Monthy Archive: November 2005
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November 01, 2005

Observations : Visions of the future

I read a lot of science fiction (and even some fantasy). At their best, these genres provide the author the ability to create situations which, while not strictly realistic, put the points the author wants to make in sharp relief. Doing that in the context of "the real world" is much trickier as the reader brings a lot more of their own biases and baggage to the story.

I also find the various "visions of the future" found in science fiction to be interesting. While sci-fi has a rather poor track record of getting the big trends right, I think the predictions tell us a lot about the kinds of questions people were (and are) asking themselves. Currently I see two trends in sci-fi – singularity and tribalism.

"The singularity" is the ultimate form of Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock". The idea is that we will shortly face such rapid social changes because of key technologies that it is impossible for us to understand what life will be like afterwards – it will be like trying to see past the event horizon of a black hole or to determine what existed before the big bang (both "singularities" in the mathematical sense). The technologies which will bring this about are either human genetic manipulation – how can you talk about the future of human society when we aren't really human any more; or the ability to "download" our consciousnesses into computers (and perhaps back) - creating computer programs that are "us" in every respect, only immortal (the ultimate transition from atoms to bits).

Ignoring for the moment the plausibility and timing of humanity achieving such a singularity – what does it say about society now, today, that people are even contemplating this as our future? Is this some expression of anxiety that the human race loosing its humanity? (Is about ability to instantly see the latest tragedies around the world driving us to despair?) Or is it an expression of hope that we will one day transcend human nature? Or is it simply that in a society that believes it has killed god, that we must now remake ourselves in his image?

The other trend I see repeated by sci-fi authors is the collapse of the nation state and the rise of a new, technologically mediated, tribalism. Just as "atoms" are giving way to "bits" in society today (information is becoming more important that the physical forms used to convey that information); in the same way (it is proposed), geography must give way to community. Why (it is asked) must nations be associated with physical locations? Isn't that just as foolish as maintaining the association between a song and a disk of plastic? In a world with rapid global communication, why do you need to live near the collection of people you are governed with? The prediction then is that geographical nation states will decline in power, becoming mere service providers to a collection of tribes which know no geographic boundaries. People will form associations with other like-minded people around the world, and these associations will hold the power, not geographic governments.

Again, ignoring the question of how such a transition would take place or if such a system would be stable, what does it say that these ideas are being proposed? Is this the ultimate statement of cynicism about the government? Or is it a reflection of cynicism about our own ability to form compromises with each other, assuming that we must eventually fracture? Or is it just a reflection of the positive experience in the internet age of finding that dozen people around the world that share your obscure hobby or peculiar political beliefs?

I have no answers for these questions. I can say for myself that I find the idea of the singularity scary and the idea of neo-tribalism somewhat comforting; and that is likely a reflection of my own need for community. What underlying social trend may be influencing other writers is unclear to me.

Posted by Steven at 09:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 04, 2005

Life : Playing Games

For the last few months, the graphics processor on my computer's video card has been dying. It worked fine when I was doing "normal" stuff (web surfing, wing Word, etc.); but started to die (crashing the computer) when I played graphically-intense games. The Mean Time to Failure started at about an hour of play, and then slowly dropped down to about 5 minutes (which basically made games unplayable). Well, I finally got around to getting the board replaced as of Wednesday.

All this is by way of explanation of why there have been no blog entries for the last couple of days – I have been quite busy playing the games I have been unable to play in recent weeks. (For those who are interested, the big winner is "Civilization IV").

Posted by Steven at 08:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Allegories , Faith : Life, assembly required

Consider a man who buys his young son an unassembled bicycle, with the hope that the two of them would be able to have some nice father-son bonding time in the process of building the bicycle (perhaps the man had fond memories of similar time spent with his own father). Let's say that the man is actually quite skilled mechanically, and was looking forward to passing some of his experience on to his son.

However, when the day comes, the man's son isn't interested in his father's help or even company (and not because of anything the father has done). The son is proud and willful and wants to build the bicycle completely on his own. The father watches, and tries to help - pointing out that the washers need to be put on before the nut, or offering to tighten the bold on the handlebar which the son was not strong enough to do; but the son ignores him.

In the end, the experience is doubly disappointing for the father. Not only has the opportunity to spend time bonding with his son been lost; but the result is that his son's bicycle is at best nonfunctional and at worst apparently functional but unsafe to actually ride.

If you can imagine how the man would feel under such circumstance, I think that is how God often feels about us.

God gave each of us an "unassembled life" kit, and I believe he was looking forward for the chance to spend time with us helping us assemble our kit. As the creator of the kit, he certainly knows how to assemble it so the result provides both maximum performance and maximum safety.

Yet most of us, most of the time, choose to assemble the kit ourselves, ignoring God's desire to help us. In this we loose doubly - we both end up with a less than ideally constructed life and we miss out on the chance to spend time with God as we are building it.

Note, in my story I did not have the man hire a mechanic to help his son build the bicycle - the message here is about relationship. I appreciate those who are apprehensive about taking someone else's word about what God intends, and I believe God feels the same way. As in the story, I believe he wants to develop a relationship with each of us personally where he can work with us on constructing our live, not have someone else work with us.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 07, 2005

Life : The Risks of blogging

Well for anyone who tuned into this blog last night (Pacific Standard Time), you will have discovered that my blog was attacked by a comment 'bot (the blog equivalent of Email "spam"). Over the last couple of month I have had a few stray advertisements posted as comments; and deleted them as soon as I saw them (while starting to research the state of the art in protection against such). Last night I had 20 comments added to the blog which were essentially links to other sites. I cleaned them up quickly; but the people who run such services tend not to just "go away", so I will have to implement some of the techniques I have researched. I hope to have the first wave of changes implemented sometime this week. These are changes which will not affect legitimate commenters at all. If that doesn't work, I have a second wave of changes I can implement; but unfortunately they will make it slightly harder for legitimate people to post. I hope it doesn’t come to that.

The one think I would ask my readers is if you see any such comments; please do not click-through any such link. It only encourages them

Posted by Steven at 09:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Introspection : Truth in Blogging

People are complex. Getting to know them is an endless task. After 17+ years of marriage, my wife and I still surprise each other on occasion. Blogs on the other hand are a quite limited form of communication – at most a few paragraphs of information about a person each day, perhaps the equivalent of 5 minutes of conversations. The baristas at Clocktower Coffee where I get my morning brew may know me better than that.

The bottom line is that a blog is a tiny window, a mere peephole, through which to get to know someone. If my wife who has lived with me for so long doesn't fully know me yet, those of you who only know me through this blog never will.

But I think the real question is: is the "me" you will get to know (however incompletely) though this blog really ME?

You can think of a blog as a digital photograph of someone. Now for starters (as I have already indicated), this is no 20MegaPixel picture with every detail recorded – its is more like a few thousand pixels (you know, those pictures with big fat blocks of color that you have to look at from 10 feet away to see what they are). But even given that it is a low-resolution picture; it is actually a picture of ME?

Well, for starters, there are topics I do not blog on. I work for a publicly traded company, and much of what I do can have an effect on the company's success. So, because of "insider trading" laws (as well as intellectual property issues), I have a firm policy that I do not blog about what is going on with me at work. That alone cuts out a substantial piece of who I am. I also do not blog on subjects that require me to reveal details about other people. I have made my own choice to expose myself though this blog; but that doesn't give me the right to tell stories about other people. This hasn't come up very often; but it has come up.

So perhaps this blog is the equivalent of a low-resolution picture of face, where you will never see the rest of my body; but is it at least an accurate low-resolution picture of my face? Is the "me" you see here the same as the "me" you would meet in person? Well, no. Every post I make here has at least one editorial pass where I go back and clean things up. Some of my posting have gone through 4-5 drafts to get the words "just right". In person I don't have that ability. There is a degree to which the "me" you see here is more erudite than the "me" you would meet in person.

How about this blog being the best of a series of low-resolution picture of my face (where I get to pick the one which is most flattering)? Well, I think that's what I am striving for. That's the kind question I ask myself with each post – within those constraints, is the picture I am presenting here really "me"?

Certainly what I say here is the absolute truth about what I think and feel. I can't recall even being temped to spin my position to be more favorable to other people; but that's the easy part. The more interesting questions are – does the balance of topics I discuss accurately reflect what's going on inside my head? Are there topics not precluded by my work/people-privacy rules that I choose not to post on for other reasons? I do think about these kinds of things (perhaps more than I should). I appreciate that this is not a requirement for blogging, merely my own personal fetish.

I have no answers here, merely questions. At some level, this is yet another subject I think about which I felt should be reflected in my blog, and now it is.

Posted by Steven at 09:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Books : Babylon 5 scripts.

Since it is likely that some of the people who read this blog are also fans of JMS (J, Michael Straczynski) in general and the TV series "Babylon 5" in specific, I thought I would point you at:

http://www.babylon5scripts.com/

I received my copy of "volume 1" today, and am definitely pleased. All through the production of B5, JMS was very active online, using the show as an opportunity to teach people on the net how TV shows are made. These books appear to be the final step in the process – not just sharing the scripts; but production notes, memos, photographs, stories, etc.

Also note that there will be a 15th volume published and made available (for free) only to those who already purchased the initial 14.

Posted by Steven at 06:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 08, 2005

Introspection : I am a city person

While I grew up in suburbia (or at least in towns that were indistinguishable from suburbia even if there was no urban center nearby) and I didn't really live in a true city until I went off to university; yet my heart belongs to the city.

I think a big part of it is that I have grown to despise driving and love walking; and one thing about real cities is they tend to have good public transportation. My ideal place to live is someplace where I would not have reason to drive a car more than once or twice a month. I would want to have: a grocery store, a pharmacy, a good book store, a computer game store, a board game store, a video store, a movie theatre, and at least a half dozen good places to eat all within a half hour of some combination of walking and safe public transport. The more that is accessible beyond that (performing arts, more stores, more restaurants), the better. Boston, London, even New York City would all be wonderful places for me to live; as would Paris if I knew the language.

Silicon Valley is not such a place.

Silicon Valley is pure suburbia. Endless track housing and strip malls, broken up by industrial office parks and the occasional mall. While there is a bus network, I've never felt particularly comfortable riding them. There is a light rail system which I have ridden a few times; but the only place it goes to that I am really interested in (downtown San Jose) is over an hour away on the train. BART (a San Francisco based mass transit system) is wonderful; but it doesn't reach into the heart Silicon Valley. If this wasn't where the jobs were, I wouldn't be here; and there is no way I am sticking around when I retire.

And all of this is not to say I don't enjoy nature. I love going out to the mountains, visiting national parks, swimming in the ocean; but to me these are things you go do, not where you live. This is much the way your typical Silicon Valley resident thinks of snow – snow is something you go to. When you want it, you drive off the Lake Tahoe or someplace similar; but having it where you live is a completely unacceptable to them.

I even enjoy doing road trips (with all of the driving that entails) – I just don't want to have a road trip every day. Spending a week or two driving around the country seeing the sights is a wonderful vacation for me; as long as I can go home at the end, park the car, and leave it parked for a while.

If there was an appropriate opportunity for me to move back to Boston/Cambridge and actually work in the city (not out in the 'burbs), I'd jump at it. Same goes for London. Until then I toil away in suburbia, trying to find places to live and work that are reasonably close to each other so I don't have to drive much.

Posted by Steven at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Life : New Guest Book

I've set up a guest book on frappr. If you read this blog (even if you'd rather not comment), PLEASE sign in here . No personally identifying information is needed, so this is risk-free. Just provide a name (even a nickname), your zip code (or city), and any statement you want to make ("hi" is sufficient).

Posted by Steven at 05:46 PM | Permalink

November 09, 2005

Observations : Vacation spots

Since you asked…..

Picking a "favorite" vacation spot is hard; because there are many reasons to go on vacation. Sometimes you go to relax. Sometimes you go to be able to spend time with someone. Sometimes you go to experience something new. Sometimes you go for some kind of stimulation that isn't a part of your normal life. Most real vacations are some mix of these; and the requirements for any specific vacation will weight these factors differently. One time a good vacation might be mostly relaxation, while another time novelty and stimulation might be paramount. So there is no one "best" vacation spot. Given that, I'll try to do my best in listing the places I have enjoyed.

First and foremost, there are places of such supreme natural beauty that I think everyone should make a point to visit them. The top few on this list for me are: Yellowstone, Yosemite, Bryce Canyon, Columbia River Gorge, Niagara Falls, Mammoth Cave, Grand Canyon, Carlsbad Caverns. These are "must see" locations. The problem is, once you have seen then, that's it. Unless you can bring someone new with you and see the place fresh through their eyes, I don't see these as places to visit again, which makes it hard for me to call them "favorites"

That leaves places to visit to experience the creations of mankind (as opposed to God).

For the arts and museums, nothing tops New York, London, and Paris (Italy has great art as well; but I haven't been there yet, so I can't comment). Paintings, sculpture, plays, concerts, science, technology - there is always some form of intellectual or cultural inspiration available in those cities, no matter how often you visit. Chicago (Field Museum and Art Institute) and San Francisco (Exploratorium and Museum of Modern Art) would be close runners-up in my book.

For food, I'd go to New York, London, perhaps Atlanta (it has a collection of very unique restaurants), or believe it or not Silicon Valley – one benefit of living in one of the most culturally diverse parts of the world is you have access to just about every kind of cuisine that exists.

For pure relaxation, I'd go to Las Vegas or Santa Fe (particularly if you stay at the LaFonda). No place tops Vegas if what you need is to be pampered, and Santa Fe is a great place to just get away from it all. Orlando can also fall into this category if you can resist the temptation to go see the attractions.

My favorite overall?

London – no doubt, largely because it is the best place to keep my options open. I have already seen all of the "must see" sights, so I am comfortable spending a day just relaxing – watching the ducks in St James Park, taking a leisurely stroll down the south bank of the Thames; or if I want stimulation I can fill my day seeing museums, going to plays, listening to concerts. If I want fine food, there are numerous excellent restaurants with a variety of cuisines; or I can just pop down to the corner pub for a Cornish pasty or some fish and chips. If I want novelty, there are always new plays and new exhibits, and a few hundred smaller museums I still haven't gotten to. Whatever I am in the mood for on a given day, I can find some way to satisfy it in London.

Posted by Steven at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Life : I know you are out there

Lurking, secretly reading this blog, not wanting anyone to know. Come out of the darkness and declare yourself to be a reader of "Sighs and Musings" – sign my new guest book!

Posted by Steven at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 10, 2005

Faith : The truth about sin

Many Christians (not to mention whole churches and denominations) are obsessed with the idea of sin – defining what it is, what is isn't, who is committing it, who isn't. Many put a lot of energy into creating ordered lists of sins with the 'worst ones' at the top, and then take pride (another sin) in noting that their sins are lower on their list then the ones other people commit (funny, somehow it always turns out that way).

A few years back I came to understand something which completely changes my perspective on sin. I was studying Romans 14:23, and suddenly it clicked together with a long list of other verses (Hebrews 11:6, Luke 12:22-32, Matthew 6:21-48 and many more). I discovered that sin was not about dos and don'ts – it was about a very specific attitude.

What I realized was that the essence of sin – the thing that actually makes something "a sin" - was not trusting God.

I believe (as Bill Bright put it) "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life". There are two parts to this statement. The first is that God's attitude is fundamentally favorable towards us –he actively wants what is best for us. It is the deepest desire of God's heart that we live happy, healthy, and fulfilled lives. The second part of the statement is that not only does God want what is best for us; but he actually knows how to accomplish that. From wherever we are at the moment, whatever we have done, God knows how to get from there to the best we can possibly have; and because he loves us, he wants to tell us how to do it.

All he asks is that we trust him.

This is not some expression of God's emotional neediness (God doesn't have co-dependency issues) – it is a purely practical matter. While we may be able to achieve a "pretty good" life by following some set of simple, generic rules (there are many good philosophies to choose from); living an "optimal" life requires such complex decisions and foreknowledge that God is the only one able to see what needs to be done – it isn't something he can teach us to do beyond simply saying "trust me, I know what I am doing."

So what's this got to do with sin?

I believe sin is what happens when we stop trusting God and try to solve our own problems without him. Because we can not optimize decisions as well as God can, taking over control of our lives inevitably leads to us "missing the mark". The point is, it isn't our actions that make something sinful, it is doing those actions in order to accomplish something we should be trusting God for that makes it sin.

Consider the classic cases. We lie, cheat, and steal because we don't trust God to provide for us. We desire things and relationships because we don't trust that God will provide for our emotional needs. We get angry and attack because we see others as threats that we don't trust God to protect us from. We dishonor our families because we don't trust that God knew what he was doing when he put us in them. That's seven of the Ten Commandments right there.

But it goes beyond that. Tear up your convenient lists; because anything can be a sin if you are doing it for the wrong reason, the wrong motivation. Actually, don't tear up the lists. If God says clearly that you shouldn't do something, then you really can't say you are trusting him if you go ahead and do it anyway. My point is that if something isn't explicitly prohibited in the bible doesn't mean it's not a sin. In fact the "worst sinner" may in fact be someone follows all of the commandments; but is completely dependant on his own wisdom and skills to solve all of his problems. He may live a "good life"; but one that is far short of the "optimal life" God has for him.

When we look away from God and look towards money, people, things, organizations, places, and whatever to meet our needs, then we sin. Now when we trust God, he may well use money, people, things, organizations, places, and whatever to meet our needs; but because of his wisdom and foreknowledge he will often choose different sources than the ones which seem best to us. Our only hope is to trust God that while something may not look optimal now; there is a reason why God knows it is better in the long run. To do otherwise is, I believe sin.

A corollary to this revelation is that I also began to have a deeper appreciation of the role of prayer in a Christian's life. Trusting God to lead you into an optimal life means staying in constant communication with him. As it says in the Bible "pray without ceasing"; but that's another blog for another day.

Posted by Steven at 04:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

November 11, 2005

Introspection , Movies , TV : Movies and Television

Those who have known be for a long time (Roland?), will know that when I was younger I was a serious cinemaphile. I would go to two or three movies every weekend (and sometimes more), year around. Sometimes I would see a movie I liked and right away collect my friends who had not seen it yet and drag them back to see it again. I actually saw "Raiders of the Lost Arc" eight times in the first week it was open that way. Conversely, while I did watch television, I didn't watch a lot of it, and often heard about cool new shows from other people at work before I started to watch them.

These days, things are quite different.

There are still movies I rush out to see on opening weekend; but more often than not I wait to see what the reviews and word-of-mouth is like before I go to the local multiplex; and if some movies slip by, well, I'll catch them on HBO or DVD rental. Conversely, as has been noted by some commenters on this blog (again, Roland), I tend to watch more television than I used to.

So the question is – why?

Now the proximate cause is clear – as I have stated several times in this blog, I just have too many things I want to do and too little time, so I am cutting back on activities to focus on those I feel are of greater value. In that calculation I have found television to be of more value than movies, hence the shift. But that merely redirects the question – why is television worth more of my time than movies?

The answer gets back to another point I have made often – television is a writer's medium, while Movies are a director's medium. As someone who aspires to be a writer, I find I am learning more that is of value to me as a writer from television than from Movies.

Anyone who has seen a favorite novel made into a movie has seen how small a subset of a typical novel will fit into a typical movie. The reality is, from a writer's point of view, movies are short stories. You have enough time to establish a few characters, set up a premise, and then make some point (perhaps with a clever twist at the end). There are very very few movies which (in my opinion) come close to the depth you can have in a novella, much less a full novel. Now a good movie, because it is a multi-media experience, can make the same point as a short story in a much more compelling way; but it is still, in essence, a short story.

Television on the other hand has the option to do much more. A typical season of a television drama these days is about 16 hours of programming. That's 60% more than all the Lord of the Rings movies put together. The kind of story you can (if you choose to) tell in that amount of time is fundamentally different than what you can tell in a movie. You can spend the time to really flesh out several characters, establish deep background, carry multiple themes to conclusion. You can employ multiple styles in different episodes; you can do everything a good novel writer does in a good novel.

Now, of course, just because someone can do something, doesn't mean that they do it. Most television today is still written as an anthology of short stories that happen to have recurring characters. The best of these are good short stories, and much can be learned from them about writing short fiction. And then there are a few shows on television where the writers stretch their wings and try and tell an epic story, a novel, over the course of a season (or better yet, a whole series). These are the shows that are even better when watched on DVDs where you see all of the episodes together in rapid succession. The fact that a few such shows exist is one reason I value my time spent watching television over movies.

Posted by Steven at 05:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Life : Yet another desperate plea...

... for people to sign my guest book (I know from access logs that there are more than six people who read this regularly). I will stop doing this soon - promise!

Posted by Steven at 05:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 12, 2005

Web : What He Said

In the current climate of name calling, finger pointing, ridicule, and intellectual pride that pervades the "Evolution vs. Intelligent Design" debate; I have finally found someone making some intelligent observations on the subject – Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame). Those who are regular readers of this blog know that I rarely post links to other people's works here (I figure all of you are well able to find interesting things on the web yourself, and you don't need my help), so when I say "this is worth reading", please understand I really mean that. I only wish I had managed to say it as well as he did.

Take a look here

Oh, and if anyone wants to discount this because it was written by a "comics guy", may I suggest reading his no-fiction book "God's Debris" – Adams is someone with a fair amount of horsepower under his hood (if, perhaps, directed in fairly odd directions).

I'm looking forward to "part 2".

Posted by Steven at 03:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

November 13, 2005

Observations : Living in Silicon Valley

I had previously made some comments about why I personally don't like living in Silicon Valley; and didn't want to leave the impression that things are all bad here. There are actually a number of good and otherwise interesting things to say about life here which I feel obligated to pass on.

The Good

The absolutely best thing about living in Silicon Valley is how diverse a community this is. In addition to the normal economic immigrants you find everywhere in the United States, this area is famous around the world as "the place to be" for those skilled with computers to come and make a name for them selves. While there was some of this in Boston, where I lived previously, that was but a minor trickle compared to the flood of people pressing to come here on even a temporary basis. While every job I had in Boston had a significant number of people from outside of the United States; at many of the jobs I have had in Silicon Valley, those born in America were a minority of the workers.

And where the people come, they bring their culture along with them, and they seek out the comforts of home. The result is that the ethnic diversity of the workforce is reflected in the ethnic diversity in shopping and restaurants. In previous places I have lived, there were often Chinese markets that specialized in selling those ingredients people from China would need in order to cook "home food". Here in Silicon Valley, we have Chinese markets, Korean markets, Japanese markets, Arabic markets, Persian markets, Dutch markets, and even an "English" grocery store (selling goods imported from the U.K.) – not to mention a most excellent German butcher shop. This diversity is also reflected in restaurants. While I was fond of "Middle Eastern" restaurants in other locales, I was never able to appreciate the subtle differences between Persian, Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian, and Egyptian food until I came here and discovered restaurants that specialized in those local flavors. In all of my travels, only New York City rivals Silicon Valley in culinary diversity.

In addition to diversity, I must also recognize that the music scene here is excellent, although I do not often avail myself of the opportunities it presents. I suspect this is an after effect of the role the area played in the 60's. While San Francisco was the center of that music scene, many of the famous artists actually came from down here in the suburbs and they returned when Haight/Ashbury became a tourist destination in the 70's (and those that didn't, return here on their reunion/retirement tours). Very near where I live are the Shoreline Amphitheatre and the Mountain Winery where Bill Graham's organization (the 60's rock impresario, not the evangelist) still puts on concerts.

The Odd

The single oddest thing you need to learn when you come to Silicon Valley is the weather. Specifically that this area is a collection of microclimates. In Seattle, it is said "if you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes". In Silicon Valley, if you don't like the weather, drive 5 miles. When you hear a weatherman on a radio say "The high today will be 50-80 degrees", they are not being imprecise, they are indicating that within the range of that station, some places will only have a high of 50, and others will have a high of 80. It is very easy to drive 15 miles (without a significant change in elevation) and experience a 10 degree difference in temperature. You can see this phenomenon visually on your first clear day here. The Silicon Valley is in fact a valley, bounded by the Santa Cruz Mountains on one side and the Diablo Mountains on the others. While smog and fog often interfere with the ability to see both sides of the valley simultaneously, when you can see them you realized that year-round, the Santa Cruz Mountains are lush and green, while for most of the year, the Diablo Mountains (only 30 miles away) are dead and brown. There are a few months in the winter where the Diablo Mountains gain a delicate fuzz of green grass; but it quickly withers when the rains stop. When we first moved here, Anne's grandmother (who had been here for a while) told us that there are only two seasons in Silicon Valley – brown and green; and she was largely correct.

Well, that should get the local chamber of commerce off my back. There are good reasons for people to live here beyond the jobs, they just aren't as important to me as they might be to other people.

Posted by Steven at 04:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 14, 2005

Movies : Fall movie roundup

I already provided details reviews on the movies "Serenity" and "Good night and Good Luck"; but there were a few other movies I saw which did not seem to warrant reviews at that time. Here's my quick takes.

Flightplan
I found the journey to be thrilling; but the destination to be a disappointment. Not surprisingly, I enjoyed Jodie Foster's performance; and found that the movie maintained a solid level of suspense and mystery. Unfortunately, final explanation of what was going on struck me as a bit implausible; although I'll grant them there were hints of it early on. So while I recommend the movie, it isn't without reservation.

A History of Violence
An interesting film. I'm still not sure what to make of it, which is in itself a kind of recommendation. As an exploration of the origin and nature of violence, I think it provides the basis for some good discussions with friends afterwards; but beyond laying the scenario out, I'm not sure the movie tries to draw any conclusions of its own. The best parts in my opinion were some of the humor moments towards the end with William Hurt's character.

Proof
I probably should have blogged on this one. Proof is an excellent film, well written, well acted. An exploration of sanity, madness, family, and most of all, lost opportunities. The opening scene sets the stage perfectly. A father (who is established as having mental illness) is comforting his daughter who fears that she too is mentally ill. He tells her that the fact that she is wondering if she is crazy is proof that she isn't – crazy people always think they are sane. To which she responds that that would be proof that he is also sane, at which point he reminder her that he's not actually there – he's dead. The movie is full of moment like that where you suddenly discover what you thought was happening is completely different from what is actually happening.

Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
Such a disappointment. I loved "A Nightmare before Christmas" and was hoping and expecting something similar; but unlike "Nightmare", this film has no heart. Even the songs lacked the 'soul' of the operatic numbers in the first film.

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
I'm a big W&G fan (and in fact of all of the Ardman Animations projects); but while the style of Wallace & Gromit makes for wonderful shorts, it doesn't appear to expand to fill a feature film very well. It reminded me of all of the Saturday Night Live skits that have been turned into movies with disastrous results. Just because something is a good short story, doesn't mean you can make a novel out of it.

Posted by Steven at 05:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 15, 2005

Thoughts : Sharing space

I am currently reading Lynne Truss' book "Talk to the Hand" which is her take on manners in the same sense that "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" was her take on punctuation. It is getting me thinking about the nature of civility in society.

I am intentionally making a distinction here between "civility" and "etiquette" (a point Truss also makes, although with different terms). I am not so much concerned with the arbitrary rules a society forms (most often to help distinguish between those who are "inside" and those who are "outside"). I don't care what fork people use when they are foolishly presented with more than one, or whether elbows belong on tables or feet upon sofas.

There are however other issues which concern me greatly – these relate to what I will refer to as "civility". I chose that word because of its relationship to the Latin word civicus "of the city, belonging to the city, citizenship". My starting point is simple – as soon as people began to gather together into communities (they became "civilized" in the literal sense), it was realized that as long as people needed to share space, they needed to yield some of their individual liberties while operating in those shared spaces lest the exercise of their freedoms impinge on someone else's freedom. Civility and thus civilization itself is then founded on a negotiation regarding what limits exist on what one can do in public that one might be quite free to do in private.

My concern here is not with the details of such negotiation, or the outcome; but the recognition that it exists at all. My observation is that in the United States at least, the move to individuality and individual freedom has led many people here to abandon the need to consider that one's public behavior might need to be at all different from ones private behavior. In short, I am concerned that America is becoming less civilized, and that this will eventually result in dire consequences.

The signs of this are all over. Boom-box cars that broadcast the driver's favorite tunes at such volume that people on the next block can hear them. People talking loudly on their cell phones in the most inconvenient places. Drivers who merge and change lanes without regard to who else might be on the road. Couples engaged in rather intimate behavior on subway trains. I could go on; but my point is not to catalog the behaviors which I feel should be forbidden; but rather to ask what is the root of such behavior? I believe the root is that people have stopped believing that they need to give up anything when sharing space with other people. To me, that means the end of civilization – people will not long be able to live with each other "in the city" if that is in fact the trend.

I think as long as people acknowledge the need to negotiate their behavior in public places, that there is hope. Individual rules may change, and I personally may not always be happy with the results; but part of any negotiation is recognizing that you won't always get everything you want.

The rules don't even need to be universal absolutes. In classic manners, the phrase "excuse me" was used initiate a renegotiation of the implied social contract. You want to do something that you realize pressed your freedom farther than expected into someone else's freedom, so you say "excuse me". This allowed the other person to acknowledge and accept your intrusion, or provide some kind of counter offer (including perhaps outright denial). My point is not to praise the specifics of this exchange (I am aware of other perfectly civilized cultures that handle it somewhat differently); but to make clear that true civility is not a fixed set of rules; but in fact a continuous negotiation one conducts with those around you – assuming of course that you see the need to do so at all.

Posted by Steven at 05:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

November 16, 2005

Life : Another milestone

Anne wins the door prize (my appreciation) for posting the 200th comment on this blog (on 165 (now 166) posts). Many thanks to all of you who have commented on this blog. Those of you who are fellow bloggers know (and those who are not can certainly appreciate), comments are to blogs what applause is to performance arts – it's how we know what we are doing is appreciated. There's nothing worse that making a post and getting no comments – you feel like finding someway of tapping the microphone and asking "Is there anyone out there?" You start to wonder, did I offend people? Is everyone on vacation? Not that I have any basis to complain on this blog – I have attracted a steady stream of comments on a fairly diverse set of postings. The fact that my comment count has almost always remained higher than the number of posting being commented on is something to be satisfied with. I only wish the set of commenters was a bit more diverse; but I'll take what I can get.

Posted by Steven at 07:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Games : Game review: The Movies

Peter Molyneux is one of the most consistently innovative computer game designers in the industry (like Chris Crawford and Will Wright). While there are other game designers who produce consistently excellent games, Peter Molyneux always seems to try and "push the edge of the envelope", with the result that while some of his games soar skyward, frequently defining new genres of games, others simply crash and burn. My sense from interviews I have seen with him is that Molyneux is content with that track record – he'd rather try and fail than not try at all.

Which bring me to his latest game: The Movies.

I can thankfully report that this venture is in my opinion a resounding success. The Movies is actually two games in one: It is at one level a classic "sim" game – allowing you to run a movie studio – managing the lot, keeping your "talent" happy (and sober), getting movies out the door, and hopefully winning a few awards in the process. At another level, the game provides the tools for the player to write, shoot, edit, and release their own films (Molyneux's company even provides a web site where people can publish their finished films to earn points that can be used to download new props for their movies).

The sim (so far) has proven to be fairly enjoyable. While it involves the usual sort of micromanagement which is inherent in sim games, the user interface is one of the best I have seen, making the process both easy and entertaining. There are clearly different strategies you can apply to the game, and it is not clear to me at this point if any are optimal. Even the layout of the studio involves subtle factors which influence the game.

There are two complaints about the sim I have seen in other reviews on the web. First, movies, even bad ones, always seem to make money. My observation is that all movies have ticket sales, and if you stick to doing simple movies, the production costs remain low enough that you do make money. However, on my first try at producing a blockbuster, my production costs went up significantly (I had to halt production at one point to let an actor calm down). I don't rule out a "Waterworld", "Ishtar" or "Heavens Gate" type disaster is possible with this game. The other complaint I have seen is that late in the game (when actors start demanding "personal assistants", etc.) that you run out of manpower as the number of people applying for jobs at your studio is outstripped by the number of new positions to fill. I have not seen this yet; but the game documentation does say that the rate at which people apply for jobs depends on the prestige of your study. It may well be that the game has built into it a vicious cycle where a failing studio can't hire enough people to turn things around. If true (and again, I haven't seen it yet), then while it may be realistic, I would view this as a flaw in a game which is supposed to be fun.

And then there's the movie making tools. Now before people get excited, this is not a completely free-form mechanism. The game includes a finite number of sets, and a large but finite number of shots (erroneously called "scenes" in the game) with which you can build your movie. A typical "scene" might be a medium shot of someone walking in a door (which can be shot on any set that has a door). That shot can then be tweaked for mood (is the actor happy, sad, angry), camera angle, props (in the person carrying a gun or an umbrella), etc. However, you can't have the person summersault through the door – you are stuck with stringing together the existing shots to produce your movie. My observation is that while you can't do everything with this mechanism, you can certainly do enough to create entertaining films. The diversity of options is good enough that you can do what you want, even if the result may not exactly look like what you see in your mind.

The game allows you to use both of these modes independently if you want. When in sim mode, you can let the game's AI write your scripts and edit the films for you. Likewise you can start the game in "sandbox" mode where you can turn off things like actor-tantrums, shooting time, etc., allowing you to just focus on creating films. However the real fun comes when you mix the two – running the studio and writing and editing the films it produces. Actually, I think you must do this in order to become a top-ranked studio. The game's AI-writers just do not produce scripts that the game's AI-critics and AI-audiences really like. I don't think this is a flaw, I think it is an intentional part of the design that you need to do you own film making if you want to "win".

As an example of what I am talking about – the AI-critics definitely favor scenery changes in how they rate films – your reviews suffer if you keep using the same set over and over again. However, when I ask the AI-writers to develop scripts, they quite often use the same set for a whole movie, and then use the same set again for the next movie. When I relied on the AI-writers, I found that only a third of the sets I built tended to get used in their movies. By writing my own scripts, I was able to produce movies that were ranked much better by the AI-critics.

So, "two thumbs up and five stars" for this game.

Posted by Steven at 05:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 17, 2005

Allegories , Faith : The Journey of Christianity

In the first century, Christianity was known as "The Way" in some circles. Since then allegories like "Pilgrim's Progress" and "Hind's Feet on High Places" have built on the idea of the Christian life as a journey we take. As metaphors for our individual progress in the faith, these allegories are fine; but I always felt that these stories implied that we all took the same exact journey and we each took it isolated from each other. I believe neither of these facts are quite true, so let me propose a different allegory.

I tend to think of the Christian experience as a vast land with varied terrain – mountains, forests, hills, deserts, swamps. Scattered throughout this land are altars which we must travel to. As we reach each altar, we are asked to sacrifice some part of ourselves on the altar; but for everything we sacrifice, God gives us a piece of himself to take its place, so that as we progress from altar to altar, we start to look more and more like Him. Some altars we must visit several times, giving up small pieces of ourselves with each visit, while others represent larger steps in our transformation.

The altars are all connected by roads of various kinds, where each road leading to a given altar is designed to prepare the traveler for the sacrifice they must make. A road through a dark and spooky forest leads to an altar where we must sacrifice our fears. A steep climb up a mountain leads to an altar where we release those things which burden us. A path that leads across several narrow boards serving as bridges lead to an altar where we must sacrifice those things that unbalance us.

There is also a maze of other roads in the land, all of which lead to nowhere, looping back on themselves or ending abruptly.

Each of us is called to travel to each altar; but not all in the same order, nor by the same routes. Each of us has a unique and individual route through the altars which God has planned for us. We each must look to God to discover the route we personally must take, and we must follow his directions lest we get lost in the mazes.

In our travels, we don't always succeed. Perhaps we start up the mountain trail and become too tired and turn around before we reach the altar. While God is saddened by such failures, he continues to work with us, sending us to some other altar next instead, only to bring us back to the road we turned back on at some point in the future so we can try again. Some of us know the feeling of being brought back to the same road time and time again until we finally make it all of the way to the altar.

In all this, the church is a kind of wayside inn - a place for us to gather, rest, and be refreshed; but most important it is a place where we fellow travelers share the stories of our travels. I picture the dinning room at the inn to be filled with large communal tables that allow us all to sit together as we eat and share stories.

Sometimes we tell stories of victory – "It took me four tries; but I finally made it to the altar at the top of the steep mountain road!" – giving the others at the table a chance to rejoice with us and (for those who have not made it yet) be encouraged that it is possible.

Sometimes we tell stories of defeat – "I got so scared in the forest, I could help myself, I ran back out before I reached the altar." – giving the others at the table a chance to comfort us.

Sometimes we tell stories of experience – "I discovered when taking the winding road through the swamp, that if I stayed in one place too long, my feet sunk into the muck, making it harder to move. To get to that altar, you really need to just press on, no matter how weary you get" - giving the others at the table who have not made it to that altar yet some help when their time comes.

All of us have the responsibility to tell our stories as we gather at the table, and to listen to everyone else's stories as they are told. The easiest way to become lost and discouraged in our travels is to spend all of our time at the inn hiding, alone in our rooms. That is bad for us; but it is also bad for our fellow travelers. You never know when your stories (even unsuccessful ones) are just what someone else needs to hear in order to succeed in the next leg of their journey.

The inn, by the way, has no staff. Some of the travelers, as they stop at the inn in the midst of their own journeys, take turns cooking the food, serving it, changing the sheets on the beds, doing the laundry for everyone. In doing so they give others a chance to focus more on their own travels; but we mustn't forget that those who serve are fellow travelers too, still making their way through the sequence of altars God has prepared for them. We must also remember that theirs are not the only stories to be told or listened to, they serve in order to give us all more chance to share our own stories without being distracted by the chores.

Posted by Steven at 05:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

November 18, 2005

Observations : Statements of Rights

I have often thought that many of today's big legal issues could have been avoided if a bit more time had been invested in the writing of the "Bill of Rights" as it has been incorporated into the United States constitution. Those who know history know that many of the founding fathers thought a statement of fundamental rights was unnecessary as such rights were obvious. In such a climate, the details of the wording of these amendments were not given the benefit of intense debate that the constitution itself was afforded. People then knew what rights they wanted guaranteed and easily read into the text what they expected, and little thought was given to how the wording might be understood and misunderstood a couple hundred years later.

When I am in the mood to contemplate my own political philosophy, one tool I use is to try to draft my own statement of human rights – what things do I think should be guaranteed by the constitution? How can such rights be described in unambiguous ways? I would encourage anyone who wants to clarify their own views to try the same exercise.

As part of that process I have often gone looking at other statements of rights which have been drafted over the years. I was recently reminded (Wikipedia is wonderful) of one of the best. "Part 1" of the constitution of the State of New Hampshire in the US is an enumeration of 38 (now 42) rights which are guaranteed to all citizen of that state. Drafted in 1784 (before the US constitution), I have always found it to be a better and clearer document than the national Bill of Rights, and it includes some quite interesting statements.

I'll start with the best – Article 10:

[Right of Revolution.] Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.

Yes, every citizen of New Hampshire is guaranteed the right to overthrow the government if it no longer serves the common good and it all other means to change it fail. Perhaps that's why they still don't have an income tax there.

Now relating to my recent blog on civility, the New Hampshire constitution includes two interesting statements (articles 3 and 4):

[Society, its Organization and Purposes.] When men enter into a state of society, they surrender up some of their natural rights to that society, in order to ensure the protection of others; and, without such an equivalent, the surrender is void.

[Rights of Conscience Unalienable.] Among the natural rights, some are, in their very nature unalienable, because no equivalent can be given or received for them. Of this kind are the Rights of Conscience.

The document establishes that society is about an exchange of rights – that one yields some rights in exchange for the guarantee of others by the state. Furthermore, it establishes that the state can not compel the yielding of rights without providing guarantees of equivalent value, which implies that it can never demand that some rights be yielded because no such compensation is possible. As a statement of political theory, I find these simple statements amazing in their power and clarity.

There's much more (for instance, I think article 6 is a much better statement of the "Separation of Church and State" than what we have in the First Amendment in the US constitution); but I don't want to bore you with more of this if you aren't interested. If I have managed to whet your appetite, take a look here.

Posted by Steven at 04:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

November 20, 2005

Movies : Harry Potter

I'm not especially a fan of Harry Potter. I have not read the books, and while I have seen all of the movies, I haven't made a particular effort to see them soon after release (although it did work out that way this time).

I did enjoy the first movie a great deal, mostly because of what it said about English boarding schools and the culture that surrounds them. The whole environment was also intriguing as an exploration of "what would it be like if magic was real". Harry's story itself, however, did nothing for me, being targeted at a much younger crowd. The second movie provided some entertainment; but nothing much of substance, and the novelty had worn off. The third movie was just plain bad. They seemed to have dropped all of the small affectations which made the original movie charming – as if the story had been transplanted into an American boarding school instead.

I have now seen the fourth move, and while not without virtue, it is only marginally better than the third. The movie is clearly darker (the bad guys effectively win, with Harry barely coming out alive), and the main characters are allowed to act more like the teen-agers they are supposed to be. Those facts make it a more interesting move than the third; but when all is said and done; it is still just a juvenile fantasy.

The deepest observation made in all of the films is that "a mother's love is stronger than any magic". A noble sentiment; but I have to wonder, how many of the viewers and readers have ever experienced that kind of love in their own lives, or is that just another part of the fantasy for them?

Perhaps the problem is that I am an adult American, and can't help but to read the story as a (sympathetic) exploration of the English upper class. Consider: Harry is raised by a very common family of commoners ("muggles"), only to discover that he is in fact a noble by birth (a "wizard" born of wizards), and is the sole heir to his real family's legacy ("magic"). As the heir, he has powerful friends (Dumbledore and McGonagall) and enemies (Lord Voldemort). As part of coming into his inheritance, he is afforded the opportunity to attend an elite boarding school where he can learn his rights and prerogatives as a noble ("wizardry") and where he makes friend with other nobles. At the school, those whose parents married beneath their station (the "half breeds") are looked down upon by those of pure noble birth. Harry however, who is noble both in birth and in character wishes only to use his station for the good of others.

I could go on; but I think you get the idea.

I just have a hard time getting excited by a story which, at every turn, seems to support the concept of a strong hereditary class system.

Posted by Steven at 06:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

November 22, 2005

Speculation : Worldbuilding

My intent when I started this blog was that it would reflect the kinds of things I actually spend my time thinking about (within the limits of propriety when it comes to my job and other people). I have however come to realize that there is a whole class of stuff I think about which hasn't really been captured here. I'm not sure I am going to make it a regular feature of this blog; but I should at least acknowledge its existence.

I have long aspired to be a fiction writer (specifically a writer of science fiction and fantasy); but truth be told, what gets me excited about developing fiction is creating the background of the stories – elaborating in my mind and in my notes the world in which the story takes place, not the story itself. I have begun to suspect that this is why I never get around to finishing my stories – once I have developed all of the details of the background; I become disinterested in the story itself.

The result is I spend (waste?) a lot of time thinking about questions like: How big of a crew would a spaceship like that have? What kind of ecology would keep all of those monsters alive in the evil forest? (Saying "its magic" is just a cop-out to me.) What does the reproductive cycle of this alien species look like and how has it shaped their culture? How does "magic" work? What are its limits?

I have designed several alien species from the ground up, including what other kinds of life forms would appear on their planet to fill in the various ecological niches. Perhaps the most interesting is a species that has three and a half genders which are involved in reproduction (one gender undergoes a transformation in their lifecycle which results in their serving a slightly different role in the process late in life). The complexities of their reproductive cycle would of course result in complexities in their society, which I also developed.

Likewise I have designed many spaceships, and considered the effect of different technologies on the politics and culture of the society that uses them. While faster-than-light travel appears to be impossible in the real world, just what rules you choose to break in order to get it to work can have interesting consequences. Consider two solutions: A "warp drive" that allows you to travel faster than light, along with the technologies that allow you to detect and attack such craft in transit (essentially the "Star Trek" model). Alternatively you could have a "Jump Drive" that (after allowing the drive to "charge up") allows you to instantaneously jump to a distant location in the universe, where your ability to detect spacecraft is still limited to slower-than-light means.

A key observation is that "Warp Drive" encourages empire building while "Jump Drive" discourages it? Why? Because a primary motivation for building geographically large political organizations is that (because of fundamentals of geometry) their borders grow more slowly than their volume. Thus the larger the political entity, the more resources they can put into defending each unit of border. That's all well and good when the technology provides the means to defend borders (as "Warp Drive" would); but consider "Jump Drives" – as described, you could jump and attack any planet inside your enemy's territory, without actually passing through the border, so the advantage of size is completely lost. I once started outlining a story set in a galactic republic (which had been built using a "warp drive") soon after the discovery of "jump drive" technology. The story was about the fall of the empire (with hints towards the problems of fighting a war on terrorists using a military designed to fight more conventional wars.)

Actually, it is quite often that I come up with one story idea, and in the process of fleshing out the world surrounding it, I discover that the "real story" is elsewhere. A long time ago I started a fantasy story where griffons started attacking the livestock maintained by some villages (the story was about two heroes with different approaches to solving the problem). The story however got me thinking: Why did the griffon start attacking? Why Now? My answer was that a dragon had moved in and made a nest in the mountains, and was eating so much that the griffons has to travel farther to get their meals. But then why did the dragon move? At that point I saw an interesting pattern – the dragon moved because of some change where it had been living, which was caused by something else, which had been caused by something else, which finally led back to the villages building a dam on the river. The real story then become one of ecological consequences, and was much more interesting than the one I started with. But, as usual, once I had worked out the details, I lost interest in the project.

Anyway, I don't know how much of this kind of random speculation I want to spend time writing up (if for no other reason than a good deal of it is intrinsic to stories I'd still like to write someday, even if I have doubts that I ever will); but I at least wanted to acknowledge that I spend a fair amount of energy doing this.

Posted by Steven at 02:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

November 24, 2005

Life : Good memories

Overall, I had a happy childhood. Not an idyllic 50's sitcom childhood - my parents and sibling were normal human beings with normal faults; and their faults did on occasion affect my life in ways which had adverse consequences. I do not however subscribe to the popular notion that anything less than a perfect family is "dysfunctional". I have seen true, dysfunctional families and know the difference. No, my childhood was overall a good one and I am, to use the word of the day, thankful for my parents and how they raised me. Given that, I choose when I think of them to dwell on those occasions when they "got it right" rather than when their humanity failed me.

One such occasion was thanksgiving when I was, I think, 8 years old and my brother was 15. That thanksgiving my parents had the two of us, with substantial adult supervision, cook the thanksgiving meal, from starters to dessert. I'm not sure where they got the idea to do this; but it remains one of my favorite memories from childhood. The reasons were manifold – being able to do something so "adult" when I was only 8, being able to spend that time working together with my parents on a project (something I experienced more of later in life; but at the time it was novel), being able to experience directly the fruits of a job well done (eating the meal I had just cooked). In addition, the process got me comfortable with the process of cooking, so that when I was in my teens and both of my parents had full-time jobs, I was able to cook the family dinner on occasion.

As I recall, my brother and I did the whole dinner at least one more time after that, and even when my mother re-assumed primary responsibility, we always had at least some role in preparing the Thanksgiving meal. Perhaps more important, we become more involved in cooking other meals as time went by; but nothing compared to the memory of the first time we did it.

Thanks.

Posted by Steven at 06:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 27, 2005

Life : The muses come, the muses go

For most of November, I have been ahead of the game on this blog – often having two or three entries prepared in advance and having the luxury of picking which one to publish on a given day. The words just kept coming and my only problem was finding the time to get it all out.

Alas, I am now back in the state I was through most of October. I have six incomplete blog entries on my computer desktop which I seem unable to find the words to finish. The issue is not a lack of ideas to write about or the lack of motivation or time to work on the blog. Nor am I depressed. I just can't find the right words to finish any of the entries I have started (except, I hope, this one; lest I be left with seven incomplete entries).

What further complicates things is of the six incomplete entries I have started, four are on matters of faith, and two are about TV shows. That is problematical for me because my intent has always been to write about a diversity of topics, and conversely to avoid publishing entries on any single topics for several days in a row. My, perhaps futile, hope is that from time to time new people will discover this blog, and I don't want them to look at the last two entries and think "oh, this is a blog about TV" or "oh, this is a blog about Christianity" when it is in fact neither (or rather both and more). So even if I finished all of those entries today, I'm not sure I would be willing to publish them all in a row without finding other topics to intersperse in the sequence.

Actually writing about my faith here has been an interesting experience. I knew from the start that I would have to write about my experience of Christianity if this blog was to be a reflection of who I am, but my assumption was that most of the people who would read this blog would find those posts uninteresting. I didn't expect anyone to object or be turned off by it, but I did kind of expect a reaction of "yeah, OK, now can you get back to the interesting stuff like TV, movies, books, etc." Instead, my posts about my faith have consistently drawn comments from other people. Not more than other topics, but certainly not less - enough to indicate that people do find them interesting. I had not expected that.

Well, that sums up where I am right now, and having said that, I think I can actually say I finished this entry. I hope that bodes well for next week.

Posted by Steven at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

November 30, 2005

Introspection : The benefits of weeding

Carpe Diem is the modern way of life. Go for the gusto. Cram every bit of living you can into the moments you have.

For many years I bought into this lifestyle. There were so many things I wanted to do with my life (develop games, write novels, travel, study science, etc. etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum), and I tried desperately to find time for them all. My life began to resemble my bookshelves at home with books fit in wherever I could find room, often in front of or on top of other books. Finding a specific book often involved pulling out stacks of books from shelves so I can see what's hiding behind them. Like that, my life had become impractical, unwieldy, overburdened.

Quite often this pressure to do more was driven by a sense of guilt and responsibility. I am a very gifted individual with many talents; and the principle of "to whom much is given, much will be expected" has always been a burden to me. While not conscious of it until recently, I think much of my accumulation of projects was driven by a subconscious sense that if I "could" do it I must therefore try to do it lest I waste the talents I was given.

Over the last few of years, I have been making a concerted effort to change that. It started with some very serious introspection about who I am (as opposed to who I liked to think I was). Then from that foundation, I took hard look at all of the things I wanted to do or tried to do, and started making some decisions about what subset of all that was actually appropriate to invest my time in. It was not that I was spending time on unworthy activities (OK, there was some of that, I admit); but rather that I was trying to do too much to really succeed at anything.

This wasn't easy. It meant giving up on some dreams I have had for a long time so that I could invest my attention on a smaller number of dreams. The dreams I have kept are not based on practicality (some still represent quite a challenge for me to accomplish); but rather on a combination of how much I value them and how well I think they suit my understanding of who I am.

This process is not complete. There are still quite a number of dreams "on the fence" which I need to make a decision on. Some of these are waiting on my understanding myself better before I decide their fate, while others are waiting to see just how much time the dreams I have already committed to will take to be successful. However, even in this incomplete stage, I am already seeing the benefits of the adjustments I have made.

There are already aspects of my life that had in the past been too crowded to continue to grow which have now begun to flourish in the space I have opened up for them. Like seedlings transplanted from a small pot into the open ground suddenly finding room to grow and blossom, I am seeing parts of my life begin to bloom in ways that I have not seen for many years. I must admit, Anne (my wife) is one of the great beneficiaries of this as she had certainly been one part of my life that had become constrained by all the time I used to spend trying to juggle so many other goals. With new room opened up for our love to grow again, I find we are back to behaving like newlyweds. There are other parts of my life which are also showing signs of growth now that I have given them the room they need.

The lesson here is that a slower pace of life does not always mean accomplishing less. Sometimes it actually allows you to accomplish more.

Posted by Steven at 05:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)