Quote of the day.
“If you want to make a difference in the world it means you have to be different from the world you see.”
– Hatebreed
Tag: #random
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Calm. This is something that most people like and perhaps even strive for. It is the absence of disturbance.
Or is it?
Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am a calm person. I’m not overly emotional most of the time. Even if I’m incredibly angry, or even excited about something, I don’t usually show it. I’m not one for public emotional displays. I have been in situations that most would describe as simply fucked up, if not horribly chaotic, but kept my composure and did what needed to be done in the moment. I am the epitome of the interview catchphrase “I work well under pressure”.
I explained how I do this to someone once. I likened it to clinical detachment, which is the term that the medical field uses to refer to what a doctor does to remain objective when treating a patient. I don’t know jack about how they are trained for that, however. But, I can give you detailed facts of what happened in any given situation; I just lock the emotions out and stick to the logic and the facts. Emotion and logic don’t mix well – kinda like pure sodium and water. It’s a violent reaction between two elements – something to avoid. So, I bottle things up, I shut them down, I compartmentalize, I bury them, save them in a little box stored for later – whatever euphemism you want to use for flat out not dealing with the emotional side of something. Is this healthy? Probably not. But it works.
And, let’s be real here. That calmness, in many ways, for me or doctors or whomever else, is simply a façade. I can’t speak for everyone, but I do know that inside my mind, where no one else can go or hear what’s going on, it can be an outright hellish place. Brimming with disturbance and chaos, depending on the situation.
That said, I’d like to challenge the idea that calm is the absence of disturbance. I would say that it is the absence of objective evidence of disturbance.
For example. Imagine a lake on a sunny, mildly breezy day. The lake is “calm”. There may be a few ripples here and there, a random family of ducks swimming around, whatever. Objectively speaking, just about anyone would say that the lake scene you have imagined is a calm one. That’s not necessarily the case, however, and depends greatly on point of reference. From above the surface, yes, everything looks calm. But under the surface? There are life or death battles between rivals going on; predators on the hunt, prey terrified for their lives, hiding in the depths. There may also be explosions of new life depending on the time of year.
The same can be said in fields such as physics or chemistry. What is observable from your perspective is sometimes not at all the reality of what is going on.
Being calm is a strength in many ways, but, like so many things in life dealing with humans, people don’t always realize exactly what they are witnessing. There is a great deal of effort involved in maintaining that calm, in cultivating the mindset to achieve it in the first place.
The next time you see someone or something that is “calm”, take a moment to realize and appreciate that appearances are not all they’re cracked up to be. That there may be so much more under the surface that you are not aware of and not even considering.
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I get gut feelings sometimes. I think everyone does.
This can be about a person or a situation. My gut feelings have helped me avoid some rather unpleasant things, and been the cause of winning several hundred dollars with my last dollar at a casino, leading to a marginal net gain for the day. My gut feelings have also, at times, amounted to nothing more than amplified anxiety, so there is that to consider.
There was one particular situation where I didn’t listen to my gut, and I will live with that regret for the rest of my life because it had a very real, very severe impact on someone else.
I don’t know where gut feelings come from, and could probably write pages or talk for hours discussing the possibilities, but I’m not prepared to do that right now, I just wanted to put something out there on this topic. Maybe spark some thoughts for someone or some discussion. 🙂
Back to my drink and some random Saturday night research!
Have a great night!
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How good are you at keeping secrets?
I can’t make a general statement about this because I am certainly not omniscient, and I don’t know what I don’t know. But.
I do know that there are people who love to gossip. Who can’t wait to share whatever interesting tid bit they found out, even if it’s not the whole story, and perhaps not even true. I also know that there are people who like to share all the details of their life, sometimes without regard for the interest of the audience in those details.
I heard a saying once, “Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.”
The point is, if someone tells you anything overly personal or confidential in any way, and especially if they flat out tell you that it’s not public info or that they’ve told no one else, or very few people, you have an obligation (via the trust placed in you) to not say anything about it to anyone else. It is not your place to share because it’s not your information. There are, of course, exceptions. For example, if the person is planning to hurt themselves or others in any way, that’s a time to seriously consider breaching that trust. In fact, it’s the only time that I am aware of that a heath care provider can (and has the obligation to) breach patient confidentiality.
Everyone has their own secrets but not everyone can keep the secrets of others. How do you rate?
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I know there different people out there – morning people, night owls, those comfortably in the middle. I can, and have, adapted to all of these. I’ve worked overnights. I’ve worked overnights and a mid-shift day job. I’ve worked a 9-5. I’ve worked retail, and we all know that means that your schedule is different. Every. Fucking. Week.
Anyway. I have decided that my ideal schedule is that of a night owl. I function very well when the rest of the world is sleeping; dreaming without the threat of an alarm going off. When the creepy things are said to be out and about. When people are afraid for whatever reason. And I don’t know why that invigorates me, but it does. I am more creative, more passionate. That’s just how it is.
Now, I can function otherwise. I’m not someone who is locked into a routine. I am adaptable. But, I suppose that if my ideal method of functioning is that of a “night owl”, that kinda makes me nocturnal, doesn’t it?
I’m up later than I should be working on something I probably shouldn’t be, but I want to, and I’m writing this in the downtime, so yeah.
How cool would it be if society could/ would adapt to people’s internal clocks? For example, if I were a marketing person – executive or otherwise – what if the firm i work for said, “You’re a night person? Ok cool. We’ll have daily calls set in the afternoon for you to get clarity on projects, and then you can have the night to do your thing.”
And for the early bird? “Oh, you like to be up early? Great. we’ll schedule daily calls for you late morning to early afternoon, and your day can be done by 3pm.”
How awesome would that be?
Side note. capitalization is bullshit. sometimes. i prefer not to use it other than for names, honestly. i can tell where the start of a sentence is by the period from the last sentence.
and with that, i’m done. have a great night!
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I have come to realize that people are nice for different reasons.
Some people are nice simply out of adherence to social convention.
Some people are nice because they are manipulating you; they need or want something from you.
Some people are nice because they are just a nice person, and may even be a bit naive.
Some people are nice because they have walked through hell and fought demons every single day at some point in their lives, and perhaps still do. All the while, the world goes on as usual, expecting normal things from people in very abnormal circumstances.
The problem lies in the fact that you never truly know which category a person falls into, and you may never know. This is why it is important to always be kind, but also important to protect yourself. This may mean saying no if you need to, establishing boundaries, and so on. This may also mean not taking advantage of someone’s niceness, because you may not want to find out what the other side of that person looks like.
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This is my favorite question; has been since I was a little kid.
I remember one instance in particular, I was maybe 4 or 5 years old. I was walking into a store with my mom, chattering away about whatever crossed my mind, likely asking a bunch of questions in the process. I remember asking my mom why the sky is blue. She got exasperated, sighed, and told me that I ask too many questions.
In all of my 4-or 5-year-old glory, I was unphased, and responded adamantly, “Mommy, why do I ask too many questions?”. She sighed again and told me to hush. I continued to, and to this day, ask a lot of questions. I actually have a tattoo on the back of my neck that says “question everything”.
I know that I may never have the answer to all of the “why” questions that I ask, either out loud or in my mind, and that’s ok. I also understand that the answers I have now may change as science evolves and uncovers even deeper truths. Either way, I will continue to search for answers.
I will always ask, “Why?”.
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I’m probably gonna date myself here, but I don’t care.
I liked the yellow pages for finding companies. You could look up a category – lawyers, furniture, dentists, whatever – and get a listing of all the businesses of that type in your area. You know your area, so could tell by the town names how far away they are. Maybe you had a friend who used a particular company and told you they loved dealing with that company. Noted. Maybe a coworker had a horrible experience with a different company. Also noted. (Mental filing cabinets are your friends!!)
My point is, I don’t want some algorithm to show me only the results that it thinks I’d be interested in. I also don’t want another algorithm to bombard me with ads for shit I have no interest in just because I was curious about one thing on a random fucking Tuesday a few weeks ago. I don’t want to see sponsored listings for something only remotely related, or from companies that pay to subvert other companies by having their info at the top of the results list. I want to see ~all~ of my options, speak to a human being when I call, and make my own informed decision about who I’m going to give my business to. Just sayin.
That’s all, rant over. Carry on.
Happy Friday!
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You can read part 4 here.
Part 4 was a discussion of the scarier points of a random universe, but ended with a question about free will, which I’d like to get into now. To start, we will consult Merriam-Webster.
There are two ways to write this word — freewill and free will, the former being an adjective, the latter a noun. We are interested in the noun, so here we go:
Free will is making a choice on your own, but can that rule out randomness? Habits come to mind, which makes me think that yes, free will can rule out the idea that all choices are random.
But what about those choices not related to habit? And, to expand on that, how many of our choices are not related to habitual behavior? For example, if you are a frugal person, and see a dollar on the sidewalk, you’re likely to pick it up. If not, you may just walk on by. That choice to pick up the dollar or not, is related to a quality that you have – being frugal. And it creates certain habits, even if you did not consciously work to establish said habit. That leads to the conclusion that the type of person we are – frugal, a career person, an animal person, etc. – determines the types of habits we have and the choices we make. That, in turn, makes me think that all of our choices are related to habit, and if that is the case, not random.
Additionally, are there any random habits? The more I think about this, I think that any choice that we make is based on habit. But we can choose to forego habitual behavior. For example, I attended a baby shower today. I purchased non-practical gifts for said event. This was out of character for me, since I tend to err on the side of practicality when it comes to gifts for big events like birth or marriage.
Let’s take a moment to consult the dictionary again:
Habits are usual, regular, or recurring events or modes of behavior. Random is random – it could be any of the choices, with equal probability of each; the flip of a coin. Human beings are creatures of habit. If you have a particular value, such as honesty, or frugality, then your behaviors tend to reinforce that value. In other words, your choices reflect your values. Habits are value based. Can values be random? I lean towards no on this, because values have a purpose, and can have or cause a pattern.
A random thought, how do instincts fall into this? Instincts are predictable behaviors, but not one that a choice is made about.
This needs some additional thought before I continue. Prepare for part 6!
Have a great night!
A Peculiar Cerebral Tangle 