What are you good at?
In short? Solving problems. 😉
Category: Random
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I first learned about diaphragmatic breathing when I was 15 or 16. All i knew about it at the time was that it helped to keep you calm. Didn’t know why or how, but it worked, so i incorporated it into my life.
I can’t even say when, but it just became a habit of my body, and i didn’t think anything of it until recent years. I found that not everyone breathes this way, and it can be alarming to people who see you sleeping and your chest doesn’t move. Recently, i have learned all sorts of spiffy stuff about the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, mitigation of the fight or flight response, and various improvements to the functioning of several body systems.
I was thinking about it today… is not breathing diaphragmatically a learned behavior? If you look at just about any other mammal – dogs of course, come to mind first – when they’re just chillin, if you watch, their belly is what moves, not their chest/ribs. I wonder how babies and small children breathe. I don’t have either, so i’ve not had the opportunity to observe for myself. But if they do breathe from their belly and not their chest, that makes me lean toward the idea that it is learned behavior.
if that is the case, why? Why would we, as a species, teach our offspring to breathe in a way that is sub-optimized for the way our body systems function?
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Have you ever broken a bone?
Yep.
I fell off stage during an improv skit and broke my elbow on the concrete floor. I guess i decided to run with a completely different take on the whole “break a leg” thing. 🤷♀️
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What sacrifices have you made in life?
Holy loaded question, batman!
Seriously, how the hell is any normal person supposed to answer this? Granted, they’re not always life and death type sacrifices, but we all make sacrifices. Every day.
You sacrifice a few hours of sleep for chatting too late with someone you’ve been missing. You sacrifice going out to dinner to stay home and polish that big proposal for work. You sacrifice the decadence of your favorite desert in favor of losing that last 5lbs. You sacrifice your time, your desires, your energy/attention – all depending on what matters most to you in that moment.
And that’s not even considering the big sacrifices – the life altering ones. I think this question should be a little more specific, like asking about what big things you sacrificed in the past year. Just sayin. 😉
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When i was a kid, my dad told me that my favorite candy – the soft caramel bullseyes with the cream center – were essentially just melted sugar with a thick cream frosting in the middle. Which is, for all intents and purposes, true.
So, i took some sugar, heated it up, and poured the bubbly goodness into an ice cube tray, figuring i’d fill them with frosting when they had firmed up some.
And firm up, they did. Into rock solid, glass-like chunks of mildly burnt sugar.
I was devastated. And I couldn’t even say why because then i’d have to explain what happened to the ice cube tray, and relive the heartbreak in the process.
Any mention of the need for a candy thermometer would have spared me this suffering, since we didn’t have one.
Details matter.
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What’s the oldest things you’re wearing today?
My tattoos. 😝
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What gives you direction in life?
I really don’t have an answer for this.
I have plotted courses, had goals, made plans, made progress…. And every single time, i find myself miles and miles from what my planned destination was. And oddly enough, I seem to be somehow better off for it, even though the initial sense of failure and disappointment is painful.
My values guide my actions, of course, but at this point, I’m just riding the waves to see where i end up next, and what kinds of people I’ll meet on the way. I don’t have a “direction” in my life, per se, and that is ok. Having or trying to have a direction hasn’t worked so well thus far, so we’re doing things a little differently…
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Do you have a quote you live your life by or think of often?
“Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching.”
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Sometimes, i think it would be hilarious to record and then compile all the random conversations i have with myself and the dogs every day. For example…
Me, working on a spreadsheet for work: “ok, and then we’re just gonna do this… and this…. and then…… mother fucker. why is this formula not working? (long pause) oh, well that’s fabulous. It’s because you messed up that nested argument, dumbass.”
Or me, trying to get downstairs with the dogs getting in the way, and barking at me because they want to go outside: “yeah. yeah, you can bitch all you want, but you still gotta get out of the way so i can get downstairs to open the fucking door!” 😆
Profanity laced, sarcasm driven shenanigans for everyone!
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(Please pardon the sudden change in format for this edition of the series. I got inspired, and this is what came out…)
Learning. Could that be the point? is it the point for me?
What if the point of human existence is to learn as much as possible for the cosmically miniscule amount of time that we do exist?
What if the universe and everything in it is simply made of consciousness, and that consciousness wanted to know what it was like to have a non-infinite existence? And complex, chaotic emotions? What if we are the result of a curiosity that can literally create anything?
What if we are simply characters in something’s imaginings?
What if the more you learn, the longer you live? probly not, but a girl can hope!
What even is consciousness? we know what a lack of it is, but what is it?
Darkness is the absence of light. cold is the absence of heat (or the lack of movement on an atomic level).
Consciousness is…. the lack of nothingness. Was consciousness created by the big bang?
Consciousness can’t simply be a lack of awareness, at least, i don’t think. If that were the case, there are plenty of people in the world who should qualify as unconscious, but are walking around, talking, and doing things.
but, i guess it would depend on what exact level of awareness we’re talking about. Consciousness could be a lack of awareness of anything. Even when you’re sleeping or knocked out, your body is aware that it has things to do, like breathing and pumping blood.
i read somewhere that when you go under general anesthesia, you actually die briefly in the process, or almost do. or something. I need to look into that…
humans use the word consciousness to mean what works for us. aware, awake, cognizant, etc. but if consciousness is the lack of nothingness, then the word doesn’t do it justice.
is it possible to imagine nothingness? do we even have a frame of reference for that? if you say “nothingness” to someone, they probably picture a black void. But, as far as we know, black can’t exist without all the other colors, and is therefore something, so our imagination of nothing would be categorically wrong. But, thinking about it, the vacuum of space does look black. but could that be because it is a photo based on visible light. What would it look like if not constrained by our human anatomy?
I used infrared film once. The pictures were amazing!
Learning. Understanding. Finding connections between things. Realizing that everything is connected on some level…..
A Peculiar Cerebral Tangle 