Category Archive: Introspection

Thoughts, observations and discoveries I have made about myself.

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December 12, 2008

An overwhelming thought

It is popular these days to talk about one's "carbon footprint" – how much carbon gets released into the atmosphere to keep you in your lifestyle? How much carbon is released to produce and transport your food, clothes, gadgets, etc. as well as how much carbon is released as you use your normal mix of transportation, home heating and electricity?

As a Christian, I think I am called to be good stewards of the environment, and so there is some value in considering my carbon footprint. However, for as much as God cares about my stewardship of the environment, he cares about people much more. This led me to ponder a much scarier question:

What is my Suffering Footprint?

How much suffering exists in the world to keep me in my lifestyle? How much suffering results from the processes that produce my food, clothes, gadgets, etc. as well as how much suffering exists as a result of other aspects of my lifestyle? How many people in the world are lacking food, water, medicine because it is more profitable for companies to sell that stuff to people like me?

My answer isn't very encouraging, and I suspect most Americans, if they were honest with themselves, would have equally dismal answers. While I don't directly exploit anyone, my lifestyle is the cause of a lot of exploitation around the world.

Anne and I have tried to improve this over the last couple of years – trying to buy more of our food from sources that certify how the workers are treated, trying to avoid buying clothes that are made in countries that use sweatshop (or worse, involuntary) labor. Trying to reduce our buying of gadgets in general since as you follow the supply chains back on almost anything, it is hard to avoid minerals and the like that are obtained using ill treated workers.

What we have found is that short of dropping out and living in a commune that makes all of its own "stuff", it is next to impossible to avoid these things (and I'm not ready to drop out quite yet). I find the whole idea quite overwhelming; but I don't know what to do about it other than to continue to take the small steps I am already taking. As an individual, it seems completely beyond me to make a difference.

I do however wonder what the Church as a whole could do if we were united behind the idea of ministering healing for the hurts of this world.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 29, 2008

Looking at their faces

Living in the suburbs, it is often far too easy to ignore those that are different from yourself.

You can travel from your safe, middle-class home to your safe, middle-class job to a safe, middle-class shopping mall or restaurant (or safe middle-class church on Sundays) and finally back to your safe, middle-class home; all the while zipping on the expressway or freeway past those neighborhoods where other kinds of people live.

That's not to say you don't know that there are people who are different from yourself, or that you don't care about those among them who are in need. Perhaps you donate used clothes to Goodwill or the Salvation Army, or donate to charitable organizations that serve those in need. Yet in the suburbs it is very easy to take on an out-of-sight, out-of-mind perspective and to get comfortable only interacting with people similar to yourself.

Living in the city, that is much harder. Riding the subway or public bus, you come face to face with a broad range of humanity – all ethnic groups, assorted subcultures, almost all socioeconomic strata ("the rich" being excluded since even in the city they find ways to zip past everyone else). People different from you are no longer "out of sight" and therefore are much harder to keep "out of mind" (not that many people don't try).

But even in the city where you are constantly exposed to people who are different, it is easy to begin to objectify and collectivize them. There are "the poor", "the punks" the "ethnic minorities" (pick one) as if those categories define who they are. It is easy to fall into the subtle trap of thinking about the individuals who are like you are the groups who are not.

As I have been riding public transportation these past weeks, I have been taking the time to look at the faces of the other people, and I keep seeing people who really are "like me". Some may belong to different ethic groups or subcultures. Some may belong to different economic strata. Some may be drunk or on drugs. Yet looking at their faces I keep seeing people with hopes and fears are not so different from mine – people who at some level want the same things out of their lives as I do.

I keep thinking about the observation that as different as humans and chimpanzees look, 95% of their DNA is the same. I think an equivalent statement can be made about the hearts and minds people of different cultures and backgrounds – for as different as we might act and appear, deep down we are all far more the same than we are different.

I had several reasons I wanted to move to the city – access to culture, exercise (I am already losing girth), etc. I also had a sense that God had several reasons for wanting me up here (my experience is that God rarely does things for just one reason, although we may be limited to only understanding a limited number of those reasons).

I am starting to see that one of those reasons is to get me to be more comfortable interacting with people who are different from me. Put me in a room with other college educated professionals, and I do fine; but I'm never sure what to say when faced with people's whose backgrounds are very different. My sense is that this is one of the things God wants to work on in me while we live in SF, and that my rides on the subway are the beginning of those lessons.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

February 28, 2008

Games, God, and I

Playing games has always been an important part of my life. At one point I had a collection of over 350 board games and I have no idea how many computer games. For a while it even became a source of stress in my marriage – I was spending too much time playing computer games and not enough with my wife, but that was addressed a while back. Anne also doesn’t approve of some of the game I play; but that’s a different matter.

This past fall, The Lord started to deal with me on my choice of games to play (although, not exactly in ways that Anne would have wanted). I sensed that He was asking me questions as I played various games. What do I like about that game? How do I feel after having played it? Why did I pick that game to play tonight and not another? What did I get out of playing that game? God was working to help me be more conscious of my relationship to the games I played. A similar thing happened a couple years ago when God led me to re-think my TV watching.

The bottom line is that God helped me become aware of what games were beneficial for me to play and which were not. What’s interesting is that despite the amount of hot air generated by pundits on the subject, the issue was rarely a moral one. It was far more about how the games made me feel as I played them. Did they make me think? Did they allow me to be creative? Did they get me interacting with people (board game obviously have a big advantage here)? Or did I tend to get frustrated and stressed as I played them? Did they lead me to isolate myself?

Now a lot of these ideas are obvious; but the fact is I had rarely used principles like this to guide my game purchase decisions. I was more interested in what was “hot” and what had cool new technology than what benefit I derived from the experience (other than a few hours of distraction from life). Which leads me to the other thing I realized – how much I used computer games as a means of escape when I got stressed at work. Now there is value in that to a point; but only to a point; and there are dangers if I use games to avoid dealing with things that need to be dealt with.

So I am in the process of formulating some rules for myself for how I will decide what games to buy and play in the future. I don’t have a sense that I will necessarily be spending less time playing games; but the kinds of games and the venue in which I play them may change significantly.

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

January 24, 2007

Bits vs. atoms

The subtext of a lot discussion for the last decade has been the distinction between atoms vs. bits. As an example, it used to be that you could only purchase music as atoms (records, tapes, CDs); but now music can be conveniently dealt with as just bits (MP3 files, etc.) which has forced various industries to rethink how they do things (or try and force bits to behave like atoms). Photography used to be about atoms (film, prints, etc.) and now is about bits. While (so far) attempts to get rid of the atoms in most books have failed, reference books have almost completely been replaced by their equivalent bits. Even the process of shopping is now dominated by the bit-equivalent of stores.

I mention this because I recently found myself asking a personal variation of atoms vs. bits question. For reasons not worth elaborating on here, I began to ponder if some disaster were to strike (earthquake, fire, whatever), and I only had time to grab one thing before I ran from the house, what would I grab? What I found striking (and worth blogging) was that the choice was absolutely clear – my backup hard disk. It contains things like the scans of every photograph I have ever taken, my Email logs for the last 15 years, all of my personal writing projects, etc. In short, it contains all of the (nearly) irreplaceable bits I value most.

Now I do own some atoms I value: photographs of our wedding that Anne and I haven't scanned in (yet?); a handful of Apollo (moon landing) related memorabilia I got from my dad (who worked on the project); my autographed copy of Midnight Nation by JMS; my copy of the rare board game "Campaign for North Africa"; a half-dozen out-of-print books that would be difficult to replace. But the problem with atoms is that they are big and clumsy to carry in large numbers. For as much as I value these various objects in my life individually, I'd need to pile quite a number of them together to have the same value as all of the things recorded as bits in my backup drive (which I can comfortably slip into a coat pocket). It is an interesting measure of how much my life has become digital.

What's more, even though I am a computer professional, I don't think it was that long ago that the idea that I would end up valuing bits that much would have been quite strange to me. It used to be that bits were big and bulky to carry around and never were quite as good as "the real thing" (atoms). Even knowing Moore's Law, I'd never considered the possibility that I'd be able to carry enough bits around with me that I would choose them over an equivalent encumbrance in atoms.

Now for the moment I may be on the leading edge of this trend; but looking around, this seems to be the way the industrialized world is going. Which leads me to Microsoft's "immortal computing" research project and related efforts. After all, if what people value most are their bits, then how long will tombstones made of atoms be valued as memorials? There are already companies in the business of running "virtual cemeteries", where each deceased loved one has their own web page to be preserved indefinitely. Add to that all of the bits someone accumulates over their life (photos, etc.) which increasingly give a detailed picture of who they were and what they were like. Perhaps instead of building pyramids or other grand tombs out of atoms, future generations will seek immortality through their bits.

Posted by Steven at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

May 14, 2006

Mom

My mother died 14 years ago, and there are still days I miss her. She died of cancer, so we all knew what was coming and were able to prepare for it. A week before she died, I was able to fly out and spend time with her and Dad, as well as my brother and nephew who had also flown out. When I went to visit her in the hospital the last time before getting on the plane to come home, we knew it would be the last time I saw her in this life, so she and I were able to say everything we needed and wanted to say. There were a lot of tears; but I know I was able to say a proper goodbye. I can't imagine what its like for people who loose a loved one suddenly without that kind of opportunity for closure.

Now here's where tradition would have me talk about what a great Mom she was (which she was); but long before she died I reached the point of accepting that Mom was a normal, flawed human being. She had her issues, her baggage; as I have mine. There's something liberating about being able to look at your parents as people like yourself. There's a closeness you can develop which is impossible as long as they remain the idealized icons of a child.

Mom and I reached that point early. Both of us came to know Jesus around the same time, and so shared a common experience of learning what Christianity was all about. Our relationship as brother and sister in Christ quickly overwhelmed the son/mother relationship, freeing us to talk more honestly with each other about what we were experiencing in life. At the end of the day, Mom was one of my best friends, and it is in that role I miss her most.

She was in many respects a stifled artist. In a different day and age I think she would have become a classic bohemian; but she lived in a culture where a woman got married, had kids, raised a family, and defined themselves by those roles. To be clear, this was not something Dad did to her – I don't think it occurred to either of them that things could be any other way. Eventually, as my brother and I grew up, Mom did try and discover herself (discovering her faith and sharing it with me was a part of this); but I think the woman she might have been was buried too long to be recovered. The result was that in later years, Mom was often quite flighty – jumping from one thing to another, following fads, always (I think) trying to find herself in something new.

In all, my biggest regret is that I don't own any of her paintings. I do have some craft projects that she and Dad did together – Dad doing the woodworking and Mom painting the results; but she also did several paintings on her own which became lost in one of my parents many moves. I was always able to sense the emotions she put into the pictures – she and I had a common language in that regard, so her imagery spoke to me. I still wish I had one to keep, to cherish.

Anyway, happy mothers day, Mom.

Posted by Steven at 07:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 28, 2006

I'm just a subtext kind of guy

I had a small bit of self-revelation this week. Actually, it was something I always understood – I just wasn't able to articulate it well until this week. When I look at things, I tend to focus on their subtext rather than their text. I am aware of the text – the obvious, visible statement of what is presented; but I tend to look through that most of the time and focus on the subtext.

It's like an antique car collector who, while visiting a junk yard for parts to restore some car he owns spots a wreck in the yard and realizes that, despite the dents and rust and missing parts, it is the remains of a rare and valuable antique. He see's past the damage and understands the underlying worth.

This explains some of my choices in books, TV and movies. On face value (the text), the first season of Desperate Housewives was a rather base soap opera; but underneath that there was a subtext which told some very important truths about human nature. I loved the show because I focused on the subtext and largely ignored the more salacious parts of the show. There is a lot of media which I not only watch but enjoy that other people have questioned "how can you watch that?" My answer is almost always, "Yeah, it has X, Y and Z; but underneath all that it is really saying A, B, and C!" I have no problem with the text of a show or movie as long as the underlying message is one I can support.

It goes the other way as well. Anne and I used to watch "The Donna Reed Show" together on Nick-at-night. For those unfamiliar with it, "The Donna Reed Show" was one of those classic TV sitcoms from the 50's like "Leave it to Beaver" and "Father Knows Best". I never enjoyed the show as much as Anne and one day finally I realized why. Behind its "cooking while wearing pearls" wholesomeness, the message of the show was that husbands don't know what they are doing but need to be allowed to think they are in change, so wives need to trick them into doing the right thing. Watch a few episodes with that in mind if you don't agree, I think you'll be surprised.

The principle applies to people as well. I have always tended to focus on what other people can be – what their underlying potential is – and not what they are now. That has often allowed me to look past someone's current issues and see the gemstone behind the muck. I am aware of the issues; but I naturally focus on their potential.

In all this, what really fascinates me are those rare instances where someone manages to produce something whose text and subtext are completely at odds – where the story says one thing but means another. As you might imagine, this is very hard to do, and few have managed to succeed. The first example I ever ran across that came close was Saberhagen's "The Dracula Tape". The novel is written as a transcript of a recording left by Count Dracula in modern day telling his side of the classic Bram Stoker novel. In it Dracula is constantly trying to make himself out as the hero of the story and Van Helsing as the villain. What's interesting is that if you read past Dracula's self-promotion, he admits to a great many vicious acts. The whole book is an exercise in "just ignore that pile of bodies in the corner and see how I helped this one person over here." The dissonance between text and subtext always brought me great pleasure. There are other even better examples, but most have text which is so offensive that I would rather not publicly recommend them even if the subtext is in fact quite positive.

Posted by Steven at 07:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 30, 2005

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)

November 11, 2005

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)

November 08, 2005

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)

November 07, 2005

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)

October 16, 2005

Spinning the engine back up

Well, I seem to have caught my muse again.

For the last couple of months, I have had no shortage of topics I wanted to blog on, nor a lack of motivation to write; but too often I would sit down, get a paragraph or two in, and then hit the wall – the words would simply not come. At one point I had seven incomplete blog entries sitting on my desktop which I simply could not find the words to complete (I'd even sit down and try again at each one of them, with no effect).

I think however that I now understand the phenomena.

Back when I started this blog, we were in the design phase of projects at work, which is to say I was spending most of my day either writing or reading documents. That meant I had that part of my brain that dealt with English language "spun up" and working at speed, so when I came home, finding the words to express my ideas came easy. Projects at work progressed into development , which meant during the day I started dealing more with computer code and less with English; but my blog writing in the evening was enough to keep the "English engine" in my head working.

Then a couple of things occurred over the summer which disrupted my blogging, and I got out of the habit of writing regularly. Without that habit, it was like the engine spun down, and the words no longer came naturally. What got me out of it was a combination of having a couple of documents to write at work and simply forcing myself to sit down and write something, anything, even if it wasn't publishable.

The lesson of course is one I should have known – the most important thing for any writer to do is to write. Actually, most of the successful writers I have spoken to all agree that the top three things a writer must do to become a better writer is:

1. write
2. write more
3. keep writing

While it is not true of all skills, people do get better at writing just by practice; and as I experienced recently, they tend to atrophy with the lack of practice.

By the way, those successful authors who go beyond the top three things usually follow up by saying the next more important things a writer must do to become a better writer are:

4. read the kind of things you want to write
5. read more of the kind of things you want to write
6. keep reading the kind of things you want to write

Exposure to good writing is the other way to improve. Simply seeing the many different ways people approach written communication (whether it is essays, fiction, poetry) gives you tools you can use when you write.

To those I would add my own modest recommendations:

7. read books about writing from authors whose works you like (avoiding any book on writing whose author you don't recognize, or worse, who has only published books on writing)
8. find occasions to meet and talk to authors you like
9. read things other than the kind of thing you want to write (borrowing techniques from other genres can be very powerful)

Posted by Steven at 05:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 14, 2005

Challenge vs. Adapt

We all face problems in our lives, some large, some small. Whether it is an unjust law, or a rude waiter, there are two broad approaches to addressing any problem – you can challenge the problem to try and make it go away, or you can adapt to the problem and find someway to get what you want within the limitations of the situation. It all comes down to who is going to change, the individual or the situation.

Neither approach is "right". There are situations in life that call out for change. These are often problems that effect many people and therefore expecting the people to all change is unreasonable. On the other hand there are situations that call out for individuals to adapt – whether it is because the situation can not be changed (for instance individuals learning to adapt to disabilities) or where the current situation is only a problem for a few and changing to accommodate them will discomfort a much greater number. Of course, most real problems fall in between – where the proper resolution isn't obvious and it is up to us as individuals to make a judgment call whether to fight the situation or adapt to it.

There have been social trends which bias people towards one solution or another. In the 60's and early 70's, the bias was to challenge – to fix the things that were broken in the world, whether they be big (prejudice, poverty) or small (dress codes, hair styles). In the late 70's and 80's, the bias was towards adaptation - self-improvement and learning how to use "the system" to one's advantage. I'm not entirely sure where the bias is today; but given the tendency for people to blame others for their problems, I think we may be back to a preference to challenge rather than adapt.

As an engineer, my personal bias has always been towards adapting. Engineering is all about being told "You have 8 rubber bands, 10 sheets of paper, 6 tooth picks, 3 feet of string, and an egg. Now build something that will let you drop the egg without cracking". When an engineer is presented with such a problem they know asking for a sheet of foam rubber is not an option. Engineering is all about dealing with constraints – even if the only constraints are time or money. The first step in any engineering problem is understanding what you have to work with, and then you figure out how to solve the problem with what you have. Occasionally you can get away with challenging the constraints you are given; but an engineer who does that too often is not respected. Real respect comes from solving a problem under constraints that everyone else thinks are impossible.

My observation is that spending years being paid to find ways to adapt to constraints at work has inevitably had an effect on my personal life. When I run into problems, my first reaction is to find some way to work around them – to take the limitations presented to me as a given and then find a way to get what I want despise those limitations. The idea of challenging the rules, asking other people to change, comes slowly to me, if at all. If someone's a jerk, I assume they will always be a jerk and find a way to work around them. The idea of complaining about them doesn't occur to me.

I'm not saying this is right – there are almost certainly times when I should be challenging my environment instead of adapting to it. My comment is only that I think I have come to understand where my personal bias comes from. It's an "engineer thing".

Posted by Steven at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 10, 2005

Input and Output

One of the recurring themes of this blog is my ongoing desire to seek balance in my life. There is just too much I want to do and not enough time, so I have been weeding through my life, pulling out those projects I realized I'll never get around to finishing (thus making more room for those that I may complete), discontinuing activities that don't provide enough benefit, etc.

Of course "balance" can be defined in terms of many dimensions. Just as I can balance my body left vs. right, but then fall forward because I did not balance front/back; so also one can achieve a balanced live according to one metric only to fail in others. So part of this process for me has been discovering the various dimensions of personal balance.

My current contemplation has been on the question of finding balance between input and output.

On the one hand, I read, watch television, see movies, play games. All of these activities can be used to bring things value into my life – knowledge, ideas, perspectives. On the other hand, I write, befriend, teach, serve (whether work, family, church, community). All of these activities (hopefully) give benefit to others in some way. It is the case that my various input activities inform my various output activities. What I read and watch affects what I write. Exposure to other points of view helps me as I interact with others, and so on.

But the question I have been asking myself is: am I putting enough energy into "output" to justify all of the time I spend on "input"? Or have I already accumulated enough knowledge, experience, perspectives to last me the remainder of my life? I don't think I am up to that point yet; but neither am I comfortable saying I am doing all I should to use what I have fed into my head over the years

Stepping back, these days my "output" primarily takes two forms. First, there is this blog; but given my recent frequency of postings, I clearly can not point to this as a shining example of contribution to society. Second, I am teaching a weekly Bible study (we are starting the book of Philippians this week). While that venue does provide a good opportunity to share some of what I have learned, an hour a week weighed against many hours of input activities seems rather paltry. In addition to those two, I do occasionally have the opportunity to share some what I have learned in private conversations; but those occasions are irregular and unpredictable.

The bottom line is that I think I need to spend more time sharing what's in my head. I need to make time each day for this blog. I need to set aside more time each week to creative writing projects. I need to look for other opportunities to teach.

What's the point of learning more if I don't share what I have already learned?

Posted by Steven at 07:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 03, 2005

Birthdays

The "birthday season" has just passed in my house. My birthday, my wife's, my brother's and my father's all occur within 28 days of each other, so it makes for an interesting month.

I find that I have grown ambivalent about most of the trappings of the celebration. The issue is not the recognition that I am getting older (I feel no need to conceal my age from myself or others); but simply that the rituals no longer seem to fit.

Birthday cards strike me as an anachronism in the age of phones and internet. I appreciate people remembering my birthday; but I'd rather get a phone call or Email that is personal rather than some pre-packaged sentiment on a piece of paper.

Birthday parties were never that fun for me (being an introvert). I do enjoy spending time with a small group of friends; but these days the people I would most want to spend time with are scattered around the world, so getting together is impractical.

Birthday cake was fun as a kid; but my sweet tooth has diminished with the years and I'd generally rather have a cheese course than a dessert. Besides, I am more of a pie lover than a cake person.

Birthday presents are of course appreciated in principle; but I am thankfully at a point in my life where I can and do buy for myself most everything I am interesting in owning. Finding something that I actually want that I don't already own can be quite a challenge.

The idea of having a day where I get to set the agenda is also nice (this year we went up to Berkley to visit a store I like but rarely get to); but in general Anne is open to suggestions for activities year round, so it doesn't seem to make that much difference.

So in the end, what my birthday becomes is an excuse for a nice meal out someplace; and that’s OK… as long as no one tries to sing that silly song to me.

Posted by Steven at 03:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

September 23, 2005

Thomas Wolfe was right

You cannot step twice into the same river; for other waters are continually flowing in.
- Heraclitus

Change is inevitable.

Change is life's one constant. Change is the irresistible juggernaut that will crush all those who stand against its steady but certain movement. We see it at work in our bodies, our communities, our relationships.

This was brought home to me this week as I visited my father in Florida and the two of us drove a few miles north to visit Cocoa Beach, where we lived for part of my childhood. The place was virtually unrecognizable. One of the two houses I lived in no longer exists, having been replaced with a more modern structure (how's that for "You Can't Go Home Again"); and while the other house still stands, the neighborhood had changed so much that we had trouble finding the street as all of our familiar landmarks had been replaced with new and different buildings. It was a very strange experience.

My father and I were likewise visibly older – he commented on my grayer hair and need for glasses.

Change is inevitable.

Human nature tends to lead us to recognize the unpleasant aspects of change first. We quickly miss the family member, friend, store, restaurant, TV series, magazine, etc. who had been a part of our lives but is no longer there; but we are slow to grow in appreciation of new people, places and things. We quickly dislike new aspects of culture – music, language, manners, etc. that are not what we grow up with; but only slowly discover new aspects of culture we enjoy.

Yet change is inevitable.

I'm old enough now to have seen a lot of change, and have grown to realize that struggling against that current is futile. I have come to two conclusions about how to respond to change. First, there is a place to mourn for the past – not just for people; but also for places, events, culture, language, whatever. There is value in taking a moment to honor those things which have been (or are being) mowed down by the endless wheel of time.

Second, and more important, having taken that time to acknowledge what has been lost, at least as much energy (if not more) should be put into seeking new sources value in the world. We should be making new friends, finding new places, seeking new experiences to replace those that have been lost. I am convinced that while there are individual events in life that in isolation are clearly "bad", that the overall tide of change carries within it both good and bad, and that fulfillment in life can only be maintained by actively seeking those good elements which are part of "the new".

The alternative is to find oneself riding in the ocean on an ever melting iceberg. The past you are comfortable with might have started out as large and stable, but it is constantly melting away; and if it is all you have to cling to, you'll soon find yourself floating on your own in the open sea.

Posted by Steven at 01:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

September 18, 2005

Missing Poetry

When I was young and didn't have a head full of facts and knowledge, I used to write poetry. It was my way to express thoughts and ideas that I didn't understand enough to be able to explain in prose. While I could not explain them, I could at least express them in the word pictures and metaphors of poetry. Most of my poetry wasn't very good; but it served its purpose, just as this blog serves a different one.

As I grew older I started to understand more, and my life began to revolve more and more around the need to understand and explain things – to not take things at face value; but rather work to understand them. As I discovered how self-deceptive people (including myself) could be, I became increasingly skeptical of simple explanations and always wanted to dig deeper.

Unlike Cypher in the movie The Matrix, I do not regret my decision to "take the Red Pill" – to live an examined life as Socrates would put it; but yet I recognize that there is a cost to that approach to life. By always dissecting the ideas and opinions around me, I find myself constantly surrounded by the flayed corpses of my investigations – some shown to have been creatures of truth, and others merely stuffed animals made to look alive. However in all cases my critical investigations have removed the mystery that gave them life.

Put another way, I have given up poetry to gain prose.

And to be honest, sometimes I miss the poetry.

Posted by Steven at 07:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

September 14, 2005

The things you learn when blogging

Doing a blog can be a very enlightening experience – you learn a lot about yourself. You discover in what ways you care about what other people think. You become more aware of what you find interesting, or not. You clarify your thoughts on subjects which otherwise would have passed casually by.

As some of you may have noticed, I have had a bit of a dry spell lately. There just hasn't been anything I wanted to say. I'm not depressed. I'm not particularly busy (I'm actually on vacation this week). But there just wasn't anything I had been thinking deeply about for me to write about.

What I find interesting is the realization that I never would have been aware of this dry spell had I not been doing the blog. Thinking back I am sure I must have had many seasons where I just floated along "in the moment", not pondering any great subjects; but I never had reason to think about not thinking.

Now of course, through the magic of blogging, not having anything to say suddenly becomes something to say.

Posted by Steven at 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

June 11, 2005

Perception of change

In the first decade of my life, everything was a new experience for me. While memories of those days are not as good as they once were, what I do recall was a steady parade of new things. I would never have noticed if anything changed because there was no prior experience to which to compare things.

In the second decade of my life, I struggled to come to an understanding of how thing work in the world – how things were done, what was expected, what was "normal". I don't think it really occurred to me that the things I was learning might change in my lifetime. I did understand from history lessons that things were different once; but my perception was that change was gradual, played out over the course of centuries (even text books tended to talk about what it was like in the 15th century vs. the 16th century, not the 1530's vs. the 1540's). I think I would have been offended to think that what I was learning was changing out from under me even as I learned it.

In my 20's, I was focused on the changes in myself. I was becoming an adult, an employee, a lover, a citizen. The changes in myself largely blinded me to the changes in the world in which I lived. I was aware that fashions and musical tastes changed; but since I was in the midst of defining myself, it was easy to simply ride those currents of change so the world appears to remain stationary with respect to my constantly changing self.

In my 30's I finally started to notice how the world was changing. I had established my own identity and had enough prior experience to be well aware that the 90's were not the 80's or the 70's. I realized differences were not just external fashions and tastes; but that people's attitudes had changed as well and it affected their behavior and conversation. This was not a pleasant revelation to me. While I may have cheered technology's progress and wished it would, if anything, accelerate; I didn't want society to change this fast, particularly since many of the changes I saw were in my estimation undesirable.

I am now in the middle of my 40's; and while it may be premature to generalize on the fifth decade of my life, I believe I have begun to accept the inevitability of change. It remains the case that I do not like many of the changes I see in society; but in truth it does not take much effort to find changes I do appreciate. What is however more important is that I have come to realize that complaining about change is like railing against the wind – a profitless exercise as the wind continues to blow regardless. Instead, I take comfort in the knowledge that every change I don't like will also have its season and will change again in due time.

There is a phrase which I have grown to appreciate in my 40's. I did some research and have discovered many different stories about who first provided this wisdom. One story says it was the counselors of a Chinese Emperor who were asked to find a phrase to inscribe on an archway that would be true for all time and all people. Another said it was a poor jeweler who lived in Solomon's kingdom who inscribed these words on a ring to fulfill Solomon's request for a "magic" ring that would make a happy man sad and a sad man happy. Still another said it was the advisors to a European king who wanted one phrase that would get the king through all life's situations. Perhaps all of the stories are true as the wisdom of this phrase could easily have been discovered independently by many people in history.

The phrase?

"This too shall pass."

Posted by Steven at 08:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 13, 2005

Just how weird am I?

Was thinking last night about the manner in which I have always daydreamed. A typical scenario from my youth: I imagine myself to be the captain of a starship, I walk on to the bridge of my ship and… I start to wonder: what does the bridge look like? Who is on it? What are their jobs? How is the crew organized? What does the rest of the ship look like? How do the engines work? Often several days worth of daydreaming later I would have a clear picture in my mind of what the ship and crew are like; down to details of crew rotation, and how the controls are arranged at various stations, and then I pick up the story…. I walk on to the bridge of my ship and sit in the captain's chair and ask for a report on enemy ship positions….. Enemy ships? Who are they? Why are we at war? What kind of government am I serving? How did that government come to power? Do we have allies? If there are aliens, what are they like? How do they eat? Talk? Reproduce? Do they view the world differently from us? What other ways are there to view the world? Another several days worth of daydreaming later…. Well, you get the idea. My daydreaming, as far back as I can remember, has always been 5% story telling and 95% trying to understand the context in which the story is set.

Of course, this is just a reflection of how I think when I'm not daydreaming. I am driven to understand "the big picture". I constantly need that map in my head that says "you are here" and shows what is around me, and being in circumstance where I don't know the lay of the land is very uncomfortable to me. I think you can see how I ended up doing well as a software architect where the job is all about "the big picture".

Posted by Steven at 08:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 09, 2005

Being vs. becoming successful

For large parts of my life the principle "For unto whom much is given, much will be required" was a curse. I won't spend time on examples here; but I clearly was among those to whom much had been given, and I felt pressure to achieve some great legacy with those gifts to justify my existence. The problem was that the pressure to achieve quite often sapped the very energy I needed to make those accomplishments by driving me into depression about how little I thought I had done.

I was someone who had desire to do a great many things, and I did have the ability to actually achieve them individually. As a result I often became overwhelmed by what a small percentage of all of those possibilities I had actually managed to accomplish. This however was unfair. A more realistic appraisal is that there just isn't enough time in one life to do all of the things I wanted to do, no matter how focused I was (and if I had tried to do it all, I would not have enjoyed any of it). When I compare what I have done with what I actually had the time to do, I fair much better.

Fortunately, I am getting beyond this now. My release from this bondage has come in two forms.

First, I can now recognize that:
1) Being granted 8 patents (with 6 more pending) for inventions I had made…
2) Serving as software architect for a fortune 500 company …
3) Teaching some of the classes I have taught to pass on what I have learned…
...would count as a successful legacy in any rational definition of that term. Sure, I "could" have done more; but I've done fairly well so far and I'm not done yet.

Second, I have begun to be more deliberate in thinking about what specifically I want to do with the rest of my life. To that end I have been thinking a lot about what I want to focus on doing, and what I will simply discard as good things but "not in this lifetime". For instance I love games, and love designing games. I have a folder full of game ideas that I have accumulated over the years. However, even if that was all I did, I would not be able to develop all of those games in a complete lifetime. So I have selected 2 game ideas to "keep", and have set the goal to develop one of them. The rest I am giving up on. I'm doing the same thing with every one of my other interests - deciding what subset I realistically think I can accomplish without burning myself out, and setting myself free of the burden of the rest.

Some people are burdened by the physical clutter they have accumulated in their lives - all of "stuff" they own imposes a psychological burden on them. The physical stuff in my life does not affect me that way. Instead I find myself burdened by the mental clutter of projects I have accumulated to do, and am finding cleaning my mental house to be quite a pleasant release.

Posted by Steven at 07:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

May 04, 2005

Thinking on the edge

One observation I made about myself long ago was that I am drawn to subjects that examine the transitions between other fields of study. As an example:

On the one hand you have chemistry which deals with a small set of very simple mechanisms. On the other hand, you have biology which can involve with very complex systems and behaviors. Neither of these sciences has ever been of great interest to me in their own right. What I am however enthralled by is biochemistry – how in the world do you produce all of those complex biological systems using only chemistry. For instance, how does the ear transform the mechanical energy of sound into bioelectric impulses in nerves? Microphones do it using various techniques which use things like coils of wires or quartz crystals which I know we don't have in our ears. So how does it work? (The answer is kind of cool – to me at least.)

Similar questions which I have been drawn to are: How does "society" appear out of individual behavior? How do you get a computer's CPU out of Boolean logic? How do our bodies with various different organs form out of a single cell dividing itself? How does a "mind" (whatever that means) form out of a brain composed of nerve cells?

All that is "old news" in my quest for self-understanding.

What I have just recently begun to understand is that this is just another way in which my life revolves around translation (see my previous post). After all, what biochemistry provides is the "translation" from the language of biology to the language of chemistry. Sociology provides the translation from the language society to the language of the individual.

It is very satisfying to see the pieces come together like this.

Posted by Steven at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

April 19, 2005

Found in Translation

Several weeks ago my pastor at church asked if I'd be willing to be a guest speaker – giving the message some Sunday. Well, this past weekend was my turn. The experience reminded me of just how much I love to teach.

But then I got to thinking, it is really teaching I like, or is it some other experience which is a part of teaching. After all, as an introvert, I find being up in front of an audience exhausting – not exactly what I'd call "fun". So what is it that makes teaching so much fun for me?

The conclusion I am coming to is that what I really enjoy is the process of translation. Taking some set of ideas, concepts, facts, etc. and figuring out how to express them in some language. Teaching then is an interesting special case of translation – what a good teacher does is figure out what "language" a group of students understands and then translate the ideas you need to teach into that language. Obviously when I use the term language here, I'm not just talking about "English" or even what dialect of English the students speak; but rather the whole mental model the students have to interpret those words.

Once I stumbled upon the idea of loving translation, other things began to fall into place.

As a Software Architecture (i.e. a glorified software engineer (i.e. a glorified computer programmer)), what motivates me about my job are those occasions where I get to take a complex set of ideas and "translate" them into a simple design. I love being given a long set of requirements for features I need to provide and long contemplation realizing I can fulfill those requirements with a few simply concepts and interfaces.

I am also known at work for my "What bubba meant to say…" comments. It is not unusual for me to be at a meeting where two other people in the room are arguing with each other and finding myself speaking up to say "What so-and-so is trying to say is…" and helping resolve the issue. The problem was that the people arguing were expressing their ideas in terms they may have understood; but the other person didn't – they needed a translator (me) to help clarify things. Quite often I have found that the people were actually agreeing and didn't know it.

Even my message this past Sunday was dominated by my thoughts on how simple Christianity really is – translating volumes of theology into 3 basic principles.

I'm just starting to understand the role translation plays in my personal fulfillment; but I have a feeling this is going to prove to be a powerful tool for my self-understanding.

Posted by Steven at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)