Technology: The 500lb Gorilla

I thrive on technology, it is an essential part of my daily life.  It is my livelihood, and it is an integral part of how I think and integrate with society.  I recognize that it is one of the greatest things about living in the modern era.   What if Albert Einstein had been blessed to live in a time where iPhones were common place - how much more would he have accomplished?   Perhaps time travel would not be a fantasy, we would have we would have traveled into deep space, and solved the world-hunger issue.   Or maybe instead, he'd spend his days playing flappy bird, and mesmerized before his 71" UHD 4K LED television playing XboxOne and sustaining himself purely on Soylent.

Technology is a blessing of our modern society, but it comes with some serious downsides too.  Sure you can put your phone away (maybe), but in that device you have all the answers from every perspective, to every question that may shove it's way to the front of your brain's queue.

Do I think technology is going to be the downfall of our society?  No.  However, I think without some conscious tempering of our device habits we are going to start communicating purely with horrid grammar, and predominantly with the use of Memes.  Social networks have already made it so that most of the folks you thought were cool growing up, have shown their true colors, and you realize what a real piece of work they have become - or always were.

However, my point here is not to berate our generation(s), it is to point out how much potential we have.  There probably is an Einstein out there right now, and he does have an iPhone.   There is also a Nikolai Tesla, Louis Pasteur, Marie Curie, George Washington, Queen Elizabeth I, and more - and they are all out there somewhere, with their mobile phones and their touch screen laptops, but in order to become all they can be, they need motivation - and those same tools are stripping us all of ours.

Just a little food for thought while I'm waiting on a delayed flight, tethering my touchscreen laptop to my iPhone, and thinking, as always.

Conviction is stranger than fiction

Conviction is defined by Merriam Webster as "a strong persuasion or belief."  We all have convictions, about a plethora of things.  To the bearer, a conviction is absolute and irrefutable fact. All opposing view points are thus inherently flawed.  In fact I would argue that conviction is really just a by-product of closing one's mind.

While our dictionaries are open, a couple of more pertinent terms:
Fact is "something that truly exists or happens : something that has actual existence".
Faith is "firm belief in something for which there is no proof".

The strange thing about conviction is its source. While conviction may sometimes apply to fact, it is rather unnecessary, since fact is fairly irrefutable. For example, if you read this blog at all, you likely already know that I am neither religious, nor am I atheist. I am firmly in the category of "I don't know", and I'm very OK with that.  However, I can willfully acknowledge that true belief in any god, is conviction, and is derived from faith.  However, a similarly strong conviction can equally be acquired from a lack of faith.

However, the true oddity, the reason I say it is stranger than fiction, is the extent to which we take it. We as humans seem largely unable to accept conviction as opinion, and treat it as fact. We are unable to see it as less than absolute. We zero in on trying to prove our convictions, and focus on ensuring that we are right, rather than accepting the possibility that we could be wrong.

When our convictions are challenged, it wounds us, and our natural response is to double down on those beliefs.   This is true in a variety of aspects of life.   For example, how many research studies are slanted by the convictions of the researcher?  How many political battles have been waged based on the convictions of a politician, or a political base?  How many people have died based on the convictions of world leaders or religious zealots?

Some of the greatest works of fiction could never compare to the stories from throughout history where people were driven to extreme actions based on their strongly held beliefs. Atrocities and inhuman accomplishments both share this spotlight.

Change your Attitude, Change your World (Part 1)

I have recently been considering the value of a positive attitude in our daily lives, was inspired by a moment of realization, and took my thoughts and condensed them fit the 140 character twitter model.

"Life is relative, your attitude toward your perspective defines your perceived reality.  Change your attitude, change your world."  

But then I thought about it some more, wanted to take it further, and this post was born.   The crux of my meaning is simply this: We have complete control of how we choose to look at a given situation.  Whether it is a situation at home, or a situation on the world stage, we still choose.   We usually don't recognize it as a conscious choice, but it is.

That is the basis of my tweet, and serves as a solid thesis statement for this series of posts.

Part I:  Change Yourself

Focus on the dot, the box will move
revealing different perspectives.

I have seen this life from a few different vantage points. I spent a significant amount of my adolescence learning how to live.  I made a lot of mistakes, but in return I learned a lot.   However, it was when I became determined to make a major change, and shift my life, that I discovered the true power of one's attitude.

I had reached a deep low, one so deep that I had no desire to continue living.  I was sick.  I had just been diagnosed with Graves Disease, and I felt as though life had no meaning or purpose.   I didn't value my life. I didn't value my friends. I didn't value my family.  I could have easily continued down the 'path of least resistance', and in all likelihood I wouldn't be here to share my story today.

One morning, I awakened and told myself, "I have to change [my life], I can't keep going on this way".  A simple statement, one that is so often made in vain.  In fact, I had said those same words many times before.  However, something was different this time - I meant it from a deeper part of my core. In retrospect, I recognize that as the exact moment when my attitude shifted.   Suddenly, I didn't simply "want" to change, I was already changing.

Everyday I pushed for that change, I'd remind myself that new me was going to do it, I was going to succeed.  My life was changing and I intended to ride that wave as far as it could take me.  It was, in truth, a complete reprogramming of my mind.

Of course, I had the negative thoughts creep in.  The voice in my head would tell me I couldn't succeed - I was a fool for even trying.  "No one can go from being you, to being a productive - let alone successful - member of society", it would say.  However, I ignored that voice, I ignored conventional wisdom, and I pushed myself harder.  I encountered a few setbacks along the way. Powerful setbacks, of a kind which could have easily pushed me back into my old habits. It took strength, but I always found a way to remind myself that I didn't want to change, I was changed!

It didn't come easy, and it didn't come instantly, but it did come. I returned my focus to education, and built my life from there.  I pushed myself to always give my best effort in class, or on the job.  Looking back I can't fathom how I was ever the guy that once inhabited this mind and body.  I didn't change the world, but I changed myself, which in turn changed my world.

The Dissection of Morality

At dinner with colleagues the topic of conversation became one that generally should not be discussed with colleagues - Religion.  During this discussion, after the revelation that we were not all of one accord, this question was posed:  "Without god, how do you explain good people and evil people." This simple question started a stream of consciousness that threatened to turn into a tirade on multiple occasions.  What follows is a best-effort attempt to recap the full response.

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You see, I believe that there is no true good or evil, just decisions and circumstance.  I look at life, sort of like a tree.  Each decision you make, you are choosing a branch on the tree.  The goal is to stay close to the trunk, and climb higher and higher, but inevitably we stray.  Some of us find ourselves hanging onto a limb, dangling where it is so thin it starts to bow.   

Some of us may even start out life out on one of these thin limbs. Regardless of how one gets there, the goal is to get somewhere better - somewhere safer. So, instinctively, we scrap and scrape, steal, kill, whatever is necessary, to climb up from that weakened limb.    

Thus, I contend that we are not good or evil, and that...  Actually, allow me to add a 3rd thing to my list.  It's decisions, circumstance, and the judgement of the beholder.   I contend that we are not inherently good or evil, but are shaped into what is perceived as good and evil by these three things.  

I have control of my decisions, at least I appear to, so that component does lie within me. However it's difficult to fathom decisions being based on anything other than experience or 'taking a stab in the dark'.  So how much of my good/evil ratio truly rests with my own decisions.  I believe a much greater component is the experiences that drove me to that decision, which is where circumstance comes into play.  If I have had a rough life, then I've probably developed a "look out for myself" attitude.  If I grew up with everything being stolen from me, I'm probably watching my back.  If i was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I'm used to everything being my way - handed to me.  These are of course generalizations, but they suffice to make my point.   

The third component though, is perhaps the most important of all.  "My" good or evil status, is based on your judgement of me as such.  If someone drives drunk and kills a kid, most people will decide they are evil (again generalization) and condemn them as such.  Never mind the fact that this - theoretical - person was also giving thousands to charities, and spent his/her spare time with troubled inner city youth in a Big Brother / Big Sister program.  Those types of facts are rarely considered because one bad decision has already condemned them in the eyes of the public.

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[Image from Vanderbilt University]

Morality is a very gray area, and is only made grayer by notions that we are inherently one or the other.  We are all (not a generalization) inherently both.  Our circumstances, the decisions we make, and 'public opinion' are what puts us into a bucket.  All of us have a story with parts that are unknown - sometimes even to our closest friends.  I strive to consider this at all times, I try to not pass judgement, and I intend to respect the culture of those who live in different societies with different norms.  

I understand that others have different circumstances. Given the same set of choices I have been given, they may have made very different decisions.  Therefore, I must reason that I cannot hold anyone else to my moral code, because it is based purely on my own experiences, my circumstances, and my decisions - something no one else can ever have.

I don't have to think... I only have to do it.

I do not make a habit of basing my philosophical view points on popular music.  In fact I'm pretty sure that in most cases I'd more quickly run away from popular music.  Even if the employed definition of popular is kind of broad.  However, there is one such song that has rang true to me for a very long time.  I grew up in the eighties and nineties, the latter being the period of my adolescence.  During this period there was a very popular band named Nirvana, and they covered a song by - a significantly less popular band - The Meat Puppets.   That song is called Oh Me, and below is the snippet of the lyrics that stand as the point of this post (further down is the video from a random YouTube source, but the lyrics here are the significant part).

I don't have to think
I only have to do it
The results are always perfect
And that's old news

Contemplate that for a moment, and think about how much truth is contained in that simple verse.   To summarize my point I will now point to my own anecdotal example.

Less than one year ago, I was in living in Kentucky and had reached a point of misery with my employer.  So miserable that I was ready to abandon ship.  An opportunity came to do just that, I had only needed to make it through an arguably grueling interview process.  I went through 3 total interviews, the first two were a breeze for me, but the final one caught me on a day when I was sick and not on my game.  I thought about rescheduling, but inevitably decided that would make me look just as bad - if not worse - than just letting sick-me attend this one.   So I went for it... and fell flat on my face.  I stumbled over questions that I should have been easy, and made myself look like a damn fool in the process.  Needless to say, I was passed over for this position.  This position that I had so badly wanted.  The position that would make me happy, and make life so much more enjoyable.   However, life - or fate as some may call it - had a different plan for me, and it would almost immediately start to unveil itself.

A few months earlier, the employer with whom I'd become so miserable, had submitted a proposal to a client.  A proposal on which I'd agreed to list my name, agreeing  to move my family to New England if we were to win.  Within about two weeks of being told that I'd failed my final interview, I was told I was indeed moving, and assuming this new role in Massachusetts.  This was a tremendous change for me, it placed me both in a new business role, and hundreds of miles away from home - the only state I'd known for 38 years. It was stepping way outside of anything close to a "comfort zone", and moreover, it was the one glimmer of hope that I could, once again, find happiness in my - going on nine year - career with this company.

Today, as I walk through downtown Boston on my way to work, I have found that happiness again.   I find this walk to provide me with a daily reminder of the power of fate, because each day I walk past the door of that other company - the very one that passed me over in Kentucky.  I walk past it and smile because life had a different plan, a better plan, and I just didn't know it yet.

Every decision, whether or not it seems significant, has the potential to impact life events - even if the choice is the lesser of two evils (i.e. going to the interview sick vs. asking to reschedule it). However, there is, in my experience, no need to worry and fret over these decisions.  Life has a way of making these things work out. We don't need to think, we only have to do it, the results are always perfect.

Climate Change

I've often heard jokes about elderly people making statements about "these kids today".  Jokes about how they all echo comments such as: "I had to walk 25 miles to get to the school house barefoot, in 2 feet of snow, with the wind blowing in my face so cold that ice would freeze when tears would form".   I am no meteorologist.  Furthermore, I possess no crystal ball.  I have no idea of what the future may bring to this planet, or bring to anyone who walks upon it.  I do have a very well formed, if not well informed, opinion on the topic of climate change.  That is to say, I have no doubt that global warming is real, but I have serious doubts about its suggested cause.

History has a tendency to repeat itself.  You can see it on the micro-temporal level, we have pop culture trends for example.  Slicing up a good pair of jeans to make them look worn, colorful hair courtesy of temporary dyes, and the band One Direction are all popular among their respective cultures in youth.   When I was a teenager about twenty years ago, you could replace One Direction with New Kids on the Block and make the exact same statement.

Growing the scope now to a more macro-temporal level, you can see the fall of various dynasties, and empires - the Egyptians, the Romans, the Mayans, etc.  Battles over land, battles over religion, battles over trade, but always battles.

Medieval Ice Skating by Esaias van de Velde

If you back the scope up even further still, we reach my point.   The ice age was an event that most elementary school kids have heard about. However, it's often taught as if it were a single event.  I will spare this post my ranting about the failure of the American school system, but suffice it to say, it was multiple events.  There were at least five major glacial ages.  Also, there are known events - or at least a known event - called the Little Ice Age.   While not a true ice age, this was a period where the climate changed, and was considerably colder than what was considered normal for the time period and it happened in medieval times, and was thought to last about 500 years. There are a few theories behind it, but I am fond of one known as solar variation.

So now we come back to the here and now and global warming - climate change as it's often cited in reference to the present day.   There are deniers, and there are enthusiasts, and each side will claim the other is a bunch of nut jobs.  Given enough time, surely one will call the other a Nazi and invoke Godwin's Law (I'm willing to bet in some far corner of the internet - or maybe just on reddit - this has already happened).

However, I propose this thought.  We could be coming out of a little ice age of our own.  Our meteorological advancements have inadvertently pulled the proverbial wool over our eyes.  Meaning that today, we know so much about the weather that we are missing the obvious.  Could we be still emerging from the little ice age that happened during the Tudor reign of the UK?  We have only been recording data for a little over 100 years after all.  Is global warming truly a man-made, chemical induced, phenomenon, or is it simply nature repeating itself - thawing us out, before eventually freezing us back up again?

Maybe if we had a full history we would see a bigger picture that tells us, this is normal.  It would tell us that we are just experiencing the temperature equivalent of a low tide.  In a couple of hundred years it will all cycle around and things will be just as they were when you were a kid.  Only the elder stories then will be about driving to school with no AC when it was 82 degrees outside in November, in Wisconsin.

The Age of Heroes

Gone is the day for kings, flanked by thousands, with iron and steel.
Gone is the day of chivalry and valor, loyalty forged stronger than fear.
The gallant pursuits of the hero of old, are known only to the dust of the past.

Here is the day of the tank and the bomb, destruction with ends undefined
Here is the day of celebrity, distractions to shutter the world from our minds
The heroes of this day are mechanical, war hammers replaced with microphones

Gone is the day of human immersion, cooperative thoughts and energies shared.
Gone is the day of quiet conversation, face to face, with full emotions bared
The warmth of being human has been left behind, only fragments stir in the wind.

Here is the day of the digital life, assimilation for one and for all
Here is the day of the pocket device, communications efficient and small.
Our new language is transmitted in bits and bytes, and condensed to micro blurbs.

Fret not my friends for the old shall be new and the new shall be old once again.
Weep not for the state of a world in decay for in time we shall all make amends
Empires rise and empires fall, and time flows on like the tides.