Someone follows you on twitter, someone you have never interacted with before. They like a few of your tweets and they hang around. A day or two goes by and you tweet something divisive, and the person that followed you unfollows. What do you do?
I would like to think most people would dismiss the whole thing and move on with their lives. Not everyone in life is going to agree with you and the thing about platforms like twitter is that people use them to connect with people they do agree with, not those they don't. People use them to be a place of enjoyment not a place of misery, a place of entertainment and time consumption, not a place of conflict.
There are those however who seem to labour under the assumption that if someone follows them they are bound to follow them for evermore. People who seem to labour under the assumption that you have to agree with them and it is their life goal to have everyone agree with them.
Putting aside the ludicrous nature of such an endeavour, I find it somewhat amusing that some people are so vested in their social media presence that they actually get annoyed by losing a follower. If you're that concerned about an arbitrary number declining then you might want to take a step back and look at your life. I genuinely wonder about the mental health of people who seem to determine their life's worth by how many likes, retweets, and followers they can get. At least for those whose jobs rely on their success on social media there is some excuse for their actions but even then you should understand key demographics and target audiences enough to know that if people disconnect from you because they don't like your content then they aren't part of your key demographic, and no product or service can appeal to absolutely everyone.
Some people take social media far too seriously though and that is a problem, more so for them than for anybody else yet they will be the last person to recognise it as a problem. These people hound, harass, and at times end up stalking those who didn't agree with them and moved on with their lives. The irony is, by using social media in this way they are essentially crying out for help but the vast majority of people on social media will recognise such confrontational behaviour as a red flag and will actively avoid engaging to provide any such help.
Social media brings out the worst in people and enables these neuroses to flourish. Fixating on what people think who you have never met, never will meet, had little or no interaction with, and who you know nothing about is not healthy.
I want it all, I want it now!
"I want the world, I want the whole world, I want to lock it all up in my pocket, it's my bar of chocolate, give it to me, now!"Veruca Salt was perhaps one of the more repugnant characters in the children's classic 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' dreamt up by Roald Dahl. I think the reason she ended up being everything we saw as wrong, was because she got everything she ever wanted. We saw this as wrong and epitomising greed but mainly because the people who gave her everything she ever wanted where her parents, and when it is a child's parents that do this, we see it as bad.
The reality however is that whilst most of our needs are met by parents when we are children, not every need we have in life can be fulfilled by them. As we get older the number of people and the number of sources we rely on to give us what we need also grows. Like many things that are seen as bad when we are children - like individuality, setting yourself apart from the crowd, behaving and acting in ways that don't mirror those of your peers - when we grow up those traits become the things we actively desire and are expected of us. As children, being different is bad, but as adults being different makes you memorable. As children to have everything we ever want, we are seen as spoiled, but as adults to have everything we ever want is seen as being successful.
In many ways those children you hated when you were a child were more prepared for life than you were. From a young age we were taught you can't have everything and you shouldn't expect to have everything in life, but what does that actually teach you? Arguably that teaches you to accept your place and stay there, not to strive for more. Depending on how strictly it was enforced it can actually lead you to thinking that people who do strive for more are greedy, undeserving, unappreciative, and depending on how quickly they succeed, spoiled.
One thing that this has all fed, is the focus on immediacy. The amount of time that passes between the desire forming, and the desire being fulfilled. The closer together we want them to be, the more demanding we are seen to be as people. The longer they are apart the more likely we are to abandon the pursuit because it's not worth the effort, or because there are other sources that can fulfil the need much quicker. This concept applies to many parts of our lives. From entertainment, to food, even to our sex lives. If we want something but we have to wait for it, we're much more likely to seek it somewhere else if we think we can get it quicker.
We want entire series of TV shows to be released at once so we can binge them in one go - Netflix has encouraged this. We want food as quick as we can get it and if we think it will take too long to make it ourselves we order it from somewhere else - Just Eat encourages this. If we want a committed relationship with someone who we are sexually attracted to but there's no sign of that happening any time soon we resort to hookup apps - Grindr encourages this if you are gay like me, or Tinder if you're straight from the stories I have heard.
These things all cater to our desire for immediate gratification. We want everything and we want it now, we don't want to wait. Make us wait and we're much more likely to look for it elsewhere. As a content creator this is one reason why I tend to avoid creating serial content - almost all of my posts on this blog are stand alone, as are almost all of the books I have published. I rarely link things together to the point where you have to read them in order. As a content creator it is hard to overcome the delay between one production and the next, and manage to retain the interest and the focus of those who consumed the previous production. Literary works are perhaps the most resilient to this desire however, as they are one of the few things you can't get resolution to from anywhere else. That doesn't stop people creating forums, websites, Tumblr accounts, and having widespread discussions on social networks about what happens next as is so prevalent with any series that gains popularity. Those very acts are demonstrative of the fact people can't wait to find out what happens next so they try desperately to figure it out. When did we forget how to wait for an answer? When did anticipation become painful?
University Advice
Most University courses in the UK commence around the first week of October, some are a bit earlier and some are a bit later, so I decided to make this post now. I mentioned in a previous post that I don't know how much of this will still be relevant today given it's been twelve years since I went to University, however I did do it at a time where I experienced the old and the new mentalities of those who did it without technology and those who did it embracing all it has to offer. I've decided to try and focus more on the lifestyle and the practical nature of University rather than specific advice about studying.
The first piece of advice I would give would be to constantly remind yourself that everyone around you is in the same boat. When you first arrive at University, you are in a completely new environment surrounded by strangers. It's natural to be nervous and to feel some social anxiety about the whole situation. Your nature might be shy and you might think this will be the hardest thing you will ever have to do, but, you need to remind yourself that everyone around you is in the same boat. Everyone has the same desire to meet new people and connect with them, and everyone has that wish that someone else will speak first and someone else will lead the conversation so there's no pressure on them to do it - the trouble is if everyone actually does that, nobody would speak to anyone. Don't be afraid to start a conversation with a complete stranger; use the environment to your advantage. You know everyone is there to study something so the most generic openers you can use are "What course are you taking?", "How long is your course?", "Do you have to do a placement?", "What made you choose that course" etc. Lead conversations if people seem shy or reluctant to continue a conversation offer your own perspective, say what course you're studying, why you chose it etc.
The second piece of advice would be to go to the freshers' events. Even if it's out of your comfort zone and you think you'll not get that involved, still, go. Everyone is in the same boat and at the beginning everyone goes to these events out of curiosity. 90% of the people you meet in your first two weeks you will probably not see again for the three years or however long you study. When you connect and you click, things carry forward, everyone in those first few weeks is trying to find where they fit, and if you come out the other side and feel you don't fit in anywhere, that's okay too, you don't have to.
The third piece of advice carries on from the second, and it is to simply remind yourself, everyone is an adult now. You're not children anymore, you're still young but you should have the maturity to be able to make your own decisions and follow through on them. For many people this is the first time in their life that they experience independence, living away from home for the first time, deciding who is part of your life, and in many cases it can feel like you're starting over or starting from scratch. Be who you want to be. This is the opportunity to leave behind old habits and the impressions other people have of you and be yourself, that's the most important part about this whole experience. University is as much about growing and learning as a person as it is about studying.
The fourth piece of advice is to join clubs or societies that are focused on your interests. Most University websites will have a dedicated section or dedicated website to the student union. The Student Union will have links to all of the clubs and societies that people run at your university. These are a great way to meet students who aren't just part of your course, or your halls of residence, but are from different courses, different years of study, and often from completely different backgrounds. Their experience can provide insight into life at University. You'd be surprised what societies exist. Find people you have things in common with and it will make networking even easier.
The fifth piece of advice is controversial as it goes against what most people will tell you - do NOT get a part time job unless your budget is really tight and you really need one. I say this because it's easy to underestimate how much energy your course will take and underestimate how much energy a job will demand from you. Your time at University is preparing you for life beyond it, this is the time to learn how to budget, and learn how to live to it. Your first year most of all is a learning curve for how to live with other people, particularly those who you don't know beforehand. Enjoy your time and get out as much as you can and do as much as you can but don't make yourself do things you can't afford to do just because you're being offered the opportunity.
The sixth thing is about finance - apply for everything. When you are a student you are given preferential deals and offers that you will never get again in your life. Banks offer you interest-free overdrafts on student accounts, usually between £1,000 and £2,000 - you will never be offered that much credit by a bank without interest again in your life, take the opportunity and apply for it. Student loan payments come usually every 3 months and if you run out of money before the next payment it can be a long wait before you can afford to do anything - apply for everything. Banks will offer credit cards that don't have a minimum payment each month - it still gathers interest and you do have to clear it eventually but the payment frequency is not monthly as they know your income isn't paid monthly. You will never get a credit card again in your life that you don't have to pay every month.
The seventh piece of advice again is to do with finance and budgeting - buy fallback food. By this I mean, fill a cupboard with long-life food, canned food or dried food, anything that keeps for a long time. Instant noodles, rice, dried pasta etc, fill a cupboard with this food to fall back on if you ever run out of money and can't afford to buy anything, you'll appreciate it when it's there, it might be bland, it might be boring, but you won't starve.
The eighth thing again is to do with finance and budgeting and this may feel like you are getting ahead of yourself but you'll be grateful in the end - start saving for second year. You don't have to amass a mountain of savings but you should know the rent you pay in accommodation fees to the University will be a lot lower than the going rate for private rent in the area - and your Halls of Residence fees are usually inclusive of Utilities, private rent is usually not. For many students moving out of halls at the end of first year and into private rent, the biggest obstacle to overcome is gathering the money for a deposit and the first month's rent they will need to actually move into a place. If your University offers students the opportunity to stay in halls for a second year or even a third, I would take it in an instant, in the end it will save you a lot of money.
The last thing I would say is rather simple - everyone's experience will be different. People can tell you what University was like for them but at the end of the day University is like life, it's your journey to make and your life to live and how it turns out will be defined by you, the choices you make, and the direction you follow. It's your life to live and your experience to create, so take the advice people offer - including mine - with a pinch of salt. Do what you think is right and don't be afraid to disagree with people, you can think for yourself and you can decide for yourself.
Bonne chance, Buona fortuna, Buena suerte, Good Luck!
The first piece of advice I would give would be to constantly remind yourself that everyone around you is in the same boat. When you first arrive at University, you are in a completely new environment surrounded by strangers. It's natural to be nervous and to feel some social anxiety about the whole situation. Your nature might be shy and you might think this will be the hardest thing you will ever have to do, but, you need to remind yourself that everyone around you is in the same boat. Everyone has the same desire to meet new people and connect with them, and everyone has that wish that someone else will speak first and someone else will lead the conversation so there's no pressure on them to do it - the trouble is if everyone actually does that, nobody would speak to anyone. Don't be afraid to start a conversation with a complete stranger; use the environment to your advantage. You know everyone is there to study something so the most generic openers you can use are "What course are you taking?", "How long is your course?", "Do you have to do a placement?", "What made you choose that course" etc. Lead conversations if people seem shy or reluctant to continue a conversation offer your own perspective, say what course you're studying, why you chose it etc.
The second piece of advice would be to go to the freshers' events. Even if it's out of your comfort zone and you think you'll not get that involved, still, go. Everyone is in the same boat and at the beginning everyone goes to these events out of curiosity. 90% of the people you meet in your first two weeks you will probably not see again for the three years or however long you study. When you connect and you click, things carry forward, everyone in those first few weeks is trying to find where they fit, and if you come out the other side and feel you don't fit in anywhere, that's okay too, you don't have to.
The third piece of advice carries on from the second, and it is to simply remind yourself, everyone is an adult now. You're not children anymore, you're still young but you should have the maturity to be able to make your own decisions and follow through on them. For many people this is the first time in their life that they experience independence, living away from home for the first time, deciding who is part of your life, and in many cases it can feel like you're starting over or starting from scratch. Be who you want to be. This is the opportunity to leave behind old habits and the impressions other people have of you and be yourself, that's the most important part about this whole experience. University is as much about growing and learning as a person as it is about studying.
The fourth piece of advice is to join clubs or societies that are focused on your interests. Most University websites will have a dedicated section or dedicated website to the student union. The Student Union will have links to all of the clubs and societies that people run at your university. These are a great way to meet students who aren't just part of your course, or your halls of residence, but are from different courses, different years of study, and often from completely different backgrounds. Their experience can provide insight into life at University. You'd be surprised what societies exist. Find people you have things in common with and it will make networking even easier.
The fifth piece of advice is controversial as it goes against what most people will tell you - do NOT get a part time job unless your budget is really tight and you really need one. I say this because it's easy to underestimate how much energy your course will take and underestimate how much energy a job will demand from you. Your time at University is preparing you for life beyond it, this is the time to learn how to budget, and learn how to live to it. Your first year most of all is a learning curve for how to live with other people, particularly those who you don't know beforehand. Enjoy your time and get out as much as you can and do as much as you can but don't make yourself do things you can't afford to do just because you're being offered the opportunity.
The sixth thing is about finance - apply for everything. When you are a student you are given preferential deals and offers that you will never get again in your life. Banks offer you interest-free overdrafts on student accounts, usually between £1,000 and £2,000 - you will never be offered that much credit by a bank without interest again in your life, take the opportunity and apply for it. Student loan payments come usually every 3 months and if you run out of money before the next payment it can be a long wait before you can afford to do anything - apply for everything. Banks will offer credit cards that don't have a minimum payment each month - it still gathers interest and you do have to clear it eventually but the payment frequency is not monthly as they know your income isn't paid monthly. You will never get a credit card again in your life that you don't have to pay every month.
The seventh piece of advice again is to do with finance and budgeting - buy fallback food. By this I mean, fill a cupboard with long-life food, canned food or dried food, anything that keeps for a long time. Instant noodles, rice, dried pasta etc, fill a cupboard with this food to fall back on if you ever run out of money and can't afford to buy anything, you'll appreciate it when it's there, it might be bland, it might be boring, but you won't starve.
The eighth thing again is to do with finance and budgeting and this may feel like you are getting ahead of yourself but you'll be grateful in the end - start saving for second year. You don't have to amass a mountain of savings but you should know the rent you pay in accommodation fees to the University will be a lot lower than the going rate for private rent in the area - and your Halls of Residence fees are usually inclusive of Utilities, private rent is usually not. For many students moving out of halls at the end of first year and into private rent, the biggest obstacle to overcome is gathering the money for a deposit and the first month's rent they will need to actually move into a place. If your University offers students the opportunity to stay in halls for a second year or even a third, I would take it in an instant, in the end it will save you a lot of money.
The last thing I would say is rather simple - everyone's experience will be different. People can tell you what University was like for them but at the end of the day University is like life, it's your journey to make and your life to live and how it turns out will be defined by you, the choices you make, and the direction you follow. It's your life to live and your experience to create, so take the advice people offer - including mine - with a pinch of salt. Do what you think is right and don't be afraid to disagree with people, you can think for yourself and you can decide for yourself.
Bonne chance, Buona fortuna, Buena suerte, Good Luck!
Is it really you?
Just as a side note before we begin I have been sitting pondering whether the plural of catfish is catfish or catfishes, I know that fish is the plural of fish and that fishes is grammatically incorrect but I have been wondering if grammar applies to neologisms. That gives you a peek into the inner workings of my mind. Anyway, moving on.
A catfish in the world of the Internet is a person who claims to be someone else online. They use photos of other people, they borrow details from their lives, and depending on how determined the catfish is they might even stalk the person they are pretending to be to a point where they gain enough information to be able to pretend to be them. One of the most common techniques I have seen used is documented by @TheCatfishFiles, a twitter account that has been pursuing one particularly persistent perpetrator [try saying that 10 times fast] - this technique is to basically find individuals who are on one social network but not on Twitter and then more or less mirror their posts, taking their pictures etc and tweeting them as their own. The catfish files account documents the twitter accounts found to be pretending to be someone else, and cites the actual users on other social networks who they are pretending to be as sources.
There have been TV shows, and Movies, and countless article written online about this practice. What I find interesting though is that although the term is relatively new, the concept itself is not. The first time I used the Internet was when I was about 11 years old which would have been in late 1999 or early 2000. I was shown how to use it by a friend of my Mum's as we had never had it before and Mum had never used it before. Our first internet connection was via dial-up internet with a 28kbps connection, 56kbps if you were lucky but that was rare. Comparing that with the 40mbps internet connection [40,000kbps] which is quite literally over 1,400 times faster gives you an idea of how far along technology has come in the last 18 or 19 years. Nevertheless one of the first things I was told when I logged on for the very first time was that "nobody online is who they appear to be" - you can call that cynical if you want, but it is something that stuck with me from day one that I always kept in the back of my mind.
For many years I was reluctant to even use social networks, preferring to stay in direct contact with my friends. It wasn't until University in 2006 that I finally gave in and started using social networks primarily because it was almost impossible to keep up to date with everyone who I had to interact with in University through other means. A few years after I left University and no longer had need for it as I didn't speak to most of the people I was "friends" with on it anyway, I decided to axe most of them.
I'm still happy I made that choice. Despite wondering at times what certain people are up to now, I preferred knowing who actually wanted to stay in touch with me, as I give people the means to do it and some did, others did not. As the years have passed by, I have realised that my interactions with people online have become something of interest but not something that is a necessity. I follow people now who I have an interest in, but not people that I "need" to follow out of some obligation to do so. I feel that has led to much more meaningful connections and has resulted in me actually seeing content I care about and have an interest in.
The few years at University and those that followed where I went against my nature and gave in to using social networks the way others expected me to use them, taught me quite a few lessons about what other people actually want from you in life. It made me acutely aware of how many people consider you a friend in name only but who you have never actually met, or rarely spoke to if ever. It also made me aware that most family members that follow you and connect with you do so in order to keep an eye on what you are doing.
The thing that annoyed me most of all though was the inescapable feeling that in almost every case, people wanted to use you as a source of entertainment. They wanted to see a reality TV show which starred people that they actually knew which they could then talk about and ultimately judge. I didn't like that one bit. I made a conscious choice to become semi-anonymous online. I deleted every profile I had on social media and created new ones on the sites I actually wanted to use. The only sites that I still use are Twitter and sites related to gaming, neither of which actually require you to use your real name or give any specifics about who you are offline.
The point of doing all of this was to ensure that very few people that actually knew me would actually find me online, save for those select few who asked and I chose to share. This meant that almost every single person I met online was someone who I did not know, who did not know me. That was liberating. I say semi-anonymous for the simple reason that I still use my real photo as a display picture and my real first name. I just don't give any specifics about my life anymore and for the most part I don't ask for those from anyone else, and the vast majority of people I follow don't share that either. There is of course an obvious age divide when it comes to people who I follow and who follow me - they are all around my age or older, i.e. they are people whose first experience with the Internet came at a time when it was normal not to share and bare your soul to the world online.
I find it interesting that people are so willing to impersonate others online, but I also find it interesting that people share so much information online that it actually becomes possible to do that. If you wanted to pretend to be me you'd find that very hard; for a start there are very few pictures of me online, I don't post selfies and I hate using a camera. I rarely change my display pictures on social media the ones I use now are all months or in some cases years old.
As a society I don't think catfish profiles in and of themselves are the biggest concern for anyone using social media, I think the real issue is the fact we're so willing to believe people are who they say they are, and that we share so much information that it becomes possible for other people to do that with us. I've spoken about targeted advertising and the profiles that advertisers create based around the information we share that they scrape from the various sites we visit and the partners they pair with who share our information with them. There comes a curious question when you consider the potential use of AI and behavioural modelling - at what point could an advertiser create an AI Agent that could not only predict what we would do but could live out a virtual life pretending to be us?
If you want to make this even creepier, there is actually an App called Replika, developed by Luka Inc which analyses the data that you feed it and creates a chat bot that you can talk to who it claims will be "your best friend" - the developer of Luka Inc, a woman named Eugenia Kuyda originally created the software as she wanted a way to talk to a friend of hers who died, the goal was to create an AI that would accurately represent her dead friend and allow her to talk to him once again.
A catfish in the world of the Internet is a person who claims to be someone else online. They use photos of other people, they borrow details from their lives, and depending on how determined the catfish is they might even stalk the person they are pretending to be to a point where they gain enough information to be able to pretend to be them. One of the most common techniques I have seen used is documented by @TheCatfishFiles, a twitter account that has been pursuing one particularly persistent perpetrator [try saying that 10 times fast] - this technique is to basically find individuals who are on one social network but not on Twitter and then more or less mirror their posts, taking their pictures etc and tweeting them as their own. The catfish files account documents the twitter accounts found to be pretending to be someone else, and cites the actual users on other social networks who they are pretending to be as sources.
There have been TV shows, and Movies, and countless article written online about this practice. What I find interesting though is that although the term is relatively new, the concept itself is not. The first time I used the Internet was when I was about 11 years old which would have been in late 1999 or early 2000. I was shown how to use it by a friend of my Mum's as we had never had it before and Mum had never used it before. Our first internet connection was via dial-up internet with a 28kbps connection, 56kbps if you were lucky but that was rare. Comparing that with the 40mbps internet connection [40,000kbps] which is quite literally over 1,400 times faster gives you an idea of how far along technology has come in the last 18 or 19 years. Nevertheless one of the first things I was told when I logged on for the very first time was that "nobody online is who they appear to be" - you can call that cynical if you want, but it is something that stuck with me from day one that I always kept in the back of my mind.
For many years I was reluctant to even use social networks, preferring to stay in direct contact with my friends. It wasn't until University in 2006 that I finally gave in and started using social networks primarily because it was almost impossible to keep up to date with everyone who I had to interact with in University through other means. A few years after I left University and no longer had need for it as I didn't speak to most of the people I was "friends" with on it anyway, I decided to axe most of them.
I'm still happy I made that choice. Despite wondering at times what certain people are up to now, I preferred knowing who actually wanted to stay in touch with me, as I give people the means to do it and some did, others did not. As the years have passed by, I have realised that my interactions with people online have become something of interest but not something that is a necessity. I follow people now who I have an interest in, but not people that I "need" to follow out of some obligation to do so. I feel that has led to much more meaningful connections and has resulted in me actually seeing content I care about and have an interest in.
The few years at University and those that followed where I went against my nature and gave in to using social networks the way others expected me to use them, taught me quite a few lessons about what other people actually want from you in life. It made me acutely aware of how many people consider you a friend in name only but who you have never actually met, or rarely spoke to if ever. It also made me aware that most family members that follow you and connect with you do so in order to keep an eye on what you are doing.
The thing that annoyed me most of all though was the inescapable feeling that in almost every case, people wanted to use you as a source of entertainment. They wanted to see a reality TV show which starred people that they actually knew which they could then talk about and ultimately judge. I didn't like that one bit. I made a conscious choice to become semi-anonymous online. I deleted every profile I had on social media and created new ones on the sites I actually wanted to use. The only sites that I still use are Twitter and sites related to gaming, neither of which actually require you to use your real name or give any specifics about who you are offline.
The point of doing all of this was to ensure that very few people that actually knew me would actually find me online, save for those select few who asked and I chose to share. This meant that almost every single person I met online was someone who I did not know, who did not know me. That was liberating. I say semi-anonymous for the simple reason that I still use my real photo as a display picture and my real first name. I just don't give any specifics about my life anymore and for the most part I don't ask for those from anyone else, and the vast majority of people I follow don't share that either. There is of course an obvious age divide when it comes to people who I follow and who follow me - they are all around my age or older, i.e. they are people whose first experience with the Internet came at a time when it was normal not to share and bare your soul to the world online.
I find it interesting that people are so willing to impersonate others online, but I also find it interesting that people share so much information online that it actually becomes possible to do that. If you wanted to pretend to be me you'd find that very hard; for a start there are very few pictures of me online, I don't post selfies and I hate using a camera. I rarely change my display pictures on social media the ones I use now are all months or in some cases years old.
As a society I don't think catfish profiles in and of themselves are the biggest concern for anyone using social media, I think the real issue is the fact we're so willing to believe people are who they say they are, and that we share so much information that it becomes possible for other people to do that with us. I've spoken about targeted advertising and the profiles that advertisers create based around the information we share that they scrape from the various sites we visit and the partners they pair with who share our information with them. There comes a curious question when you consider the potential use of AI and behavioural modelling - at what point could an advertiser create an AI Agent that could not only predict what we would do but could live out a virtual life pretending to be us?
If you want to make this even creepier, there is actually an App called Replika, developed by Luka Inc which analyses the data that you feed it and creates a chat bot that you can talk to who it claims will be "your best friend" - the developer of Luka Inc, a woman named Eugenia Kuyda originally created the software as she wanted a way to talk to a friend of hers who died, the goal was to create an AI that would accurately represent her dead friend and allow her to talk to him once again.
It's been done before!
In life there can be the temptation to give in or give up on our dreams and ambitions just because someone else beats us to it. The desire to be the first to do something is often greater than the desire to do it. When that is taken away we sometimes lose the motivation to do it at all. I do have to stop and wonder why this is the case. Every day in almost every way, everything we do is something that others have done before. The very act of living is something which we do in spite of the fact that billions of people have done it before us. We have experiences and we live our lives in ways that replicate the experiences and lives of those that came before us, both those we knew and those we did not. Through it all, the fact they have come and gone before us does not change the fact that we too continue to live, so why are we so quick to give up on ideas that others have pursued already?
If you have an idea for an invention but discover the idea has been done before, why should you give up on that idea? Should you not find out all that you can about the previous incarnation and find out where it succeeded and where it failed and use all of that information to your advantage? One of the greatest barriers to overcome when creating something new is the fact that it is uncharted territory and that it has never been done before. That leads you to a path filled with endless hours of work and toil in order to find your way. Whenever you pursue an idea that has already been pursued however, someone else has already done that work for you. Instead of viewing their endeavour as them having a head start on you, perhaps it would be more prudent to consider the fact that the years of work they have already done can form a foundation for you giving you the head start instead.
One of the most successful pieces of technology in the last two decades is by far the iPhone. A device made by Apple that went on to sell over one billion units across several iterations. The iPhone represents everything we have outlined above. Despite what many believe, it was not the first smart phone, that came decades prior. It wasn't the first device to use a touch screen, that too came decades prior. It wasn't the first device to have its own marketplace for software to run on it, that too had already been done. It didn't even use hardware that had never been used before, it took components that had already been developed. The original iPhone took many ideas and concepts that already existed and combined them into one device. The marketing strategy and branding that went with their new creation represented a new way of doing something that had already been done before, and despite the fact it had been done before, it went on to sell over one billion units across several iterations.
The point I am making here, is that even if your idea has been done before, that's no reason to assume success or failure. It doesn't mean you should give up on your idea either. The fact something has been done before is in reality a benefit to you, not a detriment. Look at what has already been done, see what can be improved, see where you can innovate, and above all else, see how you can make an idea yours. If you can do that and do it well, then you can succeed even if it has been done before.
If you have an idea for an invention but discover the idea has been done before, why should you give up on that idea? Should you not find out all that you can about the previous incarnation and find out where it succeeded and where it failed and use all of that information to your advantage? One of the greatest barriers to overcome when creating something new is the fact that it is uncharted territory and that it has never been done before. That leads you to a path filled with endless hours of work and toil in order to find your way. Whenever you pursue an idea that has already been pursued however, someone else has already done that work for you. Instead of viewing their endeavour as them having a head start on you, perhaps it would be more prudent to consider the fact that the years of work they have already done can form a foundation for you giving you the head start instead.
One of the most successful pieces of technology in the last two decades is by far the iPhone. A device made by Apple that went on to sell over one billion units across several iterations. The iPhone represents everything we have outlined above. Despite what many believe, it was not the first smart phone, that came decades prior. It wasn't the first device to use a touch screen, that too came decades prior. It wasn't the first device to have its own marketplace for software to run on it, that too had already been done. It didn't even use hardware that had never been used before, it took components that had already been developed. The original iPhone took many ideas and concepts that already existed and combined them into one device. The marketing strategy and branding that went with their new creation represented a new way of doing something that had already been done before, and despite the fact it had been done before, it went on to sell over one billion units across several iterations.
The point I am making here, is that even if your idea has been done before, that's no reason to assume success or failure. It doesn't mean you should give up on your idea either. The fact something has been done before is in reality a benefit to you, not a detriment. Look at what has already been done, see what can be improved, see where you can innovate, and above all else, see how you can make an idea yours. If you can do that and do it well, then you can succeed even if it has been done before.
Value
The best present I ever bought my Mum was a Tablet PC. It wasn't the most expensive present I ever bought, it wasn't even the one I thought she'd like the most, but it turned out to be the best thing I ever bought her, for the simple reasons that she enjoys using it, she uses it every day, and it lets her enjoy her own interests. She had a laptop which she never got much use out of and found too restrictive, she's always been quite savvy with technology but I wouldn't have said it was something she particularly enjoyed using, rather it was always something used out of necessity.
I wasn't expecting it to be used so much and to enable her to do so much. When I look back on some of the other presents I have bought over the years and the various price ranges they have encompassed, it makes me realise that value is a very hard thing to judge. A price is cost not value, although most retailers attempt to add a premium to most of their products to capitalize on the value they have to the person who wants to buy them.
I have many jobs, figuratively and literally. One of these is that of a programmer and a web designer. I've been programming computers since I was six years old when I learned how to code in BASIC on an Amstrad CPC-464. Programming comes naturally to me, and when I first started learning about web design that came naturally too. Although my ability is very much one that flourishes in the back-end of websites in the thousands of lines of code that underpins everything, my creativity when it comes to the visual element is rather basic, I prefer to keep things simple most of the time, I am not an artist when it comes to this sort of thing.
As someone who can create websites however I am acutely aware that people pay a lot of money for them, and to me that price is excessive. I recognise that price has very little to do with the actual cost of production and incorporates very heavily the value of the product to the client. The price of a website in reality is determined by how difficult it is for you to create your own and the learning curve for most people to do that is too steep because they have no background or understanding in computing at all.
Like the tablet I bought for my Mum, the website I would create for you would likely be sold to you much closer to cost, not because I don't understand how much you need it but just because I don't see the point in adding arbitrary pricing to a product to create a margin that is excessive just because you need it and I can give it to you - as you've probably guessed this isn't my main source of income, it's not what I do for a living. It's a hobby and nothing more really. Ultimately to succeed in business you need to know how to price a product to incorporate its value to the customer as well as its cost. The fact remains I find that process intriguing but ultimately a mystery, on value alone, given how much my Mum has got out of it, that tablet really should have been priced higher, I'm not complaining about the fact it wasn't, just remarking on the fact that judging value seems to be incredibly difficult to predict, and perhaps is really more centred around the individual - most businesses don't price products individually though, I haven't decided whether I think that's a good or a bad thing, you can ponder that one yourself.
I wasn't expecting it to be used so much and to enable her to do so much. When I look back on some of the other presents I have bought over the years and the various price ranges they have encompassed, it makes me realise that value is a very hard thing to judge. A price is cost not value, although most retailers attempt to add a premium to most of their products to capitalize on the value they have to the person who wants to buy them.
I have many jobs, figuratively and literally. One of these is that of a programmer and a web designer. I've been programming computers since I was six years old when I learned how to code in BASIC on an Amstrad CPC-464. Programming comes naturally to me, and when I first started learning about web design that came naturally too. Although my ability is very much one that flourishes in the back-end of websites in the thousands of lines of code that underpins everything, my creativity when it comes to the visual element is rather basic, I prefer to keep things simple most of the time, I am not an artist when it comes to this sort of thing.
As someone who can create websites however I am acutely aware that people pay a lot of money for them, and to me that price is excessive. I recognise that price has very little to do with the actual cost of production and incorporates very heavily the value of the product to the client. The price of a website in reality is determined by how difficult it is for you to create your own and the learning curve for most people to do that is too steep because they have no background or understanding in computing at all.
Like the tablet I bought for my Mum, the website I would create for you would likely be sold to you much closer to cost, not because I don't understand how much you need it but just because I don't see the point in adding arbitrary pricing to a product to create a margin that is excessive just because you need it and I can give it to you - as you've probably guessed this isn't my main source of income, it's not what I do for a living. It's a hobby and nothing more really. Ultimately to succeed in business you need to know how to price a product to incorporate its value to the customer as well as its cost. The fact remains I find that process intriguing but ultimately a mystery, on value alone, given how much my Mum has got out of it, that tablet really should have been priced higher, I'm not complaining about the fact it wasn't, just remarking on the fact that judging value seems to be incredibly difficult to predict, and perhaps is really more centred around the individual - most businesses don't price products individually though, I haven't decided whether I think that's a good or a bad thing, you can ponder that one yourself.
It Made Me Smile
A few weeks ago a good friend of mine sent me a photo that his sister had seen in a newspaper. The photo was from 1995 and was of my great grandmother celebrating her 100th birthday surrounded by her family, and there amongst those pictured was little seven year old me. The picture made me smile and it was all I could think about for days. I showed it to my family and relived the happy memories. This was one of those rare moments in life when rather than giving you lemons, it gives you lemonade.
It's easy to focus on the negatives in life, Lord knows I have been guilty of doing that myself. It's far too easy to do in a world were such negatives are so easy to find. These little moments of wonder and happiness are the things that make it possible for me to find happiness in the moment. I've said before that I have no grand aspirations in life really other than happiness, and with little expectation it's easy to be content in the moment. Happiness itself is something I guess I do want to have more of in my life, but as I said before I don't consider it an absolute, I don't view it as something where if I achieve x, y, and z, then I can be happy, instead I tend to view it more as what makes me happy, and how do I get to that place.
In a world full of lemons it's easy to become bitter and to believe that there is no sweetness left in the world. Sometimes it takes just one little thing to remind you of the potential in life. It's certainly easy to have a good day be ruined by one tiny thing that turns it around for the worse, but it's also easy to have a bad day be made a million times better with just one little thing that makes you smile.
I don't really have a point to this post or any great message to share, or anything deep to ponder. I just wanted to share one thing today that made me smile as a reminder that as dark as the world may seem at times, there's always light, there's always hope, and there's always something that will make you smile, you just have to find it, or, let it, find you.
It's easy to focus on the negatives in life, Lord knows I have been guilty of doing that myself. It's far too easy to do in a world were such negatives are so easy to find. These little moments of wonder and happiness are the things that make it possible for me to find happiness in the moment. I've said before that I have no grand aspirations in life really other than happiness, and with little expectation it's easy to be content in the moment. Happiness itself is something I guess I do want to have more of in my life, but as I said before I don't consider it an absolute, I don't view it as something where if I achieve x, y, and z, then I can be happy, instead I tend to view it more as what makes me happy, and how do I get to that place.
In a world full of lemons it's easy to become bitter and to believe that there is no sweetness left in the world. Sometimes it takes just one little thing to remind you of the potential in life. It's certainly easy to have a good day be ruined by one tiny thing that turns it around for the worse, but it's also easy to have a bad day be made a million times better with just one little thing that makes you smile.
I don't really have a point to this post or any great message to share, or anything deep to ponder. I just wanted to share one thing today that made me smile as a reminder that as dark as the world may seem at times, there's always light, there's always hope, and there's always something that will make you smile, you just have to find it, or, let it, find you.
Get back in your box!
I'm thirty years old and by many I am still considered young, but by some I am considered old. I think I have come to an age where I would personally class it as a generational shift. Up until now, I have still found an interest in many things that were current, and part of pop culture and for lack of a better word, mainstream. What I have noticed however is that the divergence is growing between what I experienced myself and what I am now experiencing vicariously.
One of my cousins is heading off to University, something I did twelve years ago now. While much of the process has remained unchanged, e.g. student finance forms, and all the bureaucracy that goes with it, things have changed quite a bit in all other aspects, to the point where I don't think most of my advice I would have given my freshman self would even be relevant now.
Your late teenage years are when you first become aware of paperwork, when you first start having to fill out forms for all manner of things, and when for most people, they come across those boxes where you tick which age bracket you fall into. As you grow older you move up through these brackets and the first time you do it there's always a novelty in that moment, but when you start moving up again you start to realise time is moving forward whether you're completely conscious of that fact or not. Time really does feel like it speeds up with age, those moments of transition from one bracket to the next seem to come quicker each time. You think back to when your school holidays as a kid used to feel like they lasted an eternity, but by the time you hit your thirties a year passes with ever increasing rapidity.
The awareness of the limits of your generation become more apparent with age. It starts with language, words begin to creep in which you don't know or don't understand. Even when you learn what they mean you don't feel confident using them and have to second-guess whether you're actually using it right. That causes an awkwardness that makes the whole thing feel unnatural to you. You begin to recognise it as a language that you don't speak. You might understand it but still, it doesn't feel like a language that is "yours" anymore. At least this is my perception, and even going beyond my perception of myself and extending it to others, not for want of judging, the same awkwardness is felt for other people even if they show no sign of it themselves. You start to see people your age using those words and it becomes amusing, the apparent pursuit of everlasting youth becoming evermore pronounced the greater the divergence becomes.
After language for me it comes to fashion, perhaps this speaks more of my priorities in life than anything. Maybe for other people the order would be reversed. For me personally fashion has always been a matter of personal taste, not something I pursued in the aim of following a trend. For those that do perhaps fashion would be their first awareness of this divergence. Nevertheless, you start to see lines being released by stores that take on a new style that doesn't appeal to you. Styles evolve and you become increasingly aware of how out of place you look when you try on these outfits. Again perhaps this is all my own experience and other people don't identify with this at all. For me personally the last two or three years now it has become harder for me to find clothes I actually like. I refuse to conform to stereotypical styles associated with ageing, more so because I never liked them in the first place, I'm not going to suddenly develop a taste for corduroy, plaid jumpers, and tweed - no offence if you like that sort of thing, each to their own, but to me that's hideous.
I know the style of clothing I like, and I know that it's now absent from the high street, and it's hard to define it in searchable terms which makes finding it online difficult. That in itself is a topic for another post.
Despite how this post might read, I am not bitter about this whole experience. I'm merely pointing out that demographics aren't just things that are used to define us, they are used to target us and entire industries centre around narrowing down their target audiences to the most lucrative. You become more aware with age how much attention businesses, and industries in general, write you off as a consumer based on arbitrary numbers and statistics which, despite their arbitrary nature, do develop into full fledged divisions of the population which reinforces the divergence between generations. Each generation in essence is groomed by corporations and intentionally segregated to create distinct markets. Content producers and product manufacturers don't want universal markets, they want segregation the more segregated we are as a society the easier it is to target us, they don't like it when you step outside of your box and become something they don't know how to classify and categorise because they can't market to you as effectively.
One of my cousins is heading off to University, something I did twelve years ago now. While much of the process has remained unchanged, e.g. student finance forms, and all the bureaucracy that goes with it, things have changed quite a bit in all other aspects, to the point where I don't think most of my advice I would have given my freshman self would even be relevant now.
Your late teenage years are when you first become aware of paperwork, when you first start having to fill out forms for all manner of things, and when for most people, they come across those boxes where you tick which age bracket you fall into. As you grow older you move up through these brackets and the first time you do it there's always a novelty in that moment, but when you start moving up again you start to realise time is moving forward whether you're completely conscious of that fact or not. Time really does feel like it speeds up with age, those moments of transition from one bracket to the next seem to come quicker each time. You think back to when your school holidays as a kid used to feel like they lasted an eternity, but by the time you hit your thirties a year passes with ever increasing rapidity.
The awareness of the limits of your generation become more apparent with age. It starts with language, words begin to creep in which you don't know or don't understand. Even when you learn what they mean you don't feel confident using them and have to second-guess whether you're actually using it right. That causes an awkwardness that makes the whole thing feel unnatural to you. You begin to recognise it as a language that you don't speak. You might understand it but still, it doesn't feel like a language that is "yours" anymore. At least this is my perception, and even going beyond my perception of myself and extending it to others, not for want of judging, the same awkwardness is felt for other people even if they show no sign of it themselves. You start to see people your age using those words and it becomes amusing, the apparent pursuit of everlasting youth becoming evermore pronounced the greater the divergence becomes.
After language for me it comes to fashion, perhaps this speaks more of my priorities in life than anything. Maybe for other people the order would be reversed. For me personally fashion has always been a matter of personal taste, not something I pursued in the aim of following a trend. For those that do perhaps fashion would be their first awareness of this divergence. Nevertheless, you start to see lines being released by stores that take on a new style that doesn't appeal to you. Styles evolve and you become increasingly aware of how out of place you look when you try on these outfits. Again perhaps this is all my own experience and other people don't identify with this at all. For me personally the last two or three years now it has become harder for me to find clothes I actually like. I refuse to conform to stereotypical styles associated with ageing, more so because I never liked them in the first place, I'm not going to suddenly develop a taste for corduroy, plaid jumpers, and tweed - no offence if you like that sort of thing, each to their own, but to me that's hideous.
I know the style of clothing I like, and I know that it's now absent from the high street, and it's hard to define it in searchable terms which makes finding it online difficult. That in itself is a topic for another post.
Despite how this post might read, I am not bitter about this whole experience. I'm merely pointing out that demographics aren't just things that are used to define us, they are used to target us and entire industries centre around narrowing down their target audiences to the most lucrative. You become more aware with age how much attention businesses, and industries in general, write you off as a consumer based on arbitrary numbers and statistics which, despite their arbitrary nature, do develop into full fledged divisions of the population which reinforces the divergence between generations. Each generation in essence is groomed by corporations and intentionally segregated to create distinct markets. Content producers and product manufacturers don't want universal markets, they want segregation the more segregated we are as a society the easier it is to target us, they don't like it when you step outside of your box and become something they don't know how to classify and categorise because they can't market to you as effectively.
I forgot you did that
I am over 30 years old. I have lived over 360 months. I have lived over 11,000 days. I have lived over 263,000 hours. In that time quite a lot has happened to me, and for me to tell you everything would take a lifetime, quite literally as it would take longer to recount than it did to live in the first place. At some point in your life you realise it becomes apparent that it isn't possible to know someone else's past in its entirety. It becomes apparent that we each have lives to live and what matters more is not the lives we have already lived but the lives we live now and what we live together going forward.
When you are younger, and you have lived a shorter life to date, it becomes easier to "catch up" on what people have lived through before they met you. At School, College, and University we meet people we want to connect with and we try and learn as much about them as we can. Those first few weeks getting to know each other are spent talking about anything and everything we can think of that happened to us when we were younger. The older we get though the harder it becomes to recount everything that has happened and we become more selective in what we share. You eventually reach a point where getting to know someone stops being a case of telling them everything and becomes a case of asking "What do you want to know?" - that question for me was infuriating when I was younger because I always asserted that it's your life to live and everyone's life is different so how could I possibly know what to ask. As I have gotten older though I have come to realise that question isn't offered in the attempt to barricade you from getting to know someone's past or to limit what you know by what you can think to ask, but rather it is intended to frame in a much nicer way the real question that person is asking you - "What do you actually care about?"
The older we get the more we realise we are not as unique as we like to think, that famous quote goes "you are unique, just like everybody else" it turns out that's not far wrong. We all live through similar experiences in life and we all think the same way whether we draw the same conclusions or react the same way is irrelevant, if you've thought about it someone else probably has too, it's just a case of whether they will admit it or not. Therein comes the reality of that question, asking what you want to know is a roundabout way of asking what you actually care enough about to need to know of another person before living your life with them. I don't necessarily mean romantically or in terms of a marriage etc, I mean quite literally living your life with that person in it, no more than that.
The longer you become friends with someone the more you live through together, the more you have to recall. You eventually get to a point where you completely forget things you both lived through even though you were there for it, or things which they said, or did, which they told you everything about at the time. I am 30 years old, if you were my friend that amount of time that's 30 years worth of life to recall and even I don't recall everything I did or said now. I have spoken about this before, with age memories fade, things we never thought we would forget disappear from our minds. I can picture perfectly the classroom I sat in when I was 11 in my final year of primary school and I know where I sat, I can see every seat in that class and I know people sat in each seat, but many of those seats are now empty in my mind. I have forgotten who sat there, their name, their face, everything about them. I have forgotten entire people. They are all people who I never spoke to again after we left that school we went our separate ways and never saw each other again.
The human mind only holds onto the things it thinks are important - even when we can't fathom why it thinks those things are important at all and why it forgot things we evidently think were much more important. Regardless, life is long, and it is filled with moments and details that it becomes impractical and almost impossible for us to recapture and recount. Be careful what you hold onto and what you fixate on, because you are likely to forget things that were far less destructive to you as a person with ease, if you let go of the things you don't want to carry with you, sooner or later you'll forget them too.
When you are younger, and you have lived a shorter life to date, it becomes easier to "catch up" on what people have lived through before they met you. At School, College, and University we meet people we want to connect with and we try and learn as much about them as we can. Those first few weeks getting to know each other are spent talking about anything and everything we can think of that happened to us when we were younger. The older we get though the harder it becomes to recount everything that has happened and we become more selective in what we share. You eventually reach a point where getting to know someone stops being a case of telling them everything and becomes a case of asking "What do you want to know?" - that question for me was infuriating when I was younger because I always asserted that it's your life to live and everyone's life is different so how could I possibly know what to ask. As I have gotten older though I have come to realise that question isn't offered in the attempt to barricade you from getting to know someone's past or to limit what you know by what you can think to ask, but rather it is intended to frame in a much nicer way the real question that person is asking you - "What do you actually care about?"
The older we get the more we realise we are not as unique as we like to think, that famous quote goes "you are unique, just like everybody else" it turns out that's not far wrong. We all live through similar experiences in life and we all think the same way whether we draw the same conclusions or react the same way is irrelevant, if you've thought about it someone else probably has too, it's just a case of whether they will admit it or not. Therein comes the reality of that question, asking what you want to know is a roundabout way of asking what you actually care enough about to need to know of another person before living your life with them. I don't necessarily mean romantically or in terms of a marriage etc, I mean quite literally living your life with that person in it, no more than that.
The longer you become friends with someone the more you live through together, the more you have to recall. You eventually get to a point where you completely forget things you both lived through even though you were there for it, or things which they said, or did, which they told you everything about at the time. I am 30 years old, if you were my friend that amount of time that's 30 years worth of life to recall and even I don't recall everything I did or said now. I have spoken about this before, with age memories fade, things we never thought we would forget disappear from our minds. I can picture perfectly the classroom I sat in when I was 11 in my final year of primary school and I know where I sat, I can see every seat in that class and I know people sat in each seat, but many of those seats are now empty in my mind. I have forgotten who sat there, their name, their face, everything about them. I have forgotten entire people. They are all people who I never spoke to again after we left that school we went our separate ways and never saw each other again.
The human mind only holds onto the things it thinks are important - even when we can't fathom why it thinks those things are important at all and why it forgot things we evidently think were much more important. Regardless, life is long, and it is filled with moments and details that it becomes impractical and almost impossible for us to recapture and recount. Be careful what you hold onto and what you fixate on, because you are likely to forget things that were far less destructive to you as a person with ease, if you let go of the things you don't want to carry with you, sooner or later you'll forget them too.
The Benefits of Insomnia
Insomnia is something I have written about in the past many times, so rather than focus on the condition itself and how to overcome it, I want to focus on something else, that is the benefits of Insomnia which as it happens I have concluded do indeed exist. I've had a hate-hate relationship with Insomnia throughout my life having suffered with it since I was a child. Whilst I always focused on the negative aspects of the condition, I am trying to find more positives in life now even in places where you would not think to find them. To that end I have been thinking about my Insomnia and some of the ways it actually helps me as a person.
I've mentioned the debate about introversion and extroversion before, and how it defines our behaviour. With regards to my social life and how involved I get in social activities, I would consider myself introverted. I am low energy and low maintenance. Some people like that and others really don't. Regardless, when I am around a lot of people for a long period of time, I feel myself getting restless, physically and emotionally I feel drained but with a desire to run away and be alone for a while to recharge. One of the things Insomnia helps me do is to find time to myself. The world is a quiet place at 3 in the morning. There are few distractions, everything is calm, and most importantly, everyone else is asleep. Over extended periods of time that can encourage loneliness and that is something which you can find ways to tackle, but there are times when being alone is the one thing you want more than anything else. Insomnia enables you to do that by giving you time, and to an extent, energy, to do things for yourself when there's no-one else around to bother you.
Creativity too is something which you might immediately assume would flounder when you can't sleep, however, like Catherine Zeta-Jones character Theo in the 1999 classic 'The Haunting' - I have some of my best ideas when I can't sleep. When you lie in bed and try to fall asleep, but can't and your mind races, some of the best ideas come to you. Things pop into your head from nowhere as distractions, all manner of visions and endless possibility arises. There was a time when I would fight this, when I was so consumed with getting to sleep that this would be an annoyance to me. Instead, now I write them down, every idea that comes into my head I take a few moments to actually entertain the thought, and if I think "that could work" I write it down, usually as a memo on my phone which usually isn't far from reach.
The irony here is that both of these things are in many ways positives that other people actually go out of their way to try and achieve, through meditation and isolation, and various other methods of trying to reach a point of inner Zen. I and many other Insomniacs should take a few moments to stop and reflect on what we are actually achieving without effort and without thinking. If other people struggle to do this so much then perhaps we shouldn't be so opposed to it? You can argue that you do indeed need sleep and that you can't afford to go without. However I would make a point I realised long ago - there's no difference lying in bed for 4 or 5 hours unable to sleep versus being up and about for 4 or 5 hours doing something else you actually like to do.
There is no doubt you do need sleep, however the body responds to its own needs and we are all different in terms of what we can and cannot do physically. There is a fixation on the notion that you must have 8 hours of sleep a night and that they must be from 11 until 7 in order to live a healthy and balanced life. I would ask you however if that is what you focus on when it comes to Insomnia, how many other areas of your life do you actually conform to what is prescribed to be ideal? Do you have a diet that is perfectly balanced, includes every vitamin and mineral and each of the food groups you are supposed to eat every day? Do you drink the right amount of water you are supposed to drink every day? Do you exercise the amount of time you are supposed to exercise every day? - a pattern should be emerging here, if the answer to any of these questions in all honesty was "no" then perhaps you should stop and think about why you actually fixate on sleep so much as something which has to conform to what others say.
If you feel like you won't have the energy to do what you have to do every day by forgoing sleep, I would simply argue that lying in bed all night unable to sleep you already forgo that sleep and you already continue with your daily routine. In the end one of the biggest arguments made to overcome Insomnia is that the more active you are the more you will sleep or the easier it will be to sleep - so maybe stop fighting it and get up and do something in the middle of the night and sleep might actually become easier to achieve over time.
I've mentioned the debate about introversion and extroversion before, and how it defines our behaviour. With regards to my social life and how involved I get in social activities, I would consider myself introverted. I am low energy and low maintenance. Some people like that and others really don't. Regardless, when I am around a lot of people for a long period of time, I feel myself getting restless, physically and emotionally I feel drained but with a desire to run away and be alone for a while to recharge. One of the things Insomnia helps me do is to find time to myself. The world is a quiet place at 3 in the morning. There are few distractions, everything is calm, and most importantly, everyone else is asleep. Over extended periods of time that can encourage loneliness and that is something which you can find ways to tackle, but there are times when being alone is the one thing you want more than anything else. Insomnia enables you to do that by giving you time, and to an extent, energy, to do things for yourself when there's no-one else around to bother you.
Creativity too is something which you might immediately assume would flounder when you can't sleep, however, like Catherine Zeta-Jones character Theo in the 1999 classic 'The Haunting' - I have some of my best ideas when I can't sleep. When you lie in bed and try to fall asleep, but can't and your mind races, some of the best ideas come to you. Things pop into your head from nowhere as distractions, all manner of visions and endless possibility arises. There was a time when I would fight this, when I was so consumed with getting to sleep that this would be an annoyance to me. Instead, now I write them down, every idea that comes into my head I take a few moments to actually entertain the thought, and if I think "that could work" I write it down, usually as a memo on my phone which usually isn't far from reach.
The irony here is that both of these things are in many ways positives that other people actually go out of their way to try and achieve, through meditation and isolation, and various other methods of trying to reach a point of inner Zen. I and many other Insomniacs should take a few moments to stop and reflect on what we are actually achieving without effort and without thinking. If other people struggle to do this so much then perhaps we shouldn't be so opposed to it? You can argue that you do indeed need sleep and that you can't afford to go without. However I would make a point I realised long ago - there's no difference lying in bed for 4 or 5 hours unable to sleep versus being up and about for 4 or 5 hours doing something else you actually like to do.
There is no doubt you do need sleep, however the body responds to its own needs and we are all different in terms of what we can and cannot do physically. There is a fixation on the notion that you must have 8 hours of sleep a night and that they must be from 11 until 7 in order to live a healthy and balanced life. I would ask you however if that is what you focus on when it comes to Insomnia, how many other areas of your life do you actually conform to what is prescribed to be ideal? Do you have a diet that is perfectly balanced, includes every vitamin and mineral and each of the food groups you are supposed to eat every day? Do you drink the right amount of water you are supposed to drink every day? Do you exercise the amount of time you are supposed to exercise every day? - a pattern should be emerging here, if the answer to any of these questions in all honesty was "no" then perhaps you should stop and think about why you actually fixate on sleep so much as something which has to conform to what others say.
If you feel like you won't have the energy to do what you have to do every day by forgoing sleep, I would simply argue that lying in bed all night unable to sleep you already forgo that sleep and you already continue with your daily routine. In the end one of the biggest arguments made to overcome Insomnia is that the more active you are the more you will sleep or the easier it will be to sleep - so maybe stop fighting it and get up and do something in the middle of the night and sleep might actually become easier to achieve over time.
Recharging
I've been thinking a lot about the concept of recharging lately. With most pieces of technology we use them to a certain point before they become unreliable. The time it takes to recharge the battery grows longer and the time it takes for it to discharge when using it gets shorter with age. I've been thinking about life and considering the human body as a machine - a biological one at that but still it shares many characteristics of a machine. I've spoken about ageing before on this blog and how the decline in our health seems to happen quite rapidly. Everything works perfectly for a while until one little problem, after that more and more arise until the sum of all those problems becomes significant enough to impact our lifestyles.
I've been wondering about mortality, and whether like technology, if there is an optimum performance level that degrades over time with the age of the technology. To give an example, the older your iPod or your laptop becomes, the lower your expectations become as to its peak performance. When you first purchase it you expect everything to work perfectly, but when you've had it ten years your expectations aren't so high. You start to care less about it doing everything it once did and start to focus on the one thing you want it to do most of all and hope that it at least does that.
There are those that argue that you can be perfectly healthy at any age, but I would argue against that. The human body is comprised of its constituent parts none of which are still like new unless you were literally born yesterday. The body regenerates to an extent but the cells it replaces are not replaced with brand new cells in their factory state but rather with cells that are also aged. That's counter-intuitive but unfortunately that's how the body works.
So if nothing will ever return to its like-new state, then it's reasonable to assert that the peak performance you can expect is whatever is optimum from the age of the body. That leads us to the question, is it actually true to say that we should "act our age" or is whatever your body is capable of inherently the true and accurate depiction of your age? To put it bluntly, if you can still physically do something, is it fair to say that's age-appropriate? If you are thirty, forty, fifty, sixty etc, and you want to breakdance, or free run, or base jump, and you are capable of doing so, should you still do it just because you can, or do we really have to subscribe to the adage "just because you could doesn't mean you should" and all it entails?
Do you have to come to a natural point of acceptance where you acknowledge the limits of your own physicality and mental dexterity and limit what you do in accordance? Is it an inevitability of life that your battery will run out more quickly with age and you will need to recharge more often or simply do less if you want to at least remain somewhate functional?
I've been wondering about mortality, and whether like technology, if there is an optimum performance level that degrades over time with the age of the technology. To give an example, the older your iPod or your laptop becomes, the lower your expectations become as to its peak performance. When you first purchase it you expect everything to work perfectly, but when you've had it ten years your expectations aren't so high. You start to care less about it doing everything it once did and start to focus on the one thing you want it to do most of all and hope that it at least does that.
There are those that argue that you can be perfectly healthy at any age, but I would argue against that. The human body is comprised of its constituent parts none of which are still like new unless you were literally born yesterday. The body regenerates to an extent but the cells it replaces are not replaced with brand new cells in their factory state but rather with cells that are also aged. That's counter-intuitive but unfortunately that's how the body works.
So if nothing will ever return to its like-new state, then it's reasonable to assert that the peak performance you can expect is whatever is optimum from the age of the body. That leads us to the question, is it actually true to say that we should "act our age" or is whatever your body is capable of inherently the true and accurate depiction of your age? To put it bluntly, if you can still physically do something, is it fair to say that's age-appropriate? If you are thirty, forty, fifty, sixty etc, and you want to breakdance, or free run, or base jump, and you are capable of doing so, should you still do it just because you can, or do we really have to subscribe to the adage "just because you could doesn't mean you should" and all it entails?
Do you have to come to a natural point of acceptance where you acknowledge the limits of your own physicality and mental dexterity and limit what you do in accordance? Is it an inevitability of life that your battery will run out more quickly with age and you will need to recharge more often or simply do less if you want to at least remain somewhate functional?
No Comment
I love Twitter and I hate twitter. I love it because it makes it easy to connect with anyone in the world and I hate it because it makes it easy to connect with anyone in the world including those you don't want to. I love it because it's easy to find people who share your interests by looking for tweets related to those interests, and I hate it because it makes it easy for people who don't share those interests to target you precisely because of those interests. I love it because of the exchange of ideas, and the debate and the connection you form with people when discussing things in an open forum, and I hate it because it makes it easy for people who don't share those ideas, or don't want to form any connection to attack you because of those ideas.
Twitter is a platform that has benefits that are a double-edged sword. When you are in college or high school and you are introduced to the concept of debate, you are usually placed into opposing teams and given a topic to debate. Each team is usually assigned a side of the debate they must take and they have to find arguments to support their side. This often results in you being placed on a team where you need to argue for something that you would never in a million years actually argue for in your personal life. I'm not mentioning specific issues here for a reason, I don't want this post to become specific to one issue.
The point here is that both teams engage in a debate around an issue putting forward their own pros, and discounting the pros of the opposing team with cons that negate their arguments. With most debates the side that eventually wins is not usually the side that is "right" but rather the side that made the most persuasive argument, spoke with the greatest clarity, and in essence, conducted themselves in a manner that makes them appealing as a person - the actual substance of their argument is almost irrelevant. Therein lies the problem with the concept of a debate, it isn't to find an answer to a question, a yes or a no, a right or a wrong, it is to explore arguments and the issue being debated. The trouble with places like twitter, and the internet in general, is that most people don't treat it in this way, most people are convinced they have to "win" and that they have to make the other person "lose" and that leads to some very ugly situations.
In the past I engaged in debates online about issues, never trying to actually convince someone to think one way or another but simply exploring issues and presenting arguments people had not considered. That didn't end well. I have been a member of various online forums over the years and in my time one thing always remained true for every single platform I ever used - the bigger it got the less use it became. Smaller communities work because they are niche, only those who join actually have an interest in the focus of the community, and the issues they discuss are usually discussed in a civil way at first. As those communities grow and gain success, prominence, and most importantly visibility, they attract others to join who don't have any interest in the original motivation for founding the community. This leads to the decline of debate and the incline of straight out arguing. Such conflict inevitably causes divisions, and cliques form around positions at opposing sides of those divisions. The community becomes a collection of smaller communities and with each new division and separation those communities divide until individuals no longer feel part of the overall community which arguably no longer exists.
The final consequence is that those individuals abandon the community altogether. Over time each smaller community succumbs to the same pressure as they are pushed out and inevitably you end up with a few large warring factions that dominate. The desirability dies and the online community that once existed disappears entirely. At that point you then have the original creator who will make one of two choices, either to close the site altogether, or to step back and allow it to descend into anarchy and find a way to profit from it. You can guess which option the creator of Twitter took.
Having seen this happen time and again I have come to the conclusion that it is not worth the energy to even bother responding to some tweets on twitter. In particular those that ask questions and raise issues that the tweet wants to debate, because ultimately there are now too few people on twitter that actually want to debate any issue they tweet about, they just want someone to have an argument with. By extension there are also those who seek out arguments as a means of increasing their exposure on twitter with the active aim of gathering followers who side with them and blocking any of those who dissent along the way. These people can be seen as militant tweeters and they are usually quite easy to spot, you only need to spend a minute or so scrolling through their timeline to see that is the case.
One last comment I would like to add is that there are many people like me who still use twitter as a means to stay in touch with a handful of people but are completely disillusioned with the platform. For me and those like me you will often wonder why we do not comment on certain things that are tweeted, the reality is not that we do not care, but usually that we have so much to say about them and know twitter isn't the place so we don't bother engaging at all. Silence on twitter does not mean the person behind the account isn't there, doesn't see those tweets, and is ignoring you, the opposite is usually the case, they see, they understand, they think, and rethink, and over think, and don't comment.
Twitter is a platform that has benefits that are a double-edged sword. When you are in college or high school and you are introduced to the concept of debate, you are usually placed into opposing teams and given a topic to debate. Each team is usually assigned a side of the debate they must take and they have to find arguments to support their side. This often results in you being placed on a team where you need to argue for something that you would never in a million years actually argue for in your personal life. I'm not mentioning specific issues here for a reason, I don't want this post to become specific to one issue.
The point here is that both teams engage in a debate around an issue putting forward their own pros, and discounting the pros of the opposing team with cons that negate their arguments. With most debates the side that eventually wins is not usually the side that is "right" but rather the side that made the most persuasive argument, spoke with the greatest clarity, and in essence, conducted themselves in a manner that makes them appealing as a person - the actual substance of their argument is almost irrelevant. Therein lies the problem with the concept of a debate, it isn't to find an answer to a question, a yes or a no, a right or a wrong, it is to explore arguments and the issue being debated. The trouble with places like twitter, and the internet in general, is that most people don't treat it in this way, most people are convinced they have to "win" and that they have to make the other person "lose" and that leads to some very ugly situations.
In the past I engaged in debates online about issues, never trying to actually convince someone to think one way or another but simply exploring issues and presenting arguments people had not considered. That didn't end well. I have been a member of various online forums over the years and in my time one thing always remained true for every single platform I ever used - the bigger it got the less use it became. Smaller communities work because they are niche, only those who join actually have an interest in the focus of the community, and the issues they discuss are usually discussed in a civil way at first. As those communities grow and gain success, prominence, and most importantly visibility, they attract others to join who don't have any interest in the original motivation for founding the community. This leads to the decline of debate and the incline of straight out arguing. Such conflict inevitably causes divisions, and cliques form around positions at opposing sides of those divisions. The community becomes a collection of smaller communities and with each new division and separation those communities divide until individuals no longer feel part of the overall community which arguably no longer exists.
The final consequence is that those individuals abandon the community altogether. Over time each smaller community succumbs to the same pressure as they are pushed out and inevitably you end up with a few large warring factions that dominate. The desirability dies and the online community that once existed disappears entirely. At that point you then have the original creator who will make one of two choices, either to close the site altogether, or to step back and allow it to descend into anarchy and find a way to profit from it. You can guess which option the creator of Twitter took.
Having seen this happen time and again I have come to the conclusion that it is not worth the energy to even bother responding to some tweets on twitter. In particular those that ask questions and raise issues that the tweet wants to debate, because ultimately there are now too few people on twitter that actually want to debate any issue they tweet about, they just want someone to have an argument with. By extension there are also those who seek out arguments as a means of increasing their exposure on twitter with the active aim of gathering followers who side with them and blocking any of those who dissent along the way. These people can be seen as militant tweeters and they are usually quite easy to spot, you only need to spend a minute or so scrolling through their timeline to see that is the case.
One last comment I would like to add is that there are many people like me who still use twitter as a means to stay in touch with a handful of people but are completely disillusioned with the platform. For me and those like me you will often wonder why we do not comment on certain things that are tweeted, the reality is not that we do not care, but usually that we have so much to say about them and know twitter isn't the place so we don't bother engaging at all. Silence on twitter does not mean the person behind the account isn't there, doesn't see those tweets, and is ignoring you, the opposite is usually the case, they see, they understand, they think, and rethink, and over think, and don't comment.
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