http://sixwingedseraph.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/knowledge-is-a-presheaf/
This is beautiful and what I want this blog to become.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
To Win a Hundred Battles...
The title is a reference to Sun Tzu's "Art of War"--"if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss."
I have been experiencing an emotional time in my life recently. On one recent occasion, my emotions took from me a deep friendship, and assaulted me with it as though it were a sword. In an instant I was defeated. The sublime power which I had heard that my emotions carried was equal to that of any samurai. And in an instant, they turned, left me for dead, their victory assured and complete.
But I am not dead. The power of my emotions' sword was softened by the friends' unwillingness to drive me to death. And now I have seen my emotions in battle.
When I knew not the power of my emotions, I was defeated by them.
When I knew the extent of their power, but not their nature, I was defeated by them.
Now, when I have seen how they draw their sword, how they aim their cuts, how easily they slice through a man, do I have hope? Can I find a weakness in their stance, can I find a power in myself?
Do I know my enemy well enough to win a hundred battles?
"Therefore one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the most skillful. Seizing the enemy without fighting is the most skillful."
I have been experiencing an emotional time in my life recently. On one recent occasion, my emotions took from me a deep friendship, and assaulted me with it as though it were a sword. In an instant I was defeated. The sublime power which I had heard that my emotions carried was equal to that of any samurai. And in an instant, they turned, left me for dead, their victory assured and complete.
But I am not dead. The power of my emotions' sword was softened by the friends' unwillingness to drive me to death. And now I have seen my emotions in battle.
When I knew not the power of my emotions, I was defeated by them.
When I knew the extent of their power, but not their nature, I was defeated by them.
Now, when I have seen how they draw their sword, how they aim their cuts, how easily they slice through a man, do I have hope? Can I find a weakness in their stance, can I find a power in myself?
Do I know my enemy well enough to win a hundred battles?
"Therefore one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the most skillful. Seizing the enemy without fighting is the most skillful."
Monday, September 13, 2010
Foundations of Friendship
My friend recently told me that "time move much faster than [he] give[s] it credit for." Specifically, that "all the stories that are actually being told to one another are being created so fast."
My instant reaction was to construct an analogy! But rather than build one from scratch, I remembered the adage that one should build relationships on firm foundations or some such.
So let's take this "foundations" analogy a little further, and say that as we live our lives, we build tall buildings up into the sky, one floor at a time. Then the "foundations" for our relationships are the most recent floors we've built. If we create even one floor poorly, our structure is unsound and our past may always come back to haunt us. I think of the stories we tell each other as being floor plans, maybe architectural standards. We build our floor, and extract the ideas that we've had in building it into plans, the stories we tell others. The hope being that others will incorporate our ideas into their lives and buildings.
Perhaps we do this because we wish to be remembered, or to create legacies which will outlive us. Perhaps we want others' buildings to be strong, so they will not crumble as ours have in the past. Perhaps we want others' buildings to be familiar, to work together on pursuing zoning ordinances (the struggle against nature), or to connect up our phone lines.
When we have similar foundations (i.e. the past few floors) then our shared floor plans make sense. Staircases are in the right place, the water pipes hook up, we don't put game rooms right above or below bedrooms. Some of our connections may bypass floors; perhaps a cups-and-string phone line or a more sophisticated PA system. Maybe shared wiring so that TVs from different floors can observe what the others are watching. But these connections are less common. Having a single shared floor plan makes it much easier to share further floor plans. Having multiple shared floors makes it seamless.
My friend claimed that it takes about three years to get to know someone very well. So we could say that 3 years is maybe three floors? I can't imagine building connections further than that. Or perhaps it is more like 36 floors, and due to a fluke of the human condition buildings taller than 36 floors tend to fall over and need to be rebuilt. Being rebuilt doesn't really feel continuous, and though the flow of time isn't always continuous it's not discontinuous in nice 3-year-long chunks (though high school and college are nice 4-year-long chunks! If you're lucky). Perhaps part of the building process is remodeling, condensing the functions of lower floors and then adding new floors at the top.
The lowest floors are the hardest to remodel, because the whole structure relies on them. They are the most powerful factors in the building's stability, and they are the most likely to be out of tune with how we want to build in the future. Similarly, our early childhood is built mostly by others, and the issues we develop there continue to plague us for ages on.
Though our highest floors are always shared with our recent friends, we seek to build more similar foundations. But we cannot change the deepest foundations, which makes it easier to often seek out people similar to us.
Some people have a powerful desire to understand their own foundations, and with good reason. The mysterious basements of our lives have a grand effect on our overall structure. We shove all kinds of crap into our basement, and try to forget about it. These things often get moldy, or attract ants, and we eventually need to deal with them or the whole foundation will be a rotting mess.
But of course the original motivation for this metaphor was the speed with which friendships seem to fall apart.
As it seems to me, if the depth of a friendship is the number of floors down you can rely on the architecture, the solidity of the foundation, then it only takes one floor out of place for the whole thing to be lost. And the remodeling process works more intently on the lower floors, so it may take some time before the dissonance can be repaired.
It is easier by far to destroy than to create.
My instant reaction was to construct an analogy! But rather than build one from scratch, I remembered the adage that one should build relationships on firm foundations or some such.
So let's take this "foundations" analogy a little further, and say that as we live our lives, we build tall buildings up into the sky, one floor at a time. Then the "foundations" for our relationships are the most recent floors we've built. If we create even one floor poorly, our structure is unsound and our past may always come back to haunt us. I think of the stories we tell each other as being floor plans, maybe architectural standards. We build our floor, and extract the ideas that we've had in building it into plans, the stories we tell others. The hope being that others will incorporate our ideas into their lives and buildings.
Perhaps we do this because we wish to be remembered, or to create legacies which will outlive us. Perhaps we want others' buildings to be strong, so they will not crumble as ours have in the past. Perhaps we want others' buildings to be familiar, to work together on pursuing zoning ordinances (the struggle against nature), or to connect up our phone lines.
When we have similar foundations (i.e. the past few floors) then our shared floor plans make sense. Staircases are in the right place, the water pipes hook up, we don't put game rooms right above or below bedrooms. Some of our connections may bypass floors; perhaps a cups-and-string phone line or a more sophisticated PA system. Maybe shared wiring so that TVs from different floors can observe what the others are watching. But these connections are less common. Having a single shared floor plan makes it much easier to share further floor plans. Having multiple shared floors makes it seamless.
My friend claimed that it takes about three years to get to know someone very well. So we could say that 3 years is maybe three floors? I can't imagine building connections further than that. Or perhaps it is more like 36 floors, and due to a fluke of the human condition buildings taller than 36 floors tend to fall over and need to be rebuilt. Being rebuilt doesn't really feel continuous, and though the flow of time isn't always continuous it's not discontinuous in nice 3-year-long chunks (though high school and college are nice 4-year-long chunks! If you're lucky). Perhaps part of the building process is remodeling, condensing the functions of lower floors and then adding new floors at the top.
The lowest floors are the hardest to remodel, because the whole structure relies on them. They are the most powerful factors in the building's stability, and they are the most likely to be out of tune with how we want to build in the future. Similarly, our early childhood is built mostly by others, and the issues we develop there continue to plague us for ages on.
Though our highest floors are always shared with our recent friends, we seek to build more similar foundations. But we cannot change the deepest foundations, which makes it easier to often seek out people similar to us.
Some people have a powerful desire to understand their own foundations, and with good reason. The mysterious basements of our lives have a grand effect on our overall structure. We shove all kinds of crap into our basement, and try to forget about it. These things often get moldy, or attract ants, and we eventually need to deal with them or the whole foundation will be a rotting mess.
But of course the original motivation for this metaphor was the speed with which friendships seem to fall apart.
As it seems to me, if the depth of a friendship is the number of floors down you can rely on the architecture, the solidity of the foundation, then it only takes one floor out of place for the whole thing to be lost. And the remodeling process works more intently on the lower floors, so it may take some time before the dissonance can be repaired.
It is easier by far to destroy than to create.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Date With Destiny
On my way to the bathroom the phrase "I've got a date with destiny" popped into my head, along with the stern look often given by rugged badasses delivering the line. The look I imagined didn't really fit with my conception of a date. Is destiny a girl that they don't really like? Well, let's find out!
What happens on dates, especially first dates, since second dates with destiny are pretty uncommon. Well, fortunately instead of wild speculation I can quote Blink 182.
-Indecisiveness (in the car)
-Impatience (I just can't wait)
-Chivalry (to pick you up)
-Seek more intimacy (is it cool if I hold your hand?)
-Seek approval (is it okay)
-Communicate values (if I think it's lame to dance)
-Fuss over appearance (stupid hair/didn't know what to wear)
-Nervousness (you make me nervous)
-Excitement, happiness (let's make this night last forever)
-Time seems to fly (this night's almost over)
-First kiss
Of course those are mostly features of good dates. Let's check out a couple features that a bad date might have:
-Guilty feelings
-Letdown at the end
Either way, the plans will be
-Very high priority/high obligation
Alright. So now we have our Clint Eastwood cowboy facing down his rival, the voodoo assassin who killed his father and kidnapped his mother and left a mysterious note saying they should meet in the abandoned haunted warehouse in post-apocalyptic New York.
-Our hero is NOT indecisive.
-Our hero has been patient all movie, now he's rushing in.
-Our hero leaves behind his friends in old-fashioned chivalrous style.
-Our hero listens patiently to the entire evil plot, getting to know his enemy.
-Our hero doesn't really want approval from the villain.
-Our hero expresses his values clearly, hopefully in an epic speech.
-Our hero doesn't mind looking rugged, but all his stubble is badass stubble.
-Our hero has a steel resolve which may or may not hide nervousness
-Our hero is not excited and happy.
-Time probably slows down rather than speeding up. A huge amount of action takes place over a short period.
-No kissing.
-Our hero might feel bad that he has to kill someone, or he might not. Pensive at least.
-Sometimes the season finale is disappointing *coughheroesseasonone* but hopefully it isn't a letdown! It sure is a letdown for the enemy's evil plans though!
-It's definitely high priority, and the hero is obligated to be there.
So there are a lot of similarities between a date with destiny and a first date. However, a lot of the positive things I'd associate with being excited about a first date are missing, and most things I'd associate with being exasperated about a guilt-trip date are also missing. There's definitely room for a new analogy to take the place of "date," but what it is and whether it will have that delicious alliteration escapes me. A final presentation seems like it might be more similar, but it's far less poetic.
What happens on dates, especially first dates, since second dates with destiny are pretty uncommon. Well, fortunately instead of wild speculation I can quote Blink 182.
-Indecisiveness (in the car)
-Impatience (I just can't wait)
-Chivalry (to pick you up)
-Seek more intimacy (is it cool if I hold your hand?)
-Seek approval (is it okay)
-Communicate values (if I think it's lame to dance)
-Fuss over appearance (stupid hair/didn't know what to wear)
-Nervousness (you make me nervous)
-Excitement, happiness (let's make this night last forever)
-Time seems to fly (this night's almost over)
-First kiss
Of course those are mostly features of good dates. Let's check out a couple features that a bad date might have:
-Guilty feelings
-Letdown at the end
Either way, the plans will be
-Very high priority/high obligation
Alright. So now we have our Clint Eastwood cowboy facing down his rival, the voodoo assassin who killed his father and kidnapped his mother and left a mysterious note saying they should meet in the abandoned haunted warehouse in post-apocalyptic New York.
-Our hero is NOT indecisive.
-Our hero has been patient all movie, now he's rushing in.
-Our hero leaves behind his friends in old-fashioned chivalrous style.
-Our hero listens patiently to the entire evil plot, getting to know his enemy.
-Our hero doesn't really want approval from the villain.
-Our hero expresses his values clearly, hopefully in an epic speech.
-Our hero doesn't mind looking rugged, but all his stubble is badass stubble.
-Our hero has a steel resolve which may or may not hide nervousness
-Our hero is not excited and happy.
-Time probably slows down rather than speeding up. A huge amount of action takes place over a short period.
-No kissing.
-Our hero might feel bad that he has to kill someone, or he might not. Pensive at least.
-Sometimes the season finale is disappointing *coughheroesseasonone* but hopefully it isn't a letdown! It sure is a letdown for the enemy's evil plans though!
-It's definitely high priority, and the hero is obligated to be there.
So there are a lot of similarities between a date with destiny and a first date. However, a lot of the positive things I'd associate with being excited about a first date are missing, and most things I'd associate with being exasperated about a guilt-trip date are also missing. There's definitely room for a new analogy to take the place of "date," but what it is and whether it will have that delicious alliteration escapes me. A final presentation seems like it might be more similar, but it's far less poetic.
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