Those OnBoard

I was asked to describe what it’s like to be in chronic pain.  It’s difficult to put into words but you can get an idea of it by doing as follows:

Think back to a day where you woke up and had to go to work/school/etc., but on this particular day you feel terrible; maybe you’re sick, maybe you’re hungover, maybe it’s something else, but for whatever reason your body feels like shit.  However, staying home on this day isn’t an option (perhaps you have an exam or just can’t afford to miss work/class/etc.).  So you drag yourself to your obligations and go through the motions of your duties, and as you interact with people out of necessity, you strain with all your effort to put on a normal face and just get through it.  But inside you, every molecule of your body is screaming at you, and all you want to do is crawl into a dark room and curl up into a ball.  Some people don’t notice anything wrong with you, maybe some do, maybe some even ask you if you’re alright.  You wave off their concern and say something like “Oh, I’m just a little tired.”  You really hope they don’t probe further because you don’t have the energy to explain it to them.  Finally you get home and you lay down, exhausted.  Your friend calls you and asks if you want to hang out.  You really want to, but you just can’t.  All you can do is try and go to sleep.

Ok, have you been able to recall a day like that?  If you can’t, congratulations: you have an exceptionally good life.  To the rest of you, I have a question: how many days in a row like that could you endure before realizing that you’re debilitated?  For me it took several years, but my condition seems to be degenerative (i.e. gets worse over time) and didn’t get this bad until relatively recently.

About the series: Not Being Miserable is my ultimate goal, and I’ll do whatever it takes to achieve it. All other goals are pursued solely for the purpose of serving the needs of this ultimate goal. This series catalogs various insights I have in this area. Please excuse the mind-diarrhea.

Part 3: When work isn’t work.

“Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” In other words, if you find something that you like doing (it engages and challenges you) and you manage to earn a living doing it, you’ll be very fortunate indeed. Of course, it’s easier said than done. Nevertheless, that is my goal. I want to be able to say what this guy said in an article:

A couple of days ago, as I sat in a park in New Orleans with a friend and her son, I was checking my email only to have my friend, who is also an academic, turn to me and say, “Do you ever stop thinking about work?” As I thought about how to answer that question seriously, I realized that it was based on a flawed premise: that I perceive what I do as “work.” That’s not the way it feels. I answered, “In some sense, no, I don’t ever stop thinking about ‘work.’ But what I do does not feel like work. It’s a calling.

–Steven Horwitz

Good luck.

I took a break from reading The God Delusion, flipped on the radio, and heard a familiar voice; Richard Dawkins was talking to conservative radio talk show host Dennis Prager about his latest book that just came out The Greatest Show On Earth.  Soldier on, Dawkins.  Soldier on.

Here’s the quiz:  http://pewresearch.org/sciencequiz/quiz/

Here’s the article:  http://pewresearch.org/sciencequiz/

About the series: Not Being Miserable is my ultimate goal, and I’ll do whatever it takes to achieve it. All other goals are pursued solely for the purpose of serving the needs of this ultimate goal. This series catalogs various insights I have in this area. Please excuse the mind-diarrhea.

Part 2

I’m currently reading the book Finding Flow by Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi (pronounced CHICK-sent-me-high-ee) where he examines the question of what makes a good life.  I’m not very far into it but it’s already very interesting and pertinent.  Check out these excerpts; you can view them in-page or download the PDF here: Finding Flow Excerpts pp. 18-22; 36; 41-43

Here’s an open letter I wrote to the Physical Sciences department at Santa Monica College.  I was enraged but I managed to refrain from dropping F bombs all over their asses.  Make sure you watch the video; just be ready for a cold shower because you’re blood is going to boil.

I’m compelled to bring to your attention an upsetting matter:  Bear with me for just a moment.  “The Story Of Stuff” ( storyofstuff.com ) is a so-called documentary that expresses the all-too-familiar opinion that capitalism and America are evil.  It purports to explain the chain of production and it’s effects on the environment, but it also spills over into the the arena of politics and economics. It makes so many arguable statements, exaggerations, and even outright falsehoods that one could spend hours discussing all the misinformation it contains.

This is not new.  Having graduated from college, I am accustomed to having liberal arts professors use their classrooms as podiums to spout their political and social opinions.  What is the shocking news here?  This video, “The Story Of Stuff,” is part of the required coursework in a college biology class!  This is a perversion of an institution of higher learning.  This video does not belong in a biology course!  This professor should not be allowed to get away with this.

Sincerely,

Jay
Los Angeles, CA

P.S. Here are the specifics on the class.

School: Santa Monica College (Santa Monica, CA)
Course:  BIOL 2, Human Biology
Instructor: Jacki L. Houghton
Term: Fall 2009

I’m not deluding myself into thinking that anything will be done about this.  It just depresses me that even science, which I thought was the last bastion of critical thinking left in colleges, is polluted with vile indoctrination.  Et tu, Brute?

About the series: Not Being Miserable is my ultimate goal, and I’ll do whatever it takes to achieve it.  All other goals are pursued solely for the purpose of serving the needs of this ultimate goal.  This series catalogs various insights I have in this area.  Please excuse the mind-diarrhea.

Part 1

What do I need to do to be satisfied?  Tough question.  One of the things you learn as you gain wisdom is that many things are  too complex to be accurately expressed in simple terms.  But inasmuch as it’s possible to sum things up in a word, my latest answer to that question is this:  Create.

Start small.  Begin cataloging your thoughts, insights, musings, ideas, etc.  Write.  Record.  Draw.  Design.  Audio, video, graphics, text, web.  If you look at the careers of people who’ve created something that you find respectable, you’ll usually notice that they’ve been expressing themselves in various forms for some time.  They may have shifted from one form to another as their careers (I hate that word) took them from one medium to another.  For example, a comedian may have in their body of work various books, audio, articles, blogs, stand-up routines, podcasts, radio shows, etc.  At first glance a radio talk show host may seem to have little in common with a stand-up comedian or the author of a book.  But one person could do all three things.  They’re all just different methods of getting their creation out of their brain and into a tangible medium that can be utilized by others.

Don’t forget that creating doesn’t have to be artsy fartsy.  A scientist who expresses a new idea or research findings is creating.  The key is that rather than managing something that’s already there, you’re generating something new with your brain (which certainly includes synthesizing existing stuff).

Now get out there and live, damn it.

If you want your username to appear with the proper capitalization (e.g. JayAaroBe instead of jayaarobe), here’s how you do it:

Once logged in, notice the admin bar going across the top of the page.  Point your mouse to the admin bar’s top-left section where it says “My Account.”  Then click on “Edit Profile.”

Now scroll down and find the box that says “Nickname (required)” and type your name in as you want it to appear.

Now scroll all the way to the bottom and click “Update Profile.”  Done!