Arbitrary to Ingrained

It is interesting look out how things start out as arbitrary, or even counterproductive, measures can become ingrained parts of our everyday lives. There are many things that we do as individuals, and as a society that were at one point just an arbitrary decision. While we do look to improve upon many aspects of our everyday lives there are some ingrained components that just we have just decided work, because "that's how we always do it".

Jared Diamond touches on this issue in Guns, Germs, and Steel. Here is an article he wrote tha explains The Curse of the QWERTY keyboard a little bit more.

QWERTY


What I take away is the fact that even counterproductive measures can be implemented to reach productive capacities. So with a more efficient keyoard I could have typed this post in half the time. Still, to change the keyboard setup at this juncture would seem like a great inconvenience.

Owning It

I did a survey for the gym out here that will go on their blog. It was a "get to know so and so" type of deal.  One of the questions was do you have any nicknames. I put Tiny David, but I also included my more infamous nickname. The Candyman. Now this is a slightly embarrassing name, but it is a good example how making fun of oneself and owning up to things often makes light of an issue.

In first grade we sat in tables of four, two people facing two other people, I sat across from two girls that I would continue to know until graduation. At this age I kind of took the "parts is parts" mentality to human anatomy. So when asked to show my doodle for some candy I didn't think twice. I can't recall if I got in trouble at the time, but down the line the girls remembered. In the middle school years I vehemently denied the accusations. It was embarrassing. Warning video is not work friendly, or child friendly, it's probably not friendly at all.

As High School hit the story came back around once again. While it was still embarrassing I owned up to it, because more than anything it was pretty funny. Instead of becoming a big deal the story inspired a nickname, The Candyman.

In many situations, political, social, and personal honesty seems to often be the overlooked possibility. A lot of times owning up to something can take the power away from the individuals/party that wants to use it against you. While this is not an absolute rule in most cases honesty goes a long way towards solving the problem.

Exception- Charlie Sheen is owning his "Winning" lifestyle, and we are still broadcasting him 24/7. The reasons for this are because A-we think he is a moron and like publicly watching it, and B- media tends to focus a lot on trivial nonsense like this because they have to report on something to maintain a 24 hour news cycle.

Long story short the owning it is......duh winning.

Progress

I just googled "inciting beard growth" The results were not promising. "What to take for Femal Hair Loss", and "Laser Hair removal" were the top results. Some things that I want are out of my reach at the moment. A beard is amongst them, but there are always things to do to work towards a beautiful beard.

A common phrase heard during athletic practices is that you "you can get better, you can get worse, but you can't stay the same". The idea of the status quo grips a lot of people. Another phrase I heard while studying politics is that many politicians "go along to get along". In other words they just save face in order to hold onto their jobs. If I can achieve nothing else in life I hope to constantly work toward progress. Whether it be in career, sport, marriage, or whatever I will try not get to satisfied.

It is not to say that there should be no satisfaction in our achievement. The achievement is a good thing, but it is just a part of the journey. The idea of the status quo is another thing that I think is misconceptualized. The status quo is something that can be part of progression. At some point in life you will reach the top of the hill. In Olympic Weightlifting their will be a time when a lifter will no longer be able to progress. After that progress becomes fighting off degeneration for as long as you can. In this instance maintenance becomes a battle. Progress is made by a continued fight against time and gravity.

Getting better everyday is a matter of learning a bit more with every endeavor. You may not run a 5k as fast as you did last week, but if you are actively looking to improve you can find some way to critique yourself in order to improve. While today my facial hair may have only grown a bit, tomorrow I will look to massage some eucalyptsus oil onto my face in hopes of making progress.

Oh this song has been stuck in my head for about a week. Maybe I can get it stuck in the four people who read this head's.

Do you have any horny?

I spent a few minutes with a nice old foreign lady trying to decipher what she wanted.

"Do you have any hornet, hornaaay, horny?"

I didn't know if she had some peanut butter stuck to the roof of her mouth or what? Luckily she was not looking for horny, but after she described that it was sweet, and came from Biiiiz I was able to figure it out.
Unfortunately, and probably fortunately, we don't all speak the same language. Even when we do speak the same language we don't really speak the same language. Communicating effectively is important for so many reasons. Clarifying language is probably the first step in getting productivity. More often than not our problems are created from A- lack of communication, or B- not clarifying what someone needs.

There are six billion people on this planet. Each one has their own way of doing things and their own interpretations. Often, the root of our problems is simply not taking the time to clarify ourselves. One of my new co-workers is deaf. He has his own system of sign language that he uses with his co-workers. It takes time to learn his ways. I am sure the guy is constantly frustrated whenever he has to teach a new guy to understand him. Yet, he is incredibly patient. If someone doesn't get something then he repeats the process and tries to make himself more clear in one way or another.

Communication is two sided. I could have just told the old lady that we did not have any horny. I could have just ran and found somebody else to pass her off on, but I tried to give it a few minutes and work through it. Eventually, she got her honey.

The Fountainhead

Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead was given to me by my older brother a few years ago. I finished reading it this past week. After making it about three hundred pages into it I fell off. It wasn't lack of an interesting story. Some other things got in the way and I have read a few other titles in between. The amazing thing is that I picked up were I left off with the vivid imagery of the characters still prevalent in my mind. The Fountainhead is engrossing and incredibly well constructed. A review of the book does not do it justice, so I will just give a brief note on what I got out of reading it.

The book centers around the profession of architecture. In particular the protagonist is an architect by the name of Howard Roark. Rand goes into great detail with all her character descriptions. Reading each paints a vivid picture in the reader's mind. Simply, put Roark is talented, and uncompromising. He is egotistical, not in the arrogant way we commonly associate to ego, but instead in the fact that he believes in his own process, his work, and his creation. His fight is to work in a world where everything has become the work of the collective. Buildings are graded on their incorporation of historical aspects of architecture, and not on the creativity and efficiency of the work.

This creates a world where anything deemed "good" is just a recreation of the past. No new forms of creativity can truly break through because they don't adhere to what the collective has deemed appropriate. It is the dilemma of the creative process, and why true art can be so hard to create. Truly unique works of art look to cater to no one except the creator. Too often we judge something to be good because someone else has said so. In Roark's eyes this is just being a "second-hander" or a follower of the masses.

The Fountainhead is set in the early Twentieth Century. Rand's anti-socialist sentiments comes through in many parts of the book. I honestly don't know where to stand in terms of collective action versus individual liberty. One thing that I think stands out in my mind is the fact that Roark was the most happy character in the book. His internal confidence came from the fact that he knew what drove him, his creative process, and he did not care about the opinion of others. This is part of Rand's belief in her own philosophy of "objectivism" which prescribes what is known as ethical egoism.

Ethical egoism is essentially the belief that we can act in our own self interest without being amoral. What we often perceive as selfishness can be desirable traits. It is a laissez-faire mentality. Today we can see laissez-faire in harsh tones. Greed, manipulation, and exploitation are things that come to mind. In it's truest form free trade was meant to be transactions between two parties where the rights of both were held in high regard. Roark is a testament to liberty. His works are built at the will of his employer in the manner most befitting. Without his total control of the process the work ceases to be his, and his own integrity is lost.


In summation I would simply see to read this book at some point. If nothing else for the fact that it makes you think a lot about the world around you. How much do we really know? How much of the world around us is spoon fed? What do I like and why do I like it? I'm not saying to be a selfish bastard like the people of Portlandia, just find a balance between your collective and individual selves.

OH YEA!

I have been going through the application process for "Teach for America" the last few weeks. Yesterday, I submitted my transcripts from Iowa State. With my transcript I had to fill out a "transcript key". This was a semester by semester description of my official transcript. It is intended to give some insight into what classes you took during your college career. As I filled in each semester class by class I realized how fast time flies.

I can remember some of my first experiences in classes at Iowa State. My introductory English class with Ghinwa Alameen, and a guy that sat next to me known as Chuck Sample. At the time I had deemed that his name fit well because he was in fact a pretty solid sample of a tool. Now I realize that he was probably not so bad. At the time I was probably the bigger d-bag. Young, insecure and rooted in my high school ways. I have sense become a lot more personable and confident.

As I entered in the data I realized just how little I stopped to smell the coffee. I don't think graduating early was a bad thing, and too often it takes people too long to sift through the BS of their Bachelor's, but I probably could have let myself enjoy school a bit more. I always liked class, but I didn't really start having fun until I began playing rugby. I met a lot of good guys, was competitive, and actually got out and socialized with new people. If I would have started playing as a freshman I probably wouldn't have graduated early. This is a good example of how things often work themselves out in a pretty good way.

The biggest thing I take away from looking back is the fact that most of the time you never really know where you can head. Four years I ago, maybe even four months ago, I would have never said that I would be in Mountain View, California working at a grocery store. That being said, here I am enjoying the weird twist life has taken. Many people can get caught up in the uncertainty of life. I have this problem as well. I deal with it by being optimistic. Uncertainty is opportunity. While bad things can and will happen there is always something to be gained. Something to learn. Opportunity to turn hardship into success.

I look at myself four years ago and see the gains I have made in that amount of time. I think about myself four years from now and I am excited to see where I will be.

Perspective

Yesterday I began a modest new job. My first day at an area Trader Joe's introduced me to the super market world. I "secured" the "perimeter" for a good deal of my eight hour shift. The perimeter is essentially the produce, meats, and dried goods around the outside of the store. It was interesting to learn that Trader Joe's has most of the perimeter foods delivered on a daily basis. So there is a lot of work to be done to check dates, and "work" the perimeter.

My new coworkers were friendly and pretty laid back, yet constantly doing something. I began to pick up on some of the lingo. I was informed to "always take my ten", one of two ten minute paid breaks you get during a shift, "I see some people not taking their ten when they start here. Take it, it's Yours !"

Honestly, it's not a bad gig. I don't think any ladies will be loving up on me for my four digit income any time soon, but thats the least of my concerns. Many of the workers seem to realy like their jobs, and are really glad to have a job at all. I think it will be an interesting and different experience. I have never had a job like this so I will take it as a good learning experience. If nothing else it will give me perspective. Sometimes the best way to figure out what you don't want to do is to just do many diferent things.

My problem has always been, to some extent, wanting to try so many things while not actually trying them. At least this job will give me some perspective and help guide me to something I really want to do. Finally, TJ's does a good job of helping customers. Everyone can stand to bone up on their people skills.