One of my favourite Gregory Peck movies is Twelve O'Clock High, an extraordinarily sharp examination of facing fear, death, and adversity. I watched it again recently, and grabbing on to one of the primary themes of the film; What is considered 'Maximum Human Effort' ? I am dealing with psychological trauma right now as a great deal of negative events have converged in a space of about two months. As much as I persevere and charge on to the next battle, I start feeling like a shell of my whole being.
I Bleed Therefore I Am
Self coaching tells me that the light at the end of the tunnel is there, it's just still too far away to see. Hope is the common term for this tight grip on a shred of future normalcy. This week, a new video client will factor in my projected downturn in business. Hope, however, is not how I feel about my web design training. I treat it like it is the basis for my survival, school work is my most important job. It's just that there is less money and longer time is needed to complete it, all the while there is an unprecedented economic collapse that is making work scarce.
Man Punishes Nature : Nature Punishes Man
In TO'CH, a young member of a bombing crew complains that he doesn't know what it's all for, seemingly giving it all up for nothing. Each day, they attempt to escape with their lives while running bombing missions over enemy territory. Meanwhile, the frame broke on my car a month ago, while still having to take care of everyday business. Earlier this week, I got a flat tire in a blizzard with 35 mph winds. Peck, the commanding officer, asks the doctor how much a single man is expected to take, being faced with the trauma of battle every day. The doctor can't answer, it's not very quantifiable.
It's Time For The Aliens To Save Us
As I sit and try to figure out a way to survive in 2009 without losing my home, I look for signs as to which connection to pursue. I have loyal clients, but some use my services but once every couple years. Who knows who will call me, along with other loyal customers who can't afford to. Things are ambiguous at the moment, and one can look at possibilities for a positive outcome. However, the last two months have shown a daily dose of stress that makes these positive outcomes ineffective.
Relax Dammit!
I always tell people your health is more important than anything. It bothers me when people abuse their bodies and know that it is unhealthy. I advocate stress relief; sleep, eat, pet the cat, take a little time away from the daily grind. For me it comes in the form of hobbies. I have need to provide my own distractions in order to take a break from the pressure. Once I have simmered down, I can take action on trying to tackle another piece of the puzzle in solving my problems.
This is rare personal entry in terms of nitpicky stuff:
-My Virgin Mobile cell phone account was suspended about two weeks ago due to mixup in the serial number of my phone and another phone. The computer thinks now that I stole the phone I purchased online from their store and has cut me off. I have spent hours now arguing with call center operators who have the audacity to make me prove that they are the ones who have screwed up. It is the analogous to "The Fugitive", where an innocent man is hounded for a crime he didn't commit.
- A month ago my car tire started to rub against the body. I soon found out the frame was broken on one side. It was like that Laurel & Hardy film where the car is constantly making a U-turn. Thankfully my mild-mannered friend Eric became "Automobile Repairman," and welded it back together using oven parts (I'm not kidding).
Eve3ything Come3 in Three3
Each problem on it's own can be dealt with, but the accumulation of these stressors takes a toll on the psyche. I lost six pounds, partially from not eating enough, but also from working outside in the bitter cold. What makes the whole mix turn into an emotional clusterf*ck is that two close friends, along with the mother of another friend, died in the past two months. I become numb to viewing yet another collage of photos from another dearly departed.
Am I Sane? (It Doesn't Help If You Have To Ask)
What exactly is the maximum one human can take alone? Where is the golden nugget of assurance that everything will work out? I must conjure it in my mind and cling to it with my very will to survive. The answer I give to myself as I face an unknown future that it can be much much worse. I do not live in a severely deprived third world country, where there is little hope for basic needs such as safety and shelter. Gregory Peck created an outside shell that forbids defeat, but the stress still was physical as well as mental trauma. A normal human being cannot help but crack at some point.
For those who wonder why I look at my life like I am a character in a movie, it helps at times like these to be Gregory Peck.
UPDATE 12/30/08: In discussion with my friend, who is currently seeing a counselor in part to make sure he is sane, thinks it is better that you ask "Am I Sane". It is worse to be obviously unbalanced and believe you are fine. If you are unable to be self-reflexive and don't have enough sense to question 'is this right?', then you probably are less likely to get help.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Bohemian By Design
Whether it's avoiding large financial excursions (especially at tax time) or throwing responsibility into the wind, living below the mean income per capita has meant that I have limits in my scope. However, I have wisely invested in my business and prize the establishment of my trade. Along with this, a trend of peaks and valleys provides me with moments to grow and moments of living in the pure essence of Bohemia.
Peaks
When times get lean, like they are now, I could almost smile. For instance, today I had an opportunity to be a cinematographer on a narrative student short being produced for school. The shoot went well and I was in a state of creative bliss, finding personal satisfaction in composing shots, and using my experience to help with continuity and time management (to a degree). In about 5 hours, I did about 40 setups with no crew, other than the director. Even more could have been accomplished, but there was the inevitable lag time for the roommates recruited to be actors (including one with a broken foot).
Valleys
All during this time, I was discovering that my car, which we were driving to the location, was losing it's brakes. On a hill. With freshly coated snow making the road slick. At one point, a lady was sliding right toward me as we were driving up a hill. I put the car in reverse and got out of her way. I literally could feel my mind split in two as one side was in mission mode to accomplish the video production, while my head was exploding over the dilemma with my car. Once again my hard earned money will be flushed away into expensive car repairs, a hard rut of a trend like my peaks and valleys.
Change By Design
It is only because I found about the study of this repetitive aspect to our psychology that I could take on as fact that everyone develops a formula to survive, hence we expect the same results every time we apply that formula. My formula involves periods of sluggish creativity that are spent reinforcing my assets, followed by lean times where I am prolific in my creative mediums, but earning nary enough to pay the bills. There is a similar trend to periods of travel. There could be a single year traveling a great deal followed by periods where I never leave the state. In fact, it doesn't even correlate to whether I'm broke or not.
The Art Of Chaos
So, to make it through these peaks and valleys, I have the attitude of surfing. I ride the wave and try to keep afloat. It is thrilling to be able to find the wherewithal to make things happen when life gets harder. I can base my future on the fact that I know my track record shows that I land on my feet, and that I usually find myself in a better place after every cycle of change. I base this on the reliance that formula psychology (not it's real name) is a fact, meaning I probably couldn't break my cycle if I tried.
Are We Depressed Yet?
It is an odd thing, the timing of our new great depression (what's so great about it?) is coming at the moment we as a country are now getting over the depressing period of terrorism scares and the needless war in Iraq. There is an air of optimism and re-establishing harmony in the world. Perhaps, even though layoffs and bank failures loom, nobody is panicking. I myself am taking a huge financial gamble on my new career, and have no idea how I will make it past the middle of 2009. I have a fortunate personality trait that doesn't worry about money. I maintain an attitude that money is not as important as other things, and everything will work out.
And I have the track record to prove it.
Whether it's avoiding large financial excursions (especially at tax time) or throwing responsibility into the wind, living below the mean income per capita has meant that I have limits in my scope. However, I have wisely invested in my business and prize the establishment of my trade. Along with this, a trend of peaks and valleys provides me with moments to grow and moments of living in the pure essence of Bohemia.
Peaks
When times get lean, like they are now, I could almost smile. For instance, today I had an opportunity to be a cinematographer on a narrative student short being produced for school. The shoot went well and I was in a state of creative bliss, finding personal satisfaction in composing shots, and using my experience to help with continuity and time management (to a degree). In about 5 hours, I did about 40 setups with no crew, other than the director. Even more could have been accomplished, but there was the inevitable lag time for the roommates recruited to be actors (including one with a broken foot).
Valleys
All during this time, I was discovering that my car, which we were driving to the location, was losing it's brakes. On a hill. With freshly coated snow making the road slick. At one point, a lady was sliding right toward me as we were driving up a hill. I put the car in reverse and got out of her way. I literally could feel my mind split in two as one side was in mission mode to accomplish the video production, while my head was exploding over the dilemma with my car. Once again my hard earned money will be flushed away into expensive car repairs, a hard rut of a trend like my peaks and valleys.
Change By Design
It is only because I found about the study of this repetitive aspect to our psychology that I could take on as fact that everyone develops a formula to survive, hence we expect the same results every time we apply that formula. My formula involves periods of sluggish creativity that are spent reinforcing my assets, followed by lean times where I am prolific in my creative mediums, but earning nary enough to pay the bills. There is a similar trend to periods of travel. There could be a single year traveling a great deal followed by periods where I never leave the state. In fact, it doesn't even correlate to whether I'm broke or not.
The Art Of Chaos
So, to make it through these peaks and valleys, I have the attitude of surfing. I ride the wave and try to keep afloat. It is thrilling to be able to find the wherewithal to make things happen when life gets harder. I can base my future on the fact that I know my track record shows that I land on my feet, and that I usually find myself in a better place after every cycle of change. I base this on the reliance that formula psychology (not it's real name) is a fact, meaning I probably couldn't break my cycle if I tried.
Are We Depressed Yet?
It is an odd thing, the timing of our new great depression (what's so great about it?) is coming at the moment we as a country are now getting over the depressing period of terrorism scares and the needless war in Iraq. There is an air of optimism and re-establishing harmony in the world. Perhaps, even though layoffs and bank failures loom, nobody is panicking. I myself am taking a huge financial gamble on my new career, and have no idea how I will make it past the middle of 2009. I have a fortunate personality trait that doesn't worry about money. I maintain an attitude that money is not as important as other things, and everything will work out.
And I have the track record to prove it.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
The Atheist, The Jew, & The Agnostic
I had a three way discussion between me, an agnostic, my friend Eric a converted Jew, and my friend Chris a strict Atheist. All of us are very intelligent, and were close enough friends to be very frank with our beliefs. One thing that drove the Atheist crazy was how both the Jew and the Agnostic claimed to have valid philosophies. What drove him even more crazy was that we were calling his view of reality a philosophy.
Unification Theory
I tried for the next hour to break down the fundamentals of our reality; big bang, evolution, and the like, and how there is a paradox. Such as the notion of a particle and a wave existing at the same time. The Jew and I agreed that there is a larger purpose in our existence, and that there are common fundamentals among all religions. In this essay, I want to show how come all three philosophies are valid. I don't think I will ever change the minds of my friends and their beliefs, and they will be great buddies of mine.
The Atheist has a big problem with organised religion, less with the type of spirituality that I have fostered. I agree with the Atheist that the fundamental of organised religions have been manipulated where they are used to fight wars and suppress groups of people. The Jew agrees somewhat but believes there is holy ground that rightfully belongs to them, and has no problem with expelling other people from this land. This interweaving of what is right but limited to the other's philosophy is a beautiful piece of woven fabric. It is the thread of our beliefs that binds our world.
What came across was the common theme between our views, they are all coherent explanations for the world around us. The Atheist would scream "facts!", all existence should be based solely on verifiable physical truth. It is a beautiful appreciation of math and physics, and how it all makes sense and has no ambiguity. Indeed, we need this box of 3 dimensional laws to create an efficient world allow it's inhabitants to live safely and easily. Neither the Jew or I disagree in general that we have a physical universe that acts and behaves in way scientists have calculated. We had some disagreement whether other life exists in the universe, with me noting that some scientists calculate using simple probability that there must be other life.
Behind the Curtain
The point where I disagree with strict atheism is what happens when you try to look beyond the corners of our reality. If our 3D universe existed with no other than the established laws of physics, then we live in a finite world that has a boundary, and nothing exists beyond that boundary. Unfortunately, every time we think we will reach that boundary, the mystery grows deeper. If we look at the progression of science, we pursue the Macro and the Micro.
Macro
We start with how our solar system behaves, then expand to deeper space, and look ultimately toward the beginning of our universe, the big bang. Yet we cannot get all the way to the beginning of time. No laws and no physical evidence can tell us what happened before the big bang, or better yet, how come the big bang happened at all.
Micro
We start by looking at the building blocks of our physical world, molecules, particles, atoms, electrons, quarks, strings, etc., etc. Each new subatomic particle smasher intends to brings us closer to smallest piece of the physical fabric, only to discover that it is even yet smaller. No scientist can seem to be able to find that boundary.
The Religion of Knowledge
The Atheist has a valid argument that since there is no evidence of any exterior guiding hand outside the physical world, that no one can conclude it exists. But in the face of how scientists have yet to find the answer to the ultimate question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, we are still just graduating from Kindergarten in our knowledge of the known universe. I am not doubting some new answers will be found in the decades to come that may bring us closer, but I look at the trend that has developed, where each step we take forward only reveals another step. The Atheist won't allow the physical to be tainted by the theoretical. However, Philosophy is a vital column in the pillars of knowledge. Just as much as it is important to be firmly grounded in facts derived from measurements and repeated experiments, we need to develop theories to make these collection of facts make sense.
Why are the polar caps melting? The Earth as a larger ecosystem cannot be predicted easily even with advanced measurements and calculations. We need theories to help us look into the effects that this global event is capable of producing. One recent theory that tries to help explain such a large interaction of different physical influences is the Chaos theory. Such as watching a stick float down a stream and trying to determine what section of the river it will float, it is nearly impossible to calculate the dynamics of the chaotic water. However, we can still guide a surfboard along an ocean wave using a general understanding of the greater behaviour of natural forces. Chaos Theory is useful when trying to predict behaviour by observing trends, and using knowledge of the Macro to help explain the Micro, or vice versa. It has been found that nature seems to have a design, and is not purely chaotic. This bell curve of probabilities helps gather the intertwined physical systems into a coherent behaviour. The bell curve causes a certain number of gusts of wind to turn into a hurricane.
Random Philosophy
Philosophy has a structure that acknowledges the Physical world. In this case, it is the physical boundaries of knowledge itself. How come we think? What happens when we ask this question is that we end up with very little evidence about why we are able to imagine in the first place. This goes back to to the way the ape was able to rise above the animal kingdom. If we never ask why then we may never learn about our existence as a whole. One explanation is divine guidance. The basis of all religions is a philosophy about a greater intelligence. Because Philosophy cannot determine the origin of intellectual thought, the divine guidance explanation is a valid one. However, we obviously can't prove it because we don't possess instruments to measure anything outside our 3 dimensional reality. Does that mean it doesn't exist? We also cannot build a time machine to go back to the first millionths of a second of the big bang to observe what happened, but that doesn't mean the big bang did not exist.
So back to trends and probabilities. Chaos theory indicates that there is not a truly random universe. Humans are born with physical variations, however there is a bell curve of people with normal health and average intelligence at the majority, with less and less numbers as health and intelligence is more and more abnormal. On one end of the curve are relatively smaller numbers of handicapped people while the other end produces a smaller number of geniuses and super-athletes. If nature's order operated strictly by mathematics and had a truly random origin, then we should have an equal number of abnormal people as well as normal people. In a truly random universe, the probabilities for all the conditions to be perfect for humans to exist on this planet seem to next to impossible. Humans may have developed a perfect biological form from random chaotic cell growth over millions of years, but the fact such a structure exists that can produce variants can also be seen as an idea of a purposeful design.
Who Designed Evolution?
Philosophy asks the question, What is Life? Another head scratcher. What is the force behind the mechanism that causes creation of a baby. The cooperation of individual cellular functions (such as a liver or skin) to bind together to a cohesive larger organism with such perfection (nothing is wasted or underdeveloped) seems too complicated to happen, even or eons of time. A pile of rocks won't turn into the Brooklyn bridge no matter how many millions of years you give them. My philosophy of life believes that Earth is not random and hence a purpose exists for humans. All of this purpose behind the Chaos view of the world still is a far cry from what Religion is. Religion sees life as a gift from God, and that we honour that gift by living by his wishes.
I lose my friend the Atheist when it comes to Philosophy and Chaos Theory. Facts, solid physical foundations, don't care where they come from. My friend the Jew sees what we have in common. Yes, there is something driving creation, the intellect came from outside the physical world. The intellect first found itself in a dream. The dream caused confusion, everything nebulous, no way to grasp why he was an individual, alone and apart from the greater intelligence that allowed this free will to exist as a separate entity. The bible called this guy Adam. The dreamworld was lonely, and there was a fear of that separation from the big collective. The greater intellect produced a biological setting to make his dreamworld less nebulous. This biological design itself was a piece of art, along with the beautiful idea of giving part of it's own intellect a chance to separate from itself as a celebration of the existence of intellect itself. The biological design was a reflection of the perfection of the greater intellect. This bible called this biological creation The Garden of Eden. The intellect thus was divided from a single dreamer in his singular lonely dream world and split into male and female, based on the biological bipedal organism. Then the Earth, and presumably the Universe along with it, was made as a place to live, using fire and water as the basis of life.
Church of Life
These people used nature as their teacher. And is the sensible religion for me. If I never read the bible ( I haven't), and I wanted answers to the big questions of Life, I observe nature for clues. This is where the Atheist and I can shake hands, because he sees biology along with math as the answer to everything, and can get along just fine before the invention of modern Religion. But even so, there is an overwhelming amount of facts that show that a Jesus phenomena occurred. All sides conclude that this historical event in a particular moment in time was a spiritual awakening. Rocks didn't magically move around, the sun didn't stop rising, but a philosophy that stirred people up took hold and continues that grip for the majority of the population today.
My problem with the philosophy of the Jew is that it believes it's own slant on what happened back then, and makes them right and others wrong. I think a true religion doesn't make other people wrong, and all people need to find understanding with one another. One thing I reluctantly acknowledge is that this Utopian idea of universal love is too ideal for selfish minded people. Back to that Garden of Eden; when the intellect was no longer lonely, and appreciated the beauty of the biological world, he wanted it for himself. He wanted to control it. The bible explains this as Adam grabbing a piece of fruit off a particular tree even though it blemished the perfection of the tree. It was a selfish act that was kind of an insult to the creator. I see the idea of a transition from dream to reality as a birth of the physical world that was part of the experiment setup by the greater intelligence. The experiment's hypothesis is this:
"What would happen if I put a free thinking intellect in a biological world and let him exist on it's own?"
Would this petri dish called Earth be able to self exist or would the Free Will cause problems?
Here's my philosophy:
Earth is a experiment to see if Free Will can choose Peace over Destruction.
After a period time, as our ancestors started becoming more tribal and fearful, it was decided the rules would be broken, just once, by sending a message to a couple people around the Roman times. They gave them the message that a greater intelligence existed and they hoped that they would all coexist peacefully. This divine intervention was of course just a suggestion, since people still possessed Free Will and had the independence to decide for themselves.
My sad analysis is that we are failing the test. The problem with free will was that it allowed darker thoughts to grow into their own angry animals. Fear is a living entity to react to in order to survive. But the fear combined with imagination causes over-reaction and selfishness. Part of the problem is the denial of the nature. We don't see any other animals (save for rare instances) where they kill each other. Nature coexists peacefully (most of the time). Man and Nature is able to coexist without suffering, but the selfishness and greediness has disrupted an ecosystem that can only operate properly if everyone cooperates. Since Free Will means that it is our choice to cooperate or not, then we can't stop those that choose not to.
The Experimenter and The Subject
There are stories about this also. There is the idea that there will be a point where the greater intelligence will get fed up and kick over the chess board. There is another idea that there will be an event again like last time, perhaps it will seem like "The Day the Earth Stood Still". Here's where I side with the Atheist, I think it really is up to us alone. We have to become less selfish and realise we are quite literally going to kill ourselves. Time is becoming critical by all accounts; pollution and overpopulation is causing massive Earth changes, and nuclear annihilation amongst other manmade hazards are capable of killing millions.
Here is where the Agnostic, the Jew, and The Atheist come together. Who cares how the Earth got this way, we need to wizen up and start fixing things before it's too late. Solving the Israeli and Arab conflict is critical to getting things fixed. What is the ultimate answer to solving this ancient conflict? What does God want us to do? How will God Solve this? What side is God on? Who should concede, who should prevail?
And The Answer Is...
There is no answer, because this is an experiment, not a quiz where the right answer is A, B, or C. The only answer is that all sides give up their grievances and learn to cooperate. But selfishness and greediness has grown to the point that we are now unable to give up or allow ourselves to cooperate. I also agree with the Atheist that we are destined for self destruction as long as religions don't give up their holier than thou attitude and quit persecuting others. The Jew insists that this is God's Will, and they are the only true religion. Once again, none of us deny that best laid plans get spoiled very easily and that no side is without fault.
Unification Theory
I tried for the next hour to break down the fundamentals of our reality; big bang, evolution, and the like, and how there is a paradox. Such as the notion of a particle and a wave existing at the same time. The Jew and I agreed that there is a larger purpose in our existence, and that there are common fundamentals among all religions. In this essay, I want to show how come all three philosophies are valid. I don't think I will ever change the minds of my friends and their beliefs, and they will be great buddies of mine.
The Atheist has a big problem with organised religion, less with the type of spirituality that I have fostered. I agree with the Atheist that the fundamental of organised religions have been manipulated where they are used to fight wars and suppress groups of people. The Jew agrees somewhat but believes there is holy ground that rightfully belongs to them, and has no problem with expelling other people from this land. This interweaving of what is right but limited to the other's philosophy is a beautiful piece of woven fabric. It is the thread of our beliefs that binds our world.
What came across was the common theme between our views, they are all coherent explanations for the world around us. The Atheist would scream "facts!", all existence should be based solely on verifiable physical truth. It is a beautiful appreciation of math and physics, and how it all makes sense and has no ambiguity. Indeed, we need this box of 3 dimensional laws to create an efficient world allow it's inhabitants to live safely and easily. Neither the Jew or I disagree in general that we have a physical universe that acts and behaves in way scientists have calculated. We had some disagreement whether other life exists in the universe, with me noting that some scientists calculate using simple probability that there must be other life.
Behind the Curtain
The point where I disagree with strict atheism is what happens when you try to look beyond the corners of our reality. If our 3D universe existed with no other than the established laws of physics, then we live in a finite world that has a boundary, and nothing exists beyond that boundary. Unfortunately, every time we think we will reach that boundary, the mystery grows deeper. If we look at the progression of science, we pursue the Macro and the Micro.
Macro
We start with how our solar system behaves, then expand to deeper space, and look ultimately toward the beginning of our universe, the big bang. Yet we cannot get all the way to the beginning of time. No laws and no physical evidence can tell us what happened before the big bang, or better yet, how come the big bang happened at all.
Micro
We start by looking at the building blocks of our physical world, molecules, particles, atoms, electrons, quarks, strings, etc., etc. Each new subatomic particle smasher intends to brings us closer to smallest piece of the physical fabric, only to discover that it is even yet smaller. No scientist can seem to be able to find that boundary.
The Religion of Knowledge
The Atheist has a valid argument that since there is no evidence of any exterior guiding hand outside the physical world, that no one can conclude it exists. But in the face of how scientists have yet to find the answer to the ultimate question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, we are still just graduating from Kindergarten in our knowledge of the known universe. I am not doubting some new answers will be found in the decades to come that may bring us closer, but I look at the trend that has developed, where each step we take forward only reveals another step. The Atheist won't allow the physical to be tainted by the theoretical. However, Philosophy is a vital column in the pillars of knowledge. Just as much as it is important to be firmly grounded in facts derived from measurements and repeated experiments, we need to develop theories to make these collection of facts make sense.
Why are the polar caps melting? The Earth as a larger ecosystem cannot be predicted easily even with advanced measurements and calculations. We need theories to help us look into the effects that this global event is capable of producing. One recent theory that tries to help explain such a large interaction of different physical influences is the Chaos theory. Such as watching a stick float down a stream and trying to determine what section of the river it will float, it is nearly impossible to calculate the dynamics of the chaotic water. However, we can still guide a surfboard along an ocean wave using a general understanding of the greater behaviour of natural forces. Chaos Theory is useful when trying to predict behaviour by observing trends, and using knowledge of the Macro to help explain the Micro, or vice versa. It has been found that nature seems to have a design, and is not purely chaotic. This bell curve of probabilities helps gather the intertwined physical systems into a coherent behaviour. The bell curve causes a certain number of gusts of wind to turn into a hurricane.
Random Philosophy
Philosophy has a structure that acknowledges the Physical world. In this case, it is the physical boundaries of knowledge itself. How come we think? What happens when we ask this question is that we end up with very little evidence about why we are able to imagine in the first place. This goes back to to the way the ape was able to rise above the animal kingdom. If we never ask why then we may never learn about our existence as a whole. One explanation is divine guidance. The basis of all religions is a philosophy about a greater intelligence. Because Philosophy cannot determine the origin of intellectual thought, the divine guidance explanation is a valid one. However, we obviously can't prove it because we don't possess instruments to measure anything outside our 3 dimensional reality. Does that mean it doesn't exist? We also cannot build a time machine to go back to the first millionths of a second of the big bang to observe what happened, but that doesn't mean the big bang did not exist.
So back to trends and probabilities. Chaos theory indicates that there is not a truly random universe. Humans are born with physical variations, however there is a bell curve of people with normal health and average intelligence at the majority, with less and less numbers as health and intelligence is more and more abnormal. On one end of the curve are relatively smaller numbers of handicapped people while the other end produces a smaller number of geniuses and super-athletes. If nature's order operated strictly by mathematics and had a truly random origin, then we should have an equal number of abnormal people as well as normal people. In a truly random universe, the probabilities for all the conditions to be perfect for humans to exist on this planet seem to next to impossible. Humans may have developed a perfect biological form from random chaotic cell growth over millions of years, but the fact such a structure exists that can produce variants can also be seen as an idea of a purposeful design.
Who Designed Evolution?
Philosophy asks the question, What is Life? Another head scratcher. What is the force behind the mechanism that causes creation of a baby. The cooperation of individual cellular functions (such as a liver or skin) to bind together to a cohesive larger organism with such perfection (nothing is wasted or underdeveloped) seems too complicated to happen, even or eons of time. A pile of rocks won't turn into the Brooklyn bridge no matter how many millions of years you give them. My philosophy of life believes that Earth is not random and hence a purpose exists for humans. All of this purpose behind the Chaos view of the world still is a far cry from what Religion is. Religion sees life as a gift from God, and that we honour that gift by living by his wishes.
I lose my friend the Atheist when it comes to Philosophy and Chaos Theory. Facts, solid physical foundations, don't care where they come from. My friend the Jew sees what we have in common. Yes, there is something driving creation, the intellect came from outside the physical world. The intellect first found itself in a dream. The dream caused confusion, everything nebulous, no way to grasp why he was an individual, alone and apart from the greater intelligence that allowed this free will to exist as a separate entity. The bible called this guy Adam. The dreamworld was lonely, and there was a fear of that separation from the big collective. The greater intellect produced a biological setting to make his dreamworld less nebulous. This biological design itself was a piece of art, along with the beautiful idea of giving part of it's own intellect a chance to separate from itself as a celebration of the existence of intellect itself. The biological design was a reflection of the perfection of the greater intellect. This bible called this biological creation The Garden of Eden. The intellect thus was divided from a single dreamer in his singular lonely dream world and split into male and female, based on the biological bipedal organism. Then the Earth, and presumably the Universe along with it, was made as a place to live, using fire and water as the basis of life.
Church of Life
These people used nature as their teacher. And is the sensible religion for me. If I never read the bible ( I haven't), and I wanted answers to the big questions of Life, I observe nature for clues. This is where the Atheist and I can shake hands, because he sees biology along with math as the answer to everything, and can get along just fine before the invention of modern Religion. But even so, there is an overwhelming amount of facts that show that a Jesus phenomena occurred. All sides conclude that this historical event in a particular moment in time was a spiritual awakening. Rocks didn't magically move around, the sun didn't stop rising, but a philosophy that stirred people up took hold and continues that grip for the majority of the population today.
My problem with the philosophy of the Jew is that it believes it's own slant on what happened back then, and makes them right and others wrong. I think a true religion doesn't make other people wrong, and all people need to find understanding with one another. One thing I reluctantly acknowledge is that this Utopian idea of universal love is too ideal for selfish minded people. Back to that Garden of Eden; when the intellect was no longer lonely, and appreciated the beauty of the biological world, he wanted it for himself. He wanted to control it. The bible explains this as Adam grabbing a piece of fruit off a particular tree even though it blemished the perfection of the tree. It was a selfish act that was kind of an insult to the creator. I see the idea of a transition from dream to reality as a birth of the physical world that was part of the experiment setup by the greater intelligence. The experiment's hypothesis is this:
"What would happen if I put a free thinking intellect in a biological world and let him exist on it's own?"
Would this petri dish called Earth be able to self exist or would the Free Will cause problems?
Here's my philosophy:
Earth is a experiment to see if Free Will can choose Peace over Destruction.
After a period time, as our ancestors started becoming more tribal and fearful, it was decided the rules would be broken, just once, by sending a message to a couple people around the Roman times. They gave them the message that a greater intelligence existed and they hoped that they would all coexist peacefully. This divine intervention was of course just a suggestion, since people still possessed Free Will and had the independence to decide for themselves.
My sad analysis is that we are failing the test. The problem with free will was that it allowed darker thoughts to grow into their own angry animals. Fear is a living entity to react to in order to survive. But the fear combined with imagination causes over-reaction and selfishness. Part of the problem is the denial of the nature. We don't see any other animals (save for rare instances) where they kill each other. Nature coexists peacefully (most of the time). Man and Nature is able to coexist without suffering, but the selfishness and greediness has disrupted an ecosystem that can only operate properly if everyone cooperates. Since Free Will means that it is our choice to cooperate or not, then we can't stop those that choose not to.
The Experimenter and The Subject
There are stories about this also. There is the idea that there will be a point where the greater intelligence will get fed up and kick over the chess board. There is another idea that there will be an event again like last time, perhaps it will seem like "The Day the Earth Stood Still". Here's where I side with the Atheist, I think it really is up to us alone. We have to become less selfish and realise we are quite literally going to kill ourselves. Time is becoming critical by all accounts; pollution and overpopulation is causing massive Earth changes, and nuclear annihilation amongst other manmade hazards are capable of killing millions.
Here is where the Agnostic, the Jew, and The Atheist come together. Who cares how the Earth got this way, we need to wizen up and start fixing things before it's too late. Solving the Israeli and Arab conflict is critical to getting things fixed. What is the ultimate answer to solving this ancient conflict? What does God want us to do? How will God Solve this? What side is God on? Who should concede, who should prevail?
And The Answer Is...
There is no answer, because this is an experiment, not a quiz where the right answer is A, B, or C. The only answer is that all sides give up their grievances and learn to cooperate. But selfishness and greediness has grown to the point that we are now unable to give up or allow ourselves to cooperate. I also agree with the Atheist that we are destined for self destruction as long as religions don't give up their holier than thou attitude and quit persecuting others. The Jew insists that this is God's Will, and they are the only true religion. Once again, none of us deny that best laid plans get spoiled very easily and that no side is without fault.
Friday, March 28, 2008
The State of Ken
Ken-Of-All-Trades
When I first started my adventure in switching to All Freelance: All Day / All Night, I felt an achievement and a freedom. Despite times when things have been slow, I have this over-riding confidence that my track record has established me. If the only thing to stress out about is the stress of keeping busy, then I can relax. I have subscribed to a job listing service that feeds me job ads everyday. Throughout my working career, I have done over 40 different occupations; from Weed Whacker (my first job) to Computer Programmer Analyst. I became reminiscent of the unorthodox path my adult life has taken as I looked at the job titles in the ads. When you need to pay the rent, a job right now is more important than a job you love. The worst one for me years ago was unloading a truck in the back of a Target store at 5:00 a.m. in the morning. I quit within a month and got a job at a video rental store.
The State of Ken
My state of mind, now over a year in Full Freelance mode, is desperately clinging to that track record. One trend is that every new long-term job I get is better than the previous one. It affirms that I am still on the proverbial 'ladder to success'. Of course, it's taking a lot longer than I thought it would. In this case, I have to button up and weather through another full year while obtaining my design degree. It has forced me to discontinue looking for long-term positions, so that it doesn't interfere with what I consider my current job. Between the 18 hours of lectures and 12 hours of homework every week, it basically is no different than a full-time job. What is unknown until I reach the other end of the pipeline is how I manage to stay afloat in the meantime.
Super-Freelance Man
Certainly I can't jump on a plane and go sightseeing or invest in new equipment. On the other hand, I have done the math and expect to be able to keep my level of creature comforts for the time being. I expect to, that is, if I get the average amount of lucrative gigs throughout the year, (such as the video stint I did for a week in Palm Springs last year). It's both stressful and exciting working in a business that can take you somewhere you never could predict, with a phone call out-of-the-blue.
Damn Kids
Alongside the ladder climbing is reaching middle-age. I never thought about what it means to be middle-age before I got here, but one thing I realised is that you get credit for experience. At least, that is, from people smart enough to recognise the value of experience. Which brings me back to my design degree. My frustration when applying for video editing positions in 2007 was the apparent discounting of 20 years of experience working in the industry. I was being passed over for kids coming straight out of college. I received training for everything in my profession, which continues constantly due to the nature of the technology. But it seems the employers care more about the piece of paper. The bright side of getting the design degree is that the faculty recognises my experience. I've received more respect and recognition there than I did during the job search process.
When I first started my adventure in switching to All Freelance: All Day / All Night, I felt an achievement and a freedom. Despite times when things have been slow, I have this over-riding confidence that my track record has established me. If the only thing to stress out about is the stress of keeping busy, then I can relax. I have subscribed to a job listing service that feeds me job ads everyday. Throughout my working career, I have done over 40 different occupations; from Weed Whacker (my first job) to Computer Programmer Analyst. I became reminiscent of the unorthodox path my adult life has taken as I looked at the job titles in the ads. When you need to pay the rent, a job right now is more important than a job you love. The worst one for me years ago was unloading a truck in the back of a Target store at 5:00 a.m. in the morning. I quit within a month and got a job at a video rental store.
The State of Ken
My state of mind, now over a year in Full Freelance mode, is desperately clinging to that track record. One trend is that every new long-term job I get is better than the previous one. It affirms that I am still on the proverbial 'ladder to success'. Of course, it's taking a lot longer than I thought it would. In this case, I have to button up and weather through another full year while obtaining my design degree. It has forced me to discontinue looking for long-term positions, so that it doesn't interfere with what I consider my current job. Between the 18 hours of lectures and 12 hours of homework every week, it basically is no different than a full-time job. What is unknown until I reach the other end of the pipeline is how I manage to stay afloat in the meantime.
Super-Freelance Man
Certainly I can't jump on a plane and go sightseeing or invest in new equipment. On the other hand, I have done the math and expect to be able to keep my level of creature comforts for the time being. I expect to, that is, if I get the average amount of lucrative gigs throughout the year, (such as the video stint I did for a week in Palm Springs last year). It's both stressful and exciting working in a business that can take you somewhere you never could predict, with a phone call out-of-the-blue.
Damn Kids
Alongside the ladder climbing is reaching middle-age. I never thought about what it means to be middle-age before I got here, but one thing I realised is that you get credit for experience. At least, that is, from people smart enough to recognise the value of experience. Which brings me back to my design degree. My frustration when applying for video editing positions in 2007 was the apparent discounting of 20 years of experience working in the industry. I was being passed over for kids coming straight out of college. I received training for everything in my profession, which continues constantly due to the nature of the technology. But it seems the employers care more about the piece of paper. The bright side of getting the design degree is that the faculty recognises my experience. I've received more respect and recognition there than I did during the job search process.
Monday, February 11, 2008
It is in our Nature to destroy History
After taking philosophy courses in college, I learned to observe the world with some more acute types of cause-and-effect revelations. One was observing human behaviour, and to find a non-stop trend of this behaviour for most of mankind's history. A couple great revelations for me were:
Every Human Being must deal with their Sexuality.
You can't go be a priest and declare celibacy. It doesn't work that way. Nevertheless, we end up with scandal after scandal in church after church with priests molesting boys. You have to express your sexuality, it's not something you can turn off. With rich and powerful people allowing themselves to be be compromised, you might think since they are such intelligent and calculating people, how they could allow this to happen. It is very unfortunate when people can't be comfortable with their sexuality and it comes out in an unacceptable fashion.
It is Man's Nature to Destroy History
Whenever I see images of ancient structures from around the world, they all have one thing in common. They have been nearly destroyed. The only ones that have stood the test of time are the solid rock structures, and even they are still damaged. There once was a huge library in Egypt, containing the fruits of knowledge at the time, with an ability for society to rise above feudalism. It was destroyed, and every single book inside burned. When the invasion of Iraq in 2003 reached Baghdad, the museum there was also looted. Today in the news, I read that an art gallery in Switzerland was robbed of extremely valuable works of art by Picasso, Cezanne, Degas, Monet, and Van Gogh. These stolen paintings are rarely ever found.
It Is Nature's Nature to Destroy History
I phrased my observation that it is "Man's Nature", because nature, left to itself, also tries it's best to destroy history. But Nature isn't being unkind, it is merely taking back the pieces of earth used to construct the structure. Any house left that is abandoned will eventually be taken over by plant growth and the elements. Wind and rain will eventually permeate the interior. Vines and the like are capable of breaking concrete and making their way through cracks. Birds and other other animals will take it over. However, it is man's own folly to not preserve pinnacles of achievement, the only artifacts left to teach us about a different age, thousands of years ago. When the Taliban took over in Afghanistan, they gleefully destroyed museums full of artifacts, and blew up two large statues of Buddhas carved into a mountain. What is most disturbing is another related axiom:
Those who do not Learn from History are Condemned to Repeat it.
Most people know this phrase from images of Jim Jones at Jonestown. But these words have been spoken also about the Iraq war in 2003. There were many in Washington D.C., including Viet-nam war veteran Colin Powell, warning about learning from the mistakes made during the Viet-nam war. So there are two forces of Nature that are working against retaining wisdom through the ages. We have it in ourselves to destroy old things, such as breaking the windows of an old farm house. We also have it in ourselves to deny our own history, forcing us to suffer the unneeded consequences of not heeding our own warnings.
The Truth Shall Set You Free
One thing that has become the electronic version of cosmic consciousness, is the world wide web. It is bringing open thinking to places in the world where it is forbidden. It is making the large corporate media lose control of their version of the news. Most importantly, it is preventing secrets from being hidden, and allowing the truth to be known. (Unless, of course, countries force corporations to take control of content on the internet). My blog handle is "KG Prophet", which is merely my initials paired with my favourite analogue synthesiser. However, the idea of being a forecaster, whether it be for business, weather, or intelligence, you need to keep your ear to the ground. To spot trends, or be able to see the forest for the trees, you need to compare the present to similar situations in the past. In the case of the Iraq war in 2003, many people, including Colin Powell and George H Bush, made accurate predictions about the chaotic results of the invasion.
How to Be a Prophet for Fun and Profit
Perhaps we can calmly look at the trends, and make pragmatic decisions about preventing new problems. Global Warming and it's consequences are one obvious concern. But, also the increase of military aggression by our country, causing other countries to change from a peaceful profile to a war posture. What caused my concern today is the proliferation of art museums being robbed of pieces of history, since most museums cannot afford the proper security. Lost to future generations is a chance to witness these works, (except once removed as a copy). The same will also be for many other landmarks, which have succumbed to Man and Nature over Time.
Every Human Being must deal with their Sexuality.
You can't go be a priest and declare celibacy. It doesn't work that way. Nevertheless, we end up with scandal after scandal in church after church with priests molesting boys. You have to express your sexuality, it's not something you can turn off. With rich and powerful people allowing themselves to be be compromised, you might think since they are such intelligent and calculating people, how they could allow this to happen. It is very unfortunate when people can't be comfortable with their sexuality and it comes out in an unacceptable fashion.
It is Man's Nature to Destroy History
Whenever I see images of ancient structures from around the world, they all have one thing in common. They have been nearly destroyed. The only ones that have stood the test of time are the solid rock structures, and even they are still damaged. There once was a huge library in Egypt, containing the fruits of knowledge at the time, with an ability for society to rise above feudalism. It was destroyed, and every single book inside burned. When the invasion of Iraq in 2003 reached Baghdad, the museum there was also looted. Today in the news, I read that an art gallery in Switzerland was robbed of extremely valuable works of art by Picasso, Cezanne, Degas, Monet, and Van Gogh. These stolen paintings are rarely ever found.
It Is Nature's Nature to Destroy History
I phrased my observation that it is "Man's Nature", because nature, left to itself, also tries it's best to destroy history. But Nature isn't being unkind, it is merely taking back the pieces of earth used to construct the structure. Any house left that is abandoned will eventually be taken over by plant growth and the elements. Wind and rain will eventually permeate the interior. Vines and the like are capable of breaking concrete and making their way through cracks. Birds and other other animals will take it over. However, it is man's own folly to not preserve pinnacles of achievement, the only artifacts left to teach us about a different age, thousands of years ago. When the Taliban took over in Afghanistan, they gleefully destroyed museums full of artifacts, and blew up two large statues of Buddhas carved into a mountain. What is most disturbing is another related axiom:
Those who do not Learn from History are Condemned to Repeat it.
Most people know this phrase from images of Jim Jones at Jonestown. But these words have been spoken also about the Iraq war in 2003. There were many in Washington D.C., including Viet-nam war veteran Colin Powell, warning about learning from the mistakes made during the Viet-nam war. So there are two forces of Nature that are working against retaining wisdom through the ages. We have it in ourselves to destroy old things, such as breaking the windows of an old farm house. We also have it in ourselves to deny our own history, forcing us to suffer the unneeded consequences of not heeding our own warnings.
The Truth Shall Set You Free
One thing that has become the electronic version of cosmic consciousness, is the world wide web. It is bringing open thinking to places in the world where it is forbidden. It is making the large corporate media lose control of their version of the news. Most importantly, it is preventing secrets from being hidden, and allowing the truth to be known. (Unless, of course, countries force corporations to take control of content on the internet). My blog handle is "KG Prophet", which is merely my initials paired with my favourite analogue synthesiser. However, the idea of being a forecaster, whether it be for business, weather, or intelligence, you need to keep your ear to the ground. To spot trends, or be able to see the forest for the trees, you need to compare the present to similar situations in the past. In the case of the Iraq war in 2003, many people, including Colin Powell and George H Bush, made accurate predictions about the chaotic results of the invasion.
How to Be a Prophet for Fun and Profit
Perhaps we can calmly look at the trends, and make pragmatic decisions about preventing new problems. Global Warming and it's consequences are one obvious concern. But, also the increase of military aggression by our country, causing other countries to change from a peaceful profile to a war posture. What caused my concern today is the proliferation of art museums being robbed of pieces of history, since most museums cannot afford the proper security. Lost to future generations is a chance to witness these works, (except once removed as a copy). The same will also be for many other landmarks, which have succumbed to Man and Nature over Time.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Cold Days - I'm 43
My unemployment ran out a month ago. I'm already in school, already on the dean's list. But this time of winter is usually the slow season for freelance. Less productions happen because, well because nobody likes to work in the bitter cold. But really, how is it you see people walking around like it's another day when it's -15? You get used to it. Here's a couple Minnesota Cold Secrets:
However, January 2008 has been unusually productive (not quite profitable) and affirms the massive amount of capital needed to start my flash/web design career, along with rebuilding my G5. Being productive usually makes me happy. But stepping back from myself (how does one do that?) I have seen that I am more irritated, almost all the time. Things that I might openly complain about when they happen around me, I first think about how to frame it in a diplomatic way, delay the response, then when the time is right, release the irritation through humour.
The more Self-Deprecating I am, the more Self-Esteem I have.
When I am directing, I nervously jump into master of ceremonies mode, and become a comedian. This helps keep the crew happy, but also has landed me in trouble when a wisecrack about the talent gets around (not that they didn't deserve it). Most of the time what I do when I'm in charge is expose my faults. I apologise to the satellite people because I don't know enough about the technology to understand why there is breakup. That kind of thing. Directing live shoots are fun because it's the closest I'll get to being a submarine commander. (Nevermind). As I try to keep people's attention, I normally don't feel they are interested in what I have to say. Although this is probably not true, it helps keep my ego in line. Therefore, when I speak to others, I treat them as equals, or better. They are graciously providing their help (as many volunteers on an access shoot do), and I can only humbly beg for them to fulfill my bidding, knowing their contribution is recognised.
Tension and Release
Having spent a year working mostly by myself at home(along with my cat), now I am back in a working environment. Even though it is a technical school, I treat it exactly the same as a job. As someone who has taught classes in the past, and as someone who is the same age as the instructors in class, I cannot help but critique their performances. I may talk to the dean about my thoughts, but they are comments about improving the school experience, not about teaching styles. One thing that I think many instructors don't realise is the power of humour. Technical school can be very challenging, and for many of those that are around 20, they are in the prime of their lives, where a whirlwind of experience of life after high school is at it's peak. I frankly envy these people, especially since they are in peak physical shape as well (I was once that age, really). These people are not settled, and many have not worked out their life situations to get into the rhythm of doing homework on time. Of course, I talk from personal experience. I also get the impression that many of the instructors may have had a messy past, (possibly even being in punk bands). So it is important to release the tension of the hard work through humour. God knows, back at my last full-time job, each problem was a source for a bevy of jokes. Humour was the only thing keeping us sane.
Am I Depressed Yet?
There was an interesting bit of psycho-babble on the morning TV news about how it is common for people my age to go through a "mid-life crisis". A chart was displayed on the screen of a smiley face. You are gleefully happy until after high school, then it is all downhill from there. Once you get deep in the rut, only then do you rebound and have a golden retirement. I was convinced that I went through my mid-life crisis when I was thirty. That's when I knew that I had to get a second job while I was still struggling as a freelancer. So by my age, I have firmly placed myself where I want to be, creative bliss with little overhead. But yet, the TV is right. Even though the lady with way too much make-up didn't explain it too well, she did hit upon the fact that people who suffer from depression get it the worst around age 44. So that explains my added irritability. I figured there was something going on, because I don't need to be irritated at all. My life is exactly the same as it has been for years. It's all good. So when I think I'd like to complain, I'll save it as chance to crack a joke. As for this irritating depression, I'll ignore it.
- Once it gets below 0, it all feels the same. -35 degrees feels the same as -5 degrees.
- We're all fat , we ritually add a layer during the holidays to keep us warm.
However, January 2008 has been unusually productive (not quite profitable) and affirms the massive amount of capital needed to start my flash/web design career, along with rebuilding my G5. Being productive usually makes me happy. But stepping back from myself (how does one do that?) I have seen that I am more irritated, almost all the time. Things that I might openly complain about when they happen around me, I first think about how to frame it in a diplomatic way, delay the response, then when the time is right, release the irritation through humour.
The more Self-Deprecating I am, the more Self-Esteem I have.
When I am directing, I nervously jump into master of ceremonies mode, and become a comedian. This helps keep the crew happy, but also has landed me in trouble when a wisecrack about the talent gets around (not that they didn't deserve it). Most of the time what I do when I'm in charge is expose my faults. I apologise to the satellite people because I don't know enough about the technology to understand why there is breakup. That kind of thing. Directing live shoots are fun because it's the closest I'll get to being a submarine commander. (Nevermind). As I try to keep people's attention, I normally don't feel they are interested in what I have to say. Although this is probably not true, it helps keep my ego in line. Therefore, when I speak to others, I treat them as equals, or better. They are graciously providing their help (as many volunteers on an access shoot do), and I can only humbly beg for them to fulfill my bidding, knowing their contribution is recognised.
Tension and Release
Having spent a year working mostly by myself at home(along with my cat), now I am back in a working environment. Even though it is a technical school, I treat it exactly the same as a job. As someone who has taught classes in the past, and as someone who is the same age as the instructors in class, I cannot help but critique their performances. I may talk to the dean about my thoughts, but they are comments about improving the school experience, not about teaching styles. One thing that I think many instructors don't realise is the power of humour. Technical school can be very challenging, and for many of those that are around 20, they are in the prime of their lives, where a whirlwind of experience of life after high school is at it's peak. I frankly envy these people, especially since they are in peak physical shape as well (I was once that age, really). These people are not settled, and many have not worked out their life situations to get into the rhythm of doing homework on time. Of course, I talk from personal experience. I also get the impression that many of the instructors may have had a messy past, (possibly even being in punk bands). So it is important to release the tension of the hard work through humour. God knows, back at my last full-time job, each problem was a source for a bevy of jokes. Humour was the only thing keeping us sane.
Am I Depressed Yet?
There was an interesting bit of psycho-babble on the morning TV news about how it is common for people my age to go through a "mid-life crisis". A chart was displayed on the screen of a smiley face. You are gleefully happy until after high school, then it is all downhill from there. Once you get deep in the rut, only then do you rebound and have a golden retirement. I was convinced that I went through my mid-life crisis when I was thirty. That's when I knew that I had to get a second job while I was still struggling as a freelancer. So by my age, I have firmly placed myself where I want to be, creative bliss with little overhead. But yet, the TV is right. Even though the lady with way too much make-up didn't explain it too well, she did hit upon the fact that people who suffer from depression get it the worst around age 44. So that explains my added irritability. I figured there was something going on, because I don't need to be irritated at all. My life is exactly the same as it has been for years. It's all good. So when I think I'd like to complain, I'll save it as chance to crack a joke. As for this irritating depression, I'll ignore it.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Diary of a Dying Machine
The Inconsistent Blog Entries
Many months since I posted to the public my thoughts. I have been updating a journal privately, however. The purpose of my posts is that if I have something to say for which someone else may benefit, then I want it to be public somehow. I do this also with my cable access programs. It doesn't matter to me if other people care, or even if 99% of the word's population doesn't know about my blog, the point is that I have something out there.
It's Below Zero Outside
Today is DVD Backup day. I take time out every few months to do a massive backup session to preserve all the hours of work toiling in my studio and edit suite. Today is particularly appropriate, because the high today may have reached zero, but the winds were in excess of 10 mph, making it officially JESUS GOD cold. I happened to have no obligations today, so I pumped up the thermostat and wore my jogging shorts. This day was also a good time to back things up, because the main hard drive of my G5 died on me. The first signs of it's demise occurred yesterday, when my OS X would appear to boot up OK, only to display a nice blue screen instead of my desktop. My second computer was hauled up from my studio to perform some triage. Using a firewire cable, I slaved the G5 to my studio G4 and saw my two internal hard drives. OK, so they were still alive. I began to look up on apple forums some treatment for the sick patient, and tried various 'safe' startup modes. I also got wise, and figured I should start backing up my G5 internal drive while it was still responding. I got about halfway through.
The Library is a Church
One thing my life depended on getting was my brand new media library. Since I religiously backup my work to data DVD every couple weeks, I have accumulated over 300 gigs of work (not including umpteen hours of digital video stored on tape). With this simple indexing system, the Media catalogue saved all the file information for all 300 or so backup discs I have in my library. I have gotten to the point that I have been sucking in so much raw media that I have to offload a ton of stuff to keep my precious hard drive space available for ongoing projects. Because of my computer programming background, more specifically my first job out of school at a data centre, I am pretty thorough in keeping my projects organised. So I was able to retrieve about half of my hard drive, saving me from reloading all 300 backup discs again.
Rampart, This is Squad 51
Next, were all my personal notes. About a month ago, I decided to backup some of my personal notes for the sake of having them available as I dreamed up my new website( Eyeball on the News - look for it in 2008!). I continued with my backups, but then I decided to try some other remedies. Maybe this backing up was unnecessary if i could just get my G5 to come up again. So I stopped the backup of my G5 hard drive and tried to use a disk repair utility (like an EKG). There was a notion that perhaps it was some login error, and could be eliminated. Easy enough. As I rebooted the ailing G5 this time, it powered itself down. Uh oh. I plugged the firewire from the G4 back to the G5, now my G5's startup drive did not appear. No more hard drive. I pulled it out of the machine, dusted it off, checked all the connections (think the scene in "2001" where Dave is pulling the memory out of HAL). Another reboot: Charging... Clear! - - - nothing. Couple more reboots. Damn You! Live!
R.I.P. Boot Drive
My Western Digital hard drive died on me at about 12:30 p.m. on 1/19/08. I still lost many hours of work. I also lost a few applications that I no longer have access to install disks. I had few options. Since I couldn't afford health care (apple care) for my G5, I would have to pay through the nose to take my baby to a clinic. The last resort I left for myself when the hard drive was still showing a pulse was to wipe it clean and start over. But now, I'm sure even if I transported it to any repair shop, they would call it DOA. There is a service out there can retrieve missing programs on my dead hard drive, but I could easily just buy the lost applications for a little more than they would charge. So open heart surgery was out.
Software Parenting is Expensive
After consulting a fellow G5 owner Vince, I concluded that I had to accept that my hard drive was gone, save the hospital bills, and rebuild the G5 on my own. It'll cost me about $600 to buy the lost programs. If I didn't do this, then over 200 hours of work on projects would be lost. Ironically, I just became a proud father of the full CS3 master collection, which took two tries to load on my G5 last week. Now I am getting slapped with another hefty fee to get my other software package. Karma works that way, and the ying of the yang of it will be that owning these programs will pay for themselves at some point in the future.
More to blog in the near future...
Many months since I posted to the public my thoughts. I have been updating a journal privately, however. The purpose of my posts is that if I have something to say for which someone else may benefit, then I want it to be public somehow. I do this also with my cable access programs. It doesn't matter to me if other people care, or even if 99% of the word's population doesn't know about my blog, the point is that I have something out there.
It's Below Zero Outside
Today is DVD Backup day. I take time out every few months to do a massive backup session to preserve all the hours of work toiling in my studio and edit suite. Today is particularly appropriate, because the high today may have reached zero, but the winds were in excess of 10 mph, making it officially JESUS GOD cold. I happened to have no obligations today, so I pumped up the thermostat and wore my jogging shorts. This day was also a good time to back things up, because the main hard drive of my G5 died on me. The first signs of it's demise occurred yesterday, when my OS X would appear to boot up OK, only to display a nice blue screen instead of my desktop. My second computer was hauled up from my studio to perform some triage. Using a firewire cable, I slaved the G5 to my studio G4 and saw my two internal hard drives. OK, so they were still alive. I began to look up on apple forums some treatment for the sick patient, and tried various 'safe' startup modes. I also got wise, and figured I should start backing up my G5 internal drive while it was still responding. I got about halfway through.
The Library is a Church
One thing my life depended on getting was my brand new media library. Since I religiously backup my work to data DVD every couple weeks, I have accumulated over 300 gigs of work (not including umpteen hours of digital video stored on tape). With this simple indexing system, the Media catalogue saved all the file information for all 300 or so backup discs I have in my library. I have gotten to the point that I have been sucking in so much raw media that I have to offload a ton of stuff to keep my precious hard drive space available for ongoing projects. Because of my computer programming background, more specifically my first job out of school at a data centre, I am pretty thorough in keeping my projects organised. So I was able to retrieve about half of my hard drive, saving me from reloading all 300 backup discs again.
Rampart, This is Squad 51
Next, were all my personal notes. About a month ago, I decided to backup some of my personal notes for the sake of having them available as I dreamed up my new website( Eyeball on the News - look for it in 2008!). I continued with my backups, but then I decided to try some other remedies. Maybe this backing up was unnecessary if i could just get my G5 to come up again. So I stopped the backup of my G5 hard drive and tried to use a disk repair utility (like an EKG). There was a notion that perhaps it was some login error, and could be eliminated. Easy enough. As I rebooted the ailing G5 this time, it powered itself down. Uh oh. I plugged the firewire from the G4 back to the G5, now my G5's startup drive did not appear. No more hard drive. I pulled it out of the machine, dusted it off, checked all the connections (think the scene in "2001" where Dave is pulling the memory out of HAL). Another reboot: Charging... Clear! - - - nothing. Couple more reboots. Damn You! Live!
R.I.P. Boot Drive
My Western Digital hard drive died on me at about 12:30 p.m. on 1/19/08. I still lost many hours of work. I also lost a few applications that I no longer have access to install disks. I had few options. Since I couldn't afford health care (apple care) for my G5, I would have to pay through the nose to take my baby to a clinic. The last resort I left for myself when the hard drive was still showing a pulse was to wipe it clean and start over. But now, I'm sure even if I transported it to any repair shop, they would call it DOA. There is a service out there can retrieve missing programs on my dead hard drive, but I could easily just buy the lost applications for a little more than they would charge. So open heart surgery was out.
Software Parenting is Expensive
After consulting a fellow G5 owner Vince, I concluded that I had to accept that my hard drive was gone, save the hospital bills, and rebuild the G5 on my own. It'll cost me about $600 to buy the lost programs. If I didn't do this, then over 200 hours of work on projects would be lost. Ironically, I just became a proud father of the full CS3 master collection, which took two tries to load on my G5 last week. Now I am getting slapped with another hefty fee to get my other software package. Karma works that way, and the ying of the yang of it will be that owning these programs will pay for themselves at some point in the future.
More to blog in the near future...
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