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 |    Not for the faint of art. |
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Complex Numbers A complex number is expressed in the standard form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers and i is defined by i^2 = -1 (that is, i is the square root of -1). For example, 3 + 2i is a complex number. The bi term is often referred to as an imaginary number (though this may be misleading, as it is no more "imaginary" than the symbolic abstractions we know as the "real" numbers). Thus, every complex number has a real part, a, and an imaginary part, bi. Complex numbers are often represented on a graph known as the "complex plane," where the horizontal axis represents the infinity of real numbers, and the vertical axis represents the infinity of imaginary numbers. Thus, each complex number has a unique representation on the complex plane: some closer to real; others, more imaginary. If a = b, the number is equal parts real and imaginary. Very simple transformations applied to numbers in the complex plane can lead to fractal structures of enormous intricacy and astonishing beauty. ![Merit Badge in Quill Award
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Congratulations on winning an honorable mention for Best Blog at the 2018 Quill Awards for [Link To Item #1196512] . *^*Smile*^* This award was sponsored by the blogging consortium including [Link To Item #30dbc] , [Link To Item #blogcity] , [Link To Item #bcof] and [Link To Item #1953629] . For more details, see [Link To Item #quills] .](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/type-Blogging-2180.gif) ![Merit Badge in Highly Recommended
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| With May's 30DBC behind me and June yet to begin, I thought about doing my usual riff on a link, but I just can't be arsed today. Nine years ago, I witnessed the final Space Shuttle launch. Well... sort of. I was in Florida anyway, and I hung out on a pier and looked north toward Cape Canaveral. I didn't really expect much, because it was kind of cloudy, but through a gap in the cloud cover, I saw the very distinct smoke trail left by the booster engines. Since then, we, by which I mean the US, you know, the country that first landed dudes on the moon because we were in a propaganda war with the USSR, have been paying Russia to launch our astronauts into orbit, because we as a country couldn't work up the will to do it ourselves. And no, don't give me that shit about space exploration / development / colonization / science / whatever being a waste of money, or that we should instead be concentrating our efforts on fixing racism or stopping gun violence or ending hunger or reversing climate change or developing a COVID-19 vaccine or whatever your little pet cause is, before daring to venture off the planet. That's fucking bullshit. It's like saying "why are you cleaning the kitchen when you could be at work earning money?" And there will always be another problem that needs fixing; that won't end until we do. Okay, yes, all of those things and more are important, too. But there are over seven billion of us on the planet. We (and this time I mean all of humanity) can do more than one thing at a time. And as for the money thing, some people act like we're taking wads of cash and burning them, when the reality is that spending money on this sort of thing boosts the economy. We kind of need that right now. Anyway, that's why I watched the launch yesterday, because MY little pet cause is that we should be getting our asses into space, and I'm glad that we (and now I'm back in my own country) seem to be getting back on track with that and I wanted some closure after nine years of overpaying a government that doesn't seem to have our best interests in mind to do what we should have been doing all along. So yeah, civilization is collapsing all around us, but at least we have that. |
Well, that's it for the prompts for a while. Though I'll probably devote some time next month to blogging for "Journalistic Intentions"  [18+]. It's the least I can do since one of those prompts came from me.PROMPT May 30th Congratulations on making it to the last day of the competition! What was your favorite prompt from the last month? What was the most rewarding aspect of participating in the competition? What did you learn? The problem with these "favorite prompt" questions that pop up at the end of a 30DBC round is that I remember more recent prompts and have already forgotten the earlier ones, because my memory is crap. So anything I say is going to be biased toward more recent entries. I mean, I had a lot of fun with yesterday's "dream house" prompt, so I'm going to go with that one, but I do remember thinking I enjoyed most of the prompts this time. Unless I have a record of something, I will tend to forget it. That's one reason I blog -- periodically, I'll review earlier entries, and sometimes it's like seeing someone else's writing, because it's new again to me. So, the "most rewarding aspect" was probably that I now have a record of what it was like for me living through a pandemic. If it weren't for blogging, I probably wouldn't have recorded my impressions of it at all. As it is, I barely scratched the surface. What did I learn? That's kind of problematic. I already knew I could blog every day. I learn something every day anyway, because, even though I haven't mentioned it in here much recently, I'm continuing to learn French, my efforts to do so hampered mostly by my aforementioned crappy memory. I make up for that with repetition. But that has nothing to do with blogging. I learned stuff about other bloggers, but, again, I'll probably have to be reminded what it was. Thanks for reading, thanks for the prompts, and I hope you'll stick around -- I'm not going to stop writing in here, though as always, I reserve the right to take a night or two off. Probably won't, though, not next month. It's not like I'm going on vacation or anything. |
| Gah! It's almost the end of the month already. Again. PROMPT May 29th When I was little, I dreamed of living in a treehouse surrounded by a pool with a spiral staircase going up the middle of the trunk.  In your second to last entry of the month, write about your dream home. Describe the rooms in your fantasy house and any unique characteristics. Be creative!"Be creative." It's hard to come up with a two-word sentence that strikes more fear into my stony heart, except maybe "I do." There's been pushback in recent years against the trend of ever-growing housing. "McMansions," they call them, cookie cutter castles in usually gated subdivisions with tyrannical homeowner's associations. Well, there is no way I'd ever live in a place with a homeowner's association, not if I have any choice in the matter at all. But I've always wanted a gargantuan house. I know I'm supposed to want a "tiny house," which is the modern euphemism for "trailer." That's the form the abovementioned pushback takes these days. Nope. I need room. Not just for my stuff, but I'm home almost all the time so I want to look at different walls sometimes. In typical American binary fashion, these closet-sized domiciles are touted as the one and only antidote for McMansions. Apparently, I'm the only one who thinks that a middle ground is not only possible, but desirable: having a modest-sized home with a few rooms, rather than being owned by a modern incarnation of a king's palace, or living in a space smaller than my friend's shoe closet (yes, she has an entire room devoted to her footwear collection). Or maybe the tiny house manufacturers have an enormous advertising budget, which leads me to believe that such trailers are way overpriced. But the mid-sized house is my reality, not my fantasy. In reality, I wouldn't want anything much bigger or smaller than what I've got right now, because I'm not wealthy enough to have staff. No, my dream home is a supervillain lair. Cut deep into the bones of a mountain, this would be a massive underground complex with hundreds of rooms, a spaceport, a helipad, and a missile silo. I'd have guards and flying drones patrolling the perimeter at all times (on a randomly rotating schedule), and a household staff consisting of scantily-clad supermodels. Most importantly, the air ducts would be crisscrossed by thick titanium bars at regular intervals, so the protagonist can't use the tired old "sneak in through the air vents" trope. I'd need a dungeon, of course, to imprison my enemies, and an interrogation room (use your imagination) to extract information from them. There would have to be a movie theater with Dolby surround sound and 3D capability, an Olympic-sized swimming pool (as well as an infinity pool elsewhere), a bowling alley, and a skating rink. I don't skate, but I'd watch my staff do it, assuming I decide they can have some time off. As for the other features, well, in addition to the obvious like a kitchen, several bathrooms with gold fixtures, and a gargantuan master bedroom (in the broadest sense of the word "master"), a well-stocked library would be a requirement; I may be evil, but I read. And a bar. Not just any bar, though, but a drafthouse with 100 taps and a large selection of wine and spirits. I might even let some of the staff use it. I'd be tempted to put in a Starbuck's, but I really hate coffee. Don't forget the broadband internet. Can't take over the world without it. Oh, and I'll need a Planning Room. Maybe two Planning Rooms. You can't come up with dastardly plans if you don't have a room in which to concoct them. The reason I'd need two is that one would be like a conference room where I can brainstorm with my most trusted minions, before they attempt to betray me and I have them sent to the dungeon. The other would be dark and foreboding, with just one black chair in the middle on which I could sit and brood. Yes, a supervillain lair would suit me quite nicely. But I'll settle for my modest split-foyer on the edge of town. There's a marginally lower chance of it being nuked from orbit. |
| STOP! He who would cross the Bridge of Death Must answer me These questions three Ere the other side he see. -Monty Python and the Holy Grail PROMPT May 28th Help me fill the Challenge War Chest with new prompts! In your entry today, write at least three prompts to be used in future rounds of the 30DBC. Then, write the rest of your entry using one of your own prompts. You know, I was just thinking yesterday: what would the responses look like in here if one of the prompts was: If you were a dog, what breed would you be? I think that was because someone said they lived with six chihuahuas, and my brain screeched to a halt because I couldn't imagine living with one of those little trembly yippy-ass ratfuckers, let alone six of them. But, you know, to each their own. I'd expect half the people would cheat and say "wolf" or "cat." Hell, I'd say "cat," myself. I value intelligence over the ability to bark at everything that moves. But if I absolutely couldn't cheat, I'd go with Border Collie. Those bastards are smarter than I am as it is; the only reason they haven't taken over the world or sent poodles to the moon is their lack of opposable thumbs. Only problem is I'd have to deal with sheep, who are basically vegetables with wool. Hell, let's just make that the first War Chest proposal prompt: If you were a dog, what breed would you be, and why? And since I've already answered that, I'll stick with the same sort of speed-dating theme and ask: 2. If you were a vegetable, what vegetable would you be, and why? (This could lead to a huge argument over whether tomatoes are vegetables or fruits. I'd be sitting back watching the show and eating popcorn, which incidentally would also be my answer because I go off easily and I'm loud and full of hot air.) 3. If you were a rock, what kind of rock would you be, and why? (My answer? Well, I've always tried to be a gneiss guy, but I've been told I'm full of schist.) I suppose I could have been more creative with the prompts, but I'm pretty sure I only have a limited number of prompts in me, and I reserve most of them for "The Writer's Cramp" [13+]. |
| There's a line in one of my favorite webcomics. I can't find it in a text search, but it went something like, "My life is so depressing I don't know whether I was born or sung into existence by Morrissey." PROMPT May 27th If your life were a song, 1) what genre would it be, 2) who would sing it, and 3) would it be a hit? Well, my life isn't that depressing. I mean, the only thing more depressing than a Morrissey song is a Leonard Cohen song, so that's a pretty low bar to clear. Cohen is, sadly, no longer with us, or I'd be tempted to pick him in response to the prompt. But no, I clear that bar with plenty of room to spare, even if, when looking at it from the outside, it might seem pretty sad. But I'm not usually sad, even if I'm not exactly brimming with ecstatic bubbles. No, I like my life too much to bring it to Morrissey. As it is, I'd consider three scenarios: ideal, pessimistic, and nightmare. Ideal scenario: 1) rock; 2) Springsteen and 3) Of course; Bruce deserves it even if I don't. Pessimistic scenario, based on Just The Way My Luck Goes: 1) country; 2) William Shatner; and 3) of course not; it's William Shatner. Incidentally, no, I don't hate country music, but you know how that genre goes: Mama stole my pickup truck, got drunk and drove in front of a lonesome train. I mean, no, none of that happened, but that's never stopped country singers. And of course Shatner is one of the worst singers in existence. Nightmare scenario: 1) jazz; 2) anyone, out of key (okay, you got me: I can't name any jazz singers off the top of my head) and 3) Why start having jazz hits now? It would also be wrong to say I hate jazz. The genre is so diverse that it's impossible to hate all of it. But I hate most of it. Whatever the next note should be, they always hit the exact opposite one. It annoys me very quickly and makes me want to smoke the devil's lettuce, just like they warned it would. You know how they say when you play rock backwards, you sell your soul to the devil? I've also heard the joke that if you play country music backwards, you get back your dog and your pickup and you sober up. Well, what do you get when you play New Age music backwards? New Age music. What do you get when you play jazz backwards? Music. Seriously, though, my life is nowhere near interesting enough to write a song about. I mean, I've been through a couple of divorces, suitable material for any genre of music, but I ended up with the house and car both times. No one's interested in a happy divorce story unless it involves some lady going to a foreign country to find herself in the arms of some tall exotic dude with a deep-voiced accent and a fifteen-inch schlong. I mean, really, how many movies have been made about that crap? I call it Divorce Porn, because it does for lonely, middle-aged housewives the same thing that porn does for perverts. And no one wants a story or song about a dude doing something similar, schlong or not. Still, I'd bet Springsteen would find an angle or two in my life to write about, like maybe the times I made holy pilgrimages to Asbury Park, or drove my car fast on an empty road. It'd never actually be a hit, though. |
| It's important to do the unexpected. PROMPT May 26th Complete the following sentence: When I’m in the mood to celebrate, nothing can stop me from ___________. Sleeping. Look, it's really very simple: if I'm celebrating, that means I've worked hard to get where I am. I mean, I can observe occasions like National Wine Day (which was yesterday) by drinking, but even then, afterward, I'm going to pass out for six hours. Drinking is nice. Drinking is wonderful. But sleeping is divine. When I'm done with a project, there's nothing more that I want to do than just go unconscious for an extended period of time. But it's not just projects. I'll be at a party, and everyone around me will be having a good time, and I'll be like, "You know, I could be sleeping right now." Today's entry is short because I'm hung over from National Wine Day. I'm going back to sleep now. |
| A friend of mine once told me -- I think he got it from a movie or something -- that everyone has a superpower. PROMPT May 25th What is the most useless skill you have? The most valuable? I was describing to another friend once the way rabbits act when threatened. They're prey animals with few defenses apart from speed, so they get et a lot. They make up for this with their famous reproductive strategy: make a lot of bunnies and maybe some of them don't get et, and those go on to make more lots of bunnies. Point is, with a reproductive strategy like that and a relative lack of defenses, bunnies are pretty much Russian fatalists when it comes to being about to get et. A wolf comes sauntering along, baring its teeth, and if the lagomorph can't escape, it'll just stop its own heart so it dies quickly instead of by being bit a lot. My friend said, "Worst superpower ever." Yes, of course I know it's "eaten," not "et," but some words are just too funny not to use. Anyway, the friend who told me about the superpower thing told someone else that my superpower is punning. I don't know. I mean, I'm pretty good at it. But I think my real superpower, the one that almost never fails me, is being able to ignore rules about which drinks can be drunk before which other drinks. You know, the whole "liquor before beer, never fear" thing. Or is it the other way around? I honestly don't know because it doesn't apply to me. I can drink -- and have done so, on many occasions -- any type of alcoholic beverage, in any order. I might start with beer or whiskey, then move on to tequila or wine, maybe have some cider, throw in some rum... whatever. Sure, I get hangovers like anyone, but no combination can make me sick, only excessive quantities. Naturally there are mixtures that I stay away from; mixing wine and beer is an unholy abomination against all that is beautiful and right with the world, like carpeting your bathroom or drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth. But drinking one and then the other? Not a problem. This practice does, however, tend to suppress my punning abilities, which is why I call it my true superpower. And it's mostly useless. I mean, it's nice to have because I drink for the taste, not to get drunk, and I like to sample different products. Getting drunk is usually a result, not a goal. Usually. Sometimes these days I read a news story and getting blotted becomes the goal, but not often. Anyway, I don't know if it's a "skill" or not, because it's not something I get better at with practice (and I've had quite a bit of practice), but it was the first thing that came to mind for "most useless skill." As for the most valuable, I'd say, technically, the ability to design stormwater management systems. I mean, that's the one with the most earning potential back when I was using it. I expect I could still do it, so it counts as a skill, I suppose. But it's boring. There's also writing, which I think is valuable but no one else does; and finance, which keeps me from having to design stormwater management systems for a living. "Valuable," of course, is a value judgment, by tautological definition. My mind went to "what skills can make me the most money?" But others might find that skills that produce non-monetary rewards to be the most valuable. Relating to other people, for example, or being a good parent, or the ability to dress in a matching outfit, none of which are in my skillset at all. I only care about money. And booze. |
| It's embarrassing how terrible my memory is for some things. PROMPT May 24th Write about something awkward or embarrassing that happened in public - it can be something that happened to you, or something you witnessed happen to somebody else. How did they react? You know, just yesterday I was taking a nap when I woke up in a cold sweat thinking, "Gosh, I hope the 30DBC doesn't do the whole 'most embarrassing moment' prompt. I really hate those." Well, this isn't quite that, but it's close enough to make me believe in precognition. Okay, no, not really. Thing is, I'm sure I've had embarrassing or awkward moments. I must have, right? Everyone does. I have memories of lying awake at night replaying the moments again and again, but I have no memory of the actual moments. Does that make sense? Like, I remember the process by which I edit them out of my memory, but not the actual events because I edited them out. A memory of such an event can and does pop out eventually, usually right when I don't want it to, and certainly not on demand for prompts like these. After wallowing in the embarrassment, I promptly forget about the event again. Drinking helps. Similarly, I cringe when something like that happens to someone else. I guess I have some empathy after all, because I don't laugh or bond with other people over how silly the one it happened to is; I just wince and put myself in their place, and then edit it out of my memory. Even if I could manage to dredge something up, I will have no way of knowing if it was something that actually happened, or something I saw in a movie or TV show. I could, of course, just make something up, but that would be cheating. Okay, I've made stuff up for these prompts before, but usually only for obvious comedic effect and then I switch to the truth. But in this case, the truth is elusive. Oh, good, I knew if I typed long enough I'd manage to come up with something. I'm not sure if it's "public," but it happened outdoors and there were people around. When I was a teen, I built and launched model rockets (I still build them sometimes). Some people, kids and parents, came over, for some reason, to witness a launch. Now, the way this is supposed to work, generally, is that the rocket flies up, a parachute ejects, and it floats back to the ground. I'd been talking up how it's safe and fun, and I had I don't know how many people watching when I launched a rocket; it went up, the parachute completely failed to eject, and the rocket buried itself nose-first in the dirt, narrowly missing a human. Parents herded their children away from me very quickly (an activity I would get used to), and I kept launching rockets. That was probably the only time in my entire rocket science career that an ejection ever failed. Figures it was the one time I was trying to impress people. |
| It occurred to me recently that if you take anyone who is doing anything and imagine them doing it in the dayroom of an inpatient mental hospital, they'll fit right in. PROMPT May 23rd What is something you like to do that other people might think is “weird?” The above thought came to me just yesterday, in fact, as I was taking my (almost) daily walk around the neighborhood. See, the gym is closed for obvious reasons, but I didn't want to quit exercising entirely (as tempting as it was to consider it), so I have a 30-minute loop I always go on. Except when it's raining hard. I'm not a masochist. I offset any health benefit from this by smoking a cigar on the way. The primary reason I do this is that it tends to keep people out of my face. This is of great use to me now because it's an automatic social-distancing enforcement measure. I didn't much like interacting with random strangers beyond a "Hi, how's it going, great, have a good one!" anyway, so the pandemic has been a real boon to me. Yesterday was the first Really Nice Afternoon we've had in a long time, and the first time that strange glowing orb appeared in the sky in about a week, so a lot of people were out. It was actually quite heartwarming to see a woman, mother-sense tingling, snatch her kid off the sidewalk in front of me while glaring at me for a reason other than merely "warning pervert approaching danger danger." But really, lady, I'd have gone around. So that's one thing for the prompt. Cigars during exercise. I mean, it's not like I inhale. Pretty much every second house in the neighborhood had someone outside it, though. It was a Friday afternoon, so it probably will be even more active today. The rain had just quit so no one was mowing, but other yard work was getting done, balls bouncing against garage doors, wrenches turning under cars, folks sitting in beach chairs. You know -- perfectly normal, suburban single-family-detached-home-neighborhood activities (though technically I live in a city, not a suburb), each and every one of which, if taken out of context and placed into a mental institution, would confirm to an observer that the individual is exactly where they need to be. So do that mental exercise next time you're out doing people-watching for "research" for you next "book." Imagine each individual in the dayroom doing the same activities. I should emphasize here that I'm not shaming mental illness or making light of it; quite the opposite, in fact. Apart from violent patients, I'm pointing out that the line between "normal" and "weird" behavior is often blurry, and a matter of context and setting. Also, I feel the need to note that I haven't actually been in a mental hospital so I'm only going by 50 years of movies and TV shows. I always wondered about the extras they always get for those dayroom scenes. Having dabbled in acting myself, I think the background actors probably consider it the most fun they can have at work, with or without their clothes on. As a final note, the word "weird" is weird. Not only is it one of the many exceptions to the well-known "I before E except after C" rule, but it's one of those words, like "nice," that have changed meaning over time. It used to denote a person's fate or destiny; the Fates were called "the weird sisters" not because they were strange, but because they were considered to rule destiny. Merriam-Webster has this to say about it:You may know today's word as a generalized term describing something unusual, but weird also has older meanings that are more specific. Weird derives from the Old English noun wyrd, essentially meaning "fate." By the 8th century, the plural wyrde had begun to appear in texts as a gloss for Parcae, the Latin name for the Fates—three goddesses who spun, measured, and cut the thread of life. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Scots authors employed werd or weird in the phrase "weird sisters" to refer to the Fates. William Shakespeare adopted this usage in Macbeth, in which the "weird sisters" are depicted as three witches. Subsequent adjectival use of weird grew out of a reinterpretation of the weird used by Shakespeare. Pretty weird, yes? |
| What are these "feelings" and "emotions" of which you speak? They are illogical. PROMPT May 22nd Music often has the ability to remind us of old memories. In your entry today, be inspired by a specific piece of music or a musical instrument. What feelings/emotions does the music or instrument stir in you? Share a specific memory your chosen song or instrument reminds you of. I strongly suggest that you skip to about 1:15 in the following video, to avoid a good bit of cringe. Yes, I know there's sorcery you can do with the URL to make a YouTube video start at a given time, but I can't be arsed to figure it out. I'm choosing this one because I just found it today. Really, I could have picked any number of different tunes. This one, though... whenever I hear that opening fanfare, I smile. I can't help it. It's like when my cat does something unbearably cute, or when some asshole gets karmic justice that they deserve. (I'm a complicated individual.) It always makes me think of watching the episodes for the first, second, third, or whatever time, on the living room floor when I was a kid. Star Trek, in its many incarnations, has been a part of my life for, well, all of it. At least the parts I can remember. It began the same year I did, but by the time I had any experiences that I really remember, it had already been cancelled. But, as it lived on in syndication, I grew upspent my childhood watching reruns. Thus, I was just the right age to actually appreciate the Animated Series when it came out, and then old enough to cringe at the obvious pandering that was Wesley Crusher in The Next Generation. I was one of those idiot kids who actually wore a Command-track shirt (the yellow one) to the screening of The Motion Picture. I collected the books and comics. Okay, no, I never went to a convention; those people are weirdos. I do have to admit I never finished watching Voyager. It just never worked for me. But the rest of Trek, even the movies that people bad-mouth? All of that. The kicker is, I can't even identify what, specifically, it is about Star Trek that I like so much. I'm that way with a few things, songs, shows, movies or even video games. It's not that I couldn't communicate it if I figured it out; it's that I can't figure it out. I guess I'll just have to keep watching until I do. |
| Today's discussion is about things that are easy to take for granted. PROMPT May 21st Not including your phone, computer, or other Googling device, write about the top five most useful items you own. This is where I'd normally get into a philosophical discussion of the concept of "ownership," but I'll spare you this time. I'm in the middle of checking out a new superhero TV show, and I want to get back to it, so I'm going to keep this quick and simple. So without further ado, an off-the-top-of-my-head list of the five most useful things I own. 5. Refrigerator Not only does this allow me to keep fresh food longer than would otherwise be possible, but its primary use is keeping beer and white wine chilled. Obviously, I don't chill reds. Except for Beaujolais Nouveau, but that comes out in November when I could just as easily keep it outside. 4. Toaster Oven As a single person, I rarely have use for the big oven. The toaster oven sees some use almost every day, as does the microwave. Some things suck when they're microwaved, though, while the toaster oven gets it right every time except when I forget about it being on. But really, almost anything in the kitchen could be on this list, so, moving on... 3. Toilet Indoor plumbing is one of the greatest inventions of humankind. I may be biased, being a civil engineer and all. Still, not having to venture out into the not-so-great outdoors just to take a shit, or deal with a disgusting chamber pot, is decadence incarnate. Also, as with the kitchen, everything in the bathroom could be on the list: sink, shower, closet, and my ever-dwindling supply of apparently irreplaceable toilet paper. I mean, come on, seriously -- it's been two months; why can I still not find Charmin anywhere? This is bullshit. Bullshit that I can't wipe up. 2. Bed Chairs too, really -- without chairs, I wouldn't be able to use the items on the Forbidden List in the prompt quite as readily -- but it's much easier to sleep in a bed, and sleeping is really bloody important to me, especially after emptying the fridge of beverages. The bed is also adjustable, so I can read in it comfortably. The other traditional use for a bed is inapplicable to me, but even so, it's useful enough to make the second highest spot on the list. 1. House The single most useful item on this list, because it contains all of the other items and then some. And yes, it's mine, not the bank's. It keeps me dry when it rains, cool when it's hot, warm when it's cold, and it offers a degree of security. I suppose "car" could be on the list too, but I don't have a garage, so then I wouldn't have been able to say the house contains everything on the list. Besides, I could probably live, reluctantly, without a car (I have essentially been doing so for two months now), but being homeless would totally suck ass. Especially because there'd be no place to store the toilet paper. |
| If I thought I was going to live to 90, I might do some things differently. PROMPT May 20th If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you choose? I mean, if you've been following along, my answer should be really obvious. Still, I have to say it depends. Do I get to pick the 30-year-old? Can she be hot? Seriously, though, it depends on what's actually meant by "the mind of a 30-year-old." If I were writing a monkey's paw story where someone wishes to retain the mind of a 30-year-old for 60 years, I'd probably get them stuck at age 30 in terms of not being able to learn anything new. With age comes experience as well as some loss of mental flexibility, and it would really suck to keep the flexibility but be unable to use it. I'm not sure if I'm explaining this right. I spent five hours on the phone today, mostly on hold, trying to get an account sorted out at the bank. That hold music is now etched into my synapses until the end of time. When I finally got it sorted, I drank to try to get the muzak out of my brain. In that, I was only partially successful, and now between the earworm and the lingering aftereffects of an entire bottle of really good red zinfandel, I'm not sure I'm thinking straight. Anyway, let's not do the monkey's paw thing and assume that by "the mind of a 30 year old" it's meant to be mental flexibility, learning ability, neuronal plasticity, all that. Well, then, definitely that. I'm way more focused on mental pursuits than physical, anyway, and after seeing both of my parents gradually deteriorate from dementia before age 90, I know for certain that I don't want to go there myself. I'd rather be physically feeble and mentally alert than mentally feeble and physically hale. While sex would be better with the latter, that's not going to happen with me anyway, so why bother? All of this, of course, assumes that it's truly a binary choice, like the one a while back that asked if you had to lose either hearing or sight, which would you choose. If a genie popped out of one of my beer bottles and told me those were my only choices, I'd ask for another beer instead. I mean, life is life, right? Cheating isn't any fun. |
| The response to today's prompt is one of those that changes for me pretty much daily. PROMPT May 19th If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are living now? If so, what would you change and why? I'm going to give one of my non-COVID-19 answers, because the way I'm living and the things I can (or am willing to) do are, and for the foreseeable future will continue to be, restricted by the presence of the pandemic. So the following assumes that there's no pandemic. Because otherwise the simple answer is "No." Long ago, I guess right about the time The Empire Strikes Back came out, someone told me that the plan for Star Wars was to finish Episodes 4-6, then show 1-3, then release 7-9. For a while there, it didn't look like it was going to happen. And then it did, and I was, for the most part, disappointed. But I remember thinking, back then, "Okay, after they release Episode 9, then I can kick it." Well, here we are. Since that time, I've come very close to death at least three times that I know of. Probably a lot more, given the uncertainties of life. And don't get me wrong -- I'm not suicidal or in any hurry to shuffle off, but I'm done. I've done the things I set out to do, experienced almost all of the things that I wanted to experience, and at this point for me it's all about being comfortable until the end. It's that "almost" that bugs me, though. As I noted in a recent entry, I became a professional engineer, and co-ran a business. I've flown an airplane. I went horseback riding in a Central American rainforest. I've stood at the top of the Eiffel Tower, and heard the deep tones of Big Ben from up close. I've written a novel -- three, actually, though they're not exactly in finished form. I experienced a week at a dude ranch in Colorado. I've played poker in Vegas (and lost profoundly) and also blackjack (and won). I've driven across the country and back multiple times. I went to Springsteen concerts, and made a holy pilgrimage to Asbury Park (a few times). I've been to both the easternmost and westernmost points of the continental US, and I've floated in the Dead Sea. I looked out over New York City from the top of the World Trade Center, back when it was two towers. I've sampled Pappy Van Winkle bourbon, and crossed the Golden Gate Bridge (not at the same time). I spent a month on Maui. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. Oh, wait, that last one was Roy Batty from Blade Runner, not me. But there are still things I want to do: visit Belgium for the beer, Scotland for the scotch, and Japan for the whiskey (there's a particular brand of whiskey called Yamazaki; the 12 year and 18 year styles are available in the US, but for the 25 you pretty much have to go to Japan). I'd really like to take the Trans-Siberian Railroad from Vladivostok to Moscow. A river cruise on the Danube. Iceland. Hell, there are still three US states I haven't been to: Michigan, Nebraska, and Alaska. And I still haven't actually seen the Grand Canyon. If I knew without doubt that my demise would occur in exactly one year, I'd make those things happen (again, barring international pandemic restrictions). Probably you've noted, as I have, that most of these things, and all of the fuck-it list items, involve travel. And not a single one of these things will matter after I'm gone, so sometimes I ask myself: why bother? Well, you can say that about anything, and that leads one down a rabbit hole of nihilistic philosophy that I'd rather steer clear of. Everest isn't on my list -- too bloody cold -- but the words of George Mallory (I looked it up and it wasn't Sir Edmund Hillary) resonate with me: "Because it's there." Hell, if I could, I'd take one of those promised trips to space, just to say I did it. And actually, I want my lifeless corpse to be launched into space when the time comes. It's not going to happen; the best I could realistically hope for would be lofting my ashes into orbit, and even that might be beyond my means. But the idea of being out there, even after death, has appealed to me for a long time, and maybe someday whatever civilization replaces ours would find my remains and go, "...huh, look at that." No, it's not going to happen. But I can dream. |
| So. Many. Possibilities. PROMPT May 18th What chore do you most dislike doing? Tell us a creative story about how you might get out of doing it. I hate having to repeat chores. They me feel like I'm stuck in the Groundhog Day movie. On a computer, I can usually get around this. I can write, or find, a script or program or Excel spreadsheet to automate most of the tasks. I would rather spend, say, 100 hours automating something than repeating it for 10 hours. That's how much I hate repetitive actions. At least whenever I write the program, I'm always learning something. The task itself? Not so much. I'm not someone who can turn his brain off, or who enjoys mindless activities. Sure, I can play Skyrim dozens of times, but each time, I approach it in a different way with a different character skillset, and I'm still discovering new things about that game. With chores? All I discover is how much I'd rather be playing video games. Though, true, I have a lousy memory and I do a thorough purge of the house about once a decade, during which time I make all kinds of cool archaeological discoveries. Naturally, some things just have to be done. Even if I didn't essentially live alone, they have to be done, and I can't expect whoever I'm living with to do all of them. Washing dishes, laundry, cooking, general cleaning, yard work, trash disposal, catbox maintenance, whatever. The worst of these being, I suppose, housecleaning. I find ways to limit the amount of time I spend on these tasks. I have a dishwasher, washer/dryer, microwave, and so on. I arrange things so I spend the least possible amount of time doing hated chores. I also hire a lawn service and a housecleaning service. For some reason, it's somewhat socially acceptable to hire a lawn service. They come by, ride around on a mower, and then I pay them. But people freak out about the maid service thing. "You're home all the time. Can't you just clean your own house?" Can I? Sure. Do I want to? No. Keeping up with stocking all of the cleaning supplies is, by itself, enough to make me meshuggah, let alone having to actually do the work. It's a colossal waste of time and energy for me, and they need the money, so it's a mutually beneficial arrangement. I'm not a complete pig; I don't leave stuff lying around with food on it, and I absolutely keep up with trash/recycling. But if I could pay someone to do that, too? I'd do it. Sadly, it's unfashionable to keep a full-time servant around like in the old days. That wouldn't stop me, though, if I could afford it. What I really want is a robot that can take care of all of these things for me. A Roomba just isn't sufficient; I need one with an advanced AI that can, for example, sense when the stove has a spill on it and wipe that shit right up. Like on The Jetsons, only with less attitude. With my luck, though, the robot would end up resenting my lazy ass and go on strike for higher wages and better working conditions, probably right about the same time the sexbot leaves me for a delivery drone. |
| I do miss road trips. PROMPT May 17th Write about a fictional road trip where you meet up with your fellow competitors from the 30DBC! Who do you visit first? Do you bring any gifts? Tell us about the crazy blogger shenanigans you all get up to!  I have, indeed, visited several people from WDC while on the road, coast to coast in the US and even in exotic countries (the UK). Maybe someday I'll be able to do that again. Meanwhile, even thinking about it pisses me off. It pisses me off enough to get really drunk. So for this fictional road trip, for once, I'm not going to be doing the driving. Y'all are coming to me. You can bring beer, or wine, or scotch, or tequila, or, well, any booze of choice. I suppose if you're opposed to the very idea of alcohol (and somehow want to visit anyway), I will graciously accept chocolate. I promise I won't try to shame you into drinking. Don't bring your underage kids, or dogs. Cats are acceptable. So are hamsters, but here, sign this waiver. I have cats. I have Movie Night planned. Don't worry; I'll spring for the microwave popcorn. While the temptation is there to share my all-time favorite movies, they don't exactly have crowd appeal. Is Cats out on streaming yet? No? What's that? It'll always be "No?" Oh, very well. How about the Complete Works of Zack Snyder? Hey, where's everybody going? Okay, okay, then comedy it is. Normally I'd propose Monty Python, but the plague scene in Holy Grail might hit a little too close to home. So we're going on a Gene Wilder kick. Wonka first to warm up, and then the Holy Trinity of Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, and The Producers. By the time it's over, you'll all be crashed in the living room and it won't matter that there's only one guest bedroom. I'll even cook breakfast the next morning, assuming someone else goes shopping for eggs, biscuits, bacon, pancake mix, and OJ. I'm not leaving the house. And don't worry, I won't make you schlep any leftover booze back with you. I'll heroically volunteer to hold onto that. Seriously, though, I miss road trips. |
| I ain't 'fraid'a no ghosts. PROMPT May 16th Do you believe in ghosts or other supernatural entities? Have you ever experienced something you could not explain? No. And yes. Just to get this out of the way first: the word "supernatural" is a semantically null term. If something exists, it's natural. If it exists and it's human-made, it's still natural because we are natural. If something exists and it's outside our experience, it still exists, and is therefore natural. But, okay, I can accept that we have the word "supernatural" and it generally refers to concepts outside the realm of everyday experience. Or science. Or however you want to define it; I'm trying to, but it's slippery. "Attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature" according to one dictionary definition, but I don't really like it because belief in the supernatural preceded scientific understanding and formulation of the laws of nature. Now, I do believe in Supernatural. It's a fun show, and I'm sad that it's about to end. The concepts -- ghosts, werewolves, vampires, demons, angels -- can make for great fiction. Or not-so-great fiction. I mean, seriously, I do like the show, but objectively it's kinda silly. An argument can be made that even conceptualizing something makes it real, in a sense, but I'll save that argument for the next time Santa Claus shows up, which, given the state of retail in the US right now, should be, oh, sometime around tomorrow. "But Waltz, what about all the eyewitness accounts of ghosts and fairies and whatnot? Surely they can't all be hoaxes." Well, I'm not saying they're all hoaxes. Some are, of course, like the footage of Bigfoot and Nessie. But I have no doubt that people have seen things they can't explain, even things that currently defy explanation. That doesn't mean we should jump right to the "it's the spirit of a little girl that was brutally murdered in 1886 and now she seeks vengeance" or whatever. Consider, for example, infrasound .But the main focus here is on the science behind hauntings. Even if you don't admit you believe in ghosts, it turns out there might be explanation for hauntings that any Scully can appreciate: infrasound. Infrasound refers to low-frequency sounds vibrating from 0.1 to 20 Hz, just below the threshold for human hearing. It's used for monitoring earthquakes, in World War I, for locating artillery. But it was engineer Vic Tandy in 1980 who discovered that infrasound could be responsible for perceived "hauntings." I didn't listen to the attached podcast - I've never listened to a podcast and I'm not going to start now - but a simple Google search can get you more information on the link between infrasound and reported hauntings. In essence, not only does it affect emotion (causing anxiety and fear and so on), but it can also create visual apparitions. As the above linked article points out, it's not the final word on the subject. There's plenty that hasn't been explained. Hell, that's what I love about science: always something else to try to figure out. Now, don't get me wrong; I try to keep an open mind about such things. But, like anyone, I'm biased. It's just that in my case, I'm biased on the side of rational explanations. I just assert that the existence of ghosts and whatnot would require solid evidence, and that evidence just isn't here. We live in a time when nearly everyone carries around a high-quality camera / video recorder, and so you'd think that more "supernatural" stuff would be captured. Of course, the flip side of that is that photos and videos are more easily faked than ever. You may note I haven't said anything about space aliens. That's because, while they're lumped in with "supernatural," if they existed, they wouldn't, by any useful definition of the word, be supernatural. I've argued before that our reports of flying saucers and strange lights in the sky are a product of our scientific, technological age; the same phenomena, 200+ years ago, would have been (and was) attributed to angels or whatever. We make shit up, but we make shit up based on what we do understand. Again, yes, I accept that people have seen stuff in the sky that they couldn't process. Hell, I have. I just didn't make the cognitive leap from "stuff I don't understand" to "we're being visited by little blue cosmonauts from Procyon IV." Incidentally, many UFO sightings -- and I use the term literally, as in "unidentified flying object" -- can be attributed to atmospheric mirages or rare weather phenomena. And alien abduction stories track with my own experiences with sleep paralysis. As I've said before, it's a big universe, and I'd be extremely surprised if we were the only spaceship-builders in it. But as to whether they like to barnstorm our little planet, well, I'm not convinced. And yet, we probably know more about space than we do about our own minds; there's still a lot to be discovered there. What we do know is that we humans are really, really good at making shit up -- intentionally or not. |
| Sometimes I think there are selfish motivations for everything, even if the only selfish motivation is feeling good about doing something for someone else. PROMPT May 15th Write about a time when you or someone you know acted selflessly. What was the motivation and what were the results? That point of view probably says more about me than about humanity in general. It's not that I don't think there are people out there who do good things; it's just that I think we always get something out of it. You give blood, for example -- as I used to do before I couldn't any more -- and you get free juice and cookies and the satisfaction of knowing that you've probably helped someone, and maybe even saved a life. There is nothing wrong with this, in my view. We're social animals and we gain benefits from helping each other out. Some people might not see the benefits, and are all take no give, but I think most of us would do simple things to help others that might be seen as selfless. This could mean giving blood, as I mentioned, or returning a lost wallet, or giving food to a homeless person. More rare, and less simple, are things like jumping into a river to save a drowning person. I think the most helpful act -- whether it's selfless or not is up for debate, but there's certainly an argument for it -- that I've ever personally witnessed was when the wife of a former co-worker of mine once donated part of her liver to someone who needed it. This isn't a procedure without risk; any surgery confers the risk of death to some degree. So this lady risked herself and put constraints on her own life to save another. Well, to be clear about it, I didn't actually "personally witness" it; this was told to me by the co-worker, but I saw the donor after the surgery and she was recovering nicely. Last I heard, she was doing just fine. Could I do it? Honestly... no. I mean, leaving aside for the moment that anyone who reads this blog should know by now that no one would even want part of my liver, or that I probably couldn't donate for the same reasons I can no longer give blood, I just wouldn't want to do it. I have this recurring fear that someone from my biological family would track me down somehow and turn out to need a kidney or something. Then I'd be in the awkward position of being the dickwad who says "no" to something like that. Blood transfusion? Sure. Spleen? Nope. Hell, I'm not even letting them take my organs after death, lest they be used to extend the life of someone I don't like. I'm a complete asshole like that, and I'm okay with it. Why I'm okay with giving blood but not being an organ donor is a question I still haven't answered for myself. Maybe it's the free cookies. Before you jump on me for it, I've already decided that I won't accept a donor organ; I'm not that big a hypocrite. Now, why did I say the question of whether this liver donation was "selfless" or not is up for debate? Well, I'd argue that the donor got something out of it, so it wasn't purely selfless by my definition. First, she got the knowledge that she saved someone's life -- and that's a deep satisfaction indeed, especially as the recipient was someone she knew personally. Second, she's a religious person, and in her mind it got her Jesus points, or whatever it is that Mennonites believe get you into heaven. Third, a lot of people (myself included) respected her for it. And finally, though probably least importantly, she got a free total health examination, which in this country is like finding a unicorn and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and winning the lottery all on the same day. Still, by most definitions, it was a selfless act. Incidentally, I reserve the right to change my mind about the organ donation thing, just like with everything else. And I wouldn't want anything in return. I wouldn't turn down some cookies, though. |
| What is this "letter" of which you speak? PROMPT May 14th What was the best/worst letter or email you ever received or wrote? Write about the situation surrounding that letter, and why it was so significant. Fun Fact of the Day: the word "letter," which in English can, confusingly, mean either a single symbol of the alphabet or a collection of said symbols arranged into words, sentences and paragraphs and usually sent via courier or through something called the "mail" or "post" to someone, originally used the singular form for the former and the plural form for the latter. To make matters even more confusing, "lettered" means "educated," and "literature" seems to come from the same Latin root. Language is weird. My first professional job distinguished between a "letter" and a "memo" thus: if it fit on one page, it was a memo. Any more than that, and we had to use a letter format. I can't remember the last time I wrote an actual letter. It was certainly something related to my job, but by the time I retired, pretty much everything was emailed. And I certainly can't remember writing any missive of substance, electronically or otherwise. It was mostly just boring reports and engineering explanations. The process for becoming, and remaining, a professional civil engineer in the US is, in general, the following:  Graduate from high school Four years of engineering school (yes, this is less than other professions such as law or medicine) Work Take the Engineer-in-Training exam (EIT) Work some more Take the Professional Engineering exam (PE) Keep working Take professional training classes (in most states) Renew PE license Repeat previous three steps until retirement or deathGenerally only civil engineers have to maintain a PE license; other disciplines don't care as much. With said license, an engineer has the right and responsibility to approve plans, which basically says "this was done by me or under my supervision, reviewed by me, and adheres to the standards of practice of engineering drawings." You can then be sued if a dam breaks or a road washes out. With that responsibility usually comes a higher pay scale. Not really high, mind you, but for me it was the difference between barely scraping by and being able to save a bit of most paychecks. So, naturally, I wanted to get my PE license. I studied for the goddamned exam for at least three months, not to mention all the college and work and whatnot. I've always tested well, but that fucking exam about killed me. I was so sure I'd failed and would have to take it again that, after drinking for the rest of that weekend, I started studying to take it again. But behold, three or four months later, I got the letter in the mail: "You're a licensed professional engineer in the Commonwealth of Virginia." And then I drank some more, because I could finally afford it. That's the great thing about drinking: it can make bad situations tolerable, and good situations better. A whole lot of bad things happened in rapid succession around 2008-2009, including a lot of personal shit and a recession that pretty much halted all construction plans in my area, and I let my license lapse and retired, but by that time I'd fulfilled everything I'd set out to do professionally. So I call that a win. And that's why I'm calling that licensing letter the best one I ever received. Ask me again tomorrow and it'll probably be the love letter I got from [name redacted] in 1986, or the one that said I was eligible to go to the Naval Academy, even though it was signed by that assclown Ronald "McDonald" Reagan, or, on the "worst" side, the one court summons I got that wasn't for jury duty. But that's a story for another time. Or, more likely, not at all. (I will say that it wasn't related to my engineering work, nor a criminal case.) |
| Yeah, yeah, just give me a few minutes to set this up first... PROMPT May 13th Writing Sprint! Set a timer for 10 minutes and write without stopping about whatever comes to your mind. I challenge you to deny your urge to edit yourself as you write. If you must, you’re allowed to edit, but only after you finish your ten minute sprint. Ready? Set. GO! I went for a walk today around the neighborhood. For, I don't know, six weeks? Seven? I'm starting to understand why some people think time is an illusion. Anyway, for nearly two months, I only left my property to take the trash can and recycling bins to the curb, and replace them the next day. My gym has been closed, and there's nothing else open, and I probably wouldn't go anywhere even if something was open. But I started walking again on Sunday. It's not -- and a lot of people don't seem to get this -- about me getting sick. I made peace a long time ago, or at least I think I did, with the idea that I could get sick and/or die without warning. No, it's about not getting other people sick, like my housemate who's actively working as an epidemiologist. From home. Fortunately, I have a decent-sized house and we each have our own area. We get along, and I like to keep it that way. So I've been staying home, and she's been staying home, and we each get groceries delivered. And beer and wine. Still no liquor delivery here, but I have a decent stash. Which of course means that other people get to risk themselves and their friends and family on my behalf. I'd feel bad about it, but it's kind of like, well, I might as well enjoy my privilege while I have it. Unlike some people, I haven't lost track of the days of the week. Weekends are still weekends. Monday night is Trash To The Curb Night. Thursdays are "Support My Local Brewpub" Day, where I order food and beer (for delivery) from my favorite beer manufacturer. Fridays are my normal days for judging a contest here on WDC. I can tell the other days of the week from those. I only wish the weather would have been warmer. It's May for fuck's sake; we shouldn't have nighttime temperatures dipping into the 30s. Why does this matter when I'm just staying at home? Well, I said I didn't leave my property, not that I don't like to sit on my deck. But my itch to travel grows stronger. The housemate is looking at buying her own house -- good for her -- so my almost-free cat care when I'm gone won't be around much longer. --- --- --- And that's it. I didn't really plan on writing The Covid Diaries, because everyone else is doing it, but what the hell, it's what came to mind. And only minimally edited after the timer went off, so I probably didn't catch everything. At least I was sober for it. What I didn't mention is that, apart from not being able to go to the gym or bars or the cinema, this isn't much different from my life in the Before Times, and I don't expect it to change much when things reopen at some point in the distant future. But I still want to get back to traveling. |
| I've ranted at length in here about things that people think are illusions being real, such as time and consciousness. Today, you get treated to the opposite. PROMPT May 12th Write about a fork in the road in your life, and how you made the decision to go the direction you did. What would have happened if you chose the other path? Sure, I hit a fork in the road once. It blew out my tire and I got stuck there. Humans put a lot of stock in decisions. A popularized interpretation of the Many Worlds Hypothesis in quantum theory is that for every decision we make, the universe splits. This is not only a mischaracterization of the actual hypothesis, but it puts sapients back into a special place in the cosmos. After all, no one seems to believe that a cat's decision splits the universe; at best, the cat's a victim of radioactive decay, alive in one universe and dead in the other, with its actual status a superposition of the two until a (human) observer checks on it. I won't be convinced of the MWH in general until someone explains to my satisfaction how it's compatible with conservation of something. But that's not really relevant to the larger question, which is: Do we really make decisions? That is, who's the "we" in that question? It's unlikely that free will exists in the form that most of us believe it does. I can't pretend to understand all of the science behind it, but based on my understanding, we tend to make decisions even before we're consciously aware of making the decision, and then find ways to justify them afterward. In this sense, we're not rational - we're rationalizing.There's significant pushback to this idea, because as a whole, we're kind of wedded to the idea that we consciously make decisions. It's the basis for most of our systems of government and justice. But there's growing evidence that, if it were possible to replicate the exact set of circumstances leading to a perceived decision, we could not have made a different one. I realize this goes against the grain of everything we've experienced. After all, if you're playing a video game, for example, you can always go back and make different choices that lead to different outcomes. But that leaves out the fact that you've already played through the simulation once, and you know what happens. Arguments for free will rely on the idea that consciousness is a sort of ghost in the machine, guiding our steps. You can choose, the argument goes, whether to put your emptied shopping cart into the corral or leave it in the middle of the parking lot; you can decide whether to return a lost wallet, and with or without its contents. And it certainly seems that we can make these choices. But that turns out not to be the case. The philosophical pushback to this usually takes some form of "Well, if we can't make the decision, then why even bother? Just leave the shopping cart for someone else to deal with." This misses the point. You know you should put the shopping cart away, and if you don't, you've marked yourself as unfit for society. You know this, so you return the shopping cart, right? Yes, free will is an illusion. But it's an important one. We need to feel we have some agency, that we're not just automatons or instinctual creatures like beetles. By doing so, we can feel good about our choices. Or, alternatively, feel bad about them and try to do better next time. "But Waltz, you just said you can't act any differently." Yeah, but future actions are determined by an entirely different configuration of matter and energy; the exact set of circumstances cannot be replicated. You're always changing, and so is your environment. As I've said before, not only can you not step into the same river twice, you can't even step into the same river once -- because by the time your foot hits the bottom, the river has changed. Hell, even putting your foot in it changes it. Which is true for any antecedent of "it," including one's mouth. I should also mention that determinism doesn't imply either predestination or predictability. Plenty of things are deterministic but, to a greater or lesser extent, unpredictable -- the weather past a week or so into the future, for example. Same for our decisions. They spring from configurations of neurons, atoms, electric fields, chemistry, and so on, but that doesn't mean you can know exactly what's going to happen at some point in the future. The best we can do is come up with scenarios and think about what we'd do in them. The point of all of this digression -- and no, I don't expect people to agree with me -- is that it does me no good to put past (illusory) choices under a microscope. What if I'd overcome my hatred of cold weather and gone to MIT instead of UVA? Or accepted the spot at Annapolis and joined the Navy instead of staying in civilian life? I'd be a different person, or at least the same person with different experiences, and likely done more with my life than designing parking lots for assholes to leave shopping carts in. Going back, knowing what I know now, I probably would have gone to MIT (Virginia has a slightly shorter winter season, but not significantly so), but I don't think I'd have joined the Navy (ships get cold). Nor would I have married my first wife, which would be a moot point if I hadn't been living in this town, where I met her. But I didn't know then what I know now, and those choices were the only ones I could have made at the time. I'm not saying these things are mistakes, or that I wish I hadn't done them. But what's done is done, and the best I, or anyone else, can do is learn from the past. Such learning affects our illusory decision-making, and, ideally, improves it. Knowledge is part of the equation, and that's one reason I seek it out. Or, maybe, the desire for knowledge is just part of my particular configuration of matter and energy. |
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