Symmetry is magical, so 19-4-19 might make sense to dip back into the water. At least for a short swim and some thoughts littering an assortment of apps and inboxes.

Six Pixels is still going strong, and the talk with Paul on non-growth focus was sort of the tipping point to get back to journal mode. Because introspection sometimes needs verbalized ideas - the act of ordering words helps to map out the actual ideas.

Side hustle as a small thing, do it in between- a little at a time

Use it to test the waters, to learn and develop yourself. And maybe as a springboard — but don’t do it just to get somewhere else.

Makes a lot more sense than ruthlessly burning the midnight oil, at least if the goals isn’t to go all exponential growth, but to find a better you in a happy mindset.

That is all for now, as this is Safari doing the desktop editor - need to app it or perhaps stick with the alternative WP site, or make a new one to mirror automatically.

- ...and the sun is really back for summer...or at least spring 

Zen and the war of ideas

This is very much a work in progress, and jumping all over the place - as I re-read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance ("Zen" later in the text for brevity). It started last summer, when Part 1 took on work vs passion, then part 2 explored the chapters dealing with mental models.

Then this year along with the general blog reboot, I got back to reading Zen. So, the third part in the flow of the book delved into insanity and reality. This post got pushed a bit further out in the schedule, but will also hopefully bring us back around to the end of part II - and the fifth post that snuck in and screamed to be let out.

Although, from rereading the quotes and notes, and getting them formatted below, it does seem like there will be yet one more for the road. We'll just have to see how it turns out - if it does run a bit long or gets a consistent flow.

All quotes are from the Kindle edition, with the location marked (@...) - and also linked

Understanding and knowledge - a little means a lot

Central to the mental journey, and also for the underlying motivation of the real journey - is understanding. A quest for knowledge, but also a desire to expand the actual "mass" of knowledge we have.

From what fragments of memory I have, Phaedrus had a high regard for DeWeese because he didn’t understand him. @2252

How can we extend our ideas? By reading things that are just a little bit hard to grasp, by having to reread, refelct and discuss - by not just flowing into the next chapter, but stopping.

And that is par of the motivation for me, in taking some extra time to re-read the book, but also in blogging about it along the way (even if it has taken quite some time, and a few stops along the way).

Zen is not just a story. It is not just a 'painted' image of the world and our roles in it. It is in many ways more about a path, a way to find 'enlightenment' or understanding, by pushing against some of the 'set' constraints.

Just like creativity often works best with certain limits (use only blue, no circles, ...),so basic learning needs to rest on assumptions and terms. But when you have the basics, then maybe it is time to question the assumptions, break the rules and explore why and how on the outskirts.

The real University is nothing less than the continuing body of reason itself. @2416

Because it is when we think and reason that we use knowledge. and when we share it we help it grow. So open source, sharing and collaboration, makes us push ourselves and express our preferences in terms of improvements. There is nothing better than showing how you want something "fixed" - rather than just complaining about the current state of things (or knowledge).

Which brings us onto the more spiritual part of Zen;

He became aware that the doctrinal differences among Hinduism and Buddhism and Taoism are not anywhere near as important as doctrinal differences among Christianity and Islam and Judaism. Holy wars are not fought over them because verbalized statements about reality are never presumed to be reality itself. @2311

Truth is not a given, not a final thing. From this perspective it is a process, and a goal, a state of mind more than anything written down and passed on. A path to understanding, not a set of facts.

Which ties over to motivation, or dedication - because it isn't about facts, you need to take a 'leap of faith' when you start a journey of this kind;

You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it’s going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt. @2456

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Just take some time to reflect on that.
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It was one of those moments as I read it. It just seems so obvious now afterwards. Sometimes it is too easy in hindsight.
Facts are beyond feelings
Passions are beyond facts

music

art

politics

We can engage because the answer is not given. There is no single way to see Picasso. Or to hear Vivaldi. You can't be sure if you are "doing it right". You have to have faith in your impression, your process and path. 

The path is the goal at any given time

The statement “To travel is better than to arrive” comes back to mind again and stays. We have been traveling and now we will arrive. For me a period of depression comes on when I reach a temporary goal like this and have to reorient myself toward another one. @2485

 always fragments, pushing forward. Each section a story unto itself.  But what is the overall flow? Is there even one, or are we just so good storytellers that we always manage to tie the treads together? Was it a step in its own right, or just a smaller fragment of things to come? How do we tell? How can we know?

“You look at where you’re going and where you are and it never makes sense, but then you look back at where you’ve been and a pattern seems to emerge. And if you project forward from that pattern, then sometimes you can come up with something. @2730

Is it storytelling or "lies to children"? Does it make sense because there is meaning, or because we make meaning?
And does it matter?
If we understand the events by the story, then the events have a part of that story, even if it is only a temporary collection of fragments. It is not right. Or wrong, fact or fiction. The story is. The whole of the parts is.

Molecules are molecules. They don’t have any ethical codes to follow except those people give them. The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn’t any other test. If the machine produces tranquillity it’s right. @2671

 gaggia time. serenity now. it just is.

Zen and the estrangements of mankind

Part 1 (on work v passion) and then part 2 (on mental models), makes this the third part in the flow of the book, but the fourth written and posted.

Unusual behavior tends to produce estrangement in others which tends to further the unusual behavior and thus the estrangement in self-stoking cycles until some sort of climax is reached. @1253

Part 2 ended with an idea left unsaid. And it was too soon. It is easier now, another year on from that day, our 9/11 - 227, or 7/22. 

July 22nd 2011 will probably live on for quite some time as a reminder. But even the most horrible dates fade over time, "never again April 9th" - reflecting on the way Norway was invaded by Germany and caught unprepared in 1940.

Yet it is a saying almost gone from our mind. And 70 years later we were in fact more or less taken unprepared.

By a single man. 

And his vision of the present, the future and the defining moments.


Not crazy, at least not crazy in a judicial definition - so he is serving his time. But somehow he entered into his own "world", and step by step built up a "vision" that lead him to, step by step, assemble a plan - and then a rationalization in the form of a mash up manifesto. I read parts and skimmed parts in the hours and days after 227, but have been unable, unwilling, to open it afterwards. It is best left for history, as it gives little else than a varnish atop a narrative oh so bewildered.


Which, in a strange way brings us back to ZEN - and the journey back into a life gone for our guide

He was insane. And when you look directly at an insane man all you see is a reflection of your own knowledge that he’s insane, which is not to see him at all. To see him you must see what he saw and when you are trying to see the vision of an insane man, an oblique route is the only way to come at it. [ibid, 1406]

It certainly seems like a good definition of insanity; when it is something we can't grasp, when we need to shift our mental models "one step left" in order to even grasp the outlines of the story.

Yet only a few pages previous, there is this passage;

We could not possibly be conscious of these things and remember all of them because our mind would be so full of useless details we would be unable to think ... We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world [ibid, 1370]

Is the world even real, beyond our sampling insights or fragments of reality? Like the Matrix, it could all be a simulation. Or at the very least suffer from a solid selection bias?

We see and react to what we all can live with around us, as opposed to the jarring discomfort of unwanted elements. Like beggars, how much simpler to ignore them actively or passively, letting their strange haven under the bridge be a hidden sight, their needs and encroachment on our daily bustle.

Like science and philosophy. Most people go on their merry way rather uncaring and untouched by the big questions. Does that make them more or less real, pressing, true?

Quality of Zen

In some ways this is the third post in the 'reading' series, but since I'm skipping to the end of Part II for this one, I'll try to add it into the flow later when the gap is closed. That is, covering the parts from around location 900 up to 3000 - and seeing how much still makes sense, in so far as the book makes any sense in and of itself.

So, close to the end of part II - we are back at the old school, revisiting the forgotten past - and having memories come back, along with some of the core ideas;

"What is quality in thought and statement?”

Quality…you know what it is, yet you don’t know what it is. But that’s self-contradictory. But some things are better than others, that is, they have more quality. But when you try to say what the quality is, apart from the things that have it, it all goes poof! There’s nothing to talk about. But if you can’t say what Quality is, how do you know what it is, or how do you know that it even exists? If no one knows what it is, then for all practical purposes it doesn’t exist at all. But for all practical purposes it really does exist. Location 3003

Quality is intangible  it is not something we can easily measure - although many characteristics related to, or derived from quality can. Durability. Workmanship - as a lack of errors, a precision in production and an adherence to spec. Yet so dominating and impactfull a concept. 

Quality is how we define and refine our positions. We like to think we make good choices. And by extension  think that quality is what we prefer. But why do we prefer it- for any given value of it? Is it the sum of the parts, the overall feeling, the little details? 

How has branding taken over the role of quality and entertainment the role of reflection? 

Brands were in parts created when we stopped buying direct. When we didn't any longer have a face to face relationship with the man who made our candle, we had need of a way to differentiate and remember. Both as seller and buyer. 

But now? 

When it is the same factories, using many of the same components that make our gear? Can you brand a pure experience, like using software? Or does it take a product you can hold and compare?  This could be why the iOS volume has been so great compared to previous pc/laptop. The touch experience makes the app and the content tangible in a different way. Makes it yours, even if it is shared by millions. 

How many people used to created, in the age of radio? And the early days of television, was it overflowing with people filming their own shows? No, the dream of a participatory society is probably just that. "Most people" don't discuss politics, but how their team did and how dinner tasted - not the ecological impact of using that brand of beef.

By that extension, is price an indicator [of quality] or simply a rationalization to signal intent and aspiration in a broader context? Most books cost the same, and seeing one movie over another isn't likely to get you a discount. But in subtle ways there is a price indication in play. Watching TV at home is cheaper than going to the movies, which is again outpaced by seeing a play. 

- ...and the sun brought me out, and the idea drove me inside, for it was one of those times...
[soundtrack: Volta - by Bjørk, faded down to set or keep the mood]

Opinionated by nature

Dilbert 2012-10-07, (c) Scott Adams as always

Wonderful jedi mind trick by Wally 

"Your whole life is a lie"

- is the point of having an opinion that the facts take too much effort to find? And by extension you might as well just make it up as you go and feel fine about it. 

By taking a stand - for whatever reason - at least you get to feel empowered and involved. 

And isn't that a value in and of itself?

Or is it just the opposite? That making calls based on "gut feelings" is just about not wanting to have your biases exposed, your assumptions clarified and your process defined?

"There is no spoon"

That last panel could be the base for a whole book, or a line of zen meditation. 

Zen and strangeness of machines

This is the second part of my braindump, notes and reflections as I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Part one is just a short link away; Zen and the struggle of blogging

And so we move on, along the journey across America, but also into the mind and madness.

instagram - tech for art?

Blind alley, though. If someone’s ungrateful and you tell him he’s ungrateful, okay, you’ve called him a name. You haven’t solved anything. @ 846

The theme for this part of the story is mental models. We start to dig deeper into the split between how the two men relate to technology - Motorcycle Maintenance. The resistance to technology and insights makes a twisted sense when compared to the attitude of the farmers.

When you want to (and can!) make a better life, it makes sense to understand and celebrate the technology that makes that possible. 

But when it is a given for life as you know it (love it or hate it...) - then it becomes much easier to try to mentally rebel. To break free from the small things, because you are too dependent on the larger comforts to let go. Clinging on for the love of life.

The best camera is the one you have with you

“That’s what you don’t see in a car, I suppose.”

Framing makes a small detail stand out.

Like the two instagram snapshots I've added here.

One is of a lamppost not ten yards from my front door. But one day I walked on the backside of it, and two pictures "jumped out" at me. The one included above and it's twin, where the bracket was loose and the nails all gone.

The other is a daytime shots of normal clouds. But taken with my sunglasses as a "natural" filter before the choices of instagram it seems magical and mystical. The ease of use of the built in filters made me think of other ways to adjust the images on the fly.
l
But it also imposes a context that isn't there in "real life"

Sometimes we have to step outside, in order to see things in another, wider context. Or simply to bring in wild ideas that trigger new usable ideas.

We also need the models and simple boxes to cope. In a episode of House MD from 2005 (summer reruns in Norway as well...) the patient was another doctor working on helping fight malaria across Africa. And House implied that the ability to "zone out" the problems across the world (or just in the next town over) was a Darwinian trait we should cherish. If we don't focus on helping kin and those close, then they aren't there for us when we need them. And then we all fail.

We were both looking at the same thing, seeing the same thing, talking about the same thing, thinking about the same thing, except he was looking, seeing, talking and thinking from a completely different dimension. @ 983

Again with the frames and models - now we are moving beyond just relating to tech, and into the perceptual models themselves. 

I got my first solid intro to the practical applications of using varied frames of reference first year at uni. A course built around Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal's classic management book (fourth edition, original in 1984) presenting the the four frame model. The main takeaway is how things "make sense" within each frame of reference, for the people who have "the glasses on" and play by the rules they understand or believe. Internally consistent logic. 

 It gives us mental maps to OUR world for US. And it also helps to better understand others and their actions. At least if you take the time to step back, examine the situation or relationship from other models or viewpoints.

The split in the book also brings to mind the "thinking - feeling" dimension. The third Jungian split in Myers Briggs test. How we (think/prefer to) make decisions.

And the final quote of this post sets the stage for some more ideas, but just a simple number for now: 227

Unusual behavior tends to produce estrangement in others which tends to further the unusual behavior and thus the estrangement in self-stoking cycles until some sort of climax is reached. @1253

Zen and the struggle of blogging

As I basked in the sun this afternoon, I finally got around to starting a re-read of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

It was one of the first book I bought for the Kindle, way back on July 19th 2010 - so I just made it before it had lingered for two years. Part of the reason is that I've read the book before, guessing round 1996 or so. So the urge to read it has ebbed and flowed a bit. But today seemed like the perfect day to jump back in.

The intention is to read it it suitable chuncks, then use a nugget or two to spark of a post here, repeat until completed. Then reread the posts and make one final reflection on the book, the process and my thoughts.

Last time I read in during a binge of beat novels mixed with some epic fantasy. This time it is a possible first dive into more active reading - with Ulysses, Gravity Rainbow and Infinite Jest on the long list for fall (dark nights and rain presumed suitable backdrop)

Caring about what you are doing is considered either unimportant or taken for granted.Read more at location 551

Guess this might be called the zen simplicity? The simple act of commitment, it is either to obvious or to much.

For someone who loves what they do, the simple fact that a lot of people "just do the job" seems almost unreal. Why would anyone stay in a job just to do it, if it doesn't five them more than a paycheck?

And visa verca, why would any one actually be "married to the job", when they could just leave it behind at 5 and start enjoying their leisure time?


- ...and the sun shone truly brightly all day and long into the night - finally summer ...