This may be the first actual Brain Bubble I’ve ever posted! The original intent was to provide a mechanism for sudden (short) thoughts I wanted to record or put out there. But the BB posts quickly turned into mini collections of thought bubbles.
But today I started trying to get into Immanuel Kant (again), and that naturally led to a bit of Wiki Walking.
It was when I got to the article about the subject-object problem that a sudden brain bubble burst!
I usually lean towards descriptive writing more than prescriptive writing. I feel more comfortable describing my views and experiences than I do trying to prescribe a path for others.
But some blog articles I’ve read in the last months have made me wonder if I should try a prescriptive approach. This is something new for me, and I already sense a challenging path. How likely is it that someone who would benefit will read such a post, and how likely is it they would follow any prescription I might offer? And of course, what makes me think I can offer any prescription for another person’s life?
In any event, for whatever it’s worth, this prescription is labeled for those who feel dissatisfied with life, who feel a gap between what is and what they feel ought to be.
This is the first of a series of articles that discuss something I believe is unique to humans. In fact, I think it’s one of the few things we can point to that does differentiate us from the animal kingdom. And it is something that goes deep into our past. It is our ability to use language to create and tell complex stories.
It is also one of my favorite topics. If you’ve read many of my posts, particularly those about movies and TV, you’ve seen me write about my love of stories.
There is an interesting continuum of storytelling modes. Books lie at one end, movies at the other. Plays and TV lie between. The continuum describes — in part — the experience of the audience. Here’s the deal…
What’s the word for when you receive new information that alters your way of thinking? In particular, for when you thought things were one way, expected them to be that way, but the new information surprises you.
I used to think it was the word frisson, but that word (from the French, “to be cold”) refers to the pleasant thrill shiver you experience at the awards ceremony just before they open the envelope that might contain your name. Or when you watch a horror movie (assuming you like watching horror movies).
That’s not quite what I mean. There is — at least for me — some thrill shiver associated with learning a new and surprising thing, but I need a word that focuses more on the sense of realignment that occurs to your worldview.
Those of you who grew up with Rock & Roll probably heard your parents say, “That music all sounds the same.” (The implication: Therefore, it’s crap.)
The funny thing is: To me, their music all sounded the same (and to some extent, still does). No doubt the music of my children will all sound the same to me (assuming I had any (which I don’t (and now it’s not likely I ever will (not that I’m bitter (yeah, right))))).
Truth is, I really have no ear for rap… it, um, all sounds the same to me. That may have more to do with having really bad hearing. I frequently cannot make out the lyrics of songs. Often, for me, the vocal track is just another melodic track that sounds like a human voice. And in any event, rap, to me, is more a form of poetry than of music.
Over the years, I’d noticed how my parents (and other lovers of classical music) could identify a symphony after hearing just a small bit. “Oh, yeah, that’s Foomhauser’s Opus #52 in P-flat Minor.” That seemed amazing and mysterious to me, but then I realized that I can do the same thing with rock. No doubt we can all identify music we’ve listened to over and over.
A few months ago a friend asked me if I had ever read, or seen, The Sand Pebbles. I replied that the closest I’d come was the Mad Magazine parody of the film. My friend felt this was a serious gap in my experience and offered to loan me the book and his DVD of the film.
Two things I should explain at this point. The first is that I’m always open to trying new things. That is, assuming they’re not utterly insane, extremely illegal or likely to cause harm. (Mildly insane, slightly illegal or probably harmless, yeah, okay, keep talking.) I would rather try a new restaurant than one I know, and I’ve turned down many a road just to see where it went.
The second thing is that, as much as I love movies, I’m not real big on war movies or westerns. The friend mentioned above loves both, and has been rather pointed sometimes about the “gaps” in my collection.
I had my first real interview yesterday, and I thought it went very well. Since The Company Gobsmacked me in early August, I’ve applied for 29 different positions. I’ve been casting a wide net, and I know I’m not a good fit for a lot of them, but you never know. The position I found in 2004 under similar circumstances came from just such a wide cast, and it was one of the best I’ve had at TC.
So far, I’m 13-16 on those applications (it was 16-13, but this morning’s email reversed the score). Sixteen have come back with, “Gee, thanks, but you’re not the one.”
Yesterday’s interview was for one of the 16 13 that are still pending. As I said, it’s the first actual interview, although I had two “Information Interviews” a couple of weeks ago. (An information interview is when you sit down with the person who would offer the job and find out a bit about the job — and they about you — but it’s not a real interview. Call it a preview interview.)
This is actually a comment response that ran so long I decided to post it as a new article. It’s in response to a comment from wakemenow on my Venus & Mars post yesterday.
I’ve heard many a tale about the competition among women. There have even been some articles published in work-related blogs about women in business being far harder on other women than on men. I’ve long assumed it was primarily based on competition for a resource (position, power, money) that was viewed as scarce, but I have come to wonder if there isn’t something else at work as well.
This is a fairly fresh line of thought, so bear with me if it seems poorly thought out (or just flat-out wrong).
A while back I wrote about Yin & Yang and how some opposites are truly opposing (positive and negative) while others are actually the presence and lack of a thing (light and dark, for example). In that article I cited men & women as being genuine opposing pairs, as you can’t consider either one the absence of the other.
That, understandably, generated some comments. Many would not choose to see women & men as being opposites at all, but as two variations on the theme of human. I think that is absolutely correct. Our two human sexes have far more in common than they do in opposition. (And note that gender is a different concept than sex. Gender is about how your mind works, about who you are; sex is about your genetic code.)
And yet… Anyone who lives in the real world knows that the “Mars & Venus” thing has some substance.
The awkward Supreme Court ruling, known as “Citizens United,” has generated a lot of discussion about corporations being people. Note that this 2010 ruling did not establish corporations as people: that’s been on the books since the early 1800s.
The Citizens United ruling allowed them to spend vast sums of money as “free speech.”
Anyone not terribly alarmed by this and what it implies for our political future isn’t paying attention.
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