On Miracles

*Disclaimer: this is an old post, imported from Tumblr.

I've long envied the ranks of the religious for their belief in miracles. What a truly amazing thought- to hold a true belief in that which transcends all known laws of the universe as we know it. Recently, though, I realized that my envy was misplaced. Truly, I would throw away belief in miracles, a thousand times over, for the ability to observe those tiny moments which exist within the constraints of physical law, and which inspire such awe in me.

I continually find myself amazed by the creativity of my fellow human beings. The process of creating a truly beautiful work of art, or an engaging story, or a tantalizing design from nothing more than a thought humbles me.

I'm amazed by great conversations. When one exchanges thoughts with a friend, and it seems to be that the flow of information, though coming from two sources, converges in space and time to form an idea which neither person, alone, could have imagined- it inspires me.

When I watch a colony of bees, and I understand how blissful it must be to be so focused on one task, continually, and to dedicate yourself so completely to the greater good, I am just a bit the wiser.

When I read a Shakespearean play, and I recognize the universality of the humanity contained within each character, marveling at the fact that a man five centuries removed from me could so embody the most primitive inclinations of man in such an elegant way, I am amazed.

When I watch my child learn something new, and she smiles at me so unreservedly, and I can almost see the expansion of her mind as new ideas form, I am nearly brought to tears.

I no longer envy the ranks of the religious in their belief in miracles. I'm simply thankful for the ability to recognize the miracles that constantly surround me.

Resolutions are shit.

Resolutions are shit.

So you have a few resolutions? Great. That means one thing, and one thing only: there are aspects of yourself which you would like to improve upon.

That being the case, I applaud that decision. It’s no secret that my mantra is stolen from Socrates: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Apparently you’ve accepted this notion, too, if you’ve set a goal to grow. The problem is that resolutions never work. We all know this, and yet we set them every year. What were your resolutions last year? How many did you accomplish? I thought so. It’s not your fault- it’s human nature, really.

January 1, 2012 is, quite literally, a completely random point in the space-time continuum. It is not a “better” time to improve yourself than was December 31, or July 7. At best, it may give you a sense of a blank slate from which to begin. Here’s the thing, though: every single day of your life is a blank slate. Growth isn’t something that you begin because of a flip of a page on a calendar. It’s a desire to be better, a hunger. If you didn’t feel that hunger last week, you’re not going to feel it today. Not all is doom and gloom, though. In fact, I’d say this is good news.

You want to change? Okay. Start today. Now. Tomorrow is the only day of your life that never comes, so get to it. If you’re having trouble figuring out where to start, here’s a tip or two.

Trim your list.

If your list of resolutions is a page and a half long, forget about it. It will never get done. In fact, the longer it is, the less likely you are to accomplish anything, let alone everything on the list. Why? Think of the feeling you get when you’re washing dishes. Imagine a set of eighteen dishes- eighteen plates, eighteen silverware sets, eighteen glasses. Now imagine approaching these dishes in the sink. Inevitably, it will feel like an almost insurmountable task. Now, imagine the same scenario, but with only three sets of dishes. See how much better that feels? There is no smaller a sense of accomplishment when the task is finished, but the stress level in even approaching the task is drastically diminished. You’re much more likely to start this task, which, of course, is the first and most important step. Trim your list down to those things which you feel are the most vital to your growth, and focus on those. Once you do them regularly, they will become habits. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an action, but a habit.” Aristotle was a wise dude. Once they become habits, the rest is frictionless, and you can move onto another goal.

Get specific.

Eating less and giving more to charity are admirable goals, but unless you break them down, you’re not likely to accomplish them. The human brain needs specific action steps to take towards completing a goal. Measure your caloric intake, and set a goal of a few hundred calories less per day. Find actual charities you’d like to donate to, set aside a fraction or your paycheck, and give a certain amount on a specific date of your choosing. Do this with all of your goals: break them down into actionable steps, with clearly defined dates, and watch the ease with which you mark them off the list. This has the added benefit of making it easier to start each task, since you can start with small, actionable steps (much easier to implement) than with large, generic goals, leaving you without the foggiest notion of where to even begin.

Workflowy is a wonderful and simple tool to organize your goals into simple, actionable steps.

In sum, resolutions are shit, and 2012 will not be your year unless you make today your day. Today, right now, is your blank slate. Begin.
 

On Bigotry

A quick thought on bigotry:

     One of the things I love about the progress of our civilization is the inevitable (albeit painfully slow) eradication of bigotry. At one point, of course, and to some extent still, a black person was viewed as somehow inferior to his or her counterparts. Now, a person that holds that view is considered a bigot. So it will be for the gay community, and I believe that atheists are next in line (by that I mean that once the gay community has gained the same level of acceptance that blacks have now, bigots will need something else to turn their hatred to, and atheism is the obvious target).
     My point is this: when I speak to someone who is full of hate for a particular group of people, my instinct is to debate them, to use reason to point out the fallacy of their belief. Obviously, this is not a good strategy- hatred cannot be reasoned with. When this happens, I find myself taking a step back and finding solace in one simple, irresistible fact: namely, that they and their kind will be written in history as bigots. It’s that simple. If you hated blacks once, or Jews, you’re now a bigot. If you hate gays now, or atheists, rest assured, you will be remembered as an ignorant bigot. Survival of the fittest, then, perhaps applies to our sense of compassion and reason as well as our physical attributes.

Happiness, as it applies to meatballs

     I happen to be amongst those silly people who believe that happiness in and of itself is an admirable goal to strive for. Consequently, I understand how slippery a thing it really is. Happiness requires work, paradoxical as it may seem. It also takes a certain amount of self-awareness. How many go about their daily routines, resigned to the fact that they are living the life they always will? That happiness is a tree-hugger dream, and that honorable men and women work for a living and shut up about it? Let me tell you about the workload, the self-awareness it takes to cultivate happiness.

     Last night, I ate a meatball sub for dinner. It was as delicious a meal as any man has ever consumed. I’d waited, and waited (somewhat impatiently) for my dinner. Suddenly, it was in my lap, steaming and beckoning.
I ate my sandwich, oblivious to anything around me, except perhaps the book I was reading. Two things happened:

        1:  I realized that, as I was fairly engrossed in my book, I forgot that I was eating as I was eating. I put the book down, and      focused on my miraculous meatballs.

        2:  Even after this revelation, I assumed that I was squeezing all the joy one can possibly squeeze out of a sandwich. I was wrong. I realized that as I was chewing each bite, I was hungrily looking at the next meatball (the one not in my mouth). I was lusting after a meatball, wishing with everything that I was that that meatball was in my mouth- right now. But wait… holy shit. I do have a meatball in my mouth. In fact, it’s the exact same meatball as the one I’m lusting after.

     After this little epiphany, I enjoyed what became a fantastic meal. I’m sure that, had I scarfed it down while reading, or had I continued wanting the next meatball, and the next, and the next, without realising what was in my mouth, I’d have missed the experience entirely. I slowed. I breathed. I tasted. And it was good.

     Where else does this behavior manifest itself?

     The answer may be astounding, if you’re truthful with yourself. Maybe when I go to the gym, I’m thinking of the coffee shop and book ritual that follow. Maybe when I’m reading that book, and drinking that coffee, I’m thinking of my workday. Maybe when I’m in the midst of my workday, I’m thinking of a conversation with my daughter. Maybe when I’m having a conversation with my daughter, I’m thinking of the gym the next day. Kinda vicious, isn’t it?
 
     It’s taken time, and practice, and effort to reach a level of self-awareness that allows me to see these faults. That doesn’t mean it’s difficult; it’s not. It simply takes a conscious, unwavering effort. When I put the acquired knowledge to practice, though, the results can be astounding, and can lead to… wait for it… happiness. Happiness is here; it is now. It is only here, and only now. It is only in this meatball, not the next.

Information Overload

I started today with a simple, albeit lofty goal: cure information overload.  The problem is this: I read too many articles, and the more I read, it seems, the less information I retain. Here is my solution (perhaps "experiment" is more appropriate).

First, let me explain my "readflow"- that is, the way that I consume online articles. The process is as streamlined as possible. Most all of the information I consume is fed to Google Reader, so I don't have to constantly scour the web for items of interest. When I come across an article I'd like to read, I tag it "instapaper", and via this recipe from ifttt, that article is automatically fed to my Instapaper account, which is set up to deliver a compilation of all of my unread articles to my Kindle every Friday morning. It sounds like a lot of work, but once it's set up, the result is remarkably friction-free, and therein lies the bulk of the problem.

It's a remarkable time we live in, having access to so much invaluable information. Want to read the latest article from a professor of philosophy at Berkley? How about catching up on neuroscientists' latest claim of eradicating the concept of free will? Perhaps you want to catch up on NFL news, or find out whether the latest HBO series is worth watching? It's all at your fingertips. Be careful, though- if you're not selective enough, you'll soon be reading so many articles your brain may feel flooded. This is my problem.

Here, I hope, is the solution: I will begin to rate each article I read on a simple scale of one to five, based on how important it is to me that I retain the information contained in each article. If given a one, it's not important enough to spend any more time on. If given a five, I thoroughly enjoyed the text, and would like to retain as much as possible. Here's what I'll do based on my ratings:

• For a rating of (1), no further action is needed. The text does not intrigue me.
• For a rating of (2), I'll simply say, out loud, a very brief summary of the article, focusing on the bullet points.
• For a rating of (3), I will give a slightly in-depth summary (again, this is out loud, to myself). 
• For a rating of (4), I will "bookmark" this article in my mind, and make it a point to bring it up in conversation (actual, face-to-face conversation) the next time I'm with someone to whom the topic may be interesting. 
• For a rating of (5), I will star the article in Instapaper, which, via Instapaper's settings, sends the article to my Evernote account). From Evernote, I can write a summary of the article, at the end of the article itself. This way, all of the most important articles (and only the most important articles) are all in Evernote, with a personal summary at the end of each.

Each tactic is designed to increase memory retention based on the importance of the article. Obviously, I'm much more likely to retain information from a text in which I wrote a summary than one in which I simply verbalized the bullet points and moved on.

I'll use this tactic for a month or so, and give an update on how well it works.

The Perfect Day

Readability | Instapaper | Download as .mp3

A few days ago, I said goodbye to my daughter. She’s moving across the country, and while I intend to follow her, I’ll be a few weeks behind. On her last day in Florida, we decided the appropriate goodbye to the Sunshine State would be spent at the beach, watching the sun set over the Gulf of Mexico.

Afternoon gave way to evening, and my daughter’s playdate was not over- and I was beginning to get annoyed. It was getting late. The universe knew that this was my special day with my daughter, and yet it did not care. It mocked my plans, and I was left to grumble to myself until they finally left.

We hurried to the car, sped down the road, and hoped and prayed to make it to the beach before the sunset. The feeling of annoyance still permeated every bone in my body- until my daughter pointed out the clouds. What a magnificent sight to behold, if you’ve never witnessed the awesome power of Florida clouds. We started taking snapshots as we sped down the road. The annoyance started to fade. I no longer cared about making it “on time.”

We stopped at Starbucks for a cup of coffee and a hot chocolate. Though she’d had it before, this is the first time it came in a cup that looked just like the ones Daddy brings home from work. She felt like such a big girl, and made me take pictures of Starbucks to commemorate her first “coffee” at Starbucks. When we finally made it to the beach, it was not only pitch dark, but the clouds now covered every inch of the sky, blanketing the beach in a darkness usually reserved for haunted houses. As it turns out, we had to put the camera away. I then realized we were the only souls on the beach- it became our playground, and so it began. The play.

We removed our shoes and ran to the water. Soon, she began chasing me, as I screamed in feigned horror at the six-year-old who was trying to get me. We fell to our knees on the sand of Clearwater beach, exhausted and laughing. We made sand angels. A few minutes later, we were up again, she chasing me and throwing sand at my back. We had a sandball fight. We made a sandcastle. We walked through the water, hand in hand. Then she said it.

“Daddy, this is the best night of my life.”

She would utter those words several times more throughout the next hour or so, and each time, my heart melted. I took a break, under the pretense of being exhausted, when in reality I simply wanted to watch my flesh and blood frolick in the sand. She ran with reckless abandon, laughed like no one was watching, and flung herself into the sand, laughing even more hysterically each time. This was my daughter, and tonight, this was our beach, this was our night, this was our world. And it was perfect.

On Thinking Like a Child

The other day, my daughter’s kindergarten class needed an assistant. Her mother had volunteered to help the class prepare a garden bed outside of their classroom- it was full of weeds and unprepeared soil, and needed to be tended to. When she woke feeling ill that day, I was volunteered in her place. This annoyed me. I had SO much work to do- how dare I be interrupted! So it was with reluctance that I strolled into the classroom that day.
Immediately, I was met with my daughter’s typical adorating smile when I walked in. Soon we were toiling in the garden with a few other members of the class. The kids began to turn the weed pulling into a treasure hunt. We had to eliminate the weeds in order to find the real treasures. Before long, they were pulling up a shell or two here and there, and we began to mount a pile of booty. The feeling of annoyance began to fade, and I joined in the excitement of the hunt. Eventually, I lost myself in the wonderment of the moment, and the kids’ mood enveloped me. The work didn’t matter; the petty world surrounding us didn’t matter- we created our own finite yet fantastic reality that afternoon. I left the class refreshed, renewed, and smiling. It was a great gift that they gave to me.
Since, I’ve tried to remember that lesson throughout each day. My troubles are a speck in the cosmos, and infinitely trivial. So where’s the harm in letting the toils of the day slide from your mind, and creating a small, amazing reality in which you embrace yourself, your surroundings, and the world at large?