Analyzing Recipes?

Remember how a short while ago I attempted to read cookbooks in order to foster my culinary education? If you also recall, I gave up because I found recipes to simply be too boring to read off one at a time, particularly since I don't have the resources to actually try them out as I'd like to. Well, I think I may have figured out a solution.

My "scribble book" has been helping out greatly with my reading, which is, again, the practice where I take rough notes during reading without intending to revisit them, just to nurture a more active mind. In my trials I've found that sometimes even just a couple sentences is sufficient to set off an iron concentration and train of thought that makes writing unnecessary, even distracting on its own. It sets the wheels of concentration in motion if you will. So now I've thought: Why not try that for cookbooks? Instead of just sitting down and reading books recipe by recipe, which sounds exciting as reading an encyclopedia straight through, why don't I make an effort to challenge myself by writing why I think certain steps are performed in such a fashion and not others, and how they can be improved? That turns a passive reading process into a mentally stimulating one, almost making me imagine myself as a scientist at a theoretical stove. Given my financial tightness abstract learning is just about all I can engage in at cheap expense, and with only one life to live I'd like to foster the greatest culinary knowledge possible.

I'm very intrigued with utilizing my scribble book in this realm, but am afraid it will have to wait nonetheless. I have The Chocolate Tree and The Science of Chocolate to get through first, and think that Culinary Artistry may be waiting for me at the library. Once the time comes I'll certainly set the appropriate goals and document my trial.

Habitual Appearances and Vibram Five Fingers

Recently I've heard that the army has actually banned its soldiers from wearing Vibram Five Fingers during training. They don't mention the brand name, but they do mention they're banning shoes with individual toes, so it's only logical to deduce they're speaking of VFFs since they're the only manufacturer that makes shoes like that. It's a good foreign policy decision I guess, but on a personal level I think it's silly. VFFs only look weird when you're not used to their sight or think negatively of them; beyond that, they look normal, I think.

Ultimately I think this is just a matter of certain emotional evaluations being invoked by how habitually used we are to observing things a certain way. By an overwhelming majority, most shoes contain a toe box, and most all of us have almost always and only seen shoes in this style. As such, we've adapted our perceptions accordingly and become comfortable with things being that way. Here comes the unconventional VFFs and suddenly you think those shoes look weird. Why? Because they violate the trend; they're unordinary.

Another example I can think of to clarify this emotional facet is how we perceive waking up in the morning. Have you ever heard someone who usually has a consistent wake up time complain of waking earlier than usual? Say, they usually wake up at nine AM but woke up at seven AM one morning. What exactly is wrong with waking up earlier than usual if you feel rested? Nothing. Do people ever actually need to sleep to a certain time beyond gaining restfulness? No. Then why might a person want to sleep to a certain later time instead of waking when rested? Because they've become accustomed to waking up at that certain time, and in being accustomed they've adapted their emotional expectations so that they actually desire to wake up at the time. If you wake up early and feel rested then you ought to be thankful you have more waking hours to do stuff, not be irritated that it's a whole two hours before the alarm and then lie there until it goes off.

Admittedly, it took me several months to even consider purchasing VFFs. The first time I saw them I thought they were ridiculous, but repeated viewings eventually made me feel comfortable enough to purchase a pair for the gym. I was thoroughly shy in public, but after seeing how amazing they felt I took to wearing them much more often, eventually everywhere in public. Now I'm so accustomed to their sight that I noticed not the least thing odd about them. In fact, now I think it's weird to look at people exercising in conventional shoes, because now I can't remember what it's like to work out without having precise access to my toes, like when doing a squat. Simply put, after being exposed over and over again to VFFs, even if just my own, I've gotten to the point where I feel entirely casual in them, don't anticipate people looking at me (and surprisingly, few do), and find nothing "off" about them. If people at large, including those in the army, took this exposure approach then the "weirdness" would go away, the same for all things unconventional.

It's a pity such a good brand of shoes got the ban like that. Oh well, at least there are other near-barefooting options.

Lessons Trice Learned

One thing I admit to be embarrassed, even guilty about are those incidents in which I learn a lesson but don't take to employing it until I learn it multiple more times. With integrity I think I ought to have to go through the experience only once to learn how to properly conduct myself, but I guess reality must demonstrate itself several times for it to sink it.

Namely, this week I've been learning how important it is for me to maintain a regular bedtime. As much as I'd like to stay up until 1 AM, I've been discovering what a negative impact such a practice has, a cost that far outweighs its hedonistic benefit. It's utterly impossible for me to sleep in, for once a certain time frame passes (about nine AM) my body won't let me sleep any longer, no matter how exhausted I am when I wake up. Consequently I've got to adapt my bedtime to adjust to my body-imposed wake-up time. I've kept a regular bedtime in the past, but all too slowly and soon do I make allowances that undoes the habit.

And what do I lose? It drastically undermines my mood for the entire day, for one. Intellectually I feel as if my powers have been reduce, I'm more sensitive to negative matters, it slows down my recovery from workouts, and more. A lack of good quality sleep may explain why my emotions have been so haywire last week as I mentioned in my weekly summary, and it may also explain why I've been so disappointed with my progress at the gym.

The most difficult thing is that this is a lesson I've learned before. Surely I have experienced all these consequences before, and surely I have resolved to impose a more uncompromising bedtime in response. I stick to my resolution . . . and then slip. Well, I didn't slip much this time, for I have been doing well to go to bed around 12:30 AM as I set myself to, but my main failure has been to recognize that that has been inadequate.

There are probably other examples in my life where this phenomenon applies, but in my sleep-deprived state (natch) I find it difficult to be able to recall any more. But how ever many times I experience the consequence of a lesson neglected to be used, there's always the chance to take the next day to right it. It's not a devastating failure after all, just something that can improve my life that I should use to improve my life. As such, I'll take to adjusting my habits again to go to bed by midnight at worst and to put on my orange safety glasses after 10 PM unless at work. (The safety glasses help promote melatonin production, a sleep hormone.)

I should know better, but there's always another day to improve and make things better.

Quotes That Guide My Life

Everyone, in some form or another, appreciates a good quote. A quote becomes appealing when it condenses down the essentials of the views of someone holds, allowing them to hold in their mind very pregnant ideas in a very economical form. While, as par the norm, people tend to appreciate quotes as they come by them, I've been making an effort for a very long time to decide upon which quotes are most essential to the way I view how life should be lived. At one point I even took to collecting quotes and writing them all over the place to serve as constant reminders and inspiration, but I wrote down so much that appealed to me that the writing became too great to keep track of or check on a regular basis, so from there I struggled to pare down the list to the bare essentials that drive my being. I think I finally reached that point, and would like to share that list in hopes of inspiring you to comment with yours, and perhaps motivate you to decide upon your essential favorites.

So here are my top four favorite quotes in reverse order of personal importance, which I consider to be the driving force behind everything I do. Those with asterisks might be paraphrased, not exact quotes.

4.) * "Do something you would do for free and someone will pay you well for it." - Mary Kay

This has molded my view on my career. Certainly I'm greedy and would like to make a lot of money, even become filthy rich one day, but this quote helps me keep in mind what is the most fulfilling and practical route to riches. To become materialistically wealthy should not be my aim. It shouldn't even really be on my mind. My emphasis should be on becoming the best I can possibly be in the career field I love and have chosen to dedicate myself to for life. The material rewards I reap should not be sought after, but rather be a natural consequence to how well I've done to cultivate my skills and be the best I can be.


The culinary profession isn't a high-paying profession by its nature, but I'm not worried about that. My ultimate aim is still not totally clear at this point, but I'm thinking about taking an ultimately intellectual and entrepreneurial route in my career, for which training as a chef will assist me in that matter. If I want to make a million, or even a billion dollars, then my concern is becoming worth that as a person, not directly pursuing it.

I do well at my job because I love it, even as a mere dish washer . . . not become I'm chasing dollars. The payment is the consequence and reward, not the goal.

3.) "Judge, and prepare to be judged." - Unknown

While growing up, passing moral judgment was inexplicably avoided and done with extreme inaccuracy when practiced on occasion. When giving praise my elders would often detach their compliments from the known facts of reality and give statements that were totally unbelievable and false, and any vices and immorality often went unacknowledged and ignored, leaving people to suffer endlessly in relationships they refused to acknowledge were rotten. I never consciously avoided moral judgment, but my inability to make precise judgments in my youth led to me having terrible relationships with other people all the time, continuing associations that should have been terminated promptly, and having malformed estimates of myself due to bad standards of judgment. I suffered greatly due to not having good thinking methods for judgment.

Once I learned how to pass objective moral judgment, my relationships improved dramatically, as I knew better which people were worth associating with and who should be cut off from contact, and underwent a drastic self-improvement spree once I identified the standards I wanted to strive to and starting holding myself responsible for my habits. I continue my self-improvement endeavors to this day since I hold myself to the same moral standards which I use to judge other people I interact with. My life has become infinitely better because of that.

This quote keeps in mind three things: That it's important to judge others (lest you suffer bad associations), that it's a logical corollary to submit yourself to others' judgment (so that you become comfortable with your public status and make changes where appropriate), and that you, most importantly, judge yourself. Doing this has helped me treat people with objective consistency based on their deserts, feel comfortable on hearing others' views about myself, and evaluate myself when trying to determine where I'm pursuing my ideals or need to make changes.

2.) "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle

This one is important to me more for moral reasons rather than, say, the optimization of talent. Building upon the last quote, another problem in my youth is that people often judged each other on the basis of isolated and rare incidents, often in the face of consistent evidence that flagrantly proved that things were otherwise. For instance, some people would take a consistently angry and malicious person and characterize them as happy and benevolent on the basis of one act or incident that made them feel good, such as observing them smiling once or doing a single good deed, despite the fact that 99 times out of a 100 that same person would act to the contrary. It's like these people were pretending the other 99 times didn't exist. As a result, once again, many bad relationships were continued even though they were generally and consistently bad, all because on seldom occasion things would be "good." You need to judge people on their consistent behavior if you want things to consistently be good, not the other way around.

Furthermore, this quote also emphasizes to me that it's most important to judge a person by their acts, not their intentions or emotions. Have all the good intentions you want: It's not going to qualify you as having a heart made out of gold unless you perform the deeds to match them. I've seen some truly awful persons characterized as practically saints all because they had good intentions on occasion, even if they did nothing in practice to put their intentions in action, and building on the above paragraph this would again be another thing which would be very rare and seldom to a particular person, thereby being an obscene dropping of the context.

In comparing practices with preaching it is the actions that ultimately matter more, if one were to weigh them in isolation, but it totality it is of course how a person's actions match up with their preaching that matters most. In this case I've even seen terrible hypocrites judged as good even as they seldom, even rarely or never practiced their stated ideas, all because they preached the right things. What a detachment from reality!

This quote has helped me be more patient and meticulous in how I judge people, and helps me make sure I'm keeping the entire context of their being and am paying attention to and weighing the right things. Unless a person has done something unforgivably bad, I try to avoid hinging my estimate of someone on the basis of an isolated incident, and use my memory to full advantage to collect and store incidents that I believe give indication of someone's moral status, and use the pieces to form a coherent picture which I'll use to form a moral judgment. But even after forming the judgment I still try to keep it open-ended to continue adding pieces of evidence which will either intensify my estimate of someone (such as by observing repeated virtue by a person I view as good) or cause me to change my estimate if the pieces of evidence start tilting the scales the other way, such as a virtuous person repeatedly indulging in moral failings or a bad person consistently working towards redemption. It keeps my relationships in a semi-fluid state to better enable me to treat people according to their deserts, depending on the totality of the context of their being I have observed.

And, of course, I hold myself to that same standard. It helps keep me straight and avoid making the justification that certain things are an exception to the rule of my being. For instance, if I'm exhausted and take a day off from my efforts to rest, then I'll judge it as a deserved exception to my usual strivings. However, if I chose to rest and laze about for three days in a row, then I'll judge that I'm dangerously close to becoming a lazy person in nature and will make the appropriate corrections.

1.) "A giant is as a giant does." - Rod Serling, from the Twilight Zone episode *Last Night of a Jockey*

Almost as soon as I heard it it became my favorite quote of all time. Anywhere I can post a quote online, like in my e-mail signature, this is always the one I choose, and I read it virtually everyday, never forgetting it. It's very similar to the last Aristotle quote, only I like this one for its emphasis on substance.

Another difficulty in my childhood is how concerned everyone was with appearances, most often in total divorce of substance. For instance, people around me were more concerned with looking happy to other people rather than cultivating an actual life of contentment, and knowing them in private I learned that their smiles were mere muscle flexing, as inwardly they lived a stale and discontent, and even downright miserable existence.

And what reward do they get for focusing so much on appearance, on how they look to others? Nothing. No spiritual contentment, material satisfaction, healthy relationships . . . jack squat. This obsession with appearance was only to ease the discomfort they felt in being seen by other people, and avoiding discomfort and pain is not the same as gaining inner peace and happiness.

Plus, this episode of the Twilight Zone shows how an obsession with appearances can actually ruin oneself. (SPOILERS) In it, a jockey (a horse racer) gets permanently discharged from his beloved profession and has to cope with not being able to engage in it ever again. A spiritual entity within him starts speaking to him and offers him a wish as his last possible resort to rising up and living a good life. The jocky wishes to be big, and the entity makes him into a literal giant. The jocky then goes into a kind of euphoric ramble about how amazed people will be by his size and how he'll be admired. He calls a girl up to ask her out on a date, but she turns him down even as he frantically boasts about how "big" he is. He's irritated until he suddenly gets a call from the jocky club, learning that they've decided to give him one more chance. He's relieved that he gets another chance at his beloved profession, but after the spiritual entity taunts him he quickly realizes that he's too big -- he can't fit into his clothes, sit on a horse, get out the door . . . his concern with altering his physical stature, his appearance, lead to him ruining his life because he thought greatness meant looking great to others, not being great. His concern with appearance over substance made him sacrifice his only chance at a fulfilling life. (/SPOILERS) 

And that's what I've observed with other people in my life too. People concerned more with how they look rather than how they are have given up the values they most wanted to achieve, all for the empty gain of receiving approval from others. The people I've observed that have lived this way have led lives with empty relationships, mediocre careers, undeveloped talents, shallow romances, and so on.

This quote keeps me concentrating on what the actual value of my efforts and practices are in regards to pursuing my goals, rather than how people perceive them and in spite of their disapproval. Deeper still, it keeps me focused on living a life of substance, of being a good person rather than trying to look like one, of cultivating my mind rather than sounding intelligent, of being authentically respectful rather than using fake manners, and more. The quote continues to help even beyond this, such as by helping me judge whether a practice is really beneficial to my life (e.g. a study technique), how deeply I value a particular person, if the entire context of my habits lines up with my ideals, and endlessly on. It's been a way long time since I've last seen this TZ episode, but I do own it on DVD and should watch it again soon, and probably won't ever forget it. I anticipate I'll be holding onto these words for the rest of my life. If I want to be a great person, then the substance of what I do needs to be great. We are what we do. A giant is as a giant does.

* * * * *

These are the quotes that have the strongest influence in my life and in the molding of my being. It took an extremely long time to get to the point I could pare down my list to this, but it helps me in every single facet of my life, from how I treat people, how I exert myself at work, how I utilize my free time, how I judge myself, etc.

However, I'd like to have for a top five. One thing I don't think I keep in mind often enough is how finite my time is here on earth. You and I are probably not going to live forever. Am I living as richly as I could and making the best use of the limited minutes I have alive, however many billions of them? I'd like to have a quote that essentializes how preciously finite life is, but haven't seen any. Could my readers suggest one?

While we're at it, what are your favorite quotes? And I'm not asking for a hodge podge list either: what are the quotes that really mean something to you? That may guide your life as the above four guide mine?

Maybe once I do gather a top five I'll print and laminate them, so that I may read them everyday.      

Weekly Summary # 38

Both an atrocious and good week. As part of a personal goal of leading a richer life -- I haven't written on that -- I enjoyed immensely some city fireworks on the third, but from there on I fell into a terrible funk that lasted most of the week. I felt plainly sad and disinterested in life, had my anxiety set on high, and couldn't figure out why. I think it was ultimately biochemical in cause given the funk was alleviated with some strenuous physical work, going for a walk, and eating something good, but it still lasted way longer than wanted. On Monday I watched a show after work to get rid of the gloom and ended up strangely exhausted afterwards, forcing me to rest the remainder of the evening. Tuesday was pretty wasted too, and on Wednesday I felt exhausted again and took a super long nap before work. Thursday I was so behind on things I just didn't bother. Awful.

On the other hand, the positive thing is that none of this transferred to my work. If anything my ambition and effort increased at work, where I continued to enhance my performance and find new ways to improve myself. While dropping the balls at home I did better and better at my job, something to be proud of. I guess because I like my job so much, since I'm engaged in my career after all, I couldn't help but feel better and more resolved once getting into a shift.

And on the sunnier side still, I'm proud that I at least took constructive action towards remedying my funk rather than letting it be. I kept up my introspective writing habits and paid attention to my needs, so while it's unfortunate that so much time was wasted I did what I could. The funk seems to have gone, and hopefully it stays gone.

The list:

1.) Try hand at creating banner: Done, the results being visible right on top. Even with its simplicity it still took more time than I wished it would, but still: That's another new year's resolution down.

2.) Read The Science of Chocolate, The Chocolate Tree, Crash Proof, and spring issue of The Objective Standard: Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh. Totally failed. While tackling other things these got severely neglected. Matters were especially difficult when I felt that mysterious exhaustion, which rendered me hardly able to intellectually guide my processes.

3.) Experiment with "scribble" book for reading: Since I did little other reading than of the Charlie Brown books I've rented this one has been neglected too.

4.) Practice tossing pizza with clothes at home: Only a little bit, but not enough to consider it a goal completed. I picked up a few articles of clothing to see how they might act given the techniques I've observed, and so far I'm not so sure I can find a dough substitute in my home, though I need to look more thoroughly.

5.) Tidy up room: Done to my satisfaction. While a more thorough clean up could be done, my primary concern is to make for a neater appearance, give some knickknacks designated spots, and give me additional surfaces to write and read on, and I accomplished that. I shouldn't ignore that other cleaning needs to be done too. (. . . Look at the dust on that ceiling fan . . . )


* * * * *

Judging my life as a whole, in the contexts of private improvement (studying, writing, etc.), character development (i.e. lovability), and work status, I think I've achieved the ideal strivings and attitude for my workplace endeavors while more work needs to be done for my character and private improvement.

At work I consider my efforts admirable. This week I finally managed to stumble upon a sign protector at the grocery store, which I need to protect the lists I create to enhance my productivity from the dish washing machine I place it on top of. Additionally, I've been doing an excellent job in maintaining my usage of a stopwatch to time myself during various activities, which has been giving me a real kick in the pants in regards to my exertions. I used these two methods to great advantage in my last job in Michigan, so to finally bringing them back has been jump starting my creativity on further personal innovations I could make to enhance my efforts. My job is going super well.

I don't have much to comment upon at the moment regarding my disappointment in my lovability pursuits, but immediately before me is how far I've derailed myself from pursuing my ideals habits. Namely, I want to cultivate a lifestyle that instills a voracious intellectual attitude as I had cultivated years before in my private studies and have since lost. Now I hardly even read. What's up with that? It's no good.

So for this week I'd like to exert myself in rededicating myself back to my intellectual goals by pursuing my reading more strongly, while at the same picking up the goals I dropped this past week. Throughout I'll probably contemplate where I think I'm going wrong in my lovability pursuits.

1.) Read The Science of Chocolate, The Chocolate Tree, Crash Proof, and spring issue of The Objective Standard: My failure to stay on top of this reading this week means I'll probably have to return these books to the library before I finish them, since I can't renew them. A nuisance, but I'll request them immediately again if I'm forced to. I'm adamant on completing those two chocolate books.

2.) Practice tossing pizza with clothes at home: I need to do a more thorough search through my clothes to see if I can find something that acts like moist dough. This is very important for my improvement at work. If I have nothing, then I'll see if I can borrow a wash cloth from work, since theirs work for the purpose of practicing.

3.) Experiment with "scribble book" while reading: Again, this is simply the practice of writing rough notes while reading to enhance concentration and interactivity, with no real intention of referencing the notes again.

4.) Optimize computer: A sloppily defined goal, but its intention is to get me thinking and search for ways I can improve my computing habits. For instance, I think I could be saving a lot more time in my efforts if I took the small amount of time necessary to find out how to make my computer boot up faster and process faster in general, and other such things. I've done some things already, such as installing Granola  to help save on utilities. I use a computer to improve my life, and I don't think I've been taking full enough advantage of that value, let alone getting all that I can out of it.

I'll probably add more later on in the week, especially if I have any epiphanies about my lovability pursuits, but for now this is all I want to dedicate myself to since I really, really want to improve my reading habits above all else in the immediate present.

This week may have been a bad one, but I intend to get back on the horse, as I always do.

More on the Economic Collapse: Possible Benevolence?

A while ago I wrote a post that mused upon how the U.S. might respond to an economic collapse. Will things get terribly dangerous and violent as they have in hyperinflation situations elsewhere? Or do we have a chance at the nation going through the disaster with relative peace? I don't think I did a good enough job explaining why this question is worth contemplating, so I'd like to share some deeper thoughts.

Simply put, the way a country handles a particular problem on a sense-of-life level depends on the philosophy inherent in its people. A good or mostly good philosophy will help a citizenry prevent and avoid significant problems while giving them the mental strength to bear what bad things do occur, as a good philosophy will be reality oriented and be able to offer guidance on the world before us. A bad or mostly bad philosophy will lead a citizenry into disaster and prevent them from being able to deal with it constructively or gracefully, and so will lead to a malevolent people whose natural state is that of disaster. A bad philosophy isn't oriented towards reality, so it can do little to address the laws of the world before us.

I think the reason why countries that have gone through hyperinflation have become terribly violent and malevolent is because that's the ultimate sense-of-life consequence of the philosophies that brought the economic crisis to existence. The elements that encourage evasion in these philosophies lead these people to search for scapegoats rather than recognize their own guilt in the matter, which causes them to become a nation of flagrant criminals. It's very destructive psychologically to judge oneself as immensely immoral or even evil, so anyone immoral enough to engage in the acts to earn him that status will logically be prone to the signature immoral act, evasion, which he'll use to avoid acknowledging his own character.

It's hard to sort through the clusterflop of the multitude of reasons that can be used to summarize the situation, but in short I think that, economically, any particular hyperinflationary nation won't recognize that it's killing the goose that lays the golden egg, and at each step of strangling it will wonder what's wrong with the goose rather than the actions being taken to extract its gold. After the goose dies the moochers are left seething that they didn't get what they're "owed" and become vicious. They shoot themselves in the foot and blame other factors endlessly, even as they continue to fire unto themselves.

As far as I know, no economic disaster thus far in recent history has lead to a nation going into a significant turn-around. I'm not knowledged enough in history to know exactly what happened here, but I know for certain that these crises haven't led to any nations freer than the United States. The philosophies that lead to their economic problems, by and large, remain intact even after the crisis.

It's this particular factor that leads me to wonder whether the U.S. might be able to handle an economic disaster more gracefully than other countries have. Objectivists haven't won the war of ideas yet, but I think we've succeeded in making the nation question its philosophical premises. By doing that we've not only increased our odds of winning, but in also changing the nature of the people. If we manage to go so far as to change the direction of the tide before the serious economic collapse, then could that not change entirely how the U.S. will respond? Or in other words, if we change the philosophy the U.S. enters the collapse in, then won't we also change the sense-of-life results that will spawn as a reaction to the situation?

I think other nations have descended into violence because they were a nation of moochers and looters to begin with, and in dealing with the results of their parasitism they go hysterical. If the U.S., however, were to recognize at a majority level that the government is at fault for our economic troubles, then perhaps U.S. anger will be more directed at the polls, voting booths, and city halls, rather than at each other?

This is why, in my above linked essay, I think the most important safety consideration for an individual is where he lives, as the different political atmospheres of different states and cities are determined by different philosophies. Therefore, I think the U.S.'s response to a collapse will vary greatly from location to location, depending what people view as the source of the problem. In such a statist place as my old home of Michigan, I can visualize it becoming a very dangerous place to live, not even allowing for a safe walk at night. The people were already somber and irritated as I left them, and in no way ready to recognize they're responsible for supporting the politics that continues pushing the state to ruin. My new home of Texas, however, I could visualize as becoming risky, but not frighteningly dangerous, as the people are noticeably lighter in spirit and more at peace.

I'm still not sure, and probably won't know for certain until the major event happens, but perhaps the best way to bring up the question is that the United States is a unique nation that's going through a unique phenomenon during a unique period in history. Is it not reasonable to assume that the U.S.'s response to collapse will also itself be unique? Benevolent, I hope.

Intellectually I recognize that it's still best to prepare oneself as strongly as possible, whether it be stocking up on medicine or ammunition, but emotionally I am somewhat anticipating Americans remaining a respectable citizenry during the worst of times. Hopefully so. I say prepare for disaster and plan for prosperity.

Being Productively Intelligent and Intelligently Productive

As noted in my most recent weekly summary I intend to employ something called a "scribble book" to see if it can help improve my concentration while I read. In short, the book would be used for sort of rough notes, only it's not my intention to ever reference the writing again. I plan on performing conceptual exercises for terms I don't understand, writing repeatedly words I have trouble comprehending (e.g. medical terms, foreign names), writing down questions, and so on, all with the purpose of simply making myself more engaged with the reading. The writing is to help me become more mentally active in general and to tame my thoughts.

But overall I want to use this to tackle a more significant difficulty. After thinking about my problem with doing too much walking I realized that my overall trouble is that I like to spend too much time thinking in comparison to actually being physically active. Thinking is definitely very important, but the way I've been portioning my life has been making pure contemplation take up too much of my time. Think, for instance, if you were to spend more time at the gym than in the actual tasks of using your muscles and strength. The thinking grows my mind, but without the right practices it cannot make my life richer. My aim in this particular self-improvement endeavor is to help facilitate a lifestyle where the mental and physical are more closely united, where I can find myself with thinking skills I can employ while remaining physically active, rather than needing so much time for pure contemplation.

Pure contemplation has been troublesome in that I tend to get too attached to the mood, as described in my post about walking too much. After I come home I'm still stuck in the mood and want to continue my pure contemplation even though I should get myself engaged in my tasks. Eventually I have to force myself out of the trance, as left unhindered it could continue literally the entire day, so I want to find some way to readjust my character so that I can remain desirably mentally active, like on my walks, in spite of being physically engaged in other things such as washing my dinner dishes or taking out the trash.

The way I see it, it's all but a matter of establishing new habits and becoming emotionally attached to them. The reason why I value thinking while out on a walk so much is because I established a habit which has become part of my emotional attachments. Consequently, given my present arrangement it's difficult to conceive of myself enjoying contemplation in any other circumstance as ideally as this one. I think that if I force myself to change my habits, then I can make it so that I'll be emotionally inclined to continue the practices I view as part of an ideal self, namely a more balanced and integrated approach between thinking and acting. Of course, I'll still need time to sit and think things through, but right now my ratios are way out of whack.

I think further goals will need to be established in order to get the thorough results I want, permeating my entire character, but I think this scribble book is a good start. The demands of physical writing should help stave off desires to purely contemplate when I should be focusing on my reading. Aside from that, I'll continue timing my walks as I have and do further thinking (natch) on what changes I need to make.

Addendum to "You Can Only Hate What's *There*"

Recently I've actually had one of my posts critiqued, the one about emotions and hatred of the good. It was quite thought provoking, but Mr. Stotts' response in the comments section to my comment has made me realize where I may have gone wrong in my reasoning.

I think, in short, that my error in that post is that I made an illogical leap by trying to deduce a conclusion with an improper conceptual chain. While it may still be possible that people use false philosophical justifications to help them indulge in hatred against others, I cannot deduce that conclusion directly from the fundamental metaphysical axiom that existence exists, which is the essence of my argument. The type of conclusion to be drawn needs to be derived from a conceptual chain stemming from a combination of ethics and psychology, not metaphysics.

Or in word graphic form, I should reason like this:

Axioms - concept - concept - concept - concept . . . > conclusion about psychology and ethics

But did this:

Axioms - conclusion about psychology and ethics

With the axiom that existence exists and its attached partner that everything has identity, I could directly conclude, say, that the world outside my house won't disappear just because I close the door and a granny smith apple can't turn into a goblin, but conclusions about psychology and ethics are higher up in the conceptual network. As such, I consider my argument in my linked article to be wrong and misguided.

It's healthy debate like this that helps one advance forward in thinking. I thank Mr. Stotts for his critique.

My Thoughts on Charles Schulz

Lately I've been reading Schulz and Peanuts to see if there's some greatness behind the man who has created the immensely popular comic strip, as well as reading some of the anthologies. Like with Walt Disney, I wanted to see why he's so popular, and to see if I could garner an admiration of his work through garnering an admiration of the man. In the Disney case, I picked up a biography while shopping and came to admire Disney immensely, and such an admiration has indeed led to me watching and enjoying his company's animations, even though I ignored and disliked them as a kid. I was hoping the same might happen for Schulz, but unfortunately not.

Now with adult eyes I can see the wit and intelligent construction that goes into the strips, finding new enjoyment in contrast to my childhood distaste, but Schulz himself is hardly a prime mover and has some bad philosophic elements. It surprised me to learn, for instance, that he didn't exert that much control over his art, as he allowed it to be titled something he detested his whole life. He just didn't believe in "making trouble," even if it meant sacrificing something as significant as the title of his strip. Furthermore, I found it sad to learn that an unjustly humble attitude was instilled in him during youth through his family's philosophic opposition to self-esteem, which led to him hiding his talents and feeling guilty about them, and even being baffled in old age as to why everyone thought he was a great cartoonist. Through this he also seemed to develop his malevolent universe premise and victim mentality, where he was afraid of people, withdrawn, and possibly even constructing imaginary wrongdoings against himself, such as frequent bullying on a playground that may have never happened.

From my reading I'm not nurturing what I would say is an actual dislike of the man, but rather a growing disinterest after seeing he's not at all heroic or dominant. It's good to see that he's been recognized for his talents and actual greatness in the comics industry, but I think he would have been capable of much greater things if he had a stronger personality. If only he had fought for his own way.

But at the same time, distinct from the biography, I am recognizing the actual merit behind the comic strip. The writing can be witty and the jokes well-written, the minimalistic lines aesthetically pleasing in their economy, and the malevolent universe not all that bad. On this last point, while I know the strip is known for it's depressing elements I don't think it's that negative, and have noticed there's plenty of good elements too where the characters do find satisfaction and contentment.

I've hardly studied the topic, but my personal opinion is that Bill Watterson, the author of Calvin and Hobbes, is truly the greatest comic strip artist that ever lived. He has enormous integrity and conviction that led to him constantly fighting with his syndicate to ensure that he got to publish his strip the way he wanted to, an inventive creativeness that pushed him to constantly experiment with different styles, and philosophies that not only stimulate the reader's intellect, but are also portrayed with aesthetic mastery through the art. This last point I think is essential to the proper form a comic should take -- illustrating the ideas through the artwork -- as endlessly I see comics fail on this point over and over again, either overemphasizing the artwork in divorce of the content or having the characters do lots of talking which makes the artwork superficial. While it's sad that Calvin and Hobbes is complete, I think Bill Watterson did the right thing since we can view the entire series with happy nostalgia, not having to face what a terrible decline strips such as Garfield have gone through. If only we knew what Mr. Watterson were doing now.

As such, I don't plan on finishing Schulz's biography, but I do think I'll take to finishing the multitude of Peanuts anthologies available from my library. They are very good strips indeed. I'm not sure how I'd rank Peanuts right now, but Calvin and Hobbes is definitely my favorite strip, Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland second, and Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend third.

Principled Vs. Stubborn: A Conceptual Pet Peeve

Oooooh I should have written about this months ago, as it's been a pet peeve I've been thinking about for months. In some of my most long-lasting disputes my character has often been labeled as "stubborn" for not accepting my opponent's position, and while it's hardly a severe injustice the inaccuracy of the conceptual application annoys me given I advocate speaking precisely.

Essentially, the problem here is that my opponent is calling me stubborn only because I refuse to accept their position, not because I'm tuning them out or am denying what I recognize as true. In these particular cases the persons use atrocious logical fallacies such as begging the question, appealing to popularity, and even resorting to intimidation by yelling and calling me names. These conversations can hardly be called constructive arguments, and I've had to tolerate them since I either had to deal with the person not of choice or have been unwelcomingly contacted by them. Because of their refusal to provide evidence or proof I have held steadfast in my position by virtue of intellectual honesty and integrity, and for that I've been called "stubborn," but it isn't an accurate label.

In reality I'm being principled, not stubborn. Both of these concepts, when oversimplified and their essential characteristics are suspended, mean that one refuses to change one's course of action, beliefs, or evaluations in the face of persuasion (either forceful or intellectual) or calls for alteration. The feature that distinguishes these terms is why one is maintaining such a refusal. In the case of stubbornness, the essential trait is emotional: The person is maintaining his position or course because he's acting on emotion or is evading something that upsets him. Take as example a cartoon I saw, where a character walked fruitlessly up a downward escalator with his eyes close, vigorously denying to all the inconvenienced shoppers that he was going the wrong way because he wanted to evade being upset by learning he was wrong. He's being stubborn because he refuses to change his course of action, going the wrong way on an escalator, even though reality blatantly shows he's doing something unproductive.

A principled person, on the other hand, maintains his position or course on the basis of his intellectual honesty and integrity, and maintains them because it is in his best judgment that it is proper to do so, after assessing other people's positions and the available information about the matter. He may still be in the wrong, but he doesn't maintain a wrongful position or course because he feels like it, but rather because he's honestly mistaken. There's no stubbornness here.

I am annoyed by having such a label as "stubborn" applied to me since I pointed out the logical fallacies in my opponents' positions -- which they have refused to address in any way -- and have made explicit that I refuse to change my mind because my judgment is unaffected, so to accuse me of acting stupidly on emotion is inaccurate and unjust. And irritatingly enough, what these opponents accuse me of is what they're actually guilty of. It is they who refuse to address or even acknowledge my position, and maintain their ways of thinking even as they keep recognizing fact after fact I give them and the evaluations that logically follow, so it is they which the label stubborn appropriately applies.

And by gosh, anyone who refuses to acknowledge the distinction between these concepts is being stubborn too.

Misconceptions about Hearing-Impairments: My Pet Peeve

I know this has hardly been mentioned before, but for my entire life I've had a bad hearing-impairment, moderate in my right ear and severe in my left. I hate it. It really gets in the way of me living my life as smoothly as I'd like to, no matter how long I live with it. It's frequently difficult to hear people in certain settings, like when dishes are clattering on the counter at my restaurant job, and has even led to me developing me a speech impediment which I was made fun of severely for as a child. More irritating yet, my impairment is sensorineural, which means the ear nerve connected to my brain is damaged, so modern technology has no remedy for my situation as of yet. I really want to buy  high-end hearing-aids in the future, but for now they're super expensive and out of my budget, even with medical insurance coverage, so unfortunately it'll have to be a long-term goal.

For the hell of it I thought I'd clear up a couple misconceptions about the nature of hearing-impairments that I've seen people make quite often, as it has made for some embarrassing and even infuriating confrontations. Namely, I'd like to address something about the nature of hearing-impairments themselves and hearing-aid technology.

First off, having a hearing-impairment does not necessarily mean that a person hears less in a balanced, fixed amount. It's more sophisticated than that. More often than not, people with impairments have more or less trouble hearing portions of the pitch spectrum, so it's not like we hear less as if you've turned down the volume on the television; rather, it's like you've turned down, or even eliminated certain pitches from sounds. As precise as the nature of the impairment can be, one person could be deaf only to severely high pitches still within the range of human hearing and function as if their hearing was fine, and another may have trouble with such a wide variation of points in the pitch spectrum that they may have incredible difficulty listening to and verbalizing spoken language.

It can be incredibly sophisticated, right down the point where the person has difficulty with only certain words or even parts of words. I myself can hear the /th/ and /s/ phonetic sounds, but it's impossible for me to comprehend any difference between them, so words like "sink" and "think" sound exactly the same. I can only distinguish them by the context of the sentence they're used in.

This means that such as thing as simply speaking louder is not often likely to help things. The only way for a person with a pitch-specific impairment to hear better is for them to have those specific troubled pitches emphasized, so if you magnify your voice it's likely to help the situation little, if any, or make it worse if you change your pitches by speaking louder. I myself am largely deaf on the high end of the spectrum and have intense difficulty with high pitches on the edge of my capacity, so speaking louder only helps at a distance; mostly, I just need a person to enunciate. Many people may have hearing-damage to the extent that their comprehension to the entire spectrum is compromised, so in that scenario louder speaking would help, but I don't think it's that common, at least when considering the entire population of people with hearing difficulties.

Secondly, this as a corollary means that either one of two types of hearing-aids will help a hearing-impaired person, and contrary to popular conception it isn't the most common type of hearing-aid, the one that simply magnifies all sounds. If a person has difficulty with only a certain part of the pitch spectrum, then a hearing-aid that magnifies all sounds will be useless. Useless. So please, don't suggest to such a person to run right out and get that without considering the specifics: At best it's ignorant and rude, and at worst it'll cause that person to waste a lot of money. I, in fact, had that kind of hearing-aid throughout most of my childhood, and it worked jack squat. I wore it only because I had to. Because my hearing-impairment resides on the high-end, that means a "regular" hearing-aid is going to magnify the sounds I can already hear at normal levels, so it'll hurt my ears and negate any effect of high pitch magnification. I hated that transition in the morning, when I first put my devices in and had to adjust to how damn loud everything was. Wind whistled like a hurricane, paper crinkled like sheet metal, and even just the plain atmosphere sounded like flowing water. It was almost overwhelming, and it didn't help me hear an iota. I stopped wearing my hearing-aids in my mid-teens when someone asked me why I always took them out during conversations, which pointed out to me that I recognized they didn't improve the functioning of my life. The weeks that immediately followed my quitting that device people noticed how much easier it was for me to hear, ironically.

For people like me, with a pitch specific impairment, a different, much more expensive device is needed: digital hearing-aids. Last time I received an estimate I was told they range from two to six thousand dollars, though are probably cheaper now, and have the high virtue of being able to magnify certain pitches while leaving others static, meaning I could have the high pitches emphasized while the low ones are untouched. That's what I want and need, but cannot afford right now. Most of the hearing-impaired population probably can't afford it, so don't insult us by asking us to pop in a conventional device when it likely may not suit our needs. It was positively useless for me.

I wanted to clear up these misconceptions because I've been annoyed in the past when people spoke loudly to me upon hearing about my impairment, and infuriated when told to go get a hearing-aid. You should ask how you can accommodate each specific individual who has made explicit they have such problems instead of resorting to the concrete-bound remedies given rise to by the misconceptions above. In dealing with me, the best thing to do is to stay on my right-hand side and speak clearly, repeating when necessary. Nothing more, nothing less.

Are any of my readers hearing-impaired? If so, do you have any pet peeves you'd like to air yourself?

My Sensory Enrichment Experiment

I've noted that last week I performed a sensory enrichment experiment to see what kind of impact it would have on my mind and well-being. Up until now I've only briefly commented on it, so I'd like to elaborate more on what I did and why.

The thing that sparked my interest in performing such an experiment is noticing how difficult it was getting to be trying to read in my room all the time. I haven't restarted my formal self-education yet, but I am feeding my mind with reading, frequently visiting my library and all. At the beginning I tried reading by laying on my floor, sitting on the edge of the bed, and so forth, but eventually I got so fidgety that my mental processes were really being interfered with. A discontent with my environment was growing; I kept looking out the window with the sense that I should be out there for some reason. In a way I guess you could say I was going stir crazy: All this reading was often keeping me in one place for a longer time than preferred. I read an article on Mark's Daily Apple on how enriching one's environment can improve health and then remembered an older piece he wrote about studying in different environments to enhance learning (which I can't find), so I thought to experiment with doing my reading in different locations to see if they would eliminate my fidgety-ness and overall discontent with my environment.

It's a simple experiment. Just take a book or some books to a location I haven't read in before and do some reading, like on the front porch, in the park, or at the bookstore. It's all just a matter of going to different locations. To my surprise, it not only eliminated that fidgety-ness, it also enhanced my concentration on my reading and helped me more easily keep my mind on matters. I did find myself frequently interrupting my reading to look around at my surroundings and people, but these distractions weren't enough to actually break my concentration, so getting right back to it was very smooth, as if I never broke my train of thought. Most significantly and unexpectedly, it enhanced my well-being and simply made me feel better and more content.

Given the surprise contentment that came along with the results, I thought I'd vary my experiment a little bit by applying it to my walks by taking different routes to this one park I visit often. The different routes may have changed the length of my walks considerably, but the point was to expose myself to new stimuli, not test the efficiency of routes. To my pleasure that also enhanced my well-being and contentment, relaxing me more, and has made me a better navigator. The success of both these experiments will make me adopt them as long-term practices. I haven't been discontent with my environment since using this methodology, and still have quite a ways to go in applying it given the different locations and routes I have yet to try out.

I wish I would have thought of this experiment sooner, as fidgeting was a huge problem when I was living in Michigan. I studied incredibly often then, but only in about three different fixed areas, mainly two. I knew my efforts were important, but towards the window I kept glancing with a longing for new stimuli, something different environmentally. I probably struggled a lot more than was necessary because of that.

It's hard to say why this works, but from a biological perspective I think it just have to do with how our brains respond to sensory stimulation. Humans, being conceptual beings, cannot enjoy the process of shutting off their mind entirely; unless resting from previous exertion, to do so is depressing. Even people who don't value their mind and actively choose not to think still strive to mentally distract themselves with something, no matter how petty. Following this line, it must be exciting to the sensory apparatuses to take in and process new bits of information, such as unfamiliar smells and new sights. The new data, being new of course, hasn't been exposed to you before, so your brain has to process it in a different, more stimulating way than it does familiar stuff. Old data, such as routine spots visited and things seen, have already been exposed to and found their place in your brain, so while your apparatuses still process it, it doesn't process it in as stimulating a fashion given its familiarity and secured spot in your memory. Have you ever smelled a delicious aroma and noticed how it wanes off? It may have little to do with whether the scent is actually dissipating: Your brain has just processed it to the point that you can literally no longer smell it, even if it's still there. Same thing with routine sights: You become less and less interested in their details as they become more and more familiar, such as the cubicle you might work in everyday.

I think I feel better because I actively sought out new sensory data that was more stimulating to process, and in that processing I became more content, relaxed, focused, and so on. Previously my walks were virtually mindless -- I could have done them with my eyes closed -- but now I'm more alert since I'm constantly switching things up: Going to the park one way and coming home another. This may also be helping to correct my sleep troubles as well, since I've noticed I've been getting mentally tired more often, relaxing more deeply in bed, and waking up feeling legitimately rested. This is going without those orange safety glasses (to filter out serotonin-producing blue light) and regular bedtimes as well. If you're having sleep difficulties, you might want to consider a similar experiment.

So to finish: This sensory enrichment experiment has bestowed benefits that really surprised me in their ability to enhance my well-being. I'll definitely be working to establish this as a permanent life-long habit.

Quote of the Day + Argument Tip

"A quote is not a sufficient argument." - Myself

I've noticed at times that during sessions of argument -- by which I mean constructive intellectual persuasion -- people will often resort to stating bromides, sayings, and quotes and believe it to be sufficient to make their point. This can be a valid tactic, but not sufficient on its own. Good, strong arguments need a certain amount of content in order to gain strength and validity, and for the most part those arguments cannot be made in concise one-liners. Sayings, quotes, and the like are excellent for summing up or closing arguments, or helping us hold broad ideas in condensed form in our head, but you can't refute a lengthy argument by quoting your favorite line from your favorite author, or even multiple authors at a time, because arguments need to be directly addressed rather than dealt with by deep and broad, one-size-fits-all notions.

To my understanding, two types of people tend to fall into these bad habits: Those lazy ones who don't think about the ideas they accept, and those who don't understand them, at least not yet.

The first type is actually guilty of a moral failing, for they've either accepted their ideas at random or in accordance to what makes them feel good, and therefore cannot defend them with even the remotest of competence. I remember in past arguments some of my opponents sounded like they were quoting Hallmark cards, and in their helplessness just about all they could do was repeat the same stuff over and over again word-for-word. When confronting these people it's best to separate and leave them alone, for their unwillingness to think is the root of the problem and something that's probably not worthwhile to keep dealing with.

The other type is innocent and perhaps typical to young people discovering new ideas or examining ideologies for the first time. They're not that skilled at thinking yet, so there's little else they can do than agree with certain ideas without any way to put them in their own words or to modify them to understand them in new ways, and when defending them they tend to repeat them nearly verbatim accordingly. They may not be competent arguers, but it is a skill they can practice and hone; they just need time. Given practice, they soon should be able to bounce around ideas of their own originality. I myself used to be such a person when first discovering Objectivism. I agreed with the ideas, but was baffled as to why I couldn't restate them in my own words. By being aware of this difficulty I kept thinking about them and now have a much more original grasp than I did four years ago when I started. You just have to keep sticking with the thought processes, otherwise your ideas will be trumped by those who have mastered their own.

But whatever type of person you confront, it must be acknowledged that a concise statement is best to summarize, close, or incorporate into an argument, not to be used as an entire argument on its own.

The Epistemological Cause of Mental Lethargy?

Last week I asked a question about how evasion causes pain. Working through a similar vein, a new question comes: What are the causes that give rise to the desire to maintain mental lethargy; i.e., to not think? In other words, what is it that makes people continue to want to keep from thinking and instead mentally coast? And this is excluding the obvious where someone may be trying to maintain an evasion through such means.

This, I think, is an important emotional aspect that needs to be addressed for anyone trying to develop good mental habits, especially a rational psycho-epistemology. My hypothesis is that by accepting a bad epistemology (e.g. faith) people sets themselves up so that there's actual pleasure in being mentally lazy, so by stopping their internal processes they feel a pleasant sensation that encourages them to keep doing it. As to how many varieties of epistemological causes there are is what I'm wondering.

This question came to me when I was introspecting on the nature of my thought processes right as I was starting my personal studies, as I noticed something extremely interesting and disturbing. By that time I had already accepted how important knowledge is to my life and was actively undertaking to exert myself to pursue it, and yet I noticed that when watching one of my favorite science television shows that if I "shut off" my mind and relaxed my attention that I'd experience a cooling gush of endorphins that made me want to keep my mind inactive. This was not a first-time incident, for I recognized I used to do this frequently in the past, and doing so turned me into a near vegetable where my television activities were reduced to watching colors dance on the screen. Despite "enjoying" the television show, it always unnerved me that I couldn't remember the characters' names or what the show was about, and that was because my mind never comprehended it to begin with, being in the computer's equivalent of sleep mode.

Could this be why some people find it so easy to drift mentally through life? Because doing so may give them the same kind of high it once did for me? This pleasure, I think, is rooted in one's ideas and epistemological methods and is not inherent as default in the nature of human beings. I know because after being disturbed by the endorphin release I got from mentally lazing I from then on strove to fight against it and push myself to think, and in doing so I changed myself so that thinking itself became physically pleasurable and shutting my mind off switched to making me feel incredibly uncomfortable and depressed. By restructuring my mind I was able to change how I responded. The next question is: Why did such pleasure arise in those lazy moments to begin with?

My hypothesis is that by accepting bad epistemological methods people can make it so that thinking becomes uncomfortable, even literally painful (in a psychological sense). A rational epistemology helps you identify facts of reality correctly, helps you use them to improve your life, and gives you the ability to sustain mental growth continually. At the opposite, a bad epistemology will either make it harder to identify facts of reality or even impossible; make it much harder, if not impossible, to remember those identifications, prevent you from using your knowledge to improve your life, and stunt your ability to grow from then on. In my bad formal schooling, I remember, it was a strain to try and understand some things, nearly impossible to employ the curriculum outside of the classroom, and almost impossible to remember the lessons just weeks after they were taught. This last is particularly demotivating, as I remembered the distress I felt in knowing I kept forgetting the same math concepts despite the fact I kept re"learning" them four years in a row. Those concepts just refused to stay in my mind, so each new school year I was exposed to them as if they were entirely new.

Given how crippling bad epistemology can be, I think people derive pleasure from mental lethargy because their thinking tools are damaged or entirely useless. "Thinking" takes a lot more effort than is necessary and almost never amounts to anything useful cognitively, so people take pleasure in not-thinking because trying to do so is such an uncomfortable and stressful process. Imagine adopting a bad exercise regiment that's popularly touted as good and practical, and yet in reality is very damaging and consistently leads to pain and injury. It'd probably feel pretty good to stop doing it, wouldn't it? You'd be very motivated to avoid such a process.

This could explain why so many people give up self-directed learning after they leave learning institutions, particularly public schools. Those schools teach bad methods that lead to uncomfortable mental processes and useless cognitive content, and the student body at large unfortunately forms the view that this is what proper thinking and learning is all about, thereby minimalizing their priority in their life and never being able to imagine actually enjoying the pursuit of knowledge. I myself didn't enjoy learning until I discovered Objectivism and changed my epistemology.

If one does feel pleasure in not thinking and desires to change to enjoy being mentally active, then for a brief time the pleasure will have to be struggled with. In changing myself, I always forced myself to become mentally aware whenever I noticed endorphins being released at my inactiveness, and it certainly wasn't pleasurable to fight against such pleasure, but I quickly changed so I couldn't tolerate that laziness and would actually feel endorphins come when I set my mind on something.

I'm not sure, but I think this is at least one epistemological explanation as to why some people can remain mentally lethargic all their life. Sure, many, if not most, may do so instead in order to maintain some evasions, thereby striving to avoid pain rather than receive pleasure, but I think it can also happen that some people experience some kind of good sensation from shutting off their faculties. People better make themselves alert at some point sooner or later, however, for the destruction that awaits them at the end of that road sure won't feel good.

Logic Makes Things Harder?

Here's a weird one. For those interested in formal logic and logically precise thinking, have you ever found that such precision has made it more difficult for you to deal with certain situations?

For instance, I remember as a kid I played the first Pokemon video game in a strange way due to my way of thinking. Pokemon may not need any introduction, but just to be clear: In the game there's more than just simply catching Pokemon; you also have to make them get stronger by engaging them in battles. Now as a kid I thought the abbreviation "exp." stood for "exercise points" rather than "experience," so my conception of the way to make my Pokemon stronger was to engage them in physically strenuous battles. You've got to work out intensely to develop muscle tissue, right? It's a perfectly logical assumption to make in considering why a character is growing stronger: The battles are equivalent to intense exercise.

The game isn't programmed according to that logic, however. Absurdly, a Pokemon can grow stronger even if he doesn't lift a finger in a battle. All you have to do is make sure he's the first Pokemon to appear in battle and then swop him out for another immediately, and at the conclusion of the battle the Pokemon that didn't fight will still receive an equally divided fraction of the experience points and grow stronger. A sign in the game even explicitly notes this, revealing that the game developers wanted players to level up their weak Pokemon without them getting crushed by stronger foes.

However, I couldn't process this as a kid. Except until after you beat the game and find a secret area, the majority of wild Pokemon you catch are too weak to be useful in battle, so at a lost for what the game expected me to do I did the hard thing: I battled with only one Pokemon exclusively and strengthened him to an obscene level, beating the game with him alone. Of course, this meant I died dozens of times since he wasn't fit for all situations, but it quickly came to be the case that he could defeat any enemy in a single blow. The game probably took much longer and was unnecessarily harder because of this, all because my logical thinking couldn't process the game's illogical ways.

Another more prevalent example, one most likely easier to identify with, is in interpreting people's speech and thoughts. People these days tend to speak very carelessly and often say things they either don't really mean or don't mean precisely. One time in math class my teacher said to practice a certain mode of diagramming *several* times, and since the word bears similarities to the number seven I ended up practically overflowing my page with writing, and my teacher actually meant us to practice only three or four times. Just a few weeks ago I was taking a quiz to prove my personal identity as part of changing my address online somewhere, and while I knew for certain what the correct answers were I kept worrying that the quiz was constructed with approximate figures and that I might fail anyhow.

Imprecision bothers me because it can lead to nothing other than more imprecision. Epistemologically, it's a systematic poison that makes it harder and harder to keep one's thinking straight since the amount of imprecision will simply continue to accumulate if not remedied. Those people who care not an ounce for keeping precise I have found to be nearly impossible to deal with, as miscommunication is happening continuously and without end. I remember once I kept shuffling furniture pillows around for several minutes because the person couldn't comprehend that they were asking me to move their couch cushions, not pillows.

So have you found that in your own life that exercising logic makes it harder to deal with illogical situations, or to expect incomprehensible approximations around every corner?

Why Do You Love to Learn?

A question directed to the nerds amongst us here.

It goes without saying that I highly value knowledge. Intellectual reading is a constant in my lifestyle, and I've even gone so far as to initiate my own study routine even though I'm in no school institution. (I'm also preparing to take it on again.) It takes knowledge to be able to deal with life and existence successfully, and it is knowledge that I do not neglect.

I'm wondering, however, if it could be possible for people to have different motivations for a love of learning than the one I've identified. If you love to learn, then I ask: Why? Why do you value it and what impact does it have on you?

For me, it's about mastering reality. The only way to have successful actions and pursuits is to have the necessary knowledge and thinking skills to complete such feats. You can't just learn a static amount or depend on what other people say; you've got to be mentally active your entire life to be able to deal with a changing world. People who don't will find themselves unhappy and impotent.

My enjoyment comes from the use of my learning, in which my knowledge physically demonstrates itself. It can be anything, whether it be an emotional change from successful introspection, a good meal cooked with new methods, a solution to a business problem, and more. The more achievement I earn, the more I see before me how important knowledge is and how it drives my life upwards. The very reason why I love to cook is epistemological: It represents the full process of knowledge: the learning of scientific theory, the physical challenge of its application, and the sensuously pleasurable results. It shows the entire cycle of how knowledge works in reality.

Some people, I know, love learning as its own end and aren't concerned solely with practical applications, and I admit I don't quite understand that. It also makes me wonder if there could be other reasons and motives, and I'm interested in hearing them.

So what roles do learning and knowledge play in your life?

Civil Debate: Concerns and Practices

On the forefront of my mind lately is the topic of civil debate, as it's been becoming more and more relevant in my life. Contrary to the past, I've been finding myself in more situations where people are very expressive of their opinions, and as part of several self-improvement concerns, including activism and my lovability goals, I would like to flesh out my ideas on this subject more and establish some new habits so that I'm better and more persuasive as a person.

The most dominant problem is the fact that I'm most consistently silent on my views, even when hearing views I agree with, for fear of the other person's reaction. This strikes me as strange, for I remember a time in my youth in which I was very open about ideological matters, even freely bringing up matters of theology in casual conversation. Now I hardly express my opinions in person at all. This must be due to my last several years spent in suppressing my character and views given that I was constantly around people who couldn't handle the slightest disagreement. Often as a response to my differing views I would get yelled or shouted at, be insulted or intimidated, have my statements misrepresented, be spoken to in snobby tones, be walked out on, get ignored, have my voice drowned out by electronics, and more. And this is just in mostly 1-on-1 conversations where, for the most part, the other person is most responsible for having initiated or left themselves open to the discussion to begin with. As such, even when I'm in the company of people I agree with, I tend to keep to myself because I feel people are ticking bombs quickly ignited by any sense of difference. I mean it literally when I speak of these past people getting upset by the slightest disagreement. Once a guy contested my nutritional views in a very polite and respectful tone during a party and properly dropped the issue when we didn't reach an agreement, but after the party some people threw a fit about the debate and were awed by the guy's "rudeness," demanding he be banned from an upcoming get together. The slightest disagreement.

I know, however, that many people are of course not this ridiculously sensitive to having their views challenged, but it still frightens me. Ideally I'd like to reattain that state in my youth were I could freely speak about the deepest issues without the slightest discomfort and render myself immune to any opponents' discomfort, but I don't know how to go about that. Rubberducking seems like an obvious candidate for practice, as I could treat an inanimate object as a debate opponent, but it still seems questionably limited since I may not be able to project all the ways an opponent could respond. All in all, it looks at this point like I just need to throw myself out there against my discomfort.

There are also a couple more additional concerns that are making me hesitate on expressing my views. For one, what is the best and most polite way to correct someone? This is most related to my fear of setting off someone's temper, for I don't want to go about an improper way of correcting someone's facts or understanding while trying to persuade them that mine is correct. At the very least I know which assertions are and are not essential to the point, so I'm not in danger of desiring to correct the entirety of a person's statement, even their trivial points.

Secondly, though a derivative of the first question, what is the best way to deal with facts in general, in both conveying them and dealing with an opponent's? At the tip of my thoughts are those facts that are just plainly asserted without reference to proof or where/how they learned of it, leaving their point vacuous and unmoving. For instance, recently a guy tried to teach me how the body uses a specific form of energy, but he referred to no scientific tests or valid method through which he came to hold this conclusion. It's just "floating." As for my views on how to properly convey facts, I do at least work to remember roughly the sources I learned of something or had my thoughts provoked from, but I worry about conveying other information in the most concise manner possible while still using a valid method and being persuasive.

Has anyone more developed thoughts on this than I? What do you think?

[Blank] and Effect

Lately I've been thinking about a piece I wrote in the past, where I expressed my annoyance at people who perceive mental activity as equivalent to being idle, and identified that at root it reveals that such people view the mind as irrelevant to existence. Luckily I do not deal with such persons anymore, but I still feel an incredible contempt for such people given what deplorable and self-destructive behaviors such a belief leads to, and lately I've made a deeper realization about this mentality.

While these people may recognize desirable effects such as intelligence, they think anti-causally and evade the proper facts that would give rise to the effects they desire, even going so far as to undermine those causes while they yearn for the effects at the same time. This dawned on me when I thought about my experience with that person in the above linked article and remembered that in the future from that date they have implicitly complimented and shown great appreciation for my intelligence. They give me baffled looks when I tell them I'm studying by my own accord, call my activities "just" reading, and freely interrupt me as if I weren't engaged in anything important, and then they show appreciation for what intellect I have developed? It's the studying and reading that have given rise to my mental powers, so to insult my means while complimenting the consequence is doubly insulting. Imagine if someone spoke contemptuously of your weight lifting routine and then later admired fawningly your muscle size and strength.

It goes the other way too, where such a person will seek out what they view to be as practical causes and evade what effects they lead to. Here they are at the very least taking action towards desired ends, but since they ignore what consequences are occurring while they're employing the means the goal remains out of reach. I've seen people boast about their healthy diet while having decaying teeth, multiple medical conditions, and obesity, and still others claim that being with a particular person makes them happy when there's decades of evidence towards the opposite being true. They're destroying themselves and ruining their chance at happiness, yet they believe they're employing the practical means to health and loving relationships.

I'm fairly sure that this is a consistent mentality that runs both roads in all persons who adopt this mindset, though not certain. Nonetheless, they are terrible people to deal with, for they treat effects as things that have magically come into existence and act like ships heading towards icebergs in their habits.

As for me, I'm going to keep my eye on reality. Persons in the past -- and maybe even ones yet to be met -- may think it's a frivolous endeavor to study and do academic reading without the guidance of an educational institute, but I can observe for myself that this endeavor has led to me becoming an overall better and more competent person. So I will not stop.

Racial Language

For several months now I've been bothered by the usage of race-based language in the culture, though in a grammatical, not racist, sense. I may not be interested in linguistics anymore -- I was once inspired to contemplate it by Anthony Burgess -- but the topic of words nonetheless enter my thoughts on occasion. As you may know, I'm quite big on using concepts properly and making sure they're fully grounded in valid knowledge. What bothers me here is that I know how to properly use these concepts, only I'm afraid of the implications given the current culture.

Case in point: "African-American." In this age of political correctness it has become considered the "polite" term in speaking of someone of that particular genetic deposition, but it irks me with its inaccuracy. When people say African-American they actually mean something else, so they're using the wrong terminology. African-American denotes someone's continent of descent, not their physical features. Given this essential meaning, it's entirely possible for a Caucasian person to be born in Africa and then legally immigrate to America and become an "African-American," and yet if most people were confronted with this acknowledgement they'd obviously say that's not what they meant by the term; they're referring to a person's genetic features, which by their logic excludes the possibility that a Caucasian could be an African-American.

As far as my knowledge goes, the proper terminology when referring to that particular person by their genetic features is negro. This concept not only denotes their skin color, but their skeletal structure, hair type, eye colors, and other combinations that are essential to this race and not found in others. An African climate may have given rise to their features, but the continent itself is not essential to the concept. Yet, I experience great hesitation in trying to use this concept, as if it were equivalent to the N-word. And still yet, I am not aware of it having an offensive history. It's simply the proper concept to use, but I am emotionally resistant to using it.

The reason why I desire such a correction is because I detest any sort of approximation in my concepts. Approximation can only lead to more approximation, not further precision, so to allow for it is to erode one's precision in thinking, which I won't allow myself. Conceptual precision is desirable at all times and necessary for the advancement of one's intellect.  I especially dislike it when people mix terms like African-American and Caucasian in the same sentences, because they're conceptually different and refer to different things, making for a mixing of incongruous terms. 

What do you think?

(P.S. I also dislike calling people "black" or "white.")

Why I Love to Cook

An introspective piece. Recently I think I may have identified why at root I enjoy cooking so much that I want to dedicate my life to it. Up until now the depth of my understanding was only able to acknowledge that I strongly value cooking, not why I do so. On thinking about my value of studying for my own personal benefit I think a deeper answer has been reached.

While cooking has interested me at some level all my life, it wasn't until a few triggers came late into my teenage years that the value truly flourished and came to light. When I was really young I thoroughly enjoyed thumbing through cookbooks as a hobby and daydreaming about making or trying all the wonderful things I found, but given my situation it just remained daydreaming. Most of my elders were extremely paranoid about the prospect of letting me cook for myself, so my enjoyment in the process was severely undermined by the fact I wasn't allowed to cook on my own terms, and some of my dishes were even ruined by my elders. Eventually my childhood interest just suffocated and I moved on, but I was still interested at points here and there.

I was always interested in cooking in a certain fashion, however. I never read a food magazine, and typical cooking shows were nearly intolerable. Simply making stuff taste good is not at all what interests me. Besides, I was still on the Standard American Diet back then, and I often ate to the point of feeling sick (since it took a lot of carb-laden food to satisfy my appetite) and wasn't enthused by the flavor of what I ate, so I didn't even value eating back then. I even literally wished I could go without eating forever, because it didn't taste that great and made me feel terrible, especially with my near-constant illnesses.

The first trigger came about by way of Alton Brown's television show Good Eats, which is absolutely the first and only cooking show I've enjoyed watching. His show is different. He doesn't just take a bunch of ingredients and show how to make isolated dishes, he also tries to teach the causation behind food, why they act the way they do when you treat them in certain ways. It held my interest so intensely that I found I even enjoyed watching the same episodes repeatedly, which is strange in my television-viewing habits since I'll usually refuse to see something ever again after having seen it once. I probably watched the episode on chili at least three or four times, and wouldn't mind seeing it again. I became a very strong fan of the series; quickly it boosted my motivation to begin cooking again, starting with some of the recipes from the show. Still, however, this was not enough, as cooking at this point only seemed like some side-interest that ranked below that of a hobby.

The second trigger came through my transitioning to the Paleo diet. When Diana Hsieh recommended Good Calories, Bad Calories on her blog my nutritional views drastically altered and I began dropping sugar and grains in favor of fat and protein. Oddly enough I didn't expect any health benefits -- I thought I was already eating healthy and that Paleo would only increase my lifespan and disease resistance -- but soon my body changed rapidly. I dropped about thirty pounds and became lean as a rail, my acne disappeared, food tasted much better and didn't make me ill, my mood stopped swinging with my blood-sugar, and more. Most of all, I began thinking about food more and more. I spent several months clueless as to what to allow myself to eat -- sticking almost fiercely to eggs, bacon, spinach, and almond flour -- but eventually I became very curious about different foods, moving myself to try new things such as jicama, Dubliner cheese, raw milk, beef heart, Brazil nuts, dark chocolate, and other things that have never graced my palate before. Through my trials my food values and taste memory expanded, and I thought more and more about food.

This came at a time when I didn't know what to do with my life. The majority of my life prior I had wanted to be a professional writer, as I thoroughly enjoyed the craft and regularly blogged (this was back in Myspace days). I recognized that I didn't want to professionally write once I realized that writing rarely entered my thoughts and that I didn't enjoy it as strongly as I was making myself believe. Once I realized what a dominant role food was taking in my life, I recognized that I wanted to be in the culinary arts for my living, thus bringing to full light the interest that's always been within me implicitly.

However, even after that period I still didn't know what I wanted to do with my life concretely. Just become a chef? A chef and restaurant owner? A food corporate leader? For a few years after my identification I was still unsure as to the precise direction I wanted to go, only that I wanted to be in food and needed to start getting into restaurants. So began my restaurant career, where I started as a dish washer and achieved my best job to date, one that was always a constant source of enjoyment.

Recent discoveries and further introspection have further specified my purposes. When I look back, I see now that I was always a kid who valued knowledge. I guess broadly kids either tend to like robots or dinosaurs as they're growing up, and I'd definitely consider myself in the robot category. I loved Mega Man, and was always memorized by the appearance of an invention or robot on television or in a movie (though not those giant ones, and I don't know why). In my earliest years I wanted to develop video games, and while I may have never learned a programming language I do think I implicitly valued it for the technology and intellect involved.

It wasn't until I discovered Ayn Rand that I developed an explicit love for the pursuit of knowledge and more strongly valued intelligence. Anthony Burgess had me quite primed given the philosophical elements of his writings, but it wasn't until Rand that my deepest premises came out. I rapidly changed in this period, contemplating philosophy all the time and more often renting books of an intellectual nature. Years later I came to value knowledge so much that I even began studying on my own time, in school or not.

The key to why I like cooking lies in my refined views about practical epistemology (the field of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge). Lately I've been thinking about why I've been having so much trouble with my studies in the past in regards to not being able to concentrate on certain subject, and I realized that I was taking a duty-bound approach, only studying some subjects (such as grammar) only because I felt I had to, not that I was interested. As such, I was forcing myself to do something that I wasn't deep down interested in, causing me to have much difficulty in concentrating and remembering the material. What truly interests me are subjects relevant to my life . . . relevant to my actual physical pursuits.

In other words, the knowledge I value most is that which helps me master reality more effectively, that helps me master nature in my own realm.

I recognize that there is incalculable value in theoretical knowledge, science in particular, but what I value is applied knowledge (and applied science in particular). I can't just sit around learning all day, making identifications and integrations, without putting it to use in some way; in fact, my intellectual make-up probably wouldn't allow me to learn effectively in such a fashion. I've got to learn and take it out into the world somehow. This is why I liked robots and quirky inventions while growing up: It showed knowledge put to use, the ultimate representation of the results of an active mind.

Tying it back to cooking, this is where Alton Brown comes in: His form of scientific cooking is yet another example of what results when knowledge is applied to reality. I value this particular manifestation not only because of the enjoyable theoretical knowledge behind the cooking processes and the fun physical challenge of constructing a good meal, but also in the physical pleasure it results in at the end of the endeavor: Great tasting food. To me, this is knowledge in its complete cycle: Theoretical knowledge > active cooking as applied science > physically pleasurable end result. You have the learning, application, and reward all in the same field. I love that. Alton Brown's show memorizes me because of the fully applied, beginning to end, epistemology that's present, the science, application, and tasty meal.

My future has become clearer, and it is in gastronomy. I know now what I need to do in order to mentally equip myself for my endeavors, and have began taking the steps. I see myself as retaining all the elements of a businessman, chef, and inventor, as I could never be content just doing some experiments in a lab. Homaro Cantu is my chef of interest at the moment, as he right now represents the epitome of where I'd like to end up.

This is why I love cooking. It's my favorite form of bringing knowledge into physical existence.