A significantly less serious post for me, but I’m really grateful for treadmills.
I’m an avid runner, and really love to run outside, but living in the northeastern US, sometimes it’s virtually impossible to get outside. After an unfortunate frostbitten incident about a year ago, I lost my will to brave the cold, even with multiple layers. And during ice storms, the moisture damage to my shoes and the risk of slipping are far too much for me to comfortably handle. Fortunately, the treadmill offers me a consistent way for me to avoid the bitter ferocity of the outdoors but still keep my legs from atrophying.
It’s boring, yes. Very, very boring. But it’s better than nothing. I can still listen to the rhythm of my feet, and the fact that there aren’t any cars or other people around makes it easier for me to completely lose myself in wandering thought. I can almost seamlessly leave my body and forget about my unchanging surroundings. And of course there’s the occasional luxury of earphones, too…
I find it easier to push myself on a treadmill. If I have a specific goal, it’s harder to pace myself outside (especially since I rarely carry a timepiece with me). But on the treadmill, I can simply set the speed to exactly the level of performance I want to accomplish, and see if I can last.
Now, I know the treadmill isn’t ideal. It’s flat, so it doesn’t offer the natural challenge of hills and valleys of the outdoors, and since it’s a running feed, you’re technically not propelling yourself forward (only getting yourself pushed back). But it’s still challenging if you compensate for it, and it’s amazing as a last resort.
That’s it. Nothing deep or opinionated or maybe even insightful, but I had a good run today and I wanted to pay thanks.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Drop-Down Menus
Drop-down menus are terrible. You understand what I’m referring to—the arrow-initiated list of options that appears when you’re filling information in online, on anything from goofy personality quizzes to serious job applications. They’re abysmal, and this is why.
Life isn’t multiple choice. Okay, yes, technically I suppose you could qualify it that way; but what I’m getting at is there isn’t a finite range of options available to you in describing yourself either concretely or abstractly. I thought it was bad enough when the license bureau forced you to select a single color for your hair or your eyes. Now every characteristic you could possibly have is rapidly being only definable through drop-down menus. Sure, a few of them may be accurate. But no amount of pre-determined options could possibly be enough to cover the spread of uniqueness in the world.
People need to be able to define themselves abstractly and specifically. Instead of just putting “brown” for hair color, wouldn’t it be more accurate for me to say “a transitional light brown, with fleeting shades of blond.” Or instead of saying “no degree,” saying “in the final two weeks of my four-year college education.” Everything is becoming oversimplified and overcompartmentalized—it’s a way of both limiting the way you can describe yourself and segregating people into classes. It’s as if more and more, the common belief is that people can be arithmetically sorted into groups.
While there are advantages to this kind of sorting, and accuracy within drop-down menus as a whole, I think it’s a dangerous direction for us to head in as a society. It’s probably a little fatalistic to think that this could lead to further rigid classifications in real life, but we have to imagine it as a possibility. The day may come when we all have numbers instead of names.
Life isn’t multiple choice. Okay, yes, technically I suppose you could qualify it that way; but what I’m getting at is there isn’t a finite range of options available to you in describing yourself either concretely or abstractly. I thought it was bad enough when the license bureau forced you to select a single color for your hair or your eyes. Now every characteristic you could possibly have is rapidly being only definable through drop-down menus. Sure, a few of them may be accurate. But no amount of pre-determined options could possibly be enough to cover the spread of uniqueness in the world.
People need to be able to define themselves abstractly and specifically. Instead of just putting “brown” for hair color, wouldn’t it be more accurate for me to say “a transitional light brown, with fleeting shades of blond.” Or instead of saying “no degree,” saying “in the final two weeks of my four-year college education.” Everything is becoming oversimplified and overcompartmentalized—it’s a way of both limiting the way you can describe yourself and segregating people into classes. It’s as if more and more, the common belief is that people can be arithmetically sorted into groups.
While there are advantages to this kind of sorting, and accuracy within drop-down menus as a whole, I think it’s a dangerous direction for us to head in as a society. It’s probably a little fatalistic to think that this could lead to further rigid classifications in real life, but we have to imagine it as a possibility. The day may come when we all have numbers instead of names.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Menard's
I went shopping at a Menard’s yesterday. I was reminded of that movie, Idiocracy, in which everything from basic groceries to a college education can be purchased in one, gigantic supermarket.
Walmart’s taken on the role of a superstore for several years now. The company is still often vilified for its business practices and over-corporate image, but I was always somewhat satisfied by the unbelievable selection of products available. I thought to myself, “this place has electronics, clothing, and groceries—what more could I need in a store?” I thought that Walmart was the end of the expansion of the supermarket. Oh, how wrong I was.
Enter Menard’s. It’s advertised as a home improvement store, so I went into it thinking it would have the same set-up as a Lowe’s or a Home Depot—and to an extent it was very similar. But I immediately noticed it was far, far larger—as big if not bigger than our entire mall. There are separate buildings on the outside housing an ungodly amount of lumber, drywall, and rental construction/repair equipment, a gardening section around the outside, and an interior that you can (and will) literally get lost in. I found the usual home improvement stuff—nuts and bolts and wires and anything and everything to DIY your home into whatever the fuck you want it to be. But there was more. More appliances than I’d ever seen before, toys, furniture, entertainment, and groceries—yes groceries! It’s as if Walmart had kept its intimidatingly large selection and grew a back doorway to a Home Depot.
Right now Menard’s stores are only located in 13 states, but if I were a betting man, I’d say it’s set to grow further. And it makes me wonder… how many more stages in the evolution of a superstore can there possibly be? I thought Walmart was the end of the line, but apparently the market progression is still advancing. How much bigger can stores possibly get? How many more products and services will they be able to cram in there? And how long until competition slowly fades away, leaving only one, city-wide store to supply us with anything and everything we could ever need or want?
It’s scary to think that far ahead, and it does seem logically unlikely that economic competition could ever truly die out. But I’ve been wrong in my company instincts before… so I have to acknowledge it as a genuine possibility.
Walmart’s taken on the role of a superstore for several years now. The company is still often vilified for its business practices and over-corporate image, but I was always somewhat satisfied by the unbelievable selection of products available. I thought to myself, “this place has electronics, clothing, and groceries—what more could I need in a store?” I thought that Walmart was the end of the expansion of the supermarket. Oh, how wrong I was.
Enter Menard’s. It’s advertised as a home improvement store, so I went into it thinking it would have the same set-up as a Lowe’s or a Home Depot—and to an extent it was very similar. But I immediately noticed it was far, far larger—as big if not bigger than our entire mall. There are separate buildings on the outside housing an ungodly amount of lumber, drywall, and rental construction/repair equipment, a gardening section around the outside, and an interior that you can (and will) literally get lost in. I found the usual home improvement stuff—nuts and bolts and wires and anything and everything to DIY your home into whatever the fuck you want it to be. But there was more. More appliances than I’d ever seen before, toys, furniture, entertainment, and groceries—yes groceries! It’s as if Walmart had kept its intimidatingly large selection and grew a back doorway to a Home Depot.
Right now Menard’s stores are only located in 13 states, but if I were a betting man, I’d say it’s set to grow further. And it makes me wonder… how many more stages in the evolution of a superstore can there possibly be? I thought Walmart was the end of the line, but apparently the market progression is still advancing. How much bigger can stores possibly get? How many more products and services will they be able to cram in there? And how long until competition slowly fades away, leaving only one, city-wide store to supply us with anything and everything we could ever need or want?
It’s scary to think that far ahead, and it does seem logically unlikely that economic competition could ever truly die out. But I’ve been wrong in my company instincts before… so I have to acknowledge it as a genuine possibility.
Friday, March 4, 2011
The Best you can Be
I have trouble accepting the best I can be. It’s an interesting and confusing topic for me to think about. In one sense, technically we’re always the best we can be. If we’re limited even only by our own level of motivation, then we’re still doing the best we can. If a student fails a class because he was too lazy to do his homework, he’s still the best he can be (taking into consideration the obstacle his natural laziness had).
But on the other hand, we’re never the best we can be—there’s always some other course of action we could have taken. We could have studied for ten more minutes, or we could have accelerated a bit more through the yellow light and gotten to work on time. This especially comes into play during my continual strive for fitness. I feel like I’m never the best I can be—I could always have eaten a hundred calories less, always have run just one mile further. It’s absolutely haunting.
I can’t seem to accept myself for what I am, and I think that’s a commonality in the population. As Americans, we place a great deal of pride in becoming everything we can be—achieving our greatest potential. But it’s maddening to always know you could have done just a little bit better. You could always be just a little bit more than you are. It’s a nagging perfectionism that’s never okay with your present self because your potential isn’t 100% realized.
Like many people, I need to take bits of sentiment from the first argument I made—in a sense, we’re always the best we can be, limited by whatever agents are our detriment. Thinking exclusively in this way can lead to apathy or excusing laziness, but taking it in moderation with the second argument can lead to a more peaceful kind of existence.
Be all you can be. But you’ll never be all you can be. And you’ll always be all you can be. Fuck it, I have to stop overthinking things.
But on the other hand, we’re never the best we can be—there’s always some other course of action we could have taken. We could have studied for ten more minutes, or we could have accelerated a bit more through the yellow light and gotten to work on time. This especially comes into play during my continual strive for fitness. I feel like I’m never the best I can be—I could always have eaten a hundred calories less, always have run just one mile further. It’s absolutely haunting.
I can’t seem to accept myself for what I am, and I think that’s a commonality in the population. As Americans, we place a great deal of pride in becoming everything we can be—achieving our greatest potential. But it’s maddening to always know you could have done just a little bit better. You could always be just a little bit more than you are. It’s a nagging perfectionism that’s never okay with your present self because your potential isn’t 100% realized.
Like many people, I need to take bits of sentiment from the first argument I made—in a sense, we’re always the best we can be, limited by whatever agents are our detriment. Thinking exclusively in this way can lead to apathy or excusing laziness, but taking it in moderation with the second argument can lead to a more peaceful kind of existence.
Be all you can be. But you’ll never be all you can be. And you’ll always be all you can be. Fuck it, I have to stop overthinking things.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Job Satisfaction
I saw a truck driving the other day with a design on it that read “Job Satisfaction this way” and an arrow pointing forward. Perhaps it was supposed to indicate that job satisfaction was closer than you’d think, but the message struck me as very sad. I thought of Tantalus, yearning for food but having it constantly out of reach. No matter how fast or how far the truck travels, the arrow isn’t going to change. Job satisfaction will be perpetually out of reach.
I kind of feel that job satisfaction will always be out of reach for most of us. No matter how far we progress in salary or authority, we may always feel like we haven’t done enough. It’s that perfectionist attitude that seizes this country’s work force (or at least, the ones worth mentioning)—it’s healthy and productive to continually strive for improvement, but if that urge is too strong, it means there will never be any sense of satisfaction. It’s a continuous, tantalizing hunger that will never recede.
It’s also, in part, a “grass is always greener” mentality. Maybe someday, you’ll be able to achieve a high enough position to quench your sense of worth. But you may always wonder if perhaps another field or another realm would be better for you. It’s sad to think about, and difficult to remedy even if you can recognize it in yourself. But the rewarding complacence of job satisfaction may forever elude us all.
I kind of feel that job satisfaction will always be out of reach for most of us. No matter how far we progress in salary or authority, we may always feel like we haven’t done enough. It’s that perfectionist attitude that seizes this country’s work force (or at least, the ones worth mentioning)—it’s healthy and productive to continually strive for improvement, but if that urge is too strong, it means there will never be any sense of satisfaction. It’s a continuous, tantalizing hunger that will never recede.
It’s also, in part, a “grass is always greener” mentality. Maybe someday, you’ll be able to achieve a high enough position to quench your sense of worth. But you may always wonder if perhaps another field or another realm would be better for you. It’s sad to think about, and difficult to remedy even if you can recognize it in yourself. But the rewarding complacence of job satisfaction may forever elude us all.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Graffiti
I think graffiti is the purest form of art that exists in the world today. So much art, in any medium—music, film, poetry, literature, paintings, sculptures, whatever—is compromised either by its intention, its motivation, or its reception.
It’s common nowadays to accuse an artist of “selling out.” While the sentiment is understandably contested by some who insist that money doesn’t necessarily change someone’s artistic perspective, it’s tough to deny that it may have an effect. Many artists produce work solely for monetary compensation, and it’s often clear that the piece was motivated by finance rather than emotion or integrity. But nobody pays graffiti artists—they supply their own materials, and receive nothing other than their own personal satisfaction.
Another compromise can sometimes be personal reputation. An artist may avoid working with a subject they fear may endanger their public reputation, or the reverse, they may choose to attempt a specific kind of material just because they think it will make them popular. But graffiti artists (at least the ones that don’t tag their name) are almost unanimously anonymous, and are therefore free from those traps.
Whether it’s a large-scale mural on the side of a city building or a simple message on the back of a bathroom stall, what you’re looking at is an illegal defacement—but it’s also the most sincere and uncompromised form of artistic expression that exists in the world today.
It’s common nowadays to accuse an artist of “selling out.” While the sentiment is understandably contested by some who insist that money doesn’t necessarily change someone’s artistic perspective, it’s tough to deny that it may have an effect. Many artists produce work solely for monetary compensation, and it’s often clear that the piece was motivated by finance rather than emotion or integrity. But nobody pays graffiti artists—they supply their own materials, and receive nothing other than their own personal satisfaction.
Another compromise can sometimes be personal reputation. An artist may avoid working with a subject they fear may endanger their public reputation, or the reverse, they may choose to attempt a specific kind of material just because they think it will make them popular. But graffiti artists (at least the ones that don’t tag their name) are almost unanimously anonymous, and are therefore free from those traps.
Whether it’s a large-scale mural on the side of a city building or a simple message on the back of a bathroom stall, what you’re looking at is an illegal defacement—but it’s also the most sincere and uncompromised form of artistic expression that exists in the world today.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Angels
I struggle to come to terms with a statistic I saw the other day; over 50% of American citizens believe in angels operating on Earth.
Over 50%. I realize by chastising this, I’ll be alienating half the nation, but if over 50% of the population believed in unicorns, there would be a lot more attention drawn to it. So why are angels different from any other supernatural, intangible or mythical being? Goblins, leprechauns, or genies never get any attention. Show any hint that you could even remotely believe in one of these beings, and you’ll be laughed out of any sane and reasonable forum. But claim a belief in angels, and apparently half the population will welcome you with open arms.
So is it because angels are Biblical beings? More than two-thirds of our population is Christian, so if they believe in God I might see why it would be reasonable to assume they believe in angels, too. But why don’t people believe in demons operating on Earth? Wouldn’t it make sense that, maintaining the balance of the world, some sort of malevolent being would have to exist in order to counteract the angels?
But faith can never be disproven by logic. So let’s assume that angels do exist. Why would they operate they way they do? I’ve heard of people surviving terrible car accidents thanking their guardian angels for letting them escape unscathed. So was it your guardian angel that got the other driver drunk or made you swerve into the other lane? Or was that one of the demons? So what if you were paralyzed in the car crash—would you blame that on demons or coincidence? 1700 children die of hunger every hour. Every. Fucking. Hour. Where are their guardian angels? Apparently making sure you don’t get scraped from operating your Cadillac negligently.
Forgive me if I intrude upon your cherished beliefs. But I don’t find angels to be reasonable beings. There is no more support for the existence of angels than there is for fairies or satyrs or griffins—or especially their demonic counterparts. And even if they did exist, I think they would or at least should be helping the people that really need it—not wasting pseudo-miracles on the ignorant, spoiled, fatass religious adherents that seem to be overwhelming this country.
Wow, I sound like an asshole. But why hold back? Maybe my angel’s on vacation.
Over 50%. I realize by chastising this, I’ll be alienating half the nation, but if over 50% of the population believed in unicorns, there would be a lot more attention drawn to it. So why are angels different from any other supernatural, intangible or mythical being? Goblins, leprechauns, or genies never get any attention. Show any hint that you could even remotely believe in one of these beings, and you’ll be laughed out of any sane and reasonable forum. But claim a belief in angels, and apparently half the population will welcome you with open arms.
So is it because angels are Biblical beings? More than two-thirds of our population is Christian, so if they believe in God I might see why it would be reasonable to assume they believe in angels, too. But why don’t people believe in demons operating on Earth? Wouldn’t it make sense that, maintaining the balance of the world, some sort of malevolent being would have to exist in order to counteract the angels?
But faith can never be disproven by logic. So let’s assume that angels do exist. Why would they operate they way they do? I’ve heard of people surviving terrible car accidents thanking their guardian angels for letting them escape unscathed. So was it your guardian angel that got the other driver drunk or made you swerve into the other lane? Or was that one of the demons? So what if you were paralyzed in the car crash—would you blame that on demons or coincidence? 1700 children die of hunger every hour. Every. Fucking. Hour. Where are their guardian angels? Apparently making sure you don’t get scraped from operating your Cadillac negligently.
Forgive me if I intrude upon your cherished beliefs. But I don’t find angels to be reasonable beings. There is no more support for the existence of angels than there is for fairies or satyrs or griffins—or especially their demonic counterparts. And even if they did exist, I think they would or at least should be helping the people that really need it—not wasting pseudo-miracles on the ignorant, spoiled, fatass religious adherents that seem to be overwhelming this country.
Wow, I sound like an asshole. But why hold back? Maybe my angel’s on vacation.
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