Category Archives: Thought

Living a life the best way possible

June 15, 2015 6:25 AM , Leave a Comment ,

It’s easy to quit and despair.  It’s easy to say “well I gave it my best shot but it didn’t work” and just give up on trying to move ahead.  It’s quite another thing to see a failure or a difficulty and to shift gears out of one venture and go into another.

This last week the world lost Sir Christopher Lee.  While most of the world knew him as a long time actor, very few people knew about his other exploits before becoming an actor or his other ventures and honors that he accumulated over a lifetime.  I could do a list of all of these things but I think there are plenty of websites and articles out there that do a fine job of this.

Looking at his life in a totality however it is worth noting that he never had an easy or obvious path to success.  This was an individual that faced setbacks and failures quite a few times over the course of his life yet he never allowed this to slow him down or stop his progress.

What’s more he was an individual that actively went out seeking new opportunities and interests on his own.  You would think that someone who had difficulties in his life might be content just to “break even” or just be a little better off but in his case he did not wait for these new ventures to present themselves.  He either went looking for these new ventures or he created them himself.

Like I said above, it’s easy to despair. Despair is easy to do.  It’s comfortable, it can be done at a moment’s notice, and requires little to no investment.  Despair can be such a hard temptation to resist sometimes.

But lifting yourself up, having the presence of mind to look around and plot your next move, getting on with your life as it stands after a setback, that’s hard.

I think that’s something that a man like Christopher Lee can teach all of us.

Posted in: activities, advice, attitude, life in general, opportunities, thought

Discussions that we should have but we’re not having

June 9, 2015 6:46 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I rarely watch TV anymore.  I don’t find all that much that excites my intellect or that is thought provoking or that I can respect.  I find the opposite to be true.  I feel that most television programming is an insult to the viewing public.

I find most programming to be a waste of time.  Most programs pander to the lowest common denominator, sex and violence.  They rehash or rework tired old ideas and concepts and expect the viewing public to not notice that the plot lines are painfully and ridiculously predictable.  But what I find most disturbing about television is how it serves as an electronic anesthetic and distraction for the public when real issues come up that need to be discussed.

The viewing public would much prefer to pay attention to the most vapid and banal television shows rather than to become informed and or take action on matters which direct or indirectly affect them.  Matters which they very much need to voice their opinions, yet they don’t.

So it’s worth noting when a program comes on that at the very least brings some of these topics up and captures the public imagination in an entertaining yet informative format.  The program that I am thinking about is Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

Episode dealing with Net Neutrality

For those that don’t know, John Oliver is a British comedian that emigrated to the states and began writing material for comedy shows like The Daily Show with John Stewart. After a successful run at the Daily Show he decided to try his hand at his own news oriented comedy show on HBO.

The results have been significant.  Not only is the show extremely popular but several of the topics that he has covered have been given closer scrutiny by mainline news organizations and his efforts have gone viral on social media and have arguably helped promote some changes in some contemporary topics.

Oliver has covered topics such as the above mentioned Net Neutrality, FIFA, the wealth gap in America, police militarization, and the prevalence of Sugar in the American diet.

Now, I don’t happen to agree with everything he does.  I don’t agree with all his view points, as a comedian he tends to frame the debates in humorous ways, and he doesn’t cover all the topics that I wish he would but I have to give him high marks and praise for bringing these topics to light and giving them the attention that they are due.

I think that in an age where too often television executives don’t want to bother with sophisticated or thought-provoking television shows and would rather just distract the public, that we need to give praise and promote shows that at least encourage the public to think and start important conversations about topics that affect us all.

Posted in: communication, culture, current events, life in general, politics, review, television, thought

The roots of corruption

June 5, 2015 7:06 AM , Leave a Comment ,

One of the big news stories currently being discussed is the investigation into charges of corruption at the world soccer federation (FIFA).  Several high-ranking members of that organization have been arrested and the head of FIFA has been forced to resign as a consequence of the controversy.  Not just minor little thefts or petty little bribes but mind-boggling huge bribes and corrupt practices that go beyond the pale.

Ordinary people like myself have to wonder at the culture that engendered and possibly even encouraged this type of corrupt practices to flourish.  How could this have happened?  Where were the safeguards and monitors that should have prevented this?  Even the basic tenets of standards and good practices seem to be missing here.

A blog that I recently read sheds some light on this.  Two of the points raised in this blog seem to be pertinent here.

Firstly, there seems to have been a culture within FIFA that not only tolerated but almost encouraged the corrupt practices that took place within the organization.  Bribery seems to have been expected not only by the perpetrators but also by the members of FIFA who seem to have accepted handing out bribes to officials as part of the costs of doing business with FIFA.

Secondly, a slow or even non-existent judicial process that sought to either stifle or shut down any sort of investigation and punishment of corruption with regards to these officials.  Corruption at FIFA has been a sort of open secret for years yet no one around the world and certainly not within FIFA sought to do anything about it due to the fact that no sanctions would ever be taken at all.

A third point that wasn’t in the blog but I feel also contributed to this problem is FIFA’s success.  Being the world’s largest sport federation and creating such a wildly popular sporting event such as the world cup I think gave FIFA officials the sense that they could do no wrong and that they were above the law.  Over time their excesses have grown and grown to the point that they have become inexcusable and impossible to overlook.

One has to wonder about other large institutions like governments, businesses, and non-governmental organizations and ponder which of these may be hiding corrupt practices behind a veneer or infallibility or success.

How can reformers or critics point out these excesses without fear of reprisal and with the hope that change will take place? How can those within an organization spot these corrupt practices as they take place and take steps to curtail them before they bloom?

 

Posted in: business, current events, ideas, life in general, speculation, sports, standards and practices, thought

the new 20s

June 1, 2015 7:09 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I was listening to an NPR program about retirement and they touched upon my generation (Generation X) entering into middle age.  This reminded me of a one-off phrase that a friend of mine had used the other day.  Namely that “the forties are the new twenties”.

Thinking about it I certainly don’t feel like what I imagined I would feel like when I hit my forties.  Growing up in suburbia I didn’t really contemplate my future that much but when I did I imagined a stereotypical suburban future with button down shirts and khakis and minivans and whatnot.  My career would be well underway and would probably be spent at a single company for more than twenty years and would be backstopped by some sort of pension plan.  My family life would be typical suburbanite and traditional.

Little did I know what the future would bring.

But then again I don’t think anyone really knows what the future will bring.  Sure there are folks out there that do have that sort of lifestyle but it’s becoming rarer and rarer these days.

I never imagined a multigenerational household or that I would have to guard, tend, and cultivate my own retirement fund.  I never imagined that I would have to be more dynamic and keep abreast of the latest developments in my field and several related fields in case I had to change jobs.

“the forties are the new twenties” sounds positive but really I think what it means is that you have to not only think like a twentysomething to keep your head above water but you also have to have the strength and flexibility of a twentysomething in case you find yourself in a tough position.

The new economy is not only leaner and meaner, it’s more dynamic and requires us to think fast and move even faster in order to keep pace with developments around the world.

Thinking about my future I don’t see myself retiring at the “traditional” age of sixty-five.  Not only is it something that I don’t think I will manage to do.  I don’t particularly want to limit myself.  I want to believe that I can continue being active for as long as possible and to take advantage of my life right up to the very end.  Things are just to interesting right now to retire.

Posted in: activities, aging, culture, thought, work

making time to make words

May 30, 2015 6:21 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I’ve been horrible about writing this year.  I really have.  In total I think I have maybe 4 sessions of an hour apiece for the last 5 months.  Besides writing this blog I haven’t really done anything on my writing.

I was at a writing panel the other week and they pointed out that the most important thing to do as a writer was to actually sit down and write.  I felt as if that were aimed right at me.

I could make all the excuses in the world but the fact remains that I need to put more time and effort into writing.  Not just into writing but into editing.  I have a couple of pieces that I think have some potential but I need to get them moving and that’s another thing that I need to do.

But how to go about doing that?  The quick and easy answer is that you just do.  I could make excuses all year-long and never get anything down or I could try to at the very least I would be making the effort.

That’s really at the core of whatever you want to do in life whether it’s your work or it’s a hobby or something else you have to be willing to actually do whatever it is you do.

It doesn’t matter if it turns out terrible.  At least you’re trying and that’s more than most people do.  And even if you do fail at least you can say that you gave it your best effort.

Posted in: activities, advice, thought, writing

Catalysis

May 22, 2015 7:10 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Catalysis, the process of accelerating a reaction, mostly associated with chemical reactions, this process can also take place in other situations.  Mainly I’m thinking about human interactions here.

When you get together with other people whether at work or play or in study, something happens just by interacting.  It’s an inevitable result of humans being social animals.  Exchanges are made no matter how careful one or both parties are.  Exchanges of not just physical goods but ideas, notions, and attitudes.

Just the slightest contact is enough to set the human imagination going and from there who knows what can happen.  The best example of this would be the great Columbian exchange where not just plants, animals, technologies, and diseases flowed freely back and forth between the Old and New world.  Ideas and concepts made the journeys as well.  Unforeseen consequences followed but nevertheless the exchange would form and fashion the world for the next 500 years to come.

But even at human scale levels these exchanges can yield extraordinary results.  So many new ideas and concepts have come about from people getting together in coffee houses or in libraries or other public gathering spaces.  Free and unfettered exchanges of ideas are always generating new concepts and pushing the bounds of our civilization.

But beyond this I think these exchanges not only serve to disseminate information but to stir up humanity’s competitive spirit.  I think that when people get together and see what other people in other fields are doing that they themselves feel compelled to make an even greater effort in their own fields.  The Catalysis I mention is not just exposure to new concepts but the exposure to the passion and drive that other people have for their particular field.

It’s one of the reasons I love going to large conventions and to art showings and to book readings.  I find that I leave more energized and determined to do better and to try different things after attending these gatherings.  The energy is infectious and the result is that I want to do more in my own life than I previously did.

Posted in: culture, ideas, pop culture, relationships, social networks, speculation, thought

A time for everything

May 18, 2015 6:12 AM , Leave a Comment ,

The rain’s been relentless this past week.  All I hear about on social media and on the radio is how awful the rain is and how it ruins plans.

Yes of course that aspect of the recent heavy rains is regrettable.  The rains affected some plans I had one day and the power outage stopped my office work on another day.

On top of everything when we get real Houston style storms it gets pitch black outside and with the lightning and thunder you get a feel for the fury and power that nature can wield.  Not all that fun but this is the rainy season in Houston.

But the thing is that if we look cross the country we can see what it’s like to have permanent “nice weather”.  California is going into its fourth year of drought and conditions are reaching a critical state.  I hear horror stories from my California friends about dead lawns, livestock, and water rationing and listen to their speculation as to where they may be able to move to in order to escape this disaster.

Of course along with our rainy season we get our dry season in Houston; July, August, and September.  The season when clouds will not dare show their faces unless they have a hurricane to give them backup.  These will be the endless afternoons where the sun will be relentless and refuse to set till after nine at night.

It’s curious to me that during these days that people won’t complain as much.  To me at least, this type of weather is as bad or even worse than rainy days.

For my part, I am glad for these rainy days and rainy weeks.  Every time we get one of these events I comfort myself thinking about all those water reservoirs that are north and east of Houston and I hope that they are topping off with fresh water.  I think about my California friends and their hyper abundance of “nice days” and I hope that sometime soon that they will be able to enjoy a rainy Houston day.

 

Posted in: attitude, environment, Houston, thought, weather

attachments

May 14, 2015 6:13 AM , Leave a Comment ,

People are weird.

At one moment we can be calm, rational, and sometimes even distant individuals and the next moment we act with passion, with humor, and even with childish glee.

An example.  I was having a Twitter conversation the other day about cars with a close friend who had also recently bought a car.  We were discussing car nicknames.  We both had given our cars nicknames, and it wasn’t just us as several others chimed into the conversation with their pet names for their cars.

Here we were, adult individuals and we were giving our cars pet names like we were kids or something.  Another example?  I went to register my new car on the car website and they actually asked if my car had a nickname.  Why?

My car won’t go any faster or save more gasoline or avoid other cars with a nickname.  So why do it?

Maybe it’s a hold over from childhood as we named everything in our small world in order to get a small measure of control over things that were otherwise out of our control.  Maybe it’s a relic from the days when Greek sailors would name their ships and paint eyes on the bows so the ships would “see where they were going”.  A little bit of home-made magic.

Maybe in a cold digital and increasingly distant world we need to feel that there is something warm, organic, and familiar around us.  Even if it is something lifeless like a car.  Giving it a name seems to imbue it with a little bit of life, seems to make it a little less cold and a little bit warmer.

Sometimes we all need that in our life.

Posted in: Automobiles, habits, life in general, thought

Living within our means

April 30, 2015 7:04 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I’ve been doing a lot with my personal finances in the last few months.  Included in this was the purchase of a new car.  Something that I undeniably need living in Houston but yet some would argue I could have gotten something more pedestrian, less flashy, and more modest.  Some have asked if it is something that I can afford.

To which the answer is yes.  This was something that I’ve been thinking about for over a year and the numbers do make sense.  Now, I could have gotten something more modest, true but the cost difference really wasn’t going to be that great and I do feel that I got quite a bit for my money.  So I still feel that this was a good bargain for me.

Nevertheless these are valid concerns.  In my lifetime I’ve seen how quickly people can get in trouble with easy credit and overspending.  When I was in school the message boards were crammed with credit card applications for students to fill out and even though most students either didn’t work or worked part-time jobs they got ridiculously high credit lines.  Of course within a month or two these kids got into some real financial problems that took years to clear up.

But that’s just symptomatic of our culture or even our civilization as a whole.  We like to push the limits to the extreme and even break the limits till we get into trouble with not just money but resources, living space, and population size.

Take California for example.  The golden state with promises of endless farmlands carved out of the desert, green suburbs without end, and abundant, cheap water hauled from hundreds of miles away. What happens when the waters fail to come year after year?  The answer is the tragedy that’s slowly unfolding right now and affects not just millions of Californians but millions of people across the country and the world that depend on the produce grown there.

What will happen to that population?  They won’t just dry up and blow away.  We’ll soon see them in our neighborhoods looking for work and sharing our resources.  Problems that might have been sidestepped if we had not insisted on trying to squeeze every last resource out of a desert that wasn’t ready to take so many people in the first place.

California will heal but it will take a long time.  My question is when it heals and the rain cycle is restored will we go back and make the same mistakes again or will we learn and not try to live past the capacity of the land?

Posted in: consumerism, current events, economy, energy, environment, future, life in general, technology, thought, weather

What’s really attractive

April 28, 2015 6:26 AM , Leave a Comment ,

One of the nice things about getting older, at least for me, is that looks begin to lose their allure.  Don’t get me wrong, a pretty face, a trim figure, beautiful eyes.  I will always appreciate those.  But over the years I’ve learned that there is a lot more to appreciate about a person than their looks and that good looks may not necessarily go hand in hand with a bright mind, an interesting persona, an appealing attitude, or any of a thousand other things that I find appealing in a person.

So what is attractive?  Mind you I don’t claim to speak for anyone else but myself but I think my attitude is fairly typical within reason.

So some attractive characteristics in no particular order.

Intelligence. I would think that this would be so obvious it didn’t need to be mentioned but apparently it does.  It’s something you can’t find out about until you actually talk to that other person but it can soon become obvious.  The ability to think, to reason, to be more than just well read but to be able to form opinions or new thoughts.  I tend to value these abilities fairly highly.  I think it makes for a stronger and more satisfying long-term relationship.

An open mind.  Related to the above I know but I think it’s important to be able to openly talk about different cultures, different points of view, different perspectives, even things that you may not like, art forms you may not appreciate, ideas that repulse you.  I’m not saying embrace them but be able to look at them objectively and then if they don’t like it well then fine. At least the attempt was made.  But being able to communicate openly with the other person is vital.

Outside interests and hobbies.  I want a whole person that has their own life and own interests not someone that’s just waiting for me to supply their reason for being.  Whatever those interests may be; sports, business, hobbies, music, whatever.  This is part of their whole being and if they practice and enjoy these interests then I think that makes them that much more interesting.

Convictions.  Believing in something and sticking to those principles.  A truly admirable quality that not many people can claim for themselves.

Humor.  A must not only for a potential mate but for friends in general.  Being able to laugh not just at the world in general but at yourself is something that more people should engage in regularly.

Adventurous. Be able to take a chance every once in a while.  Life’s just too short for playing it safe.  I don’t mean be reckless but definitely not looking for someone who stays home and plays it safe.

Not a comprehensive list by any means but I think it covers the highlights.  I know finding all of these qualities in one person is asking a lot.  Maybe too much.  But I don’t think so.  I mean this is an important choice.  Not like a haircut that will grow out in a couple of months or a pair of pants that you thought might look good.  This is someone who I want to spend my time with.  It should be something that I should be picky about.

 

Posted in: dating, life in general, relationships, thought