Create

I guess I'm going with the C's before the A's and B's, but it happens to be what comes to me.

"Create - to bring into existence

Origin of CREATE
Middle English, from Latin creatus, past participle of creare; akin to Latin crescere to grow"
- Merriam Webster Dictionary Online

Two things have led me to think about creation: first,  having watched a broadcast that Grandma showed me, about weaving generations; and second, having finished Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen.
In the broadcast, David Mcullough says that there is no true self-made man. We are all affected by the world we live in. This being said, we cannot help being creators. We all bring something into existence - mostly unnoticed in society as large, because 6 billon other creators are working as well. But it is amazing to think that, while I am in no way self-made, my individual experiences and how I perceive and react to them makes me completely unique to any other creator.
As we invest in our own well-being and of those around us (through service, arts, culture, etc) , we invest in our creative abilities. Each of you is a unique creator, who has abilities to invest in.

An Exhaustive Room Description

Hello!

I wrote 78% of my Thursday-due blogpost, but I like it enough to keep working on it, so I'm not giving it to you yet. I'll polish it up and post it another day. I'm sorry that I occasionally give you stuff that I don't mind vomiting out half-finished, because:

 A) I'm vomiting it out half-finished,

and 

B) You therefore know I don't think it's worth the effort to polish. 

Heh, ok, so sometimes I'm just a slow writer. Whatever. Anyway!

Here's a writing exercise I did in my living room, about my living room. The prompt (given in bold) was supplied by Mary Robinette Kowal. You can find it yourself at http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/exercising-your-story-telling-techniques. True to the prompt, it's long, repetitive, rambly and unedited. Very long. And boring. Since it's only about my living room, I pretty much wrote about couches for a straight 30 minutes. If you really want to keep reading, consider yourself warned.

Exercise 1 

Sit in a location and describe it using third person. You are the point of view character, but instead of writing in first person, write in third. You must keep writing constantly for thirty minutes. Try to use all five senses, which include what is heard, smelt, felt, seen, and tasted. Do not describe people in the location, except where they cause the room to react. For instance, someone shifting in their chair would cause a squeak in the room.

The room had three sofas, each a different color and material. The oldest, and by far the most expensive, was a red leather affair, wide and possessed of a haughty elegance. The second sofa was brown plush, fluffy and deep. You could tell by the number of wrinkles crisscrossing the cushions that it was the softest of the three. People who sat it in would often startle as they sank far deeper into the sofa than expected, only to be lulled by the gentle support and smooth caress of the cushions. The third couch was obviously the most junior. It had a corduroy green cover that was a little too large, and bagged and sagged in odd places, making the smaller couch look like it had stolen the skin off a green elephant. Since the other two sofas were bare, the cover gave the third a distinctly sheepish look, as if it was trying to dress up to impress the others. Even worse, it wasn't really a full sofa. More of a loveseat, it was. Only the desiccated pull-out bed made it paradoxically heavier than either of the two full-fledged couches.

 The low hardwood table was stained a lovely walnut color that matched the first couch. It gave the living room a completed feel, almost  as if it were a real parlor or living room rather than the frugal entryway to a college bachelors apartment. Even the chips and scratches along its carved legs could not detract from its solidity.

The room overall had the feel of a room that had put together in a mixture of careful eclecticism and slapdash opportunism. Which, in fact, it was. The rich plush of the leather couch stood at odds with the cheap green-covered loveseat across from it, but somehow they both seem to belong to the room, if not to each other. The TV was huge, but not ostentatious, since it was an old square box that was as thick as it was wide. It should have dominated the room, but it didn't, probably because it knew it was only the second-hand gift of convenience given by the former occupants to the current ones. It had been a gift of convenience for the giver, not the receiver, as had most of the furniture in the room. The bookshelf (a light-colored Ikea piece) didn't even have a back, but was simply pressed against a wall and laden with so many books that one would be hard-pressed to notice that it didn't even have a back. The bookshelf had been literally pulled from the trash on a dumpster-diving expedition, rescued, washed, and put to good use.

The entertainment center beneath the TV held a bundle of connector cables for hooking up laptops, a few DVDs that ranged from Michael Bay to Miyazaki, and a set of family board games without even the light layer of dust that the DVD player held.

The room denoted an unusual amount of culture and taste for a college bachelor's pad. There was a full piano in one corner, a guitar in another, and piles of literary classics interspersed with Calvin and Hobbes collections on every surface that could carry reading material.

The floor was hardwood, a little dusty from frequent use but otherwise clean and well-kept. The hum of the AC was interspersed with the thumps of slamming car doors in the parking lot outside as neighbors left for work.

A pile of rolled and folded blankets were tucked in a basket in front of the guitar. The room was completely still, save for the green row of lights in the modem, which flickered at a frantic pace.  All the rest of the room was immobile.

Two paintings stood above the two full couches, each unconsciously matching the tone of the couch with their frame.

The only poster in the room was a plastic-paned one of Michael Scott, hanging above the piano. In the evenings, the soft yellow lamp on the piano would turn on, and the manager of Dunder-Mifflin would appraise the room with a cool eye and crossed arms, a glowing benevolence as comically out-of-place as he had ever been in The Office.

Exercise 2

In puppetry we say that “focus indicates thought.” What your character is looking at is what they are thinking about.  As a writer, you can only show the audience one thing at a time, so the order in which you show them and, more importantly, what you choose to show them becomes a door into your character’s thoughts.

Look at the room again.  What’s the first thing a ballet dancer would notice about it? A lumberjack? A teacher? A cook? A child?

Exercise:  Write a short description of the same room from the point of view of a character. Pick a role for your character which is easily defined, such a dancer, janitor, or child.

The emphasis here is in choosing which items the character would notice first and the order in which they would notice them. Your reader should be able to identify the character’s role without ever needing to name it. 

The first good sign upon entering the room was the smell. It was the smell of regular cleaning and warm, constant use.  As if someone was baking fresh bread in a laundromat.  No matter how much you tried, no amount of frantic last-minute cleaning would make an apartment smell like this. That was enough to forgive the piles of mail addressed to graduates that had moved away semesters ago, collected on two coffee tables and the top of one bookshelf. A quick scan was enough to confirm initial impressions. No food stains, no hidden piles of dirty laundry or trash. No badly-disguised pile of dishes with a blanket over them. All more or less in order.

The more permanent aspects of the room were not in as good a state. Though the furniture was nice and artwork tasteful yet unassuming, the walls behind them had the tell-tale scratches of eight or twelve moves since they were last repainted. The hardwood floor was even worse. It had been mopped not too long ago, and swept within a week, but there was no covering up the scuffs and scratches of sliding sofa legs and the deep grooves cut piano wheels, leading to the corner where the culprit instrument meekly stood. 

Ok! So that was it. If you read all that, feel free to make any comments on the exercises, results etc., and to guess the occupation of my Point of View Character in Exercise 2. First correct answer in the comments wins! 

P.S 

Also I just realized that since I've spent the last week with family I should have talked about how cool we all are and what great times we've had this Christmas. So... sorry, I didn't. I do that to you all in person. Love you!

Wednesday on Thursday.

It's Thursday. Yes, I know it is Wednesday now that you are reading this, but it is Thursday right now while I am writing the post.

And do you know why I'm writing my Wednesday post on Thursday? You get two guesses. No not three, just two.

Yep that's the reason. Those two gaping holes on the last two Wednesdays when I completely forgot to post.

The interesting thing to me is not that I forgot something...that's pretty normal. I forget things all the time. Where did I put my keys again?

What I find intriguing is that both weeks I spent time thinking about what I would write on Wednesday all week long and then when Wednesday came, wrote NOTHING! What does that say?

If you think about it, this happens all the time. I'm going to clean my room this week. I'm going cut fix that doorknob. I'm really going to start spending time actually writing my novel. We might think about these things frequently and even plan the in detail during a given time and then decide I'm too tired or busy at the moment but I really will get to it later.

We have a finite amount of time and easily recognize good things to do. But if I really want to get some one thing in particular done, I have to decide a specific time (preferably quite a bit early), and the next specific time after that--putting that task in front of others that would push it to the side until getting it done becomes a habit and it begins getting in the way of other things..... time to readjust again I guess.

Merry Christmas Everyone.

Musings on teeth and general health

Hey guys!

Well, what a weird week it has been.

This morning (It is really Saturday. The date above the heading is a lie. Perhaps I should just switch my day to Saturday... Any objections?) I went to the dentist! Yep, first visit in several years in fact. Now my teeth are slightly whiter and everyone I come in contact with will find me more likeable.

Teeth are strange things, aren't they? I mean, I brush my teeth twice a day, floss occasionally. I figure I may have a cavity or two just because it's been so long. So, I get in the chair, lean back, and look up into the bright light. The dentist poises her mirror and begins cataloging my teeth, listing them off one by one to an expectant hygenist.

Now, I know very little about teeth. I have an adequate vocabulary; I understand the words she is saying, I just don't know what they mean in the context of teeth. But I do know they all sound very bad. I sit there listening to her make the rounds around my mouth. She cleans my teeth and hands me over to the hygenist who polishes them. It is not until I talk to the receptionist on my way out that anyone actually explains anything to me. Turns out I have more than I couple cavities.

Count them: one, two, three, four.

What struck me most about this whole encounter was the way the information was presented to me. None of the individuals were rude or incompetent. They all did their jobs quickly and efficiently. They just didn't talk to me. They examined and cleaned my teeth. Is it their job to educate me too? Whether it is or not, should it be? The answer is probably both yes and no, to different extents.

I think bedside manner is important. As a patient, it is important to have all the information you need to make informed decisions about your own health. I'm not trying to say that I am upset with the service I received this morning, or that I think doctors should hold their patients's hands through every visit. Mostly, I'm just trying to draw attention to what I see as some flaws in the way we think about health and responsibility. Sometimes we act like health is so simple: eat right, exercise, brush your teeth. If you do those things, you're healthy. If you don't, you're not. I don't think this is true. Those things certainly help (are strong indicators even), but there are lots of factors that are out of your personal control (genetics, for example). Medical professionals go to school for a very long time for a reason. Part of health services should be helping individuals have the information they need to be active agents in managing their own health, in whatever way they are comfortable with.

My dental adventures are a small, silly example. But imagine it wasn't something small or silly. Imagine if it were a serious condition. Now forget the "imagine" part, because I suppose you really don't need to.

Problems that can be Solved by Punching Things

I was sitting at the front desk in the library, typing away to the background lull of studying students. The hundreds of mouths muttering over their books like a medieval choir of monks chanting chemistry formulas. But that night, the medieval chorus had a drummer. A small irregular beat, dull and heavy. The drumming increased in intensity till I recognized the sound for what it was- the desperate pounding of a sleep-deprived student.  A bleary-eyed student who had been ridiculed and mocked by four consecutive chapters of review questions, who had read and reread the textbook until her fingers were stained an off-yellow color by the highlighter, a student who had turned to the last refuge of the all-nighter-- caffeine-- only to have her quarters stolen by a surly vending machine which dangled the beverage just out of reach. 

When I walked over to the machine, she was kneeling, trying in vain to reach an arm up through the dispenser slot. She had already tried rocking the machine[1] and stabbing the buttons without success. I explained I had some experience with this particular recalcitrant vendor, and stepped forward to assess the situation. The drink had been trapped diagonally between its shelf and the transparent plastic cover. With one succinct punch to the plastic pane, the drink rebounded and fell down with a plunk.

She thanked me, I smiled, and we went back to our tasks.

There is something deeply satisfying in a task that can be solved simply by punching something[2]. Much of the "work" I've done in my life has been in pursuit of an academic education, and therefore, mental, abstract, and immaterial. While that also means the things I work on are new and interesting, occasionally the lack of substance of it all can be extremely frustrating.

Which is why it is nice to fix things by punching them. Problems that don't need calculation and planning, don't need creativity or a new angle, they just need brute effort. There's a job. You pay the price in pain and sheer exertion. Job is finished.

Splitting wood is my favorite chore for this exact reason.  Yeah, sure, you can refine your swing, sharpen your axe (or maul, in my case), but when it comes down to it, there's nothing to do but hit the wood really hard with a really heavy piece of metal. Your progress is extremely evident. You see how much wood you have to split, and you see how much you have split. You know everything, and the only variables you need to monitor are how fast you're going and how hard you're hitting. Simple. Satisfying.

In my mind, that's as close to the Platonic ideal of work as it gets.

Now don't get me wrong-- I love mental work too.  I will fiddle with tricky riddles or math problems long after I should have looked up the answer. A lively debate or intricate paper can be fascinating and fun. But sometimes the world is just a little too complicated, and I don't even know how to get a firm grip on understanding the situation, much less on how to solve it.

Sometimes, you just want to have a problem you can punch until it's solved[3]. 

[1] Don't do this. Vending machines kill more people than sharks. 
[2] This does not apply to people.
[3] Seriously, people are not one of the problems you can solve by punching. It just makes things worse.

Phorusrhacids, or the Terror Birds

Phorusrhacidae is a clade of large, flightless birds that existed in South America from 62 million years to 2 million years ago. They were largely carnivorous and ranged from approximately 1 meter tall to 3 meters tall (3.3-9.8 feet). Because of their size and eating habits, they have been dubbed as the Terror Birds.

Reconstructions of some phorusrhacids compared to the extant Cariama. (A)Cariama cristata; (B) Mesembriornis milneedwardsi; (C) Psilopterus bachmanni; (D) Andalgalornis steuletti; (E) Phorusrhacus longissimus; (F)Paraphysornis brasiliensis; and (G) Brontornis burmeiteri. A man’s silhouette (1.75 m) is used as scale. (Drawing by Eduardo Brettas.)
From Living Dinosaurs: The Evolutionary History of Modern Birds
Note: A, the Red-legged Seriema, is not a Phorusrhacid. It is the closest living relative.

Phorusrhacids expanded in South America because of its separation from all other continents (it was not yet connected to North America for the majority of the clade's existence), and the savannah environment that existed. They coexisted with ratites (ratites are the group of birds that include ostriches, emus, cassowaries, and kiwis, among others). Ratites currently exist in South America with the rhea, a flightless bird which is approximately 4.6 feet tall and 33-88 pounds. The Terror Birds, unfortunately, are all extinct.

The first phorusrhacid skull was discovered by Ameghino, which he described as the skull of a "probable toothless mammal" in a 1887 publication. Moreno described a partial skeleton of a large bird in a 1889 paper. Phorusrhacus longissimus, the first described phorusrhacid, was described by in two papers by Ameghino (who admitted it was not a mammal skull) and  a paper by Moreno and Mercerat, all published in 1891. Phorusrhacids currently contains 14 genera and 18 species, but as with all groups that rely on fossils to define species probably contain more. An interesting feature of phorusrhacids is a lack of uncinate processes, which are extensions of the rib cage found in birds which connect the ribs in order to strengthen them, although this may due to the fact that they may not be fossilized rather than actually be lacking.

Artist restoration of Phorusrhacus longissimus by Charles R. Knight

There has been discussions upon the feeding habits of phorusrhacids. They were the apex predator of the savannah ecosystem, and as such were quite carnivorous. At first some researches believed that they killed their prey by breaking their spines with a lateral shaking of their heads. However, the structure of their necks don't support this movement. A study by Degrange, Tambussi, Moreno, Witmer, and Wroe examined the skulls of several species of phorusrhacids. CT scans of skulls and stress points revealed that multiple downward strikes would cause the least stress when compared with direct bites or head thrashing. Thus the feeding behavior is probably most like the extant Seriema, a three feet tall terrestrial South American bird which is related to the Terror Birds. The Seriema feed by grabbing their prey with their beaks and beating it against the ground. Now imagine a ten foot tall bird doing this. They could have also used a fight and retreat model, striking the prey repeatedly until it dies and then tearing its flesh with its eagle-like beak. Some researchers have also suggested that they killed their prey with "crushing kicks." Different species probably utilized different feeding strategies or a combination of strategies. They were also very fast. The average top speed among all the species is believed to be about 45 miles per hour, but some specific species are thought to be much faster. The two known species of the genus Mesembriornis are estimated from the average top speed of 45 miles to up to even to 56 miles per hour.

Stress (Von Mises) distribution of FE models.
(A-C) Andalgalornis steulleti, (D-F) Haliaeetus albicilla, and (G-I) Cariama cristata under three load cases:
(A, D, G) lateral shake, (B, E, H) Normal Bite and (C, F, I) Pullback. VM= Von Mises; MPa, mega pascals. White areas indicate VM exceeds the scale maximum (2 MP) at those areas)
My caption: First row is sideways shaking, second row biting, and third row downward striking. Blue means the least stress, red means a lot of stress, and white means stress exceeding the scale used. This shows that the downward striking, being the least stressful, is the most plausible hunting tactic.
Taken from Derange, et al., 2010.

Unfortunately, around the beginning of the Pleistocene era the Terror Birds went extinct. The cause of this was probably the Panama land bridge which connected North America to South America. With this land bridge species of cats, dogs, and other predators invaded the phorusrhacids' territory and provided competition which led to their eventual demise. In the time before they went extinct, however, a species of phorusrhacid, Titanis walleri, made it as far north as Texas and Florida.

Titus walleri skeleton

If you want to know what a phorusrhacid may (again, MAY) have looked like with something other than their bones, you can look at its closest living relatives. Seriema, which I mentioned before in the feeding habits section, is the closest and currently lives in South America. The next closest, the Secretary Bird, is my favorite bird and looks pretty spectacular. In other words, the phorusrhacids were probably epic, and its a shame that they went extinct some 2 million and a few thousand years before I could see them.

Red-legged Seriema

Secretary Bird

Let us celebrate!

Celebrate-
to perform (a sacrament or solemn ceremony) publicly and with appropriate rites
to honor (as a holiday) especially by solemn ceremonies or by refraining from ordinary business
to mark (as an anniversary) by festivities or other deviation from routine
to hold up or play up for public notice 

- Online Webster Dictionary

Origin of CELEBRATE
"Middle English, from Latin celebratus, past participle of celebrare to frequent, celebrate, from celebr-, celeber much frequented, famous; perhaps akin to Latin celer"
- Google, which also reports that the use of celebrate decreased in frequency since the 1800s, but has greatly increased in the last 25 years.

Just thought you all would find that interesting; when we say celebrate, it means to do something with set routine, frequency, and commitment. Depending on the nature, it may be more or less formal, strict in observance, etc. In common verbage, it usually is upbeat, excited, with lots of food and/or spending. But it can also denote a more reverent tone, such as a religious commemoration or a national ceremony.

 When we celebrate, we often "holiday" and seek happiness. We should also "commemorate". We should "remember".  

A spat of random, unorganized thoughts from a preschool teacher

Note: "Teaching" in this post is specific to my experience working with very young children and is not necessarily generalizable to all forms of teaching.

So there are a lot of good things about my job. There are also a lot of challenging things. Most relevant to this post, there are lots and lots of interesting things about what I do. (Disclosure: Just because I believe them to be interesting does not necessarily mean you will find them so. Proceed with caution [or time to waste].)


Some general reflections on teaching:

1) As with most things, everyone does it differently, and everyone is convinced they're the one doing it right (especially those who have never done it before).

2) There is a morality tied to everything you do. The stakes are different than lots of other jobs (Not necessarily higher or lower, just different. Perhaps "more personal" would be accurate). I think this is mostly a result of the specific service being offered. You work with children. Children are priceless. (Caring for children obviously is not. Either that, or you're being seriously underpaid).

3) As a consequence of point number two, any sign of attempted personal advancement is looked down upon. This is not a field where ambition is viewed with favor. You are not supposed to get anything out of it personally (except for perhaps an improvement in character [and the joy of shaping young minds]). Which is why I find it funny when people suggest teachers are only in it for the time off or the free money (Do you really think teachers--of all people--can't do math?) Fortunately enough, I am not an ambitious person.

5) As a further consequence of point number two, you are expected to love what you do. If you don't appear to love it (if, for example, the day you just had dealing with screaming toddlers makes you want to immediately go out and sell all your eggs before you have time to reconsider), that sort of makes you a heartless person, right? I mean, they're children. How can you not love children?

Admittedly, a lot of things I listed are just plain attribution errors, which happen to everyone in the world. Perhaps this is not specific to my job, but rather a function of working. Socially, we sometimes equate people with what they do (professionally speaking). I am a preschool teacher. I work with kids. If I don't love every minute that I work with kids, I don't love kids. Ergo, I am a heartless monster. Maybe the answer is to be less judgmental all-around...? To put more effort into seeing every person you interact with more complexly....? (Yes, this is impossible to do fully. But I think the effort is important, even necessary).


Conclusion:
If it is to be done well, teaching requires high energy, high patience, and lots of preparation. Also, teaching (in a professional sense) is not for everyone, which is okay. Not wanting to deal with a classroom full of energetic toddlers does not mean you hate children (or are a horrible person).

Disclaimer: I am not going to quit my job. Every job is hard. If it wasn't hard, it wouldn't pay enough to live on. I have just been thinking a lot about these aspects of my particular occupation because, let's face it, it's how I spend the majority of my waking hours.

Lottery of Popularity

AKA How much objectively "Better" is it really?

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. - Ecclesiastes 9:11

Time and chance happens to us all

Here's a question for you. How much of an idea's success depends on how good of an idea it is, and how much depends on time and chance?

Many things that have great success are good, but do they succeed simply because they're good? Or because they are good and in the right place at the right time? Is goodness necessary but not sufficient?

I think we can all agree that the answer to that is "yes". An idea can be good, but things can interfere. A fly may be born with an super-mutation that makes it immune to aging, but if it gets swatted before it can pass it on, that beneficial mutation is gone, while the thousands of fly male pattern baldness genes  or stubby proboscis genes continue to muck up the pool. An business venture might be wonderfully innovative, but if your start-up gets hit halfway through by a recession, too bad. Luck matters. There's no magical scale that weighs the intrinsic value of an idea and sends the golden ones off to fame and the bad ones down the chute. 

But have you ever wondered how much it matters? How much bad luck could a specific good idea suffer and still come out on top? How much good luck would you need for a really bad idea to take off? (Stephanie Meyers, I'm looking at you) [1]

Let's get concrete

When we think of "classic" we tend to imagine something that can reach across barriers of language and culture to pluck at the heartstrings, regardless of one's upbringing. We like to hope that there's some intrinsic humanity to those works that give them a value in their own right.

But what if we took word-for-word reproductions of great works of literature and reinserted them back in time under other authors names? Or in other time periods? Would they still rise to the top? Would critics gasp in awe regardless, and hold these jewels of human nature up to the world? Or would many of our greatest works be considered trivial, perhaps moderately passable reading, and then brushed aside. [2]

Would Hamlet be as adored as it is if it wasn't written by Shakespeare?

What if it had been authored by a woman?

Would Bill Gates be a billionaire if his dad hadn't been a lawyer?

Would [random play] be well-loved if it had been written by Shakespeare?

Would the Coca Cola formula be just as popular if it had started in India?

We already know you can present an idea as good as "wash hands after corpse-handling and before childbirth" to the medical community and still have it be a complete failure, if you go about it right. Just ask Ignaz Semmelweis. What did spreading the joys of hand-washing get him? A one-way ticket to a mental asylum so good he lasted two full weeks there before dying at age 47.

Your Life

You might feel discouraged at the thought of all the little random factors that steal the race from the swift and the bread from the wise.[3] My advice? In your own life, it probably won't have that much of an effect in the end.

The bell curve and standard deviation was to me an epiphanic model.[4] When studying it, I realized that while I couldn't predict an individual iteration of a behavior in my life , I could predict the mean perfectly. And every little inch of behavior I could muster to shift that mean would increase my chances of the rare spectacular success, and decrease my chances of the rare catastrophic failure. I may have no control whether tomorrow's random variables are one standard deviation above the mean or one below, but I can sure as heck control the nonrandom variables' mean.[5]

Too often, we think that one little bit of luck can make or break us. If we'd just bet on that horse or this stock, or just gotten on the other train rather than that one, life would be made and all would be dandy. Let me tell you something.

Life doesn't work like that.

Bill Gates didn't become a billionaire just cause his father was a lawyer, and Semmelweis didn't fail to spread antiseptic theory just because he was born in 1818. Those each played their part, but life has a lot more going on in it. There are principles and patterns and knowledge which can lever history with far more force than any random duke getting shot ever could.

Thomas Jefferson is quoted as saying "I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it."[6] Work steadily, and learn a lot. Focus on what's under you control rather than the success or failure of the dice, and you'll have all the luck you need.

Remember, our lives are taken as X approaches infinity. When you look at eternity, all the little bumps and little troughs get smoothed out, and there's nothing left but you and your trajectory. So make it a good one.

[1]If I had a time machine, one of the many things which I would be to conduct empirical studies on the social sciences. Mostly performed on the future, so as to give me a stable reference point. (Thanks T-Rex)

[2]Side note: Some "classics" are so merely because they were the first in a genre or movement, not because they were the peak. The first guy to independently invent something is a genius. The second guy to invent independently is lame.

[3] Or encouraged, if you're worried about not fitting in the "wise and swift club".  Why not be optimistic if you have the chance?

[4] Differential and integral calculus also had life-altering impact on the way I view the world.

[5] If I had a particular video game score with a normal distribution, a mean of 50, and SD of 25, I could try a hundred times and have a good chance at a coveted 95 score. For better chances I could also increase my number of trials or increase my mean, or both.

[6] A saying which, though said to have been said by him, was apparently never actually said by him. "Is quoted as saying" is yet another one of those handy phrases which makes anything that follows it necessarily true. 

You Have to Try to Fail

You have to try to fail

You have to try to fail

You have to try to fail

1. You have to try to fail - it takes effort and directed attention in order to fail at anything.

2. You have to try to fail - You have to try first before you can fail.

3. You have to try to fail - You need to try to fail. It is good and necessary.

This phrase entered in my mind the other day. I've since let it bump around while trying to parse the different possible interpretations. I'll discard the first out of hand, and share the two that most resonated to me.

You have to try to fail - You have to try first before you can ever fail.

This is perhaps the simplest evident interpretation, and by far the most depressing. It is the sad assertion that in order to ever fail, you have to first try. If you do not sign up in the talent show, you cannot embarrass yourself onstage. I think this is the unspoken reason behind many fears. It happens in career, academic work, relationships, anything that could result in a clear evaluation of you and your effort/worth. When success in an important endeavor is uncertain, there is an irrational voice that whispers it's better to not try than to try and fail.1

Why? Well, at the moment, you only think you might be a failure. If you try and it doesn't work, that's worse, because then you know you are, and everyone else knows it too.

However wrongheaded the reasoning of this argument, I've seen it is remarkably effective in preventing action. Many people perform at a level far below their capabilities, because they dislike the sting of failure and fear the social judgment (or self-judgment) that comes from trying and not making it.

You have to try to fail - You need to try to fail. It is good and necessary.

I think it's safe to assume that most people look on failure as inherently bad, the definition of "not success". Above all, it's something we'd rather avoid. But let's see if there's a silver lining. What benefits can failure bestow?

Feedback

For one, failure is a very accurate form of feedback. I've noticed that improvement is difficult in tasks where failure is not readily apparent. It's sad to shoot and miss the bullseye, but to shoot and have no way of knowing whether you hit the bullseye or a passing hiker is far worse.

Resilience can grow from repeated failure

The first street contact a missionary makes is terrifying. You are speaking to a person about the most important thing in the world, you can't speak the language and if you get it wrong… DON'T GET IT WRONG. But then you get it wrong, or right, and the person leaves, and there are still dozens of people on the street. After several hundred repetitions, you realize that you have nothing to lose by trying. Nothing except your fear. There is no risk. There is only experience and strength to be gained. And once in a very, very long time, there is success.

This holds when asking for dates, applying for jobs, or conversing with random strangers. The first failures are painful, but life can only crush your tender hopes so many times before your heart goes "Hey. What I worried about happened… and I'm still ok." This quickly grows into "What ehVAH! I'ma shrug that off!" After that, you walk around like superman as insults or glares bounce off, meanwhile collecting a wealth of friends and stories beyond your wildest expectations2.

Other virtues

Failure can frequently give perspective3. Furthermore, as humans we are loss-averse, and tend to inflate the negative consequences of failure. And even with the big things, there's a wide world full of opportunities out there. If you flunk out of law school, you could probably pick up a job waiting tables by a Florida beachfront, reflect on life and catch some waves and find meaningful goals there. Happiness is not a one-shot thing.

Building onto that, you could add that failure can lead to a whole host of virtues, including humility, empathy, patience, and many other worthy and admirable traits. At least as long as we take it the right way.

You feel like you're really stretching here, Joseph.

Ok, so there are some semi-positive results of failure. But that's like saying there are semi-positive results of toddlers falling flat on their faces-- it doesn't mean we should try to make it happen (we shouldn't).

Are there times when failure should be sought for? Here's one possibility:

If you never fail to hit any of your goals, then you're not aiming high enough.

Failing to achieve superficial goals vs. Failing to grow

That assertion suggests that occasional failure indicates we are in a zone of true growth. The exercise analogy of "working to failure" seems applicable here. When lifting weights, you push your muscles till they fail. You can do dozens of repetitions using light weights, but if you do not push yourself to failure, your growth will be very limited. Similarly, if you easily meet all of your goals all the time, chances are they aren't high enough to make you improve. 

This definition:

Failure = not achieving 100% of the 12 set repetition.

...is very different from this definition:

Failure = not achieving growth and improvement

With this perspective, we redefine failure from "not getting the thing I want right now" to "losing out on long term plans and growth".

Which definition do we judge ourselves by? Getting a perfect score on the test is a secondary characteristic. The primary one-- be it understanding the material or becoming a person of character and faith--that is the real goal. And it cannot be achieved without a lot of trip-ups and difficulties along the way. We can and should improve as fast as possible, but we cannot allow fear of failure to impede effort.

Acknowledgment and Response

While I trivialize failure here, I'd also like to acknowledge that sometimes the stakes do matter. There are life-altering decisions and terrible pressures before us all. Failure--especially repeated failure, devoid of encouragement or hope-- can have devastating consequences on a person's life outlook and sense of self-worth4. If you've ever seen a small child with no hand-eye coordination who has been reduced to apathy in a sport, you'll know what I mean. But if his team trains him, sends the ball his way, and shepherds him in for an assisted goal, his attitude can make a surprising turnaround. Sometimes people just need a taste of success.

There is a balance between success and failure. We need enough success to have hope, and maybe we even need failure to teach us and strengthen us.5

As Elder Uchtdorf put it: "As long as we are willing to rise up again and continue on the path toward the spiritual goals God has given us, we can learn something from failure and become better and happier as a result."6

In this sense, I think the only true failure in life is when we disengage and abandon the worthy goals before us. If we hold fast to our hopes despite temporary stumbles, what now appear to be losses may, in the light of an eternal perspective, become our moments of great triumph.

Reframing in an eternal perspective

We often talk of how Christ is our perfect example. If He never sinned, never failed, then why should failure be a good thing for us?

Look at it this way. Christ never failed. But what if we judged Him according to the criteria we often use on each other or on ourselves?

Because he didn't convince the Pharisees to repent. The majority of his own people and religion rejected him.  His church was so tenuous that its leaders basically left to go back to their old jobs after the Resurrection. Isaiah's prophecies of a triumphant and freed Israel remained unfulfilled. What few followers he had would suffer persecution from the Jews and then the Romans. Within a relatively short time, almost every single authorized priesthood holder of the original church would either die or apostatize.

That is the outward measure of success and failure.

But a truer account can be found in the Gospels. There, we see a Savior who lived a perfect example of meekness and service, whose teachings would resonate throughout the world for millennia. Seen through an eye of faith, our dead ends, dreams deferred, and even our mistakes can take on a new meaning. Let us discern whether an event brings us closer to or farther from God before judging it as a success or failure.  Let us be careful not to confuse frustration or difficulty with failure. As long as we are living up to our covenants, victory is ultimately guaranteed.

1The statement that "not trying is failing too" is true, but the following realization that "you've therefore failed at everything ever that you've never done, as well as many of the ones you did try to do" tends to be a little too depressing to be helpful to my friends.

2And the dirty looks and bad experiences will be surprising rare in my experience.

3Check out part 2 of this post by a friend of mine. Or this one. Or this one. In fact, just go read his whole blog.

4Learned helplessness, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness, http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/lh.htm

5What's a good ratio? I have no idea, but personally, I wouldn't mind a nice 90/100 win/fail ratio on meaningful goals, amiright? Heh heh.... But I get the feeling mine is way lower than that.

6http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/you-can-do-it-now

Kaesong and Korean Relations

Several sources reported today that the Kaesong joint manufacturing facility inside North Korea is no longer admitting South Korean skilled workers and managers.  This is serious, however it is also important to note that  Kaesong is still operating. 

NK is allowing SK nationals to go home, but without replacements.  Since there are no replacements, most are choosing to stay on shift which NK would have anticipated.  Bottom line--This is a serious slap and a delaying tactic at the same time.  NK isn't cutting into its income much yet--but if this continues long term they seriously risk that and more.

SK passage to Kaesong has been closed once before only to be reopened after SK/US joint military exercises concluded.  If NK doesn't allow shift change by May, when the yearly US/SK military drills¹ are over, then we are in uncharted territory.  Below, I will try to outline how this may play out.²

Basically the border closure is classic DPRK brinkmanship taken to a rare but not unheard of height.  The thing about brinkmanship though is that if in each new situation you have to go closer to the brink to prove yourself or punish others, eventually your distance from the edge is enough within the margin of human error and hubris to make Zeno's Paradox irrelevant.

Because of the DPRK pattern of brinkmanship, it is likely that their intent is to back off before going over the precipice of all out war, but after perhaps a missile test launch and or a small scale physical attack on SK interests that are operating in a disputed area of the Yellow Sea during or after joint US/SK exercises.  This sends a message that NK is not unconditionally accepting of the international powers that be, and that it will not bow to U.S. / SK ideology or influence or be persuaded by aid previously received.  The border closure, and potential military action solidifies power internally, saves face after having accepted aid³, and acts as a point from which negotiations for further aid (such as recent medical aid from the South) can be bargained. 

Bizarre? No. Just Quixotic.  It makes sense from within DPRK governmental culture and policy.  Similar brinkmanship has been used for decades in the DPRK's international relations. The country is impoverished, can't consistently feed its people, and has outdated conventional military equipment.   Yet through all this, the Kim family has saved face and stayed in power with a strategy of managing a series of cycles of international escalation, negotiation, cessation, aid, and then moving back to escalation again while still managing to slowly develop missile and nuclear capabilities.

If SK chooses to stay out of disputed Yellow Sea areas during the exercises it may be possible to avoid NK military aggression this year, but not pursuing military drills in this area would also be an unusual step which would be seen as conceding or at least bending to the North's claim on the area.  Refraining from holding at least some drills in disputed areas that the South controls is risky, politically unpopular, and very unlikely--especially considering the rhetoric of the current SK government.  Result:  As per usual, SK and possibly the U.S. holds military drills in disputed waters and on islets in the Yellow Sea this year.

So that avenue of aggression lies open to the DPRK again.  If Kim Jong Un et al, decide to take it, they will likely do so at a time and place when U.S. forces are not close by to be directly threatened or threatening⁴.  At that point, Pak's government in SK has pledged to retaliate against military targets (new development⁵)--and we have pledged to back them (also new--but type of backing not specified).   Before, we backed against invasion, so the North could with less risk attack SK military assets in disputed areas without directly involving the U.S.   

The nature of newly promised SK retaliation and DPRK's subsequent response to the SK response will likely determine whether the border crossing to Kaesong reopens and the status quo is maintained, or the region (with us backing SK) slips over the edge this time.  My bet is still on pulling back from the all too familiar brink.

-------

1 I've been part of these drills before.  The drills in general don't tend to really accomplish much other than to show solidarity, and give key people an opportunity to get to know each other. There is often a second round a little later in the summer too.  Military presence in the Yellow Sea however, serves to protect commercial fishing rights and a small number of islet residents.

2 Even though you already probably know this, I have to warn you that even trained military predictive analysts (Which I may, or may not be.) quite often miss the boat.  This is still my best guess with current open source data at present.

3 Saving face is culturally very important, and the idea of North Korean self-sufficient independence is basic to the DPRK philosophy  (it is central to its written constitution) as well as the continuation of a series of deified hereditary leaders.  Accepting aid given from perceived need or pity weakens both of these ideas.  Cunningly taking supplies or receiving payment from corrupt imperialistic western powers and their SK puppets is more acceptable internally.  Even if it is much less reliable and consistent, obtaining aid in a way that can be portrayed as seizure, coercion, or cunning saves face by making aid a fiat of accomplishment rather than an act of weakness or submission, and allows the continuation of power for those in charge.

4 There are instances DPRK forces have launched attacks directly on U.S. forces, but in most instances have confined aggression to SK interests only.

5 Question:  Would returning fire in a combat situation satisfy Pak's commitment to retaliate?  If Pak's government chooses to consider returned fire as retaliation, and a given attack allows an immediate exchange of fire, retaliation then potentially stops with military self defense.  In this scenario nothing is new--this has happened in the past. (See border incidents link below.) If the attack does not allow immediate exchange of fire or the Pak government does not consider fire returned as truly a retaliatory deterrence to future attacks, then Pak is publicly committed to launching a retaliatory strike.

Articles which brought on this musing:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/04/world/asia/north-korea-blocks-workers-from-south-at-border.html?_r=0

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/04/02/north-korea-south-us/2048335/

Other things to consider:

SK banks suffer cyber attack --  It is unclear who is behind this.  DPRK was initially blamed, but the IP address of origin was inside a SK bank, not from China as originally believed--not that the origin IP address is necessarily an indicator of the origin of the attack. 

North Korea's historic problem feeding its people.   

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/30/us-korea-north-food-idUSBRE87T08J20120830

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2096604,00.html

Ongoing conflict history
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_border_incidents_involving_North_Korea

Nuclear and Missile Capabilities and History--Wikipedia does a decent job of putting all the openly available information together in one place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction


Also new:  We've included nuclear capable B2's in joint drills with South Korea for first time.   This says something about U.S. intent on backing South Korea.  China's response to this is significant.