Thanksgiving

Many people I know have the favorite holiday of Christmas, including my dear departed mother.  I can understand the sentiment.  On the non-religious side there is the pageantry and decorations.  There are also those who look forward to the giving and/or receiving of presents.  On the religious side there is the birth of the savior, which trumps presents and garlands.

But to me, I have a hard time seeing Christmas through anything but a cynic's eyes.  Especially in the modern era where the decorations and salesmanship starts before Halloween in many places.  Christmas has been corrupted by marketing... The true cynics would point out that the Christians corrupted the pagan holiday, so it's only fair that the Christian holiday is in turn corrupted...

The second most popular holiday to the religious is Easter.  It's celebrating the rebirth or resurrection of the Savior.  While not as commercialized as Christmas, it has still become sadly diluted.  Easter eggs, and Easter baskets are commonplace even among the irreligious.

The cynic is me, always preferred Good Friday to Easter.  In part it was because Easter has been corrupted by candy and bunnies.  But also people who don't go to church regularly often will only go on Easter, which makes me a little sad.  I am glad that people acknowledge the profound nature of Easter, but full time is better than part time...  Anyway, Good Friday celebrates, although perhaps commemorates is a more appropriate word, the death of the Jesus.  If he hadn't sacrificed himself, he couldn't have been resurrected.  So Easter is about fulfilling the promise, and Good Friday is paying for it.

All that being said, really doesn't talk about Thanksgiving, which is the subject of this blog post, after all.  So what does all of that have to do with Thanksgiving?

Many people have many different opinions about what the best holiday is...  To me, the best holiday is Thanksgiving.  Even with "Black Friday" creeping into Thursday, Thanksgiving is still a relatively un-commericalized holiday. Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Valentine's Day... They are all about giving and receiving.  Thanksgiving is about sharing.  Yes, it is about consuming vast amounts of food, and there are people who sit around watching football, or the parade, but fundamentally, it is a time to spend with family and friends and just enjoy each others company.

Ironically, it is fundamentally about consumption, but manages to not be commercialized.  Perhaps the folks at Butterball think differently, but Thanksgiving seems to have avoided corruption, because it is already about having.  The Pilgrims celebrated that they had enough food to survive.  Lincoln recognized during the height of the Civil War that there was still enough bounty to be thankful for, no matter how bleak the world may look.  Thanksgiving is about having and sharing, not having and giving.

As for Black Friday... Have you noticed that they don't advertise the sale as starting on Thanksgiving day?  It's always, the night before Black Friday, or maybe Thursday night.  There is something that seems sacred about Thanksgiving, which transcends religion (since Thanksgiving is not a religious holiday).

I hope there are others out there that enjoy Thanksgiving as much as I do.  That recognize that Thanksgiving is different than all the other holidays.  It is a holiday that is already owned by the common man, and cannot be corrupted in image or purpose, because it already serves it's purpose so clearly.

P.S.  A post about Thanksgiving doesn't seem complete without listed what I'm thankful for.  I am thankful for many things, but I'm just going to say that I'm thankful for Thanksgiving...

I probably shouldn't

My last posting was after a night spent chatting with a couple of very interesting women.  To clarify, it was after a night at a bar chatting with a couple of women.  So, needless to say, I had had a few drinks at the time of posting.  That is not to say that I regret anything I wrote, far from it in fact.  But the fact remains: should I have posted that night, or waited until the harsh light of the morning...

As should be apparent, I'm posting this after a night where I again met a few interesting people.  Unlike the previous evening, this night wasn't something I would put entirely in the pleasant memory column.  I wouldn't put things in the unpleasant category either, but I would say I was... ambivalent about the events of the evening.  For those who don't know, I have a soft spot in my heart for the word ambivalent.  It's special to feel both positively and negatively about something.

Obviously, this begs the question of what was good and what was bad...  Or, perhaps more interesting is what compelled me to write at all.

I have been told more than once that I have the sort of face that makes people trust me.  Although, trust isn't exactly the right word, since it's more that people tell me things they might not tell other people.  These aren't secret things that are illicit in nature, but personal things that are emotionally tender.

I'm not going to go into details.  I've drafted out a few things, but none of them seemed correct, so I will omit them all...  So without revealing events or detailed revelations, why post?

What I will say, is that no matter how much of a misanthrope I say I am, I will protect those I find to be in need, or at least those I think are in need.  Tonight it meant a long conversation and seeing people into a cab.  A couple of weeks ago it meant a rather long walk with someone whose sense of balance made it a much longer walk...

I wish I could say that it made me feel good...  I suppose, it does to an extent, but really what I feel is that I did what I supposed to do.

Denmark

Tonight, I was at a local bar and ended up talking to a couple of girls from Denmark.  I joked to them that 100% of the people I've met from Denmark were awesome, and had to admit that the two of them were the only people I've actually met from Denmark.

How is this blog-worthy, as opposed to deserving a quick facebook status update?  At least in part because I mentioned my blog, specifically the bits of origami that I've posted.  More specifically, the origami dollar bill penguin that I developed.  I get a number of hits every week on my blog because of the penguin, although I've never had anyone write to say, "hey the penguin was great, thanks for posting."

The other part...  That's a bit more difficult to describe.  I feel the need to blog when I've learned something significant about myself, or others, or the world around me.  There are a number of things that I've never committed to  writing, either because they weren't significant enough, because they were too obvious, or because I didn't think to write...

For instance, I've never written about my "one conversation" philosophy.  It's a bit bar-centric, but can be extended to anything...  I've discovered that everyone I've run into has been an interesting person, at least for one conversation.  The world is full of stereotypes, in large part because people tend to conform to said stereotypes.  But no matter how entirely someone falls into a stereotype, there is something about them that sits outside of that type, something unique and interesting.  So, when I'm in a bar, I have no hesitation about talking to the stranger sitting next to me, since there is always something new and interesting to talk about.  The extension of this philosophy is that there are people who are good for more than one conversation.  These are the people I think of as my friends... Extending this to the logical conclusion: there exists someone that every conversation is interesting and unique.  That is the person I hope to find in female form, and convince to marry me.

So, tangent aside, what did I learn?  I learned that I need to go to Denmark.  I learned that my ability to convert between SI and English units wasn't as good as I thought, especially after a few drinks.  I learned that people in Denmark are equally confused by David Hasselhoff's popularity in Germany as Americans...

I learned other things, but there are also things that I merely confirmed... For instance, that sometimes a tangent is more interesting than the original topic.

Mardi Gras

I just got back from a trip to New Orleans to experience Mardi Gras and the festivities that precede Fat Tuesday.  My mom's cousin, Ellie, lives in New Orleans and gave me some advice on preparing for Mardi Gras, and let me stay with her for the duration.  She was rather adamant that I should enjoy Mardi Gras as the locals do and not be a total tourist.  On her advice, I went to the party store and got some costume stuff.  I actually got more stuff than I ended up using, since one of the hat's I bought proved to be the big winner (more on that later).  I did use the masks, but I opted not to don the capes, since they were actually a bit too small in the throat area, plus they might have interfered with my bead collecting.

There are two ways to go about a blog post for a trip like this... The first is to recount the events that occurred, the second is to explain the overall feeling of the trip.  In the case of this trip, at least for me, it was more of an overall experience, so I'm going to go the later route...

The Mardi Gras season, to the locals, seems to be more about the parades than the party...  Although, to be clear the parades are giant parties.  People camp out all day, sometimes several days to get their spot on the parade route.  There are plenty of camp chairs that people are sitting on, but they also put up awnings and BBQ's.  Imagine a tailgating party that's several miles long and you'll get an idea for the atmosphere along many of the parade routes.  But, while it's a giant party, it is mostly clean fun.  A lot of the beads thrown end up in the hands of little kids poised on top of ladders.  I saw one kid's parent's lugging two giant bags filled with beads and toys away after a parade.

The parades are quite a spectacle in and of themselves.  Some of the floats are relatively simple designs, with particle board type facings that are painted in various themes.  Other floats are lit with LEDs or have giant statues.  One of my favorites was a giant train with LEDs all around.  On the floats are dozens, and in at least one case hundreds of people throwing things to the crowds.  A lot of the "throws" are beads, but there are also rather more exotic items.  My first such was a shoe from the Muses parade, which is quite the score (locals were all suitably impressed).  Below is a picture of me, in the hat, with the shoe.  I will admit that I had an "in" to get the shoe, in that it was thrown by my cousin.  Although, I was equally thrilled to get the bracelet you can also see.  It's a bunch of little shoes, and it was thrown to me by a girl on one of the early floats, alright, specifically the Muses float 5, not that I remember things like that (or that she had enchanting eyes).  She liked my hat (she made crosses in the air, thinking it looked like the pope hat) and threw the bracelet to me.

Unfortunately, most of the pictures I took with my camera didn't turn out very well.  Also, apparently I ran out of room on the phone without realizing it.  It took pictures and just didn't save them.  But in some ways that might be for the best, because even if they turned out, they wouldn't do justice to the experience.

I would be negligent talking about the parades if I just talked about the floats, the crowds and the throws.  There were also the bands and the marching groups.  Between each float was either a marching band or a truck with music.  The marching bands come from all over, many local school's marching bands participate, but I also remember seeing schools from Virginia (VMI), Florida and a few other places.  Some of the marching bands were accompanied by dancing girls/cheerleaders.  I heard numerous people in the crowds say they enjoyed the bands more than the floats.  I'm more of a float guy, but I appreciated the marching bands.  Especially because I saw a few of the bands multiple times during my stay, so I know they must end the week exhausted, since marching for several hours several days in a row has got to be tough (I know every night I was exhausted from walking to/from the parades and the various locations)...

Earlier I mentioned the trucks with music.  This were usually accompanied by... Well, let's say less serious dancers.  I'm not saying the dancing wasn't good, just that it had a whimsical air to it.  There were a couple of all-female groups, such as the PussyFooters, who dress in pink wigs and corsets.  The crowd favorite though were the 610 Stompers, who are average guys (seriously, take 50 random guys and you could have the 610 Stompers) dressed in white headbands, blue short and shiny vinyl red jackets.  They might not have been the prettiest looking group, but they were having fun and they danced with passion.

Part of the experience revolved around the hat.  While I might not have that many photos, there are dozens, or perhaps a hundred or more pictures of me circulating the world from the few days I was in New Orleans.  A six and a half foot tall man with a two foot tall plush crown attracts a bit of attention.  Numerous people bowed to me, and I couldn't count how many asked if I was the king of Mardi Gras.  There were people who wanted to take a picture of me, or have their picture taken with me.  It was all terribly flattering.  I even made the local news, when Jessica Holly from Fox 8 New Orleans interviewed me because she loved my hat! (http://www.fox8live.com/video?clipId=8366290&autostart=true about 1:35 into the clip).  A lot of people also asked where I got it, and seemed a bit disappointed that I brought it from Boston.  People also offered to buy it, one guy even offered me $20 and to see his girlfriend's boobs.  One last thing about the hat... People seemed divided about whether it was a king's crown or a papal crown, going more towards the Pope after the announcement of the Pope's retirement...

I would be negligent in my reminiscing not to include some observations about Bourbon Street.  The crowd was quite impressive.  There were a couple of spots where I had trouble making any progress, mostly because a large group of people were begging those on the balconies to throw them beads.  Actually that was probably my least favorite part about the Bourbon Street experience, was people throwing beads from the balconies.  Maybe because I got hit in the face way too many times by beads that people threw (likely at my hat).  Although one person did get a miracle shot and land the beads around my hat...  Anyway, there were a lot of drunk people milling around.  For the most part it was all in good fun.  There were girls showing off their assets to get attention (and beads), but not as much as I was led to believe.  There were also people who got into fights, although I didn't see any major fights, mostly pushing.  I saw one guy who caught a pickpocket in the act of taking his phone, and someone did try to lift my wallet at one point (at least that was the feeling I got, and it fit with a rather aggressively pushing guy in the crowd).  There was also a shooting while I was on Bourbon street, which shutdown one stretch for a few hours.  So there is definitely a dark side to the festivities, and I saw a number of predatory looking people hanging around the periphery.  But, that is a very small portion, most just wanted to have a good time.

One interesting thing about Bourbon street is that it doesn't just attract carousers.  There is a large christian group that has a anti-Mardi Gras thing going on.  They have giant crosses they hold up on a couple of corners, and preach to the crowd on megaphones.  They also engage in one-on-one witnessing, but I think many of those were the people from the crowd either messing with them, or in some cases explaining that going out, having a few drinks and a night of fun isn't anti-Christian.  There were a couple of pushing matches around this group, actually, half of the shoving I saw was due to them (not that they were pushing, but that their antagonism caused others to push them).  Although they did at one point form a long double line, probably fifty men in all and forced there way along in the crowd, hands on the shoulders of the man in front of them.  I'm not sure what that was about, aside from causing difficulties for people to move on the street.

Anyway, my favorite night on Bourbon street was the last night, that is Mardi Gras night itself.  The crowd was actually significantly smaller than on the weekend, but there were more people in costume.  I got the impression that Mardi Gras night is really the night the locals enjoy for dressing up and going out.  It was still full of the usual tourists, but a lot of people who were clearly locals and clearly enjoying the atmosphere.

For those who are interested in a more local experience, you can still go to the French Quarter, but head down a few streets.  I went to Decatur street and had a few drinks at a bar that is mostly frequented by locals.  One particularly enthusiastic woman said I understood Mardi Gras, either because I wasn't on Bourbon street, or that I had a bit of costuming on.

This blog has already rambled on quite enough, although there is still so much to say.  For instance, while I did have plenty to drink, I never really got drunk, because there was so much to see and do.  I also regret that I forgot to buy a King Cake before I left, well, I remembered, but too late since they were sold out.

Thanks to Ellie and Roger for having me!  I'm sure I'll be back...

Pyschoinertia

The first hard science most people learn is Newton’s First Law, “An object persists in its state of moving or rest unless acted upon by a force.”  This is the concept of inertia.  A rock sitting on the ground won’t start moving unless something comes along and pushes it.  The same rock once it starts moving will keep moving until it is acted upon by a force, such as friction with the ground or hitting another object.

The second law states, “The acceleration of an object is proportional to the acting force divided by the objects mass.”  It is usually expressed in a slightly different format, Force equals Mass times Acceleration.  Mass is the quantification of inertia; it represents how difficult it is to change an object’s motion, or lack thereof.  Mass can be thought of as how much substance an object has, and in the presence of gravity an objects weight is equal to its mass times gravity.

Newton’s third law gets more specific, “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction: or the forces two bodies exert on each other are always equal in magnitude and opposite in direction.”  The idea behind the third law is that forces are always balanced, for instance if you were to impart a force onto a ball, or throw it, the ball is pushing back on your hand just as hard as you are pushing on it.  The ball accelerates much faster than you do because it has much lower mass.

In the realm of physics, people are objects just like everything else, and we all have mass and hence inertia.  If we are sitting on the couch, we aren’t going to suddenly get up and move across the room.  Something has to apply a force to our body to make it move, or as is usually the case you apply a force to another object, such as the couch or the floor and you move in the opposite direction.

When you walk across the room, you are pushing the room in the opposite direction just as hard as the room is pushing you.  However, the room weights considerably more than you and it is usually pushing on the ground and the earth definitely weights considerably more than you or the room, so the result is that when you push on the floor you are the one doing the moving.  If you were standing on a surf board in the middle of the ocean and you started walking, the surfboard would shoot out from under you while you stay pretty much in the same place, since it has much less mass and inertia than you.

People are different sizes, so they have different masses.  If a large person and a small person were pushed by the same force, the smaller one would accelerate much faster than the larger person.  So if the two people, large and small, pushed against each other, the smaller person would be propelled much faster than the larger person.

Most people understand these principles on an almost subconscious level.  They might not know the math, but they know that if they see their car rolling down a hill it would be a bad idea to get in the way.  Even children grasp the concept as they speed across the room to try to knock their father over, knowing they have to go very fast to make their father move just a little.

The same physical principles can be applied to the mind, psychophysics if you will.  A person’s thoughts and behaviors have mental inertia or psychoinertia, just as their bodies have physical inertia.  Some people, and some thoughts, have more psychoinertia than others.

Like physical inertia, if you have a lot of pyschoinertia you are much harder to move, or motivate.  But they are also much harder to demotivate or distract from what they are doing.  Imagine a giant boulder rolling along, if you throw a small branch in its way, it will crunch through it and continue on its way.  If you wanted to turn the boulder, you would have to exert tremendous force, but once it started in the new direction, it would continue.  As a result, people with high psychoinertia also find it difficult to “wind down,” because even if their body has stopped moving their mind is still trudging along.

On the other end of the spectrum are people with low mental inertia.  People with low psychoinertia are easily motivated but tend to be distractible, because it requires relatively little to get them to change mental directions.  Instead of a giant boulder, imagine a beach ball rolling along.  This time the stick will stop the ball entirely, or send it flying in a new direction.  People with low mental inertia also tend to be spontaneous.

The obvious question is whether it is better to have a lot of psychoinertia or very little, or perhaps somewhere in between.  There is no answer to that question, because life presents all kinds of challenges, some which require nimbleness of mind, and others that require perseverance.   However, if you understand which part of the spectrum you fall in, you can take advantage of the good traits and counteract the bad.

For someone on the heavy end of the spectrum, let’s say a major life event is going to be occurring in the near future, such as a new job in a new city.  Simply packing up and moving will cause a tremendous mental hardship, since while your physical body has moved to your new location, your mind is still at your old job in the old city.  Instead, picture the new job and new city, imagine living there.  If you push continuously over a longer period of time, it requires less mental strain at any one point.  When your body finally gets to the new place, you will find your mind is already at home.  This process of building up mental momentum can also be used in reverse, so rather than just stop doing something, start the mental process of stopping early.

People on the light and nimble end of the spectrum have less problems changing, but more problems staying on course.  I was careful not to use the term “stubborn” to describe those with high psychoinertia, because there is more than one way to be stubborn.  Barnacles are stubborn, not because they are heavy, but because they cling tightly to something that is.  If you push on a barnacle, the barnacle transfers that force to what it’s growing up.  So, if you cling tightly to what you are doing, then the task itself will help pull you along when a distraction arises: be stubborn.  Or, if you do get distracted just remember that it is just as easy to motivate yourself back on course as it was to get knocked off course in the first place.  The key being not to lose too much ground in the process.

Psychoinertia can also give you insight into other people.  Is your friend being stubborn because he is clinging tightly his thoughts, or is it because it simply takes a lot of effort to change his mind?  Teams work best with a combination of high and low psychoinertias.  The nimbler lighter minds are easily motivated to get things started in the right direction.  Eventually the high inertia minds will start moving along and then they’ll help keep the lighter minds motivated when distractions crop up.

The other side of the equation is force.  Force is required to generate motion in the mass, whether it is physical or mental.  There are people who are said to have forceful personalities, as in full of force.  These are the people who are capable of exerting the mental forces to motivate others.  But, they are also the ones who can motivate themselves, or keep themselves motivated in the midst of distractions.

Mental forces require balance in the same way that physical forces do.  If you were to pull someone towards you mentally or emotionally, you are pulling yourself towards them as well.  In the physical world, it is much easier to see the paired forces as they oppose each other, while in the mental world it is much more difficult.

In the physical world, a person generally moves about by pushing off the ground, the floor, or their surfboard.  The stronger the foundation the person is standing on, the harder they can push.  The mental world is the same, except the foundation is a person’s beliefs, which form from life history and the influence of others.  A person thus has a second store of inertia to push against that has been built over their life.

If you have a shaky mental foundation, no matter how much psychoinertia you have, you won’t be able to accomplish anything.  Imagine a large man trying to run while standing on a bed of marbles.  The marbles will go flying and the man will go nowhere.  A few feet away, a girl stands with her toes digging into the ground.  It might not be easy, but the girl could push the man backwards because she has the stronger foundation.

People with weak foundations have difficulty motivating themselves.  They try to push themselves, but they have nothing to push against.  If they are given outside motivation, a mental push from someone else, they can be motivated.  This is why counselors, teachers, and friends can be so influential on people who have a poor foundation, but so can a gang.

People with weak foundations can get out of the morass by latching onto a different foundation, such as a religion or a cause.  People who have struggled with a weak foundation are particularly prone to clinging to a new foundation when they find one.  The difficulty for them is that religions and causes have direction.  If they want to use the foundation to motivate their life, they have to stay with the foundation where it moves them.  If the foundation is worthwhile cause, then it will motivate in good directions, if the foundation is a gang, it will not.

Peer pressure is a battle of psychoinertia and foundation.  Children are still building their foundations, and are much more easily pulled off.  A child with a strong foundation is able to resist the pressures of their peers, even if they lack the psychoinertia themselves.  A strong role model, an external foundation, will also give the child something to cling to when pressured.

While a person might have high or low mental inertia, their trajectory through life is determined by their interactions with others and with their mental foundation.

Independence Day

I was thinking today, that it's a shame people call today the 4th of July.  The fourth day of the seventh month, doesn't really mean much.  Independence Day, however, means something.  This was the day two hundred and thirty six years ago that our forefathers planted the seeds that would grow into the United States of America.

The United States doesn't celebrate the adoption or the ratification of the Constitution.  We don't celebrate the day the Constitution went into effect.  Those are the dates which define when the US government was founded.

But the United States should not be confused with it's government.  The Declaration of Independence was not about founding a government, it was about stating and executing the natural right to abolish a government that did not serve the people, a government that was tyrannical and abusive.

 So today does not mark the birth of a nation.  Today marks the demonstration of an ideal.  The ideal that people are governed by their consent, to best "effect their Safety and Happiness."  The founders of the United States of America did not invent these ideals, the thoughts had long been espoused by philosophers.  What they did was execute those ideals and start a Revolution.

The fourth of July is not America's birthday, or the United States birthday.  Independence Day is the day when the thirteen united States of America declared that they would suffer tyranny no more.

Starting is the first step

Last night I met an interesting girl... She told me that her new year's resolution was to learn to do something new every month. This month was to make a souffle, as I recall. I've never been one for New Year's resolutions, because I always thought that if something is worth resolving, it is worth resolving right then. A friend of mine suggested that perhaps New Year's is a good time for resolutions because it causes people to think about things. To me, that would seem to make a birthday a more logically time, since it is a much more personal time to reflect on a new year.

For my part, I showed her how to make a seahorse out of a dollar bill. Well, more I made the seahorse while she watched. She said perhaps she would learn that for one of her months of learning. I helpfully provided my blog address so that she could find the directions. Of course, that's my way of being clumsy and clueless around women.

Anyway, the encounter inspired me to write again. Writing in a blog is none too exciting I suppose, but it's a start. I actually like writing, and being creative, but I've really struggled with it. I think the struggle is because I've so identified with being an engineer, with being good at math and science, that a part of me doesn't think there is room for being creative as well. Or maybe it's because I've always lacked inspiration for what to make or write. Once something comes to me, the rest seems easy.

There is more, but it is hard to describe. For instance, I used to think it odd that Flower Arranging was an art form practiced by samurai. First that arranging flowers is an art form, but also that it was done by warriors. At a certain point in my life, I grew to appreciate that there is an art to it. I remember once going to a florist to get a bouquet and selecting which flowers to use... I realized there was more to it than picking the right colors of flowers, or the type. The size, and form and even the positions mattered. When I was done, the florist said that I could have been a florist... Of course, a lot of people have told me I should be in their job.

I just like things to make sense. For a long time I didn't think creativity made sense. But, I think in a way, creativity is making sense. Start with a block of marble and remove everything that isn't an elephant. Creating form.

Alright, this was a bit more stream of consciousness than I had planned. But I suppose there is nothing wrong with that. It's a start. Hopefully the next step, won't be another start, but a continuation.