significance. The future however is something we can never experience until time permits us to do so. Like a parent who let's a child only have ice cream once they finish their dinner, so too does time only permit us to experience all that life offers only after it lets life throw everything it can at us.
In a past post I wrote about the number 11 and it's significance in regards to our personal connections i.e. that our mobile numbers are 11 digits long in the UK and those 11 digits are all that separate you and the people you haven't met yet from engaging now. I've been reflecting on this and thinking about all the people in my life who have come and gone. A friend of mine recently died, the details of which I won't go into. In losing him however I have been thinking about the impact people have on our lives. While I know many don't believe in fate or destiny, if I stop to entertain the thought just for a while, with him I can be sure why fate brought me into his life. I know the impact I had on him and I know he was grateful. He was one of the few people who I actually believed and felt like they made an effort to keep me in their life and I felt like I had a place there, and I've said before I don't stay where I don't feel wanted. I want you in my life but that has to be reciprocated, if it's not then I'm not going to make you stay.
When I think of some of the people that came into my life and the profound changes they made, mostly for the better although some were for the worse and one was amongst the worst you can possibly be, despite all this I find myself wondering what my future holds. Who'll be the next person to leave such a profound impact? Have I already met them or do I know of them? Will the impact they leave be one of happiness or sadness? It's an odd feeling to think that my life as it is today, could be completely different in the future all because of one person who I haven't even met yet.
As I look to the future I find myself focusing more on my own life rather than the rest of the world because the latter has become increasingly depressing. I'm going through my usual funk right now in respect of social media. It is proving taxing, not because of the people I talk to but because of the people I don't. I've spoken before about the 90-9-1 rule of Internet Culture and how it can be applied to social media, when you have 15,000 followers you can expect around 150 to actually engage with you. To that end I have pursued a social media strategy to beat that rule, following only people I engage with and while that has proved effective in creating a social circle online that does engage, it does make you focus more on the nature of your engagement. When it comes right down to it, the way we form connections on social media are often through end points we don't realise at the time are such until someone actually connects with them. You send out tweets you don't actually expect a reply to and suddenly people engage, on the flip side when you send out tweets you do expect engagement on and nobody does, that can be disheartening. It does harken back to that song I have quoted so many times, Dark Blue by Jack's Mannequin and the lyric "If you've ever been alone in a crowded room, you'll know" - that's how social media can feel at times, and I know I am not alone. Several celebrities online have struggled with the same problems and the negative sides of Twitter et al can be overbearing. Stephen Fry and Seth Rogen to name a few have had quite public battles with this side of the Internet.
When you let go of all pretence and open up your vulnerable side and be honest about it all, maybe the truth is just something we don't like to admit, that we're lonely. No matter how many people we have in our real lives, when we pursue our online personas through these profiles ultimately we do it because of the promise in the name "social" networking promises to expand our social lives. Now I know there's considerable debate about whether it actually does and I think that is something best left to another post, instead I'd focus on the connotations for now. If we engage in social networking then ultimately whether we want to admit it or not our goal is to be as social as possible through it, with our own insecurities and shyness being the barrier to this. In the end we don't connect on the level we want with people out of fear. The fear is real and the paranoia is too, I've seen it myself first hand online. People afraid to reply to others even when they are interested in what they said, because they're either afraid of the response, or afraid of how they will look, or just afraid of being ignored. The paranoia goes further and the doubts creep in, were they sincere in what they said, are they a real person, do they actually care, do they just want more followers.
I realise that all of this can translate into the real world too, our offline lives and social connections are subject to the same mentalities, however the offline world is rather unique in these problems in that the responses we must give are often time-limited. When someone replies to a tweet you can consider your response and taking a while to reply isn't unheard of, but when someone is standing right in front of you then you have to be quite quick, you're often denied the chance to second guess what you say. That denial of time to think, is also a denial of time to overthink which ultimately I think is the death of social media. Overthinking leads you to consider your responses for too long and make them seem more weighted than they actually are, on the obverse of that it can also lead you to scrutinise replies made to you to a level much greater than they were ever intended. How many tweets have you written only to delete them without posting them? I know I have written quite a few and I know even here on my blogs there have been numerous blog posts over the years that I have drafted and deleted for many different reasons but none more so than overthinking.
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