The Done List

I have struggled with procrastination for most of my life. I am still struggling now, as it so happens. I was outside taking a smoke break, after narrowly avoiding starting another game of Starcraft, when I started thinking about strategies for dealing with my procrastination.

Life and Logistics
The Oxford Dictionary defines logistics as: the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. I can assure you, Life is a complex operation. The more we desire (desire to do, desire to be) the more complex it gets. It seems that resource management skills are vital to our success in this complex operation, and that makes life a logistics problem.

Thinking on how to tackle my procrastination from a logistics viewpoint made think of doing some research into time management techniques. As I did not feel the urge to start doing so right away (procrastination vs. hey, I am in the planning stages), I thought about adding time management research to my to do list.

From To Do to Done

This got me thinking about to do lists, and how often in the past I have tried to use them for the same purpose with poor results. The thought of adding time management research to my to do list seemed like work. The time management research seemed like work. I never really look forward to doing work. That might be why to do  lists have never really done anything for me.

So, I asked myself "what would I look forward to?"

Being Done.

The supposed magic that makes a to do list works is the warm and tingly sense of accomplishment you get when you cross something off the list. That's what I was after. I am not looking forward to a long to do list. What excites me is the prospect of having a nice long list of things I have done. 

I have decided to make a Done list rather than a to do list.  See, a to do list is meant to be full of things that are not yet done. That is its natural state of being. If you have a to do list with everything crossed off, there is something wrong with it. It is a needful thing, that needs you to add things to do in order to function. A Done list on the other hand, is designed to be completed. If there are uncompleted tasks on it, there is something wrong with universe. 

Adding a task to a Done list throws the universe out of balance. Then, I can do something to bring balance to the universe. This will work for me. Look, it already is:

Write Today

Mirror Neuron/Global Consciousness Experiment

In some places, it's already 12.21. That's relatively irrelevant, because this post is from a scientific perspective. However, there are most that believe in nothing, some that believe it's the end of the world, and some that believe it is the dawning of a new age. Those are the conditions in which the experiment is to take place, and for that reason the date may be relevant.

Information regarding the the Mirror Neuron aspect of the experiment can be found here:

starting at about 50 seconds in.

Information regarding the Global Consciousness part of the experiment can be found at Princeton's Global Consciousness Project, and is also neatly explained here:


The Experiment
Based on mirror neurons as explained in the first video, it seems reasonable that observing joy will create joy within our brains, as a function of mirror neurons. If the Global Consciousness Project can detect major variations in our thought, and we all experience as much joy as possible over the next 24 hours, there should be a spike in the data the GCP records.

So, to participate in the experiment, simply experience and cause as much joy as possible for as many of the next 24 hours you can. We can come back in a few days and see if our efforts were detected by the GCP. Worst case scenario, we have a joyful end of the world.

For me, watching this causes Joy - probably because of mirror neurons. So this is what I'm doing to try and make the world more joyful for the next 24 hours. Even watching this video would be participation in the experiment. 

Thanks for reading, it means a lot to me.

Genesis

Imagine, if you will, it is a dark and stormy night. Not too stormy. No lightning or heavy raining, but it's definitely raining and a little bit windy. Kind of like it is outside in the Pacific Northwest right now.

Now Imagine a guy in trenchcoat and hat out in the dark and stormy night. Imagine the wind blowing his jacket back as he walks along the street. What color is the jacket? Is the hat a fedora or something else? Don't worry, there are no wrong answers. What do you see?

Now keep watching. Watch him until he does something. Let your conscious mind just sit back and observe. He's walking in the dark, and wind, and rain. Just watch, don't think. Observe, experience.

How many of you not only did as I asked, but also did so while reading? That is the amazing power of your consciousness. It can separate. We live in a tiny little box of ego that has convinced us that it's the biggest and most important part of what defines us. That's it's job.

The ego is a portion of your conscious mind that you've tasked with sorting through the evidence and constructing a sense of self. Being the bright person you are, you used the truth create your separation. You separated a portion of your consciousness and called it ego. Ego then did the same thing, and you can watch it like looking into a mirror of a mirror, the same thing over and over again towards infinity.

YOU, the you that you consider you on a daily basis - the you pouring the coffee, the you taking a shower, the you sitting in front of a computer. Everything that makes up all of that - is just your ego. To you, it looks like just a little piece of your mind - because you are inside of it, and it has a scale representation in there that is truth, one dimension removed.



So. Let's check up on the man in the trench coat. Let's keep him in real time to keep things simple. That means he's been up to stuff while you did whatever you did since the last time you were watching him. Where's he at now? Is in is a private eye's office? (He is in mine).

What's he been up to? The possibilities are infinite when you don't observe. Was he acting on his own free will? If you flip through some of those possibilities and pick one, you can make his reality, shape the rest of his surrounds to have been affected by whatever he chose to do. You can know what he chose to do, or you can choose not to know.

Alright, this next part is going to be heavy. I hope you're sitting down. Watch the guy for a while. Give him a little nudge if you have to, shape his circumstances (but hands off watching as much as possible) in such a manner that he ends up in an interrogation room. Imagine the interrogation room anyway you like. Fix on some mesh of all the interrogation rooms you've seen on bad television over the years - but pick details. See the room, decide what it smells like.

Have old whatever you imagine his name is come into the room, fold his jacket over the back of a chair, and tilt his hat forward to hide his eyes. Have him sit down and have him prepare himself to have a serious discussion with him.

Now rip the entire room out of the building, letting everything fall away. Just the interrogation room and ole whats-his-name. Such a tiny thing, isn't it? Surrounded by all this nothing.

Now imagine it getting larger and larger, until it surrounds you to scale. Imagine this computer screen and all of your surroundings giving way to the reality of this room. Look ole whats-is-name right in the eye.

Look into his mind. What does he think of this person sitting in front of him? How does this person in front of him affect his life, his job, his city, his state? Does he even know that you created him? Does his mind work like yours? Did you create him in your own image?

I think you should tell him. He's probably got a lot of questions for you. He'd probably really like to get to know you.

Insomnia

Disclaimer:  Reading this may cause Insomnia

There was a time when I was peacefully oblivious. I went to work, came home, played video games, watched TV. Those were the good ole days. Now, I'm less asleep in my daily life and for the life I've me I don't see any way of going back.

What I present below is just a small percentage of what is preventing me from "sleeping"/why I can't dream the American Dream any more. Make of it what you will.

There's plenty out there indicating that such a chip was including in the Obamacare that was recently passed, but as in this Snopes article:

Passages cited from HR 3200 are therefore irrelevant as that bill was never signed into law, and the cited wording did not appear in the replacement bill (HR 3590) eventually passed as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Irrelevant? Personally, I don't think so, as to me the notion that they're already trying to work it into legislation is significant, whether or not they've managed to get away with it yet.

White Matter

Although gray matter (composed of neurons) does the brain's thinking and calculating, white matter (composed of myelin- coated axons) controls the signals that neurons share, coordinating how well brain regions work together. - R. Douglas Fields

Your Fractal Nature
Fractal: A curve or geometric figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole.

Though the composition of various wholes will vary, there is benefit in the recognition that one is part of a whole. For example, you are part of a whole family. If your family consists of 6 people, you are 1/6th of your family. Similarly, as a human you are one part of the whole of humanity. There are democrat, republican, Christian, Muslim and Atheist subdivisions of that whole, but at the end of the day you are an equal part of the whole of humanity. 

Your Neuronal Nature

As you are capable of thinking and calculating, it is not unreasonable to understand your relationship to the whole as based on the model you carry around with you inside your skull. Thoughts, ideas, definitions that have originated within a single person/neuron have been transmitted to other people/neurons throughout the course of human history. You are capable of generating an idea that alters the consciousness of the entire globe - so long as the white matter is there to transmit the idea to the world around you.

Recognizing White Matter

If one examines history from this perspective, the white matter nature of our advancements in communication technology becomes self-evident. Seen from the whole, the white matter of spoken language formed the initial connection between clusters of neurons/groups of people. Written language extended this exponentially, as did the telephone, television, and eventually the internet.

As the internet continued to evolve, networks of white matter continued to form and facilitate the exchange of ideas. With the recognition of the white matter function the internet serves in relation to the global consciousness of humanity, we become capable of maximizing the efficiency of its function as white matter by developing ways to improve the signal to noise ratio. We can begin to develop ways to ensure that solutions connect to the problems they can solve.

Image source: http://www.humanconnectomeproject.org/gallery/

Manifestation, Reflection, Iteration

With some trepidation, I have decided to once again change the title of my blog. I see this to be a good sign, however, as I've struggled with an imbalance favoring trepidation most of my life. From my current perspective, trepidation seems to be a manifestation of resistance.

According to Wikipedia, the term resistance may refer to:
Electrical resistance: A measure of the degree to which an object opposes an electric current through it
Friction/Drag: Fluid or gas forces opposing motion and flow.

According to Google's new Augmented Reality Game, Ingress:
Opposition to the Enlightened.

As evidenced by my choice of Ingress faction, I'm not siding much with resistance these days. So, trepidation by damned, the blog title gets changed again.

Evolution
The exposure I've had to the software industry over the last 20 years or so is what first allowed me to make the connection between iteration and evolution. It allowed me to see the relationship between iterations of software programs and iterations of biological entities. Biology iterates through reproduction, software through revision. Software is the electronic manifestation of an idea, and while the program itself may die, the experiences of the users contribute a portion of the idea's DNA into the creation of future software programs. There's really not all that much difference between a germinating flower and the software manifestation of an idea. One has the assistance of a bee, the other the experiences of a user, to carry the seed where it needs to go. It seems to be the process of manifestation, reflection, and iteration, embedded into life everywhere around us. 

The Life Cycle

For me, each previous change in the title of this blog is a good delineation mark for the beginning of the manifestation of the latest iteration. To continue the flower perspective, each iteration is an attempt at a fuller, more beautiful bloom. Perhaps I'm pulling them out by the roots too soon and the previous would have been their own blooms if given enough time, but above all I want to be honest. As I better understand what this blog is actually meant to offer potential readers, I have found myself compelled to relabel it in an attempt to more accurately reflect its contents. 

The Answers was the first manifestation. During the formative iteration process, that is what I wanted to offer. That's still a major goal of mine. I thoroughly enjoy solving problems - generating possible solutions, trying them out, going back to the drawing board - the whole process. 

Over time though, during the manifestation phase, the results seemed to be something altogether different. As content was created, the limitation of addressing specific problems was too restrictive. Other thoughts demanded a voice, and Answers were no longer even the majority of what a reader might find here. These things became apparent during the reflection phase.

There was at least one other life cycle, short-lived, as I got swept up in this possibility or that. A sad stunted iteration, ill-suited for the harsh realities it would find itself manifesting in. 

Grim's Issue:, the current manifestation, was conceived in no small part to bury the memory of the prior and the stench of failure and decay that dominated its reflection page. It also more honestly described what a reader might find here. My personal favorite part during the iteration phase was the multiple meanings of the word issue, and that even though the meanings were very different from each other, all accurately described the blog from the right perspective. I also liked that one of the meanings was "dirty."

Reflections though, is far more honest about what a reader can find here, and this post is part of that phase of this blog's life cycle. At this moment, I'm somewhere between with the boundary between reflection and iteration. Having reflected on the current title and having assessed it as lacking, I've decided that there will be another iteration. 

Reflections works from the truthfulness angle, because what I post here is the product of reflecting on my life experiences and the world around me. I started writing this with that new title in mind. Those few moments ago, I thought that would be the title of the next iteration. Somewhere between "trepidation be damned" and this paragraph though, Reflections has become not good enough. 

The iteration process is not complete, and the beginning of the new manifestation phase is thus postponed. While more accurately reflecting my movement away from compensatory egotistical tendencies, Reflections isn't distinctive enough. From a business perspective, it presents unnecessary branding challenges. 

So, the Iteration process continues....

Suggestions and discussion are both welcome and appreciated.