Lately I been having trouble sleeping. This is not a new problem for me. I have been fighting this for a long time now. Since high school I have had bouts of 2 or 3 days without sleep. This is a fight that I can win. But it takes time, and in the meantime my life kinda goes to shit. Humans are built for rest and repair. We are designed to have daily rituals. Goto bed at a certain time, wake up for work the same time. Things break down when this cycle stops.
In high school this lead to crankiness, depression, short term memory loss, and obsessive behaviors. The longer I would go without a full sleep cycle the worse it would get. Headaches would turn into migraines. Crankiness would turn into cruelty. Sanity would become sprained.
This reached its climax sophomore year of college. I would often have 2,3 or even 4 days stints with less than 4 hours of sleep for the day. My roommate still tells the story of my debate with my refrigerator. I don't remember this. And no, mind altering drugs were not involved. Just so little connection left to reality.
I have mentioned before I am a tinkerer, and when you can't sleep that is very dangerous. I would start many small projects, finish none of them, and clean up the mess from none. Every new project would give me a 2nd wind, and keep me going for another couple of hours. So of course that meant even lower chances of sleep that night. Once the sun came up, then I wouldn't be able to sleep.
This blog was started due to that sleeplessness. There are things that work, and I do them. I don't have long bouts, and I don't have many bouts anymore. The only hurting me these days is the late shift I work. But I am getting back into a routine, and I really only wrote this to write. Thanks for stopping by.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Coffee Fueled Feelings on Having Options
There is a YouTube video making the rounds on Facebook again. If you haven't seen it before it's right here. It's ok I will wait:
Mr. Zach Wahls makes a very moving point. Legalizing discrimination is not something we should tolerate. But mostly he makes me think about how I see life these days. Life is complicated. Our societies only make it more so. As members of a group living together we always have a struggle for balance between personal freedoms and societal coherence. I always believed that personal freedoms are important, but that it was more important to protect ourselves from each other when in doubt. A derogatory term for this view is the 'nanny state.' Wear your seat belt and so on. There are obvious downsides, and dangers to moving to that side of the balance. An authoritarian regime is one extreme of this.
The flip side is unbridled personal liberties. You want it, you can do it. Assuming that you can pay for it and keep it from everyone else. Lawless survival of the fittest. There is something almost romantic about having a solid 6 shooter, a rifle, and a horse and carving out a piece of the world for your very own in the wild west. But quickly the few will completely own the many. The stronger man becomes the better man, and gains all the spoils because of it. Anarchy breaking down into brutality.
Binary views fail. All of one, and none of the other is not an answer. How do you describe the staggering beauty of a sunset in black and white? Don't we loose all of the beauty of those amazing colors playing on the clouds, on the sea as the stars slowly become visible in the sky? More basic. How can you describe the color blue in terms of black and white? It is a too narrow view to fit life into.
We need options. Life is so diverse, with each interaction unique in it's own way. Mitigating circumstances that make it different from the others. Being in a fixed state of mind guarantees there will be situations don't fit. Options. We need them available to us. Having options does not negate the need for responsibilities. Every moral agent is responsible for their choices, but that is another rant. We are responsible for our own choice and actions. We are not responsible for telling people what they cannot do in their own homes.
The classic phrase for this balance is 'my freedom to swing my fists stops right at your nose.' We have to able to accept our personal views, and even our personal needs may not be shared by those around us. We have to learn how to be ok with actually living by the golden rule. If we are as a society trying to improve ourselves, then we must learn from the march of progress that is our history. If we really want to, we can find balance that will make us stronger, not weaker. A balance that makes us fuller, richer human beings, not shallow fearful homo-sapiens.
/end rant
Friday, December 2, 2011
Orgins on My Sense of Humor
So the other night I got to thinking about my childhood. Mostly I starting wondering why my sense of humor turned out the way it did. The simple answer came to me pretty quickly. It's all because of the 8" black and white tv. Let me explain. When I was about 7 or 8 years old I went climbing in the attic. Hey, it was a rainy fall day after school. I was bored, and the attic had one of those pull down ladders. How is a kid supposed to resist? So amongst all of the old silverware, photo albums, wedding presents of no use, sat a tan and black tv. Sitting proudly and with a small amount of dust in the corner. At this point of my life the house only had one tv. It was in the living room. I felt like I had found an ancient treasure. Looking back now, it was a half broken little tv. It was missing one of the dials, and the antenna was broken off. None the less I snuck that tv into my bedroom, and hid it in my closet.
It took a little work. I used a wheel from a Lego kit for the dial, and a clothes hanger to get some reception. From then on, I was doomed. I should explain. OPB, the Oregon branch of PBS would play 3 shows back to back late on Friday night. Benny Hill, Monty Python, and then Black Adder. Other nights had Monty Python, and other BBC classics such as, Are You Being Served or Faulty Towers. At that young of an age I was missing most of the meaning to what I was watching, but the slapstick, sarcasm, and dead pan delivery started to imprint themselves. This wasn't jokes you could tell or explain to other kids. In middle school it was finally ok to talk about Monty Python. But Black Adder? Who was that?
For years I watched these shows, slowly absorbing the context. Learning the British sense of dark humor. Becoming one with that 'how do we get to die today' sense of joy in the face of the macabre. At this point I was reading more and more. I picked up a very worn copy of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from the bookshelf. So obviously that was right up my alley at this point. So I read them all. Learning the Douglas Adams use of absurd similes. The world of the insane as viewed through the eyes of the dull. Then I found a simple CD. A older recording. It was "The Year That Was" by Tom Lerher. A simple set of songs, played on the piano. Sung by a math professor. A witty math professor.
These things just kept adding to each other. Everything funny I still see through that prism. And looking back there are some great memories. In my bed on a rainy October night, watching John Cleese do a silly walk. Feeling like I am watching something hidden, something special, something from far away. That static filled tiny black and white screen was able to take me some where more special than the 40" hdtv in my place now.
I think it is interesting where our senses of humor come from. A lot from our parents, and a lot from our friends. Most from those little things we find for ourselves without anyone showing us the way.
It took a little work. I used a wheel from a Lego kit for the dial, and a clothes hanger to get some reception. From then on, I was doomed. I should explain. OPB, the Oregon branch of PBS would play 3 shows back to back late on Friday night. Benny Hill, Monty Python, and then Black Adder. Other nights had Monty Python, and other BBC classics such as, Are You Being Served or Faulty Towers. At that young of an age I was missing most of the meaning to what I was watching, but the slapstick, sarcasm, and dead pan delivery started to imprint themselves. This wasn't jokes you could tell or explain to other kids. In middle school it was finally ok to talk about Monty Python. But Black Adder? Who was that?
For years I watched these shows, slowly absorbing the context. Learning the British sense of dark humor. Becoming one with that 'how do we get to die today' sense of joy in the face of the macabre. At this point I was reading more and more. I picked up a very worn copy of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from the bookshelf. So obviously that was right up my alley at this point. So I read them all. Learning the Douglas Adams use of absurd similes. The world of the insane as viewed through the eyes of the dull. Then I found a simple CD. A older recording. It was "The Year That Was" by Tom Lerher. A simple set of songs, played on the piano. Sung by a math professor. A witty math professor.
These things just kept adding to each other. Everything funny I still see through that prism. And looking back there are some great memories. In my bed on a rainy October night, watching John Cleese do a silly walk. Feeling like I am watching something hidden, something special, something from far away. That static filled tiny black and white screen was able to take me some where more special than the 40" hdtv in my place now.
I think it is interesting where our senses of humor come from. A lot from our parents, and a lot from our friends. Most from those little things we find for ourselves without anyone showing us the way.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Scattered thoughts on the NBA...
So over the weekend the NBA finally worked out it's CBA. So there will be basketball on Christmas day. When I read the news the first thought that popped into my head was, "oh... okay. So what do the match-ups look like in the NFL this weekend." Growing up I used to watch the NBA. As a kid I would watch the Blazers of the 90's. I enjoyed the fast paced action, the pure athleticism, and you had stars like MJ, Drexler, Barkley, Bird. Of course having NBA Jam in every arcade didnt hurt. But like my food and drink tastes changed as I aged, so did my sports tastes.
Now I grew up in a NFL house. The 49ers of the 80's and 90's were on TV every Sunday. MLB was also on the TV and radio growing up, but as a child it was far too slow for me. So I never got into it. I played tennis in school, and still follow it to this day, would sometimes catch a Hockey game at the local arena. Never got into motor racing until I started watching F-1 in the last few years.
As I got older basketball, even college basketball stopped being fun to watch. Too many games to watch, too few teams with real chances. Too many stars selling shoes and video games, and not enough interesting play. College basketball with the one and one makes sure that the only thing to follow is a school or coach. And with the coaching changes each year even that is hard to follow.
With the NBA gone during the lock out, I will be honest that I didnt even miss it. Same as I felt during the NHL mess awhile back. Had the whole season been lost, and had the TV contracts been canceled, I wouldn't have really noticed that much. There are other sports, other stories, other distractions to fill my time.
On the bright side though, the new salary cap and pay scale rules for the NBA may help it become more interesting. We may finally get a small measure of parity in the NBA. Which would be great. However, that still is not going to get me watching season long. But hey, lets see what happens.
/end rant
Now I grew up in a NFL house. The 49ers of the 80's and 90's were on TV every Sunday. MLB was also on the TV and radio growing up, but as a child it was far too slow for me. So I never got into it. I played tennis in school, and still follow it to this day, would sometimes catch a Hockey game at the local arena. Never got into motor racing until I started watching F-1 in the last few years.
As I got older basketball, even college basketball stopped being fun to watch. Too many games to watch, too few teams with real chances. Too many stars selling shoes and video games, and not enough interesting play. College basketball with the one and one makes sure that the only thing to follow is a school or coach. And with the coaching changes each year even that is hard to follow.
With the NBA gone during the lock out, I will be honest that I didnt even miss it. Same as I felt during the NHL mess awhile back. Had the whole season been lost, and had the TV contracts been canceled, I wouldn't have really noticed that much. There are other sports, other stories, other distractions to fill my time.
On the bright side though, the new salary cap and pay scale rules for the NBA may help it become more interesting. We may finally get a small measure of parity in the NBA. Which would be great. However, that still is not going to get me watching season long. But hey, lets see what happens.
/end rant
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