On Reading

I suppose I read for the same reasons I wear shoes and drive a car. I could live without those things, but not the same. I suppose the reasons others read vary as widely as choices of footwear and transportation. Exercise and parties may be a better analogy still.

A thought . . .

Brown Truck: LowerGentry's first feature-length film

LowerGentry has recently completed their first feature-length film, Brown Truck. The film won't be publicly available anytime soon as they're in the process of applying to get it into a film festival. However, you can catch a trailer and clip of the film below, then follow LowerGentry on Facebook for updates here!

Brown Truck trailer:


A clip from Brown Truck:

Something Valuable I Learned From "Brain It On!"

This is Brain It On!. I started playing this game on my phone recently and it has been a valuable learning experience. Similar to how chess taught me about blind spots - how you can see the whole board, how your and your opponent's pieces are laid out, yet still be surprised by an attack that you weren't focusing on, the game Brain It On! has also taught me something interesting about myself and how the mind works. Basically, you try to creatively solve puzzles by creating your own pieces and strategy for completing a short objective. What's interesting to me is that oftentimes I'll feel like a puzzle is nearly impossible and have no idea how to solve it. I'll try several different things over and over, take breaks from the game, but then eventually I figure it out - I'll come up with a new idea and quickly solve it or just try different things until I slowly get it right. There were several levels where I thought they may be the end of the game for me.

What's fascinating about this to me is that if I were to only put in an initial effort I would never have solved most of the puzzles, and I might be left with the impression that most of them are impossible or too difficult. Of course, my willingness to persist was largely based on the assumption that the game is well-designed and thus the puzzles are solveable, but that's where in real-life there may be a wisdom factor in deciding how much effort is worth putting in for something where the possibility of the outcome is unknown. What's really insightful about all of this, though, is that I can apply this realization to other areas of my life - if I only put an initial effort into my goals and endeavors, then for many of them I'll never get nearly as far as I could if I really applied myself. The valueable application of this for me is in thinking, "how many things in my life do I bring that level of persistent effort to?"

Inspirational Videos, 2

I don't necessarily agree with everything in these videos, but have still found them inspiring and thought-provoking. Enjoy:


Mike Dolce:

Joe Rogan:

Joshua Parker/Shia LaBeouf:

Today's Breakfast

Oatmeal with a bunch of stuff (oatmeal, 10-grain hot cereal, sunflower seeds, walnuts, raisins, chia seeds, and banana, sprinkled with cinnamon and nutmeg), 4 scrambled eggs with spinach (seasoned with salt, basil, and oregano), cottage cheese from the cottage (not really; and sprinkled with paprika), and black coffee; I did also have a protein bar early on when I woke up:

A good amount of fuel there following yesterday's workout. Today I'm mostly focusing on light, repetitious movements, maybe a little cardio, and stretching.

Today's Workout

Today's workout, a bit harder than I expected but that was partly the point; some of it was easier — surprised I was able to keep up with doing push-ups in sets of 20.

Independent People

No one told them to do that.
If so, no one told them to listen;
So on and so on.
If that's the way it is,
It doesn't depend on me;
Albeit there may be some things.
This is refreshing; should be so obvious.
When everything you see is from one perspective,
Imagine how many things like these there must be.

Adapting and Arranging

Do you succumb to your environment, or does your environment succumb to you?

Self-Development vs. Self-Care

I want to start exercising a distinction between self-development and self-care. Many things fall under both categories, but I think there are enough things that don't to make the distinction worth considering. It's easy to focus so much on being productive in terms of self-development that you either burn out or begin losing a sense of self. On the other hand it's also easy to be so internally focused on doing what you want and not disciplining yourself beyond what's required of you that you end up in kind of a static spot where you're not growing and developing in ways that would enrich your personal activities.

Both are enriching, but I think both can be overdone when they're done at the expense of the other. This is similar to the need for rest when you're active, but rather than simply seeing it as a distinction between doing things that are productive for self-development and taking a break from those things, I want to broaden the concept to see self-care as a different, but in some ways just as active, form of productivity. So it may include simply resting and taking it easy, but it isn't reduced to that. I see self-development as doing or learning things that increase your capacity or skill at doing or remembering the same or similar things in the future- so it's aimed at practice, discipline, and the growth that follows those things when they're done well. I see self-care as doing things that nourish your sense of self, satisfy your healthy needs and desires, and heal and repair you. These aren't the easiest categories to exhaustively define, but for the sake of providing myself with satisfying options besides just the sometimes tiring habit of self-development type endeavors this will suffice as a start.

My point is to see the value in and need for taking care of yourself in addition to developing yourself, and how efforts in one can enrich the other. I'm not setting these up as the only categories- interpersonal relationships are really important also but I'm simply adding clarity to one area of life by adding a distinction.

One way to parse out this distinction may be to think of things pertaining to self-development as those things which may be expected of you to do- pick up after yourself, develop skills, be physically competent and fit to handle situations you may come across, learn the things you may need to know, etc. and to think of things pertaining to self-care as that which may be expected of you to be- what are your interests, what do you value, what makes you happy, what experiences have you enjoyed, what are you good at, who are you given your unique experience and make-up as a person?

Thomas Sowell's Clarifying Thoughts: discussing economic issues regarding minorities

I don't know enough to outright validate Thomas Sowell but I appreciate his clarifying approach to complex issues. He doesn't just try satisfying an issue on a simple point of comparison but digs into the complexity of an issue by taking into account the various factors that surround something like statistics and also looks into areas of a topic beyond the issue at hand in order to challenge and clarify the assumptions behind the proposed problem. I haven't looked a lot into Thomas Sowell but at this point I at least appreciate his clarifying handling of complex issues.

Try

Quiet Car Ride

All that noise had been burying me,
Never has silence sound so sweet.
When to be filled is to lessen what I feel,
All that space is what it takes for me to breathe.

Cavendish Pipe

I'm just all alone but it's not quite a fright,
I sit on this porch and smoke my cavendish pipe.
The snow falls, it's cold;
I feel the things that I felt,
I fear getting old.
I'm just on the porch smoking my cavendish pipe,
the smoke is thick and it's late, well into the night.
I'm here, you're never around;
it's just me and no one is here,
they aren't when they are.
The tobacco in my pipe is burning up,
I guess I'll call it a night,
I didn't feel how I wanted tonight.
But there's always next time,
Even though this was like last.
I'll just rest my pipe and call it a night,
tuck my shoes under the bed and turn out the light.

(edited 9/14/15)

Lowergentry's "Brown Truck": Final Draft of Script Writing Complete

Lowergentry's Elliot Norton and Charles Norton have completed the final draft of their latest film script, Brown Truck.

The immediate next step for them is a private script read-through with Lowergentry collaborators, followed by a long-anticipated transition into their first feature-length filming phase. Following several 48-hour film projects for Idaho's i48 film competition, and numerous other independent film productions, Brown Truck will expand territory for Lowergentry as they have hitherto only produced short film works. What they can hope to retain from previous efforts is a quality and originality that has awarded them successful acknowledgements including:

2013 i48's "Second Best Film" for Twomancrew,
2014 i48's "Best Use of Character" for Guru's Sandbox,
and 2015 Idaho Media Award's "Best Narrative" for Canyon County.

Image by Lowergentry.com
For updates on Lowergentry and their newest project, Brown Truck, follow them on:

Facebook
Twitter

Visit their website at www.lowergentry.com

I'm Going to Start Waking Up Early: my thoughts on supplementation and lifestyle changes

By the end of the month I'll be waking up at 6 a.m. every weekday. That's the goal. The plan is to maintain that habit for at least a month or two, enough time for my body and habits to adapt to it. My original goal was 7:45 a.m., but then I realized I'd miss sunrise and might as well get up a little earlier, plus for some that's sleeping in and my goal is to try being an early bird. I have a tendency to stay up late and I don't know if that's just lack of discipline or a biological propensity, but this experiment should help me see how I handle mornings. The benefit is that if I adapt then I think I'd really enjoy it- seeing the sunrise, and being up early I'll still enjoy some quiet personal time, plus I'll probably be more productive having more structure. If it doesn't work out, at least I gave it a shot and when people give me a hard time about staying up late I can honestly say I gave mornings a shot and they weren't for me. Obviously I'm talking about preferences, having an early job or a family someday will likely get me up early whether I like it or not.

Lately, my staying up has been exceptionally bad- to where I don't even like it. Staying up as late as anywhere between 5 a.m. and 10 a.m. in the morning and sleeping until early evening. This is largely owing to being on the search for a job and as I'm laying in bed I start thinking of other jobs I should apply for or other e-mails I should send, so I get up and stay awake much later than I should. For about a week or so I've been trying to get to bed earlier so I can adjust to reaching my goal of being up early, but I don't get tired now until way late into the morning. I tried skipping sleep for a whole night in order to fall asleep sooner the next day but that wasn't as effective as I'd hoped. I tried working out- jogging 5 mi. a day for a bit and that helped a little but not enough. Part of it is also lifestyle- being on the computer too late and thinking about job searching too late. However, last night I got to sleep around 3 a.m. and woke up around 9 a.m.! I went to Whole Foods looking for melatonin, and discussed it with an employee there who recommended Stress-Relax Tranquil Sleep supplement, and it worked well, better than I expected! It looks like this:

Image by Wesley Grover
(Obviously, people are different- consult your healthcare provider about what's right for you, especially if you take any other supplements or medications, and I would only use it short-term. I'm not being endorsed by this product, I'm just stoked that it worked well so far. I'm also not promoting the brand per se, I don't know how its quality stacks up against other brands.)

It has 5-HTP which is a precursor to the neurotransmitter serotonin, Suntheanine which is a company's proprietary form of L-theanine- the compound in green tea that promotes a relaxing effect, and melatonin which is a naturally occurring hormone that helps regulate your sleep cycle. So, I'll be trying that temporarily as well as a few lifestyle changes such as not using the computer so late, not dealing with things that will get me excited late- such as thinking about a job or things I need to do, keeping the lights low prior to bedtime, exercising regularly, etc.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this morning schedule pans out and what effect it has. If it's even remotely remarkable then perhaps I'll give a little update on how it's been. Cheers.

Oh, and if you're already a natural early bird, as in an effortless early bird- YOU RASCAAAAAAL!! *shakes fist in a Stephen Colbert-esque manner*

Image by David Shankbone

Inspirational Videos

So I struggle a bit between the tension of wanting, on one hand, to only post when I feel I have enough insight or passion about something in order to capture and express it meaningfully and, on the other hand, to keep disciplined in posting regularly enough that I'm pushing myself to develop the skill and mindset to think and write in a way that matters to me more consistently. With that said, this post will be an appeal to both sides. These are a few videos that I've found inspiring. Since I haven't worked out anything in the writing realm this at least keeps me disciplined about posting regularly while also giving me some more time to see if I can figure out what I'd like to write about next.

I don't agree with everything in these videos, yet I have still found them inspiring and thought-provoking. Filter them through your own value system and see if you find them useful at all. Enjoy:


Will Smith:

Rainn Wilson:

Arnold Schwarzenneger:

Russell Brand:

Introspective Questions

Sometimes I find it helpful to ask myself questions; this idea is somewhat neutral in that it can be done in a healthy way or unhealthy way. I spend a fair amount of time thinking about self-development and social dynamics, and these questions that come to mind sort of connect those two areas. They also happen to deal with perspective, which can be a powerful tool for insight. I'll pose a couple sets of questions which both deal with the same idea but with different emphasis.

First round- it seems common to think about what we want or what we think we have to offer, but usually it's from our perspective. One way I like questioning myself and challenging my perspective is by asking questions like: "If I was a girl would I want me as a boyfriend/husband?", "If I was a boss would I want me as an employee?", "If I was a waiter or cashier would I want me as a customer?", "Would I want me as a sibling or friend?", "Would I want me as a neighbor?", etc.

Second round- the first round of questions are the type of things I've occasionally asked myself, and my intent with it is to be more aware but also optimistic hence using it as a method for self-development. This second round of questions I just thought of today while watching a video that reminded me of perspective, it's a bit more in the theoretical realm as it may not deal with common relationships but is meant to provoke awareness and perspective. These are questions like: "What does my personality have to offer a blind person?", "What do I have to offer a deaf person?", "What do I have to offer a kid?", "What do I have to offer an immigrant?", etc. The idea here isn't about charity or giving, but rather about challenging one-dimensionalness. I myself tend to connect with people verbally whether it be joking around or carrying on a conversation, so the idea here would be to see who I am without that, hence "what do I have to offer a deaf person?" Some people may be really into their looks and seek to secure good standing with people that way, so a question to consider would be "what do I have to offer a blind person?" And so on. It also contributes to perspective by assessing what qualities are appreciated by different capabilities or positions in life.

Idaho Media Awards

Yesterday, friends at Lowergentry.com won the Idaho Media Award for Narrative with their short film Canyon County. Congratulations to them!

Their film is available for viewing here (some mature content):

Canyon County

For more information and updates on Lowergentry, like their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/Lowergentry.

For more information on the event host, Idaho Media Professionals, visit their website at www.idahomediapro.com and their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/IdahoMediaProfessionals.

Being and Intent

In passing, I lived my life;
until I wondered what I was doing otherwise


(just a little thought-provoking poem I came up with, basically assessing the idea that you're always living and being, and that your level of intentionality can affect and develop you, but so does your passivity; the irony being that living "in passing" doesn't make sense because everything you do is in the context of your life so you can't treat it as though being "passive" is to be unengaged- treating it passively ends up being your activity and ends up affecting your being. So once you realize you're constantly contributing to who you are and what you're doing it becomes less a question of whether to be in control and more a question of how to be in control, which can positively contribute to someone's thinking by putting their attention on the decisions they do or can make, rather than just focusing on the sometimes daunting consideration of decision-making in general. Basically if one worries about the effect of their decisions, thus becoming passive, they could just as well worry about the effect of their indecisions, which isn't to excuse either one but rather to not view decisiveness as automatically more suspect. Just a thought, take it for what it's worth; cheers.)

Defined Content in Theories As a Measure of Usefulness (rough draft)

The following is an idea about theories, assessing the issue that sometimes occurs where a theory becomes so encompassing that it loses some of the useful distinguishing qualities that presumably motivated the development of it, or the content of the theory is so vague and undefined that to know what the theory would mean is just to look at the world/thing it's referring to in order to gain insight- thus making the theory not as helpful as it was presumably intended to be; so I'm mostly attempting to identify an issue and speculate on some concerns of it. There may be a place for all-encompassing or vague theories, but I'm at least attempting to show how their usefulness differs, if not indeed lacking in usefulness. I haven't developed this idea as far as I think would be warranted for a full understanding, but it's a start and hopefully any mistakes are fewer than the insights. I might revise this idea in the future, so feel welcome to give feedback and criticism.

When theories are useful for our understanding of the world it is because there is a correlation between the theory and reality, and because there is information or criteria within the theory that is defined and the knowledge and understanding of which is transferable to our knowledge and understanding of the world. So a theory that wouldn't be useful for our understanding is one which has undefined information or criteria such that there is no understanding to be gained that translates to an understanding of the world. For example, when theories equivocate their content by defining it in reference to the content of the world then an understanding from the theory depends on knowledge of the information of the world and thus one's understanding is being formed by the world primarily and not the theory, thus making the theory not useful. This occurs when content is undefined, a classic example of which would be the Euthyphro problem- where the desired understanding ("what is good?") is given an undefined criteria ("whatever is loved by the gods"). This theory is not useful for understanding because it makes an identification (goodness with what is loved by the gods) without definition (is it good and therefore the gods love it, or do the gods love it and therefore it is good?; in other words, we're still left asking "what is good?").

I'm not saying that theories with undefined content or criteria are false, I'm just assessing usefulness. Mainly I'm addressing the issue that sometimes comes up when handling a theory where the theory becomes so encompassing by way of its referencing  that it approaches equivalency with the theorized object in consideration (the world, etc.), and thus it doesn't offer much of its own content except to refer to the object- thus knowing the theory is equal to knowing the object in terms of useful content. I'll give two examples of theories with contrasting ways of handling them just to illustrate this point; this is a theoretical comparison of a couple of ideas, I'm not asserting whether or not these topics necessarily fall into the problem I'll pose (it may be more a criticism of how they're handled, but certainly if they're posited in this problematic way then that instance of the theory would be subject to the same criticism). Before those examples (the way you might run into them academically), brief examples of ways people may commonly experience the type of thing I'm addressing (the way you might run into them popularly): someone saying something like "all communication is argument" or "everything is politics"; now, such statements shouldn't be readily dismissed merely for the scope of their claim, and there's often an element of truth to them. Sometimes the person saying it is just trying to imply the importance or breadth of that topic by showing how everything can be viewed through that lens, or how everything relates to that topic. But the difficulty that sometimes emerges with such types of statements is that a lack of distinction renders them less useful. If all communication is argument then to talk about communication is just to talk about argument, unless you specify that all communication is argument but that communication isn't only argument- to the extent there's no distinction it seems to make less sense (in terms of usefulness) to bring up such a point. Real quick- just to lay out some logic in a basic example, consider basketballs (bearing reasonable assumption):  all basketballs are round, but not all round things are basketballs. So on the topic of talking about a round thing it is useful to clarify that it is a basketball, but on the topic of talking about basketballs it is less useful to clarify that it is a round thing. However, even in clarifying that all basketballs are round it's the case, in this example, that all basketballs aren't only round- they also have other attributes such as color or size, which may differ. But insofar as all basketballs are round, the basketball is entirely round- but being all round doesn't excluding it from being something else in addition to round (red, blue, big, small, etc.). So to say all basketballs are round isn't to say all basketballs are the same.

Now on to two theories and examples of different handling (I'm not asserting that I'm representing these theories correctly, these are just examples for the sake of comparison; but the comparison should make sense regardless of the accuracy of representation). Take Evolution and Behaviorism for example; evolution dealing with biological adaptation to the relative environment and reproductive development, and behaviorism dealing with behavioral psychology with respect to reward and punishment. Now say, theoretically (i.e.- I'm making this up), that one were to posit evolution as the development of biological life with respect to lifespan and offspring, and behaviorism as the understanding of behavior with respect to the subject's preconceived or recalled assessment of an experience's effectual reward and punishment. With a bit of elaboration and assessment those two theories (as just posited) would be potentially useful given the defined content (lifespan and offspring; preconceived or recalled assessment of an experience's effectual reward and punishment) and criteria (development of biological life; understanding of behavior). The use of these theories as such would look something like- life is developing evolutionarily if and when their is an increase in length of lifespan or an increase in quantity of offspring (another example could be the sustaining of length of lifespan and quantity of offspring in relation to a changing environment); and, we're understanding behavior behavioristically if and when we know a subject's assessment of a behavior's potential reward and punishment and their inclination toward reward. So in these examples, these theories would be useful in that we can, on one hand, understand if a species is adapting to its environment (and thus whether it's tending toward extinction or expansion, or sustained) by measuring and comparing different points of lifespan length and offspring quantity; and on the other hand, understand the reason for one's behavior (and thus the likelihood of certain behavior with respect to the experience in consideration) by knowing the subject's assessment of an experience's outcome of reward and punishment, along with their inclination toward reward.

Taking the same topic of theory, but handling it in an undefined way, will show how such a theory is much less useful:  say we define evolution as the adaptive changes of biological life to its environment, and behaviorism as the understanding of behavior where one's choices are done for reward. When inquiring for understanding of the theories as to what defines "adaptive changes" or "reward" their usefulness as theories is diminished (or lost) when the answer is merely an unqualified reference to the very instance in consideration. It's all-encompassing in a way that doesn't offer insight into any part, or it's tautologous in a way that is necessarily true but useless. So if someone says that evolution is simply the occurrence of all changes between living things and the environment- that biology necessarily evolves in relation to the environment (and parts of the living thing in consideration might be considered as environmental causes to other parts of the living thing) because living things are composed with the environment and so for living things to reproduce they must do so compatibly with the environment and when there is incompatibility the living thing ceases to be sustained, and thus all life and evolution become connected- since you couldn't have a living thing that isn't evolved (since it would cease). Notice that the difference between this conception of evolution and the one theorized earlier is that this one is about adaption of a living thing to its environment (thus to be alive is to be adapted to some extent) and the other one was about some defining characteristics of adaption as they relate to reproduction and lifespan. In the mere adaption one you can have a living thing adapting to its environment (thus changing in a way that if it didn't change it would've died off) but still having a reduction in lifespan and offspring (thus the changes were sufficient to sustain life but not advantageously in comparison to its relation to the previous environmental factors); in the other theory the living thing in consideration is deemed to be evolving with respect to a sustaining or increase in lifespan or offspring. Both theories may be true, but their usefulness differs; to answer whether something is evolving for one is just to ask whether it's still living and reproducing at all with respect to environmental changes, to answer whether something is evolving for the other is contingent on (in this example) an increase in lifespan or offspring and thus some living things will be considered evolving and some not.

As for behaviorism, say it is posited that all behavior is done for reward. But pursuant to this assumption, in answering "what was this behavior done for?" it isn't debated as to whether what it was done for was a reward or not, but rather, being done for a reward, what was it done for since that is the reward. Thus "reward" becomes synonymous with the reality of whatever it is, in all circumstances, that anyone behaves the way they do for. And thus "reward" becomes as broad in definition as there are reasons for behavior. Although it seems very similar, there is a difference between saying that someone did something because it was rewarding (thus a defined or preconceived notion of reward; the reason for something that was done is compatible with what is, at least in that person, considered rewarding; this way of positing it doesn't preclude the possibility of doing something not for reward) and the reward for which someone did something is whatever the reason they did it for was (thus having done it for reward is a matter of necessity, not a matter of compatibility, since reward is being identified as equal to the reason for a behavior). So saying "everything is done for reward" doesn't become helpful because there isn't anything that isn't done for reward and the reward is just whatever anything is done for- which is presumably unique to each event and thus the theory has no common attribute.

Please note that I'm not attempting to over-exert myself for the perfect example comparison- I'm just attempting to offer two different aspects of a theory to show that when held in a certain way the theory isn't as useful (unless expanded in a way that includes the qualities of the more defined theory).

One of the qualities of a good theory with defined content is that the theory can be used for prediction and mechanistic identification; if there's a correlation between the theory and reality, and the theory has defined content, then when something in reality correlates to that defined content then the implications within the theory will have transitive application to understanding the instance of reality in consideration that the theory is being applied to. The defined content allows one to identify the association between the parts in the theory and the correlating parts of reality. Theories that are so undefined that they get all of their content from reality, or that are so encompassing that there's no distinguishing contrast, don't seem to then develop enough internal understanding that would then be clarifying in it's application to the world, the understanding will emerge in the perception of the information one gains from reality, but the usefulness that follows from this will be owing to the understanding developed from perceiving reality rather than from the conception of the theory. A possible exception might be if such a theory wasn't aimed at adding understanding but rather removing misunderstanding- so the example of saying all communication is argument may not be informative but may be clarifying by virtue of challenging the preconceived idea that there are types of communication that aren't argument (if such were the case).