Big Lessons from Little Kids

Excerpted from "21 Big Lessons from Little Kids: Little things you may have forgotten", from the Sept. '07 issue of Men's Health magazine:


2. Sometimes it's best to be completely blunt with people, as you used to be with relatives who wanted you to do something embarrassing or tedious for a shiny quarter.

3. Asking questions is how you figure things out. Lots and lots of questions.

4. An older, wiser Gordie Lachance says in Stand By Me, "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12." Lachance is right. The trick is to try to be the friend you were when you were 12: fun-loving and loyal, with no strings attached.

5. Playing is work. Approach your downtime with all the seriousness of a 5-year-old with a secret treasure map.

6. Real guys don't dip their toes in the water. They jump right in.

8. You hated it when a grown-up told you, "We'll see." It's still unacceptable. Don't say it yourself.

9. The only way to know how something works is to completely disassemble it. (This is still good advice when tackling a complex problem. Your plasma TV? Not so much).

10. There's a reason they don't give credit cards to 8-year-olds. You're supposed to save up money before you buy a new toy.

11. Your body was designed for throwing baseballs, shooting hoops, and jumping off diving boards and stuff. In the secret language of children, the word "fitness" doesn't exist. It's called "having fun."

12. Your world can be half-real and half-imaginary.

13. Homework blows. Bring work home with you and it'll ruin your night. And your marriage. And your family. And your life.

14. Too much of anything will give you a tummy ache. Like, say, bourbon.

15. If there's even the slightest doubt, hit the potty before you leave.

16. The coolest adults were the ones who took the time to listen to you. You still want to grow up to be a cool adult, right?

18. Use adrenaline as your drug of choice. You don't need beer, pot, or cigarettes to have a good time.

19. Kissing a girl on the cheek is a big deal. Kissing her lips is an even bigger deal. Seeing her naked for the first time is a major, life-altering event.

21. Seeing a thunderstorm roll in is better than watching HDTV. And rain isn't something to curse, but to enjoy. Hurry up, before it clears.

Amun... Amen!

A long time ago, a man was born of a virgin in the likeness of God. After spreading messages of love and peace in his early life, he was betrayed by his friends and slain on a slab of wood. He was then resurrected on Earth before returning to heaven.

The man’s name isn’t Jesus. It’s Osiris, the god-man of ancient Egypt.

:) Got your attention? Read more here, in the Columbia Missourian's article on the book, "The Egyptian Origins of Christianity", by Lisa Ann Bargeman. Including about things like the etymological connections between "Amen" and the Egyptian god Amun/Amon.

While there are many clues to suggest Christianity’s roots can be traced to Greek, or Hellenic times, which began about 300 years before Christ’s birth during the development of Judaism, stories about Egyptian influences and other perceived “pagan” legends make some Christians uneasy. “The reason for such denial is that Christianity is always presented as the only true religion, the only way to salvation, and as such, it could not have borrowed anything from a religion they have dubbed heathen or pagan,” Harrison Ola Akingbade, an Anglican Christian himself, wrote in the foreword of Bargeman’s book.

So. Like I keep asking: why should God have only made Him/Herself --- in His/Her true form --- known to the Hebrews? Why should that group of people have been more special than every other civilization in Creation? Are we not *all* God's children?

New/Separate Blog

Created a new/separate blog, meant specifically for the inane, mundane, stream-of-consciousness -type diary entries that wouldn't quite fit into what I intended this blog to be. Check it out here. It'll probably be updated a lot more frequently than this one will. This one will remain devoted to things-that-make-you-go-hmmm.

A must-read

My friend #####'s not-quite-a-blog. Snippety peeks into the mind (and soul) of a literary prince, with an archive dating back to before there were blogs.

WARNING: Proceed with caution, especially if you have work to do. As with PhDComics / Dilbert / etc., it's very hard to resist clicking <Next> (or <Previous>) "just one more time!"

Balance and Peace

My friend Jeff Chow has been hiking the Appalachian Trail, and has been maintaining a multimedia-rich blog for well-wishers and curious gawkers (like myself) to share in his experiences. In one of his recent posts, he posed the following question:

"If you believe that one should accept oneself as you are and also believe that one should try to continue to grow and improve oneself, how do you balance the two ideas?"

I responded with:

Accept yourself for the person you are, with the “person you are” being something (someone) that *contains* the *potential* to be much more than you are right now. There’s untapped potential in you, that isn’t being expressed yet. Becoming aware of and tapping and utilizing that potential = growth. If you can look back on your past and say to yourself - “I did the best that I could have done, under the circumstances”, then that’s the best you can be, and that’s all you need to accept.

... I think. ;)

Figured I'd include it here on my own blog as well. :)

Btw, check out an excellently produced slideshow (with audio overlay) about the AT called `An Enduring Journey', published by the Minneapolis StarTribune and featuring JeffC himself, here. (Requires the Adobe Flash player to be installed on your computer.)

More on blogs

Florist asks (asked) similar questions, and expresses similar sentiments, here and here.

And Satya responds, succintly, so:

My blog is a place for me to get thoughts onto "paper". In the absence of a blog, I'd be bugging people with the same stuff, in real time (which is precious), and repeating myself (did I remember to tell you...?). It's also a place to leave notes for myself -- the future me, whether next day or next decade. Of course, I could email notes to myself instead, but, as with the Rails stuff, it's out there for the googling lost programmer to find.

And, of course, fame and fortune.

[2007.08.01] And pithier yet, from the usb-port: here.

On 'blogs

I do a lot of my thinking while I'm in the shower, and during my most recent one (see my previous post), the topic-of-the-moment was 'blogs' -- why do we keep them? What's their purpose? Why am I keeping one? (Not very surprising, considering that I had created my first blog just a few hours ago.) One (obvious) line of thought is that this is our (where 'we' = children of the Digital/Internet Age) personal pulpit, an opportunity to tell the entire world what we think, and (hopefully) make our presence felt. (Clearly, a 21st-century evolution of the personal webpages on geocities / tripod / angelfire / university servers that spread like wildfire back when the 'Web was young.) This has shades of commonality with the publish-or-perish philosophy in the research/academic world -- which I was reminded of while reading a fellow grad-student's blog post earlier today. If you do not publish, you effectively do not exist. Blogito, ergo sum.

But, is anyone really listening? In the short while since starting this blog, I've been tempted to write down every inane little thought that I've had -- like this one, for example. Does that not reek of hubris, to believe that the world cares about things like that? I'm not saying that they're not significant, but that they're only significant to people to whom I'm already close, and I would typically only mention them to those people in a personal conversation. A web-log isn't the place for such things, is it?

And, speaking of personal conversations, I'm a strong believer in the importance of face-to-face communication, with all its subtle nuances of body language and the training it gives you in proper social intercourse/etiquette. Telephone conversations and the written word (letters, e-mail, Instant Messaging, Bulletin-Board Systems / Internet forums) are useful and necessary, but they're already a step away. The more we use -- and rely on -- the Internet and related technology to interact with the rest of the world (from blogs and social-networking websites to the innocuousness of news and e-commerce/web-merchant websites), the more we seem to be losing that personal touch, and actually distancing ourselves from the rest of the world, retreating into shells which only we inhabit and where, to a large extent, only our feelings matter. It's easier to disregard another person when they're not physically standing right in front of you. (An IM conversation with ChrissyNB earlier today reminded me of this paradox of the Internet Age.) But, coming back to blogs and personal conversations about `little' things: When I voice such thoughts out aloud, I expect a response. I want a response -- that's why I mentioned that thing to that person (or persons). And a personal conversation, whether face-to-face, or via a telephone or IM, (usually) gives me that gratification. A web-log would not - there's no guarantee of a response, and most definitely not an immediate one. So I can see myself quickly tiring of this exercise if I let that -- the sharing of my thoughts with the world -- be the its principal/sole raison d'etre. (I already have/use e-mail as a medium for pushing that sort of information to people whom I know would be interested in it, so I don't need a blog for that purpose. If this blog evolves to subsume that functionality, and performs it in a more efficient manner, then that's just dandy, of course.)

Which brings me back, full-circle, to the comments of my very first post: Is the primary purpose of a blog to be -- for me, at least -- more like a personal diary? A collection of writings with myself as the primary intended audience? Yet, this is a public space, with the secondary (?) purpose of allowing others to weigh in on my thoughts as well... if they care to! A blog is not at all an incarnation (however diluted) of the traditional social interaction, yet neither is it the place to jot down notes to myself that are too personal to share with others. It's a strange sort of hybrid of the two, retaining some of their functionalities while also, unfortunately, losing their others. The real question -- to me -- is: Is it worth it? Is having one (or two) tilt-rotor(s) better than having one aeroplane and one helicopter? ;)