How do you step from the top of a 100-foot pole

With a title like that, you know we’re not going to be talking about puppy dogs. No. Today I want to talk about the creative process—more specifically, what happens at the end of the creative process, when you take this thing ( whatever it is in your life) you have sweated and laboured over, and you have to show it to the world.

What if they laugh? What if they think you’re crazy? What if nobody likes it? What if it really is as bad as you think it is? Secretly, even though you’ve sweated and laboured, you’re still worried it might suck; some days you’re convinced that it does and feel like a goat. A friend of mine said that sending your voice/talent/work out into the world is like sending your kid off to kindergarten for the first time. You just hope and pray that their socks match.

(Source: http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-goat-standing-on-a-pole-image14703473 )

Standing our ground and taking that leap in your own life is hard enough, but on a 100 foot pole. Don’t underestimate the pole because the pole symbolizes a major contributor in your situation of navigating life. The pole represents fear. Climbing up the pole and balancing has been your journey up to the point where it needs to exist outside of your control and interact with the surrounding environment.

My two cents on the matter: We all have something to contribute. Perhaps you don’t think so, but we all have our art. It might be gardening, it might be baking bread, and it might be something that falls into a more traditional art form— writing, painting, and telling stories through film or photography or song. We all have our art. Don’t just walk of the pole blindfolded, see and absorb as much as you can because you deserve the view after your effort. It’s not easy. It’s never easy.  Without your contribution, the world will be a poorer place. That’s my two cents, keep the change.

World, are we going down the Shitter?

I woke up to the sound of my alarm clock on my cell phone, and then I received a Google alert about a new product on offer by Twitter. They are now able to take tweets from your Twitter account and print them on two-ply toilet paper for you to use in your own home. WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO?

Believe me; I’m not for the Twitter generation. I think that social media is dismantling our ability as humans to come together and interact with each other face-to-face. This is the joy of being human. Animals congregate based out of physical or survival necessity. Humans can come together and use their voice to communicate not only what we need, but to enjoy each others company and build relationships. Social media like Twitter should aid that goal when it comes to long distance communication. What this means is that if you have the opportunity to directly interact with friends or strangers, do not rush to your mobile device. Think of the original chat room: a group of people chatting in a room not hiding behind an ego, self-centred persona that lives in a mobile device. We must come together, not apart.

     (Source: http://www.impactlab.net/2012/03/29/an-app-that-prints-your-twitter-feeds-on-toilet-paper/shitter-app/)



Back to this Twitter product, are we going to allow these kinds of ideas to exist? Then people react by saying that there is a market for it and they wouldn’t go through all this trouble producing it if there wasn’t a market. To me, that is too simplified. We can’t just create something and say it’s good. We should create things that are useful, fun, and enhance our lives over an extended period of time and not a fashion fad. The reason this ‘market’ exists is because certain people (due to their own inadequacies) turn to post ironic practices instead of stating what they feel. If you don’t know about post irony, read my blog post below about it

My two cents on the matter: There are many people out there with many ideas. We want to support and believe in them because we want to see them prosper, and also when it is our turn that they will do the same for us. But there are some ideas that add no value to our lives, instead they a created for short term fame and dollar signs. If some asked you if you wanted to be smacked in the mouth, you have the right to say no. Now imagine if we did this more often with the consumer industry, my how that ‘market’ will disappear. That’s my two cents, keep the change.   

Why Babies Are Dumb (And Why That’s Cool)

Babies are dumb. Maybe not as dumb as people who buy wigs for their dogs, but still, they’re pretty damned dumb. If you ask a baby to solve for x, the odds are the baby won’t even come close to getting it right.

So why are people so dumb at birth?

Well, there’s an evolutionary reason for it. And it makes good sense. Our brains continue to grow after we are born. A newborn’s brain on average weighs 360 grams for females and 380 grams for males, and at the age of 19, the average is 1450 grams for males and 1310 grams. Obviously, that’s quite a dramatic increase in size. If a woman’s body had to pass a full-sized human head, her physiology would have to cope dramatically. So the fact that mom doesn’t have hips twice their size is thanks to our brains continuing to grow after birth.

                                                  (Source: http://www.abeerfortheshower.com/)



The nice side-effect of our brain developing in this way is that we get brains that are actually “customized” for the modern world. Unless, of course, we’re Mormons. What I mean, though, is that many of the things that we take for granted like language and complex algebra are not instinctive. Your eyebrows raised there. I don’t believe language is instinctive. Grunts and coos and whatnot certainly are, but to move from those to a fully functioning vocabulary is not an instinct, it is something we are taught.

But the great part is that we can continue to learn. Current research shows that doing things like learning a language later in life (while frustrating) and performing other learning-based exercises can add years to our brains, preventing the deterioration that makes our increasing life expectancy suck so bad.

My two cents on the matter: The trouble is that we really don’t use our brains as we age. Once we hit that point in our professional lives where we no longer need to constantly be learning at work, we tend to get lazy, and our brains begin the slow but steady process of deteriorating. All in all, dumb babies are a massive benefit to the species. Even if they pee on us. That's my two cents, keep the change.

Post-irony, how ironic!

I think things that are hideous and bad are cool. This phenomenon has been called post-irony. “Post-irony” is the sarcastic liking of something that you are aware is uncool. Irony, really, kind of fits that same definition, but post-irony is usually defined by sincerity, whereas with standard irony everyone is aware of your sarcasm.

This makes it all but impossible to determine when someone is being ridiculous and when they are pretending to be ridiculous. To an uncool person, post-irony is the greatest thing ever. Nerdy glasses and T-shirts with stupid slogans on them like, “I can only please one person a day. Today is not your day,” are what I wore in high school as a result I was considered somewhat of a loser. Now, however, I can wear the exact same outfit and be cool and disinterested in a post-ironic way because now I am totally aware of how stupid it really is.

                                                           (Source: http://www.11points.com/)

But there is a line. There is still stuff that isn’t cool, even in a post-ironic way. For instance, there was a brief period of time in France last year where bulky, plaid jackets were the hip clothes. And we are all aware of America’s post-ironic love affair with trucker hats. But Alaskan ice road truckers, despite wearing those hats and jackets, were never cool. But there’s a coolness link between a skinny, handsome kid and the trucker hat that isn’t there for the everyday truck driver. This link of coolness is the core of post-irony.

My two cents on the matter: Post-irony is complicated but ultimately boils down to this: anything is cool. That’s my two cents, keep the change.



The Naked Wife - A Life Lesson

(Source: ww.dreamstime.com)

I heard a story the other day and broke out in laughter. After the novelty wore off, I started to think what I could get out of this. Here is the story:

A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower when the doorbell rings. The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs. When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next door neighbor. Before she says a word, Bob says, “I’ll give you $800 to drop that towel.” After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob.

After a few seconds, Bob hands her $800 dollars and leaves. The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs. When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks,…

“Who was that?” “It was Bob the next door neighbor,” she replies. “Great!” the husband says, “Did he say anything about the $800 he owes me?”

My two cents on the matter: If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure. That’s my two cents, keep the change.

We are afraid of the wrong things

I sat down to write today’s blog posting and just couldn’t grasp the idea that was trying to come through.  Not good.  The storm that the weather service predicted has just started.  It’s supposed to bring large amounts of rain, loud bangs of thunder and lightningAnd that gets me thinking.

There have been (okay… still are) times when I’m faced with figurative storms in the form of a situation that I want to change or that needs changing.  Sometimes I encounter obstacles, a bang of thunder and lightning strikes, if you will, and the concern that I have about them leads me to back away and procrastinate.  It’s usually just for a bit until I figure out a way to work through (or around) them.  Every now and then my procrastination lingers, not because I can’t figure out the obstacles part, but because of the fear I have with what might transpire. Alfred Hitchcock is quoted as saying,

Alfred Hitchcock (Source: www.)proceeding97first.blog.fc2.com

“There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it”.
He was right.  Most of the times, the thing I worried about never happened.   For those handful of times when it did (or those couple that were worse than I imagined) I still turned out okay.  

My two cents on the matter: I’m a survivor.  You are too.  How do I know?  Because you’ve gone through some stuff that you didn’t want to or didn’t think you could and yet you’re still alive, reading (or listening to) this.  You’re able to comprehend it and learn from it.  Odds are there’s something in your life right now that you think is hard/challenging/insurmountable. Odds are also that at some point you’ll look back on it and realize that not only did you get through it, but you learned something from it and are a better person because of it.  Don’t let the “what-ifs” stop you. That’s my two cents, keep the change.

Fish falling from the sky: Is it the end?

Religious conspiracy theorists are abounding as birds fall from the sky and dead fish pile up on the shores of the Arkansas River.  Is it a sign of the end times?  Is the rapture around the corner?  Do we need to get out our dusty Left Behind books and re-read details from the Tribulation Force? I bet all those people who bought caves in the desert for the millennium are drooling right now.

Now, I love a good mystery, and if it involves the Bible--Revelation--well, I get all wiggly and hyped up just thinking about deciphering prophecy. But the right side of my brain is telling my inner wacko conspiracy theorist (the left side) to pause, and think about this for a moment. Could it be that rampant pollution, disease among fish or bird species, hazardous dumping of toxic materials in our oceans, air pollution, chemical pollution, even potential weapon testing could be the true offenders and not God?

(http://amazingdata.com) 

I don’t disagree that certain signs from prophecy appear to be much closer at hand, then say, two-thousand years ago.  But if Jesus didn’t know the time or hour, why in the heck are people so obsessed about it? If time is short, than I recommend inviting more people into a relationship with Christ, not scaring them into submission with threats of floods and the sky falling.

My two cents on the matter: sin always has a consequence.  And our inherent, genetic compulsion to sin, has affected creation as we know it. That's my two cents, keep the change.

Dorks, geeks, and nerds: It's time to tell the difference

The terms dweeb, dork, geek, and nerd tend to be flung about carelessly, with very little discrimination about shades of meaning. I found this appalling, because no dweeb wants to be mentioned in the same breath as a nerd and nor does a geek want to be confused as a dork. If you’re a little lost, I don’t blame you. Happily for your understanding, an attempt has been made to settle this nice point of taxonomy by classifying the four types by combinations of three variables: intelligence, obsession, and social ineptitude.

Geek: intelligence + obsession
Dork: obsession + social ineptitude
Dweeb: intelligence + social ineptitude
Nerd: all three

(http://media1.break.com/breakstudios/2012/2/7/revenge-of-the-nerds.jpg)

My two cents on the matter: we are all people just looking for a small place in this world where we can be accepted. Use this information not to clarify your insults, but to be sensitive to there feelings. Let’s face, nobody likes to hear that they are lumped into a group which clearly they do not feel apart of. That’s my two cents, keep the change

Stay tuned for: The Young and the Punishment

A long time ago, teachers had the authority to beat their students with sticks. The bible even justifies that children be disciplined with a rod (Proverbs 23:13). Now it seems, that the "more civilized" and more "modern" educational institutions have chosen to just bombard children with mind-numbing monotonous work.

 

                                                  (Source: http://www.matters.com/)

I really don't know what's more effective. I'm really not an expert on psychology or whatever. But what I know is that I'd rather they beat me with a stick and deter my physical body than waste my time with their mind-numbing punishments (not to mean that I agree with beating children).

It's supposed to "teach me a lesson", at least that's what they are assuming. It's really just such a waste of my intellect and time. I could have written something brilliant, learned something new, changed the world--but no, I was inserting pieces of paper on books in the library. And they want more of it, more of wasting the potential of their students.

My two cents on the matter: it's obviously a policy issue. I respect their rules and regulations (their premises anyway) and I understand there are consequences to my actions. It's just so bothering that a small bureaucratic group is given authority to decide what this consequence is. It's much like how people respect China's rule of law but it doesn't mean they agree with the death penalty and the execution of those used to traffic drugs. That's my two cents, keep the change.

What is the color of the wind?

                                                  (Source: whiskeyonsunday.tumblr.com)

We all get those times where we drift off into another reality and gain the confidence to ask questions to ourselves that we would never blurt out in public. How do trees feel about global warming? How come two minds better than one, and does half a head have any value? Why do we cherish Halloween so much when your parents tell you to never take candy from strangers? In my drifts through consciousness and space, I wondered what the color of the wind is. Many people have commented on this. Some say that it is a meaningless question, and serves no purpose you can tell these people suffer from some form of anal retention. Others delve into the mystic and you feel like you have stepped into an Avatar-like universe.

 I listened to these views and came to an idea. It’s true that many senses enhance ones perception of events and moods, but couldn’t one sense be enough to experience and embrace a feeling that the other senses could not? The picture of Pocahontas explains my idea. She is in the middle of absolute beauty and all of her senses are alive. But she closes her eyes just to feel the sensation of the wind. This shows that she could have used all her senses to fully engulf the moment, but she chose to feel the individual sensation to enhance her experience. My two cents on the matter: the wind does not need a color. It provides a sensational experience all on its own and which is unique. We do not need many to experience all the moments of life; we just need to ones that matter at the time to fully embrace and cherish the wonders this life has to offer. That’s my two cents, keep the change.