A fundamental lack.

Words are great, I love to use and abuse them. I invent words, come up with new uses for old words, and combine them all into a mash of expressive genius.

Unfortunately, some hurdles are dug in deeper than others. In particular, I find the lack of a neutral gender seriously aggravating. For instance, in a previous post I kept having to either say “him or herself” or pick a gender. I really don’t like the option of “oneself;” even though it does serve its purpose sometimes, in others it completely kills the mood, and it comes across as snoody.

This lack of a gender-neutral term, while easily circumvented, leads to something more negative than poor word choice. The nature of people to choose the easiest, simplest mode of function, which is good in my opinion, leads most to pick just one… which tends to be the masculine. Most of the time, I just say “he” or “him” because it’s the easiest for me, but what does it say about our value systems?

It certainly isn’t a major thing, not even up to size for a minor thing… it’s tiny. But tiny things make up the big things.

Wow!

I’ve just been featured on Redorbit.com’s blogs of the day! I don’t know what it means, but that’s spectaaaaacular.

Meanwhile, I have to forego a significant post for today… I’ve got some urgent homework. But you get this! No worries, there’ll be one for Thursday.

To kill a joke…ingbird.

Things can get over-used; it’s pretty much a fact of life. As the title suggests, jokes are usually killed in this manner. Muscles get tired through over-use, shoes get worn out, clichés are clichés because they are over-used. Over-used is getting over-used.

This principle, however, should not be liberally applied. You can never have too much proper fun, too many hugs, or smile too much.

The topic of this post, though, is not about any of those things. So, we’ll get to the point…

In part of my family, we have a label for what many people inherently do: swearing to relieve stress. Keeping our minds out of the gutter, the term is “fuck-therapy.” Sometimes, a good epithet is really the only solution.

If you’re thinking ahead, maybe you know where I’m going with this.

Fuck-therapy can be over-used. It loses its efficacy when every other word is a curse, and I’ve only really realized this in the wake of my serious cutback in swearing.

That could bring us to the larger issue of any therapy, whether it be medical or psychological, and the common tendency to over-medicate and/or over-compensate for any sort of “anomaly” in “standard” health. It happens in dentistry, medicine, psychiatry, and society in general. When the therapy becomes a habit, an addiction of sorts, is it really helping to alleviate anything?

With my über-application of fuck-therapy, I found that it caused more problems than it really solved. Excess is its own disease, folks.

A new philosophy?

I apologize for not getting this out yesterday. Thursday is my busiest day of the week, and it was particularly insane.

Pretty much all of my life philosophies focus on avoiding dumbassery, the collective unit of stupid and stagnant actions and thoughts. These are “negative” philosophies, designed to avoid or take something away. This is all fine and dandy, but even though I have known it for a long time, it really just occurred to me that positive philosophies have their place as well, maybe a higher place than should negative philosophies.

It’s difficult though… Sorta like how “Do no harm” is a negative philosophy, it must be this way because “Do only good” is sort of impossible… we’re only human, ya know? It would seem the corollary to Do no harm would indeed be Do only good, but you can do a lot of things that do neither. This is the problem with negative philosophies, is that they only not do something. There is a more proactive approach; positive philosophy.

The people who ascribe to positive philosophy are actors: they act, they do things. Negative philosophers may act too, but they are more likely to not be driven to. Take a simple graph:

–|——|——|–

The left line is bad, middle neutral, right good. Negative philosophies only seek to cut the left line out, while positive philosophies seek to push the right line forward. Right has more potential for good, left less potential for bad, each with their own potential costs.

“Well, why can’t you just mix the two?”

Yeah, why not? And that’s my whole point. My conscious philosophies have had a tendency to side on the negative, but I feel it’s high time to start spreading positive ones as well.

We’ll see how it goes.

I’ve recently come across a quote while reading Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality, that essentially says while “Do unto others…” is a great maxim, another is even more valuable: “Do what is good for you with the least possible harm to others.” This pretty well mixes both positive and negative philosophies.

I am, but shouldn’t.

It never fails to infuriate me that more than a few of my fellow students are still more interested in a class that is easy, rather than one in which they may learn a great deal.

That’s it.

An experiment!

First of all, I’d like to point out the exclamation point in the title. I once had a question mark… and now an exclamation point. This would lead one to believe that I’m fairly excited about this “experiment.” Yup, I am. (This post was originally written in the summer of 2007. At this point in time, I have easily broken this standard… oh how times change.)

I recently acquired a small stereo with two speakers, which I have added to my computer’s sound system fleet. At times, I also use my Airport Express to wirelessly connect to my bedroom’s stereo, which adds two fairly large speakers to my sub, two small satellites, and newly acquired speakers. It creates quite a storm of music which I heartily enjoy.

An idea struck me… both stereo systems wire together with the normal attachment; the speakers have open wires that poke into holes at the back of the receiver, and are secured by a little clip. I wonder… if I stick two wires in, will it work?

That is the proposed experiment. Chances are, it’ll work and nothing will happen except the desired and expected results. Only time will tell.

I’ve twisted the two speaker wires together for extra security, and inserted one set. It’s a good fit.

Second set in.

Firing it up….

It works! Yesssss. Admittedly, the larger speakers lack the power they normally have, probably because the receiver in use is quite a bit smaller, but whatever. Excellent. Just call me Dr. Andrewstein.

Note from nine months later: God I’m dumb.

I just wrote this for Social Psych.

I define love as a strong attachment, often based on subjective and sometimes even highly irrational reasons, and an interest that needs to be fostered. Often times we can’t understand or contemplate what exactly we love about a person, except that we care about that person more deeply than most. But love is also an action, a behavior, not just a feeling. When I love someone, I take interest in their life and well-being. I don’t simply accept their attention, I give them attention. The kind of love you can fall into is the same kind that can be fallen out of, and that is simply base attraction. Real love is more alive, and must be taken care of and nurtured. Neglect kills love, as does smothering.

Yeah, yeah, I’m a dork.

In response to “Faith;” a heavy post.

Whenever I write about faith, God, or religion, it hits a nerve with a lot of people. I enjoy this, and wish more nerves than just religion could be hit so strongly. I recognize that it is difficult to track comments, and this is really very important in my opinion, so I’m taking these comments from my post Faith. and bringing them to the forefront. These comments better address concerns that others have, and that I have. As I struggle through my life, trying to define who I am and why I’m here, these are the moments that provide a real boost of energy and serve to move me past Go, to collect $200. There is no better way, in my opinion, than heart-felt discourse on the matters of self and heart. Below the fold is an extension of the discussion begun so long ago. I think it’s worth consideration.

Being a stupid human.

“Man, I’ve been playing guitar for like… three hours.”
“What… what are you talking about? This show hasn’t been on for three hours, and you weren’t playing before it.”
“Fine… it started at four… so I’ve been playing for two.”
“Except you weren’t playing for the first hour. I was here. Stop trying to play the martyr.”
“Oh yeah… what the hell… but it’s SO HARD.”

That’s basically the conversation I just had with my roommate. Thanks for bringing me back to me senses.

That was fast.

Feb 20, 2007 to December 5, 2007 was the span of time it took me to get 1000 hits (see this post). So from December 2007 to about March 20, 2008, I got my next 1000. That’s almost a quarter of the time. Thanks everyone!

Coming up for Monday, I’ve got a doozy of a post. Possibly more epic than the previous one.