The Hope Of Perpetuation

     Everything, everywhere, builds on a foundation.  I've always considered this to be true, but I've never articulated it in writing, verbally or otherwise.  I'm think, at one time or another, everyone has at least thought about it.  Look around you, and think about everything you have, everything you've learned, and everything you are, currently, as a person.  Everything occurs in a series of steps that builds on the foundation you have laid down.

     I once thought of the world as a mess, as a hodgepodge of incomplete works, things people began but never finished.  Everywhere I looked, I saw unfinished projects: roads in the middle of construction, flip phones, tube TVs, gardens, elementary school children, the NFL draft.  All of these things, indeed everything else in this world too, were not finished and would never be finished.  They were simply building to a crescendo that would never occur.  They were all projects that would continue to be reinvented, redefined and improved upon.  But my view of the world, as I get older, is beginning to change.

     I dare suspect(as if I know the minds and hearts of others) that I am metamorphisizing backwards in this.  I would think that most people initially view the world through the prism of hopeful optimism and evolve away from that into a negative cynicism.  As I live on, I think I'm moving away from the idea of an incomplete world and into the idea that there is no technological ceiling.  There will never be an end to the incomplete projects of the world, but now I feel a comfort in that, not a brooding sense of failure.  It is like a classical masteiece ending on a suspended seventh, and I'm waiting, screaming for that resolution chord to finish the concert but it never comes and we, the audience, sit in our red velvet seats, stuck in suspense for all eternity.  But after being stuck on that chord for so long, maybe, just maybe, I begin to recognize the hope in it.  It is the idea that we are never finished--not as a negative, but instead as a positive.  Things will always improve.  And with that idea, comes hope.  It is the focal point that changed, I guess.  I am no longer focussing on the incomplete, but instead focussing on the future possibilities, and imagining the evolution.

     The same is true with everything in this world.  End points are an illusion, like the concept of time.  Ends are a means constructed by the human mind to force some sort of order on the world in which we live.  The idea helps us feel fulfilled.  Admittedly, it's hard not to be seduced by it.  For example, I mow my lawn.  I am finished.  Broaden the time frame and I am not finished.  If you broaden it enough, I will end up cutting it next week too.  Broadened to infinity, I will never fully complete the task.  Again, and simply for the fact that it bears repeating, everything is this way.  

     We define what constitutes the end of something.  We make an imaginary stopping point, a point where we say, it will be done when....fill in the blank.  But it's never done.  We percieve something to be completed when we arrive at this imaginary end point.  Everything stretches to infinity, and our minds cannot grasp it.  Because of this inability to fully grasp the concept of infinity, we must create absolutes.  

     

     Instead of negatively viewing a project as never finished, I submit the challenge to view it positively.  It is a chance to improve on it, a chance for continuation, a hopeful progression of perpetuation.  There are no real end points, no fulfilling victories.  The fulfillment comes in improving, in always having that last chance to do it better.  It is what has given us what we have today.  Everything builds on a foundation and goes on ad infinitum...

http://www.amazon.com/Shift-Bill-C-Castengera/dp/150088703X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410747499&sr=1-1&keywords=castengera

Small Talk Is Vampiric

      I think I'm personable.  I think I get along well with others.  I outwardly accept most situations, even though sometimes someone throws a serious curveball and I'm ill prepared to mask my surprise.  Most of this may seem intangible so I'm prepared to back it up with examples.  But before the example backup, ask yourself how well you roll with the punches.  I guess it's not necessarily even punches I'm talking about, because that implies a hardship, and even though that's a portion of what I'm talking about, it's more frequent.  Ask yourself how well you can make someone feel that you relate to them.  How well do you put people at ease, allowing them to feel safe enough to give you a glimpse into their twisted lives?  I feel that I have, in some scope, refined an ability to do this.  It sounds sociopathic.  It sounds like social engineering or psy ops.  I suppose it is on its most basic level.  It's social guerrilla warfare, a manipulation of perception swayed in your favor to gain an insight not just anyone can gain.

     As a general rule, I'm not a "small talk" kind of person.  It's awkward and irrelevant.  Small talk is, at best, a disengenuous act of feigning compassion about someone else's concerns.  I'm more of a "say what you need and then let's shut the hell up" kind of person.  This may sound a bit harsh, and maybe I don't mean it quite as harsh as it seems to sound.  Basically, I want my conversations to stay relevant.  I have been known to tell people that I think their story is too long.  I can fake interest in brief sections of time.  But when someone's story drags on and on, I get antsy.  Gotta keep moving.  I liken it to someone telling me what they dreamed.  This is so irrelevant, it makes me want to cry vomit.  Yes, cry vomit, since it's so sad and nauseating at the same time.  What happened in your dream is pointless and holds no bearing on real life(I'll not get into a debate about psychic phenomena or future predictions from dreams, here).  Often, when someone is explaining their dream, it is an ill-constructed, plotless, weird recount of events that have no structure or climactic payoff.  They all end with "then I woke up."  There is no character development, and no plot line resolution.  Its a waste of time.  The only format in which dream recitation is acceptable to me is in two to three sentence explanations.  "I dreamt that you had a goats head, then we hunted you and ate you for dinner.  Pretty weird, huh?"  Quick, to the point, and a breath of fresh air.  So, I'm getting off the dream stump now, and back to what I'm trying to convey.

     Since I get bored with small talk and everyone seems to want to do it, I have no choice but to engage in it so I can fit under the societal umbrella of normal.  So I often play a game.  I roll with what people tell me.  I feign interest.  I ask follow up questions and I listen way more than I talk.  If you ever get a chance to watch two people engage in small talk, I recommend that you look at it through this prism:  Every intention that the two people have during the interaction is to twist the conversation into something meaningful and relevant to them.  It's a struggle for floor time, a struggle for each of them to keep the conversation about themselves, to gain control of the spotlight.  If I get stuck in a small talk situation(which is not that often, since I'm easily put off by it), I allow it to be about the other person.  I don't grapple for the focus.  It's interesting to me because it makes people really feel that I care.  But it's also exhausting because I am loading up on someone else's emotional baggage.  If I could come up with a way best to explain it, I would call it "emotional energy transference."  I am letting someone use me to unload their emotional energy and so I absorb it, making them feel better and me feel like I now have their emotional weight.  These people are energy vampires, off-loading their negative energy and corrupting my positive energy.  That's why I don't like to engage in it.  It's exhausting. 

     You'll find that when you don't wrestle for the focus in conversations, people will tell you way more than you expect to hear.  And also, your reaction will alert them as to wether they feel safe to continue or if they feel that they've said too much and back off.  I always try to handle whatever people tell me as normal and not too far off the beaten path, even when it is way outside the grid.  "Oh, you killed your girlfriend last night?  Hmmm.  Sounds reasonable.  How'd you do it?"  This makes them feel safe and they will continue, knowing now, that you are not judging and are sympathetic to their point of view.  

     So, I'm obviously and constantly thinking inwardly.  Outwardly, I accept what people tell me.  Inwardly, I'm thinking crazy thoughts about this killer I'm talking to and how I hope they don't kill me, and how can I get out of this conversation without getting kilt.  (Decided to use the vernacular of "killed."  I don't know, maybe now I'm getting bored with my own story)...

     So anyway, I guess this post is about holding a reaction to get more insight because it makes people feel more comfortable.  And I guess it's about how if I can avoid it, I will, but also, if I can't avoid it, I try to seem genuinely interested to build that trust to see how much I can get out of them.  Mostly it's about how bat-shit crazy my mind is, and how long conversations suck the life out of me.

Are You A Winner Or A Loser?

     Are you a winner or a loser?  As I was driving home from the gym this morning, something on the radio got me thinking about this.  I really only listen to talk radio, since most of the music stations seem to only get the rights to play the same four songs in a cycle of repetitive monontony (I honestly can't even begin to substantiate this claim, but I've spent a lot of time imagining a back story for how this occurs so in the interest of making myself feel like it was time well spent, I'm going to blindly believe that I somehow correctly guessed how the industry works).  Bottom line:  I choose to listen to talk radio as an alternative to music radio.  It is entertaining, keeps my mind engaged and its different everyday.  The reporter was relaying a story about a school somewhere (who cares where, am I right?) that has made the decision to not keep score during their soccer games.  We've all probably heard of this scenario at some time or another.  They decide not to keep score so that the kids don't get their feelings hurt, they all get trophies, yada, yada.  But as I was still coming to terms with the fact that I've become desensitized to this whole line of thought, the story took an additional twist, one for which I was not prepared.  Apparently, some of the children couldn't dribble the ball(aha!  Are you impressed with my knowledge of soccer terms??  Dribbling in soccer, unlike basketball, simply means handling the ball with your feet to work your way across the field).  Well, they couldn't dribble the ball quite as well as some other kids, so they elected to leave the ball out of the game.  Are you freaking kidding me?  Imagine watching this game of pretend soccer where the kids are running back and forth on the field, no score, no ball, and wait, why am I watching this?  This sort of sounds like running around a track, now.  Just tell the kids to do some sprints.

    Okay, now we're going to play tennis, but sometimes the ball hits the net and that could disappoint someone, so let's remove the net.  The tennis racket can get heavy after a while, so let's just pretend we are holding a racket and you don't have to worry your delicate little mind about missing the ball, because guess what?, we are going to just imagine that the ball is there.  No need for those pesky out of bounds lines, they can be such a nuisance!  I know that some people can get tired of running back and forth faster than other people and that's just not fair, so no running allowed.  Alright!  Good game! You guys played your hearts out, out there!  Good job.  Tomorrow, you get a trophy for sitting on the couch and watching TV.  Keep up the great work!

    This doesn't adequately prepare children for life.  In life, producers are rewarded.  Laziness is punished.  At work, promotions occur because someone is better at something than someone else.  People that can produce results get paid more than non-producers, and this makes sense. 

     "You tried but your results were the opposite of what we were going for, but dammit, you tried.  Here's a pay increase for trying."  Nope, it would never happen.  Can you imagine the shock these kids experience when they grow up, get out into the real world, and never get a trophy for just participating?  Everything they learned in school taught them that all they need to do is participate.  They've never been subjected to performance pressure and now they are not conditioned to handle it.  Freak out.  Depression.  Confusion.

     Here's the truth...Tell as many kids as you can, so they can be prepared for life:

     Are you a winner or a loser?  Everyone is both.  We don't always win.  But, on the positive side, we don't always lose.  Learn to accept a loss.  It teaches you what not to do next time so that maybe, when you are presented with the same situation, you'll make the necessary adjustments to win.  We lose to learn.  Use it as a learning experience.  Everyone's goal in life is to win more than they lose.  Produce.  Producers are rewarded.  Hard work is rewarded with wins.  Mediocrity is rewarded with losses.  Welcome the loss objectively, even positively, and change the thing that made you lose.  We are all trying to beat the other team.  Life keeps score.  Bosses keep score.  Life puts the ball in play and life gives trophies only to the winners.  A loss means you need to work hard and practice more. A win means you need to work hard and practice more.  Get it?  It's the same.  There will always be a competitor that worked harder than you, practiced more than you.  Acknowledge this fact, it's the natural order of the universe.  The goal here is to get good enough to capture a few wins, and then more.  Everyone is after the title and no one can stay on top forever.  Try to give yourself a few moments up there, because its always brief.

     Life makes you play with the soccer ball.  Skill level in sports, in everything--in life, is like fingerprints.  There is no one that is an identical match.  If I were on that scoreless, ball less soccer field, I would still try to be the best damn imaginary soccer player out there, because I want the biggest imaginary trophy ever not given out for not being the team's irrelevant MVP.

     Now get out there and produce!