Man, but being a now-not-so-recent graduate, trying idealistically to find a green collar job in a tourist town in the middle of a recession, because the job you have is temporary, the other job you have doesn't have the budget to give their staff more than a few hours a week, and the restaurants won't even look twice at you because you don't have any table-waiting experience--is tough.
So you turn to a year of service, only so does everybody else your age who is vaguely idealistic, wants to live where you already live, and can't find work any other way. And you can't quite compete there either--or maybe you can, because half of the problem is evaporating funding. And with all the advice you read about not wasting employers' time--it is hard not to get, well, frustrated, about that.
Performance in school is not the same thing as performance in the real world. I think there's a demographic of people, who take school seriously because we like to take the endeavors we do seriously, and school for the past 16 years has been our most serious of endeavors. In school, your evaluation of performance, your A, if you will, is yours, if you earn it. It's not somebody else's that you are taking away from them. And I definitely think grade standards have fallen in many places so that As are pretty easy to come by. Then you get an inflated sense of your ability, your talent, your potential.
Or maybe it's just a recession.
There are two ways to look at constant rejection. One is to take it as a marker of your real, post-school self worth. To lower ego, make you realize that you're not that great, and that you now need to re-evaluate your dreams and goals with a real idea of your potential and capabilities, which aren't very much. There's some kind of self-depreciating egoism in feeling that way. It's addictive, even.
The other is to take each rejection as a personal challenge to improve, to succeed despite all those people who "don't feel you fall into the pool of extremely qualified applicants" (you being merely a good one). Know it's not personal except in that it motivates you to remain personally dedicated to making yourself as awesome as you can be, to pull out all the stops, network like crazy, figure out what you can provide to them. And buddy, I want to be the best I can be, I know how to evaluate and correct my performance, and I know how to articulate what I have to offer. I not only can succeed, I will, and I will bring benefit to my employer.
The whole point of this is that I don't want to go to graduate school just because.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
Maximum Ride: Adrenaline Reading for Science Kids
In a stroke of true, teenage-throwback escapism, I've been reading the Maximum Ride science fiction series for, yes, young adults, by James Patterson.
One of my all-time favorite SciFi young adult series--all-time favorite series at all, really--is the Animorphs series, which I devoured for several years. Aliens, group dynamics, secret powers, saving the world, hard choices and moral questions...man I loved the whole occasionally-hokey ride. A lot more than any other of the staple YA series of the time: Babysitters Club (most ardently NOT SciFi), which I never even tried to read, and Goosebumps (not really SciFi either), which was okay but didn't ultimately do much for me.
Anyway, the premise of Maximum Ride was extremely Animorph-ish, what with the science and the quest to save the world and the animal-like superhuman powers, so I picked it up as a 23-year-old because I've been pretty upset lately and I thirsted for my Animorph-loving escapist past.
There are so far six books, of which I've read five (the sixth is still checked out), averaging about 1.5 hours per book. I like them, and because cliffhanging suspense is apparently Mr. Patteron's thing, they are hard to put down until I've finished.
They don't have the depth nor the satisfaction of the Animorphs series though, at least not yet.
I am very taken by the characters: six part human, part avian "genetic experiments" (or, kids with wings!) who were broken out of their life in dog-crates by a sympathetic (or was he?) mad scientist who raised them and taught them things like self-defense and having a conscious, must now run from the scientists who created them and along the way discover how they are supposed to save the world. Fourteen-year-old Maximum Ride, "Max" to her friends, is a kick-ass and no-nonsense heroine, yet has sympathetic and captivating vulnerabilities. I love the rawness, the passion, the courage of her point of view. Watching her grow up, make choices, face hardship, defend her flock and navigate teenage emotions is inspiring, especially so if I were still a fourteen-year-old girl myself. Fang (lacking parents, the kids named themselves) is every girl's dream of a strong and silent hero/sidekick, the other kids are quirky and funny, and the premise of six-year-old Angel--possessing both a six-year-old's lack of judgement or impulse control and the scary ability to both read and control minds--is truly interesting. And of course, who doesn't want to read about kids who can fly, and dream of such an amazing ability for herself?
Because of such rich characterization, I had high hopes for the character-driven nature of the story, and while it does have it's character-driven moments, in truth the majority of the plot is a lot of the same: bird kids running away from some evil figure or other, assisted by their kick-ass fighting skills and superhuman powers, with myterious "hey Max remember to save the world" admonishments thrown in from various sources. It is an action series after all. Enough real story, as opposed to kids going from one fight scene to another to another, is there that I keep reading, but in a sense the frustrating sparseness of it is why I keep reading. I want to follow that glimmer of "story" as opposed to "action scene" to see if it gets anywhere. And it does, but not as satisfactorily as I would like.
In a writing class I took once I learned about the difference between "sustained narrative" and "cheating narrative." In sustained narrative, interesting, unexpected, and mysterious events happen, and those keep the reader reading. And eventually, all of those things link together, bring the story forward in a logical yet powerful way, and are explained to sasisfaction. Example: the Harry Potter series. Hidden things are mentioned, and eventually they end up being important. We always come to understand how and why all events are related and important, and for that "everthing fits together" aspect, we the reader feel very satisfied.
In cheating narrative, by contrast, interesting, unexpected and mysterious events also happen, and also keep the reader reading, so he can figure out what the heck that was about. And then those interesting, unexpected and mysterious things are not brought up again, or are not well explained, or turn out to not really fit very well or not really have much function in the rest of the story. The mystery worked as a cliffhanger: you read on because you want to know. But then you never really find out, because the story goes somewhere else instead. The mystery was then like a cheap trick just to keep you going. The reader is not very satisfied.
A good bit of what goes on in the Maximum Ride books feels like cheating narrative. Example: the person who rescues Max and her flock from the science lab, raises them, and then dissappears turns out to have been working for the Evil Scientists all along. He shows up fairly often in the chase, tells them cryptic and contradictory things, sometimes helps them and sometimes hurts them, and you're left really confused. Rest of Paragraph Spoiler Alert!: In a later book he turns out to have been helping them all along but wanting them to pass "tests", to make sure they really are good enough to "save the world." It seems he's a good guy again, but his whole convuluted involvement is explained only in a few "he said he did it for a little of this and little of this and some of this" expository sentences that do little to expose his inner feelings and motivation, and do little justice to the fairly large part he played in the first half of the series. The second half doesn't seem to have much to do with him at all.
The whole "Max you have to save the world" thread feels a little bit that way to me too. There's a lot of hype about how she has to save the world. She even has a Voice in her head telling her cryptic messages to that affect. It seems like a big deal and you wonder what she has to save it from. But it ends up being something different every time. A little fight with some Seriously Evil Mad Scientists. A little anti-global-warming activism. Yet all those cryptic message made it sound like there Was Some Big Conspiracy and Unifying Purpose for which she was created. (The cover blurbs further this notion: "If she lives, the world lives. It's that simple." Yet I don't yet see any evidence of the world's fate being sigunarly tied to hers, even though she takes out some bad people with the help of her friends.) Maybe we'll find out what that is later (the series isn't done after all), but so far it is either cheating narrative or just not-very-well-put-together continued hints, which feels like cheating narrative even if it isn't intended to be.
In general, for a man who pumps out the novels (look at the "upcoming releases" section of his website: five books coming out in a space of two months) I think he gets a little sloppy with his work. Five stories is a lot to keep track of at once. In the first half of the series Max is described as blond, yet in later books she's suddenly brown-headed. For example. The general not-tied-together-as-nicely-as-suspensful-plot-devices-promise might be a symptom of that as well. I don't think it's cheating narrative on purpose, and it isn't always cheating narrative. Just enough to get on my nerves.
My final peeve of the series is a lack of beleivability in the bad guys. First you have the Evil Mad Scientists, who created Max and flock by grafting bird DNA onto test tube babies and/or children given to science for money by poor parents. They treat the kids like science experience, referring to them as "its" even when the kids smart off, refusing to treat them as humans even though they can talk to them, etc. That just isn't beleivable to me. I don't think there's enough people who would treat something that clearly feels pain and emotional hurt very much like a human child, as something not worthy of even the barest of empathy. One or two, maybe, but a whole multinational corporation...he just didn't make that believable for me. Especially becasue what this Itex wants remains a little bit of a mystery until later in the series. (It turns out to be world domination, but the how, the why, etc, is still not very clear.) Then post-Itex you have some other random genetically or robotically enhanced (but by whom?) bad guys whose past and motivations, beyond just being jerks, also aren't all that clear.
In short, Maximum Ride is a fun, witty, wild science-fiction ride, but it leaves me feeling unsure if James Patterson is really trying or really succeeding at going somewhere. If I were a young adult, I'd really like it, and I'd reccomend it to young adults, because of the science, the strong heroine with strong values, the self-reliance think-for-yourself aspects. It's possible that it really will go somewhere, and the seemingly random threads really will be resolved. Judging from what I've seen so far I don't think they'll be resloved particularly masterfully, but even so it'll be an interesting and fun read.
One of my all-time favorite SciFi young adult series--all-time favorite series at all, really--is the Animorphs series, which I devoured for several years. Aliens, group dynamics, secret powers, saving the world, hard choices and moral questions...man I loved the whole occasionally-hokey ride. A lot more than any other of the staple YA series of the time: Babysitters Club (most ardently NOT SciFi), which I never even tried to read, and Goosebumps (not really SciFi either), which was okay but didn't ultimately do much for me.
Anyway, the premise of Maximum Ride was extremely Animorph-ish, what with the science and the quest to save the world and the animal-like superhuman powers, so I picked it up as a 23-year-old because I've been pretty upset lately and I thirsted for my Animorph-loving escapist past.
There are so far six books, of which I've read five (the sixth is still checked out), averaging about 1.5 hours per book. I like them, and because cliffhanging suspense is apparently Mr. Patteron's thing, they are hard to put down until I've finished.
They don't have the depth nor the satisfaction of the Animorphs series though, at least not yet.
I am very taken by the characters: six part human, part avian "genetic experiments" (or, kids with wings!) who were broken out of their life in dog-crates by a sympathetic (or was he?) mad scientist who raised them and taught them things like self-defense and having a conscious, must now run from the scientists who created them and along the way discover how they are supposed to save the world. Fourteen-year-old Maximum Ride, "Max" to her friends, is a kick-ass and no-nonsense heroine, yet has sympathetic and captivating vulnerabilities. I love the rawness, the passion, the courage of her point of view. Watching her grow up, make choices, face hardship, defend her flock and navigate teenage emotions is inspiring, especially so if I were still a fourteen-year-old girl myself. Fang (lacking parents, the kids named themselves) is every girl's dream of a strong and silent hero/sidekick, the other kids are quirky and funny, and the premise of six-year-old Angel--possessing both a six-year-old's lack of judgement or impulse control and the scary ability to both read and control minds--is truly interesting. And of course, who doesn't want to read about kids who can fly, and dream of such an amazing ability for herself?
Because of such rich characterization, I had high hopes for the character-driven nature of the story, and while it does have it's character-driven moments, in truth the majority of the plot is a lot of the same: bird kids running away from some evil figure or other, assisted by their kick-ass fighting skills and superhuman powers, with myterious "hey Max remember to save the world" admonishments thrown in from various sources. It is an action series after all. Enough real story, as opposed to kids going from one fight scene to another to another, is there that I keep reading, but in a sense the frustrating sparseness of it is why I keep reading. I want to follow that glimmer of "story" as opposed to "action scene" to see if it gets anywhere. And it does, but not as satisfactorily as I would like.
In a writing class I took once I learned about the difference between "sustained narrative" and "cheating narrative." In sustained narrative, interesting, unexpected, and mysterious events happen, and those keep the reader reading. And eventually, all of those things link together, bring the story forward in a logical yet powerful way, and are explained to sasisfaction. Example: the Harry Potter series. Hidden things are mentioned, and eventually they end up being important. We always come to understand how and why all events are related and important, and for that "everthing fits together" aspect, we the reader feel very satisfied.
In cheating narrative, by contrast, interesting, unexpected and mysterious events also happen, and also keep the reader reading, so he can figure out what the heck that was about. And then those interesting, unexpected and mysterious things are not brought up again, or are not well explained, or turn out to not really fit very well or not really have much function in the rest of the story. The mystery worked as a cliffhanger: you read on because you want to know. But then you never really find out, because the story goes somewhere else instead. The mystery was then like a cheap trick just to keep you going. The reader is not very satisfied.
A good bit of what goes on in the Maximum Ride books feels like cheating narrative. Example: the person who rescues Max and her flock from the science lab, raises them, and then dissappears turns out to have been working for the Evil Scientists all along. He shows up fairly often in the chase, tells them cryptic and contradictory things, sometimes helps them and sometimes hurts them, and you're left really confused. Rest of Paragraph Spoiler Alert!: In a later book he turns out to have been helping them all along but wanting them to pass "tests", to make sure they really are good enough to "save the world." It seems he's a good guy again, but his whole convuluted involvement is explained only in a few "he said he did it for a little of this and little of this and some of this" expository sentences that do little to expose his inner feelings and motivation, and do little justice to the fairly large part he played in the first half of the series. The second half doesn't seem to have much to do with him at all.
The whole "Max you have to save the world" thread feels a little bit that way to me too. There's a lot of hype about how she has to save the world. She even has a Voice in her head telling her cryptic messages to that affect. It seems like a big deal and you wonder what she has to save it from. But it ends up being something different every time. A little fight with some Seriously Evil Mad Scientists. A little anti-global-warming activism. Yet all those cryptic message made it sound like there Was Some Big Conspiracy and Unifying Purpose for which she was created. (The cover blurbs further this notion: "If she lives, the world lives. It's that simple." Yet I don't yet see any evidence of the world's fate being sigunarly tied to hers, even though she takes out some bad people with the help of her friends.) Maybe we'll find out what that is later (the series isn't done after all), but so far it is either cheating narrative or just not-very-well-put-together continued hints, which feels like cheating narrative even if it isn't intended to be.
In general, for a man who pumps out the novels (look at the "upcoming releases" section of his website: five books coming out in a space of two months) I think he gets a little sloppy with his work. Five stories is a lot to keep track of at once. In the first half of the series Max is described as blond, yet in later books she's suddenly brown-headed. For example. The general not-tied-together-as-nicely-as-suspensful-plot-devices-promise might be a symptom of that as well. I don't think it's cheating narrative on purpose, and it isn't always cheating narrative. Just enough to get on my nerves.
My final peeve of the series is a lack of beleivability in the bad guys. First you have the Evil Mad Scientists, who created Max and flock by grafting bird DNA onto test tube babies and/or children given to science for money by poor parents. They treat the kids like science experience, referring to them as "its" even when the kids smart off, refusing to treat them as humans even though they can talk to them, etc. That just isn't beleivable to me. I don't think there's enough people who would treat something that clearly feels pain and emotional hurt very much like a human child, as something not worthy of even the barest of empathy. One or two, maybe, but a whole multinational corporation...he just didn't make that believable for me. Especially becasue what this Itex wants remains a little bit of a mystery until later in the series. (It turns out to be world domination, but the how, the why, etc, is still not very clear.) Then post-Itex you have some other random genetically or robotically enhanced (but by whom?) bad guys whose past and motivations, beyond just being jerks, also aren't all that clear.
In short, Maximum Ride is a fun, witty, wild science-fiction ride, but it leaves me feeling unsure if James Patterson is really trying or really succeeding at going somewhere. If I were a young adult, I'd really like it, and I'd reccomend it to young adults, because of the science, the strong heroine with strong values, the self-reliance think-for-yourself aspects. It's possible that it really will go somewhere, and the seemingly random threads really will be resolved. Judging from what I've seen so far I don't think they'll be resloved particularly masterfully, but even so it'll be an interesting and fun read.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Carbon Emissions: The Big Speculative Hoop-la
Got this link from Jeff a while ago: Walking to the shops 'damages planet more than going by car.'
The idea is that, assuming one re-consumes the calories one burns while disdaining a car in order to walk to a destination, the carbon emissions coming from the raising, slaughtering, and transporting your caloric food source actually outstrip the carbon emissions from burning the small amount of gasoline you would have burned to drive instead. The big greenwashed news: everything you thought about being a "green" citizen was a lie! Just drive baby, drive!
This article is extremely silly, either because the author didn't sum the book (How to Live a Low-Carbon Life) it draws from correctly, the author of the book (Chris Goodall) didn't have his thinking together, or both. The title is rigged and oversimplified merely to create sensationalism. Although meat consumption is extremely heavy on the greenhouse gases; what with the landspace required in raising the animals and the food for 'em, the CO2 in slaughtering packing and transporting, and the methane, 20 times more potent a GG than CO2, that cows...err, emit with regularity--there are still several, hummer-sized holes in the argument.
First is the simplicity of the one data point which drives the whole statement:
“If you walked [3 km] instead [of driving], it would use about 180 calories. You’d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving."
When people need between 1500 and 3500 calories per day, 180 is hardly noteworthy, whether you eat beef or anything else. With obesity and/or weight-obsession being what it is, many people could stand to or would love to just not replace those 180.
Certainly it's not entirely helpful for me to say that calories burned by being more active should not be replaced, but this argument is negated by its oversimplification in another way as well. Pardon me for being one of those pushy holier-than-thou vegetarians, but is 100g of beef really the only way to replace 180 calories? The article was written for a British audience, a country for which a majority of most foods both animal and vegetable are shipped long distances--but beef was specifically chosen as the data point that arrived at the four-times-as-much touchpoint. I know some people do see meat-as-whole-meal, but they may often not be the people who are walking 3km instead of driving to begin with. The reality of the matter is that people do eat too much meat to curb our carbon emissions, but the one-to-one beef-for-calories argument is way too oversimplified. I want to see the carbon comparison for something besides carnivory.
Granted, on the isolated and rainy Great Island Monarch, many food choices make carbon emissions. The article is saying that life-cycle consideration are important. So important, in fact, that the failure of the author to include life-cycle costs in the thing he is comparing--the life-cycle cost of drilling for, refining, and shipping that gasoline, or the materials for your automobile, for that matter--is as glaring error in logic.
I haven't researched them, so I don't know what those life-cycle costs are directly, thus I can't say how they compare to the CO2 and methane of 100g of beef. Perhaps the author of the book, if not the article, has looked into them. However, they are not mentioned, and some critical thinking suggests that such an omission is hardly trivial. Drilling uses fossil fuels, and certainly removes any trees and greenery--natural carbon sinks--from the land in question. Refining the stuff is going to use some energy, to say the least. And fossil fuel isn't exactly Britain's great natural resource, either, so just as you're boating and flying and trucking in the meat and out-of-season fruits and vegetables, so are you flying and boating and trucking in the oil. Car parts are also mined, forged, assembled, and shipped all over the world.
Perhaps the carbon emissions from beef are still worse. But you can't make conclusive statements until you consider all of the evidence, especially when the whole premise of your argument is based on considering hidden factors.
So the article may have some food for thought in it (pardon the pun), but it's not actually saying anything particularly profound. In fact, considering what it has left out, it may not be saying anything new at all. If you want to save the environment, you're better off reducing your meat consumption AND walking 3 kilometers.
The idea is that, assuming one re-consumes the calories one burns while disdaining a car in order to walk to a destination, the carbon emissions coming from the raising, slaughtering, and transporting your caloric food source actually outstrip the carbon emissions from burning the small amount of gasoline you would have burned to drive instead. The big greenwashed news: everything you thought about being a "green" citizen was a lie! Just drive baby, drive!
This article is extremely silly, either because the author didn't sum the book (How to Live a Low-Carbon Life) it draws from correctly, the author of the book (Chris Goodall) didn't have his thinking together, or both. The title is rigged and oversimplified merely to create sensationalism. Although meat consumption is extremely heavy on the greenhouse gases; what with the landspace required in raising the animals and the food for 'em, the CO2 in slaughtering packing and transporting, and the methane, 20 times more potent a GG than CO2, that cows...err, emit with regularity--there are still several, hummer-sized holes in the argument.
First is the simplicity of the one data point which drives the whole statement:
“If you walked [3 km] instead [of driving], it would use about 180 calories. You’d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving."
When people need between 1500 and 3500 calories per day, 180 is hardly noteworthy, whether you eat beef or anything else. With obesity and/or weight-obsession being what it is, many people could stand to or would love to just not replace those 180.
Certainly it's not entirely helpful for me to say that calories burned by being more active should not be replaced, but this argument is negated by its oversimplification in another way as well. Pardon me for being one of those pushy holier-than-thou vegetarians, but is 100g of beef really the only way to replace 180 calories? The article was written for a British audience, a country for which a majority of most foods both animal and vegetable are shipped long distances--but beef was specifically chosen as the data point that arrived at the four-times-as-much touchpoint. I know some people do see meat-as-whole-meal, but they may often not be the people who are walking 3km instead of driving to begin with. The reality of the matter is that people do eat too much meat to curb our carbon emissions, but the one-to-one beef-for-calories argument is way too oversimplified. I want to see the carbon comparison for something besides carnivory.
Granted, on the isolated and rainy Great Island Monarch, many food choices make carbon emissions. The article is saying that life-cycle consideration are important. So important, in fact, that the failure of the author to include life-cycle costs in the thing he is comparing--the life-cycle cost of drilling for, refining, and shipping that gasoline, or the materials for your automobile, for that matter--is as glaring error in logic.
I haven't researched them, so I don't know what those life-cycle costs are directly, thus I can't say how they compare to the CO2 and methane of 100g of beef. Perhaps the author of the book, if not the article, has looked into them. However, they are not mentioned, and some critical thinking suggests that such an omission is hardly trivial. Drilling uses fossil fuels, and certainly removes any trees and greenery--natural carbon sinks--from the land in question. Refining the stuff is going to use some energy, to say the least. And fossil fuel isn't exactly Britain's great natural resource, either, so just as you're boating and flying and trucking in the meat and out-of-season fruits and vegetables, so are you flying and boating and trucking in the oil. Car parts are also mined, forged, assembled, and shipped all over the world.
Perhaps the carbon emissions from beef are still worse. But you can't make conclusive statements until you consider all of the evidence, especially when the whole premise of your argument is based on considering hidden factors.
So the article may have some food for thought in it (pardon the pun), but it's not actually saying anything particularly profound. In fact, considering what it has left out, it may not be saying anything new at all. If you want to save the environment, you're better off reducing your meat consumption AND walking 3 kilometers.
Friday, July 2, 2010
It's Just Adrenaline
So, in this entry I get a little bit gushy. This is not uncharacteristic of me at all, but it's something I've been trying, relatively, to stay away from here. Be warned.
Yesterday I went on a very spectacular rock climbing trip.
I'm an old hat at rock climbing--which is not the same thing at saying I'm good at it, because I'm really, staunchly, mediocre--so I can differentiate a spectacular climbing day from a not-so-spectacular one.
My completely awesome, competent, confident, intelligent, extroverted and slightly adrenaline-junkie friend (do I seem jealous?), also severely underemployed, has been climbing with me a lot lately. You may have heard about her in my last entry about climbing and car accidents. Since, as severely underemployed and getting over the loss of college-inflated self-importance people are not short on time if we are on money, there are ample opportunities for this. More specifically, we've been getting into *lead* climbing, which, if you've done it, you'll know is a whole 'nother world from normal rock climbing. More so to people like me than said competent, confident, intelligent yadda yadda friend, who has so far taken it in stride.
Unlike me, who sweats and hyperventilates and shakes hysterically and swears (but haven't teared up yet) my way through it.
Well. We had found a nice moderate route to lead, and we were both going to do it. I was in a state that can best be described as morosely immature, because I'd just been rejected for yet again another job in the same sentence that I was reassured that I really had been such an excellent candidate (yet again on the excellent candidate part of the rejection, too). So even though knowing better (I'm a Challenge By Choice professional, after all, even if only barely employed as such), even though knowing myself, I looked at the route and let her go first.
She did okay. There was a spot where she slipped, grabbed the rock, and had to breath hard for a few minutes, which is probably on the level of a nervous-break-down for most other people. She succeeded of course, without falling, and then it was my turn to climb the thing. I had to follow her first, to take out the gear she'd put in.
I learned that that was a mistake, because I went from feeling reasonably pumped about doing it lead, to vehemently proclaiming that I would *not* lead it once I'd gotten to the top. I should have just had her take her own gear down and be do with without realizing what I was getting into.
It wasn't a hard route, but it was slabby face (like, rock face) climbing. Imagine an almost vertical wall, with minuscule finger holds and little ripples that your feet may or may not stick to. That fear-factor, that lizard-brain, was kicking into overtime, even though, like I said, I'm a old hat at climbing. It's the kind of climbing where you can't stop and think, you can't really plan, you just hold on and move by god before you lose the grip and delicate balance that you have. And deal with the adrenaline.
I'm actually really good at that kind of climbing relative to other kinds, and I find it very satisfying.
But I am a hesitater, and that's why my stomach dropped at the notion of leading the route. I can handle a lead fall. Okay, the concept is still scary, but I've taken moderate falls, and I trust the equipment. Taking a lead fall would probably be damn good for me, because then I wouldn't be afraid of it. I always feel better after falling and feeling the safety device--the rope--catch me. A lead fall just involves a longer interval before that happens.
But that feeling. Of hanging by very little, and of not being able to take time to *think* about it, of just having to act, and like I said, you can't fool your lizard-brain with a silly safety rope. It's only adrenaline...but I am not an adrenaline junkie. I have such performance anxiety issues. I can't take risks, I want to stop and analyze and make sure I'm not *wrong*. If I'd lead that, there would be no time for right or wrong. Just action.
I don't want to give up my love of hesistation.
Of course, this can become a metaphor for grander things. I do hard work in my job search, but I do hesitate before I make phone calls. I do plan conversations meticulously. I do hate to look the fool, sound the fool, perform poorly in front of others. I take actions to avoid having to perform at something...and fail publicly.
Who's afraid of failure? Who is, consequently, treating this latest rejection with what moping woe-is-me histrionics, considering it a failure even though it really is nothing personal and may in fact just be that they didn't consider their budget well enough? Who is taking this "failure" as an indication of doom into repeated, future failure, just a little bit?
Who always has to frikkin hesistate before speaking up, sharing, asking questions, taking risks?
Me.
And loads of other human beings.
Don't worry, I am going to go back and lead climb that thing soon. I hope I do fall, because that will be the best lesson.
I did and do really want that job though, not some other one. I guess that is their loss.
Yesterday I went on a very spectacular rock climbing trip.
I'm an old hat at rock climbing--which is not the same thing at saying I'm good at it, because I'm really, staunchly, mediocre--so I can differentiate a spectacular climbing day from a not-so-spectacular one.
My completely awesome, competent, confident, intelligent, extroverted and slightly adrenaline-junkie friend (do I seem jealous?), also severely underemployed, has been climbing with me a lot lately. You may have heard about her in my last entry about climbing and car accidents. Since, as severely underemployed and getting over the loss of college-inflated self-importance people are not short on time if we are on money, there are ample opportunities for this. More specifically, we've been getting into *lead* climbing, which, if you've done it, you'll know is a whole 'nother world from normal rock climbing. More so to people like me than said competent, confident, intelligent yadda yadda friend, who has so far taken it in stride.
Unlike me, who sweats and hyperventilates and shakes hysterically and swears (but haven't teared up yet) my way through it.
Well. We had found a nice moderate route to lead, and we were both going to do it. I was in a state that can best be described as morosely immature, because I'd just been rejected for yet again another job in the same sentence that I was reassured that I really had been such an excellent candidate (yet again on the excellent candidate part of the rejection, too). So even though knowing better (I'm a Challenge By Choice professional, after all, even if only barely employed as such), even though knowing myself, I looked at the route and let her go first.
She did okay. There was a spot where she slipped, grabbed the rock, and had to breath hard for a few minutes, which is probably on the level of a nervous-break-down for most other people. She succeeded of course, without falling, and then it was my turn to climb the thing. I had to follow her first, to take out the gear she'd put in.
I learned that that was a mistake, because I went from feeling reasonably pumped about doing it lead, to vehemently proclaiming that I would *not* lead it once I'd gotten to the top. I should have just had her take her own gear down and be do with without realizing what I was getting into.
It wasn't a hard route, but it was slabby face (like, rock face) climbing. Imagine an almost vertical wall, with minuscule finger holds and little ripples that your feet may or may not stick to. That fear-factor, that lizard-brain, was kicking into overtime, even though, like I said, I'm a old hat at climbing. It's the kind of climbing where you can't stop and think, you can't really plan, you just hold on and move by god before you lose the grip and delicate balance that you have. And deal with the adrenaline.
I'm actually really good at that kind of climbing relative to other kinds, and I find it very satisfying.
But I am a hesitater, and that's why my stomach dropped at the notion of leading the route. I can handle a lead fall. Okay, the concept is still scary, but I've taken moderate falls, and I trust the equipment. Taking a lead fall would probably be damn good for me, because then I wouldn't be afraid of it. I always feel better after falling and feeling the safety device--the rope--catch me. A lead fall just involves a longer interval before that happens.
But that feeling. Of hanging by very little, and of not being able to take time to *think* about it, of just having to act, and like I said, you can't fool your lizard-brain with a silly safety rope. It's only adrenaline...but I am not an adrenaline junkie. I have such performance anxiety issues. I can't take risks, I want to stop and analyze and make sure I'm not *wrong*. If I'd lead that, there would be no time for right or wrong. Just action.
I don't want to give up my love of hesistation.
Of course, this can become a metaphor for grander things. I do hard work in my job search, but I do hesitate before I make phone calls. I do plan conversations meticulously. I do hate to look the fool, sound the fool, perform poorly in front of others. I take actions to avoid having to perform at something...and fail publicly.
Who's afraid of failure? Who is, consequently, treating this latest rejection with what moping woe-is-me histrionics, considering it a failure even though it really is nothing personal and may in fact just be that they didn't consider their budget well enough? Who is taking this "failure" as an indication of doom into repeated, future failure, just a little bit?
Who always has to frikkin hesistate before speaking up, sharing, asking questions, taking risks?
Me.
And loads of other human beings.
Don't worry, I am going to go back and lead climb that thing soon. I hope I do fall, because that will be the best lesson.
I did and do really want that job though, not some other one. I guess that is their loss.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Shatner.
Ah yes, I'd forgotten that some people make money by writing shockingly hokey fanfiction. But then again, shockinly honey may describe everything about William Shatner.
Witness the monstrosity here.
Witness the monstrosity here.
Actual and Percieved Risk
It irks me to no end that certain health insurance companies can stick an exclusionary rider in their individual coverage policies for any rock climbing related injuries, meaning, to that company, rock climbing is un-insurable--but they're still willing to cover car accidents.
For instance, last Tuesday, I was in a car wreck on the way to going rock climbing.
Don't worry, I'm fine and so is everybody involved, minus the poor high school kid who rear-ended us who is now going to have a high car insurance bill. There was no need to cash in on that expensive individual health plan just yet.
Anyway.
I'm recalling a study I heard about (on NPR probably) citing the "Lake Wobegon Effect", in which everyone thinks he or she is an above-average driver (Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average). The saying goes that those who drive faster than you are maniacs, and those slower than you are morons. Interestingly, this effect applies to other, telling things these days: why AIG and friends still paid their execs obscene bonuses (because our people are above average, as exemplified by how much we pay them), the destruction of recently-graduated college student self-importance by the brutally competitive job market.
As far as driving is concerned, our self-delusion might be explained by the fact that human beings are just not wired to comprehend the true experience, including the danger, of riding in a car. Our bodies might respond with panic to 60, 70, 80, miles per hour, if we were exposed to the rushing wind or could view oncoming objects directly-- but kept safe in our little boxes, on our little strips of asphalt, our body doesn't feel how easy it would be for us to hurtle at high speeds into other objects that might also be going fast. Our instinct-brain may not even really understand the concept of that much speed, that not being something we had to deal with while we were evolving.
I suppose I am deluded under the Lake Wobegon Effect: I sure think other people drive recklessly all the time. Included in reckless drive are the obvious, as well as (studies show!) things like talking on a cell phone, changing cds, texting--all things I've seen even very level headed, cautious, and sensible people do without a second thought. This might be because even if (some of us) realize, rationally, that danger is nigh, that amygdala lizard brain, that part whose job is to press our guttural emotional buttons--usually at inopportune times--has no sensory input telling it to complain. Even when sudden brake lights surprise you, there may be some panic but the situation is still removed, unreal, unless an actual accident happens. You can go back to texting after a few deep intakes of breath, and perhaps even continue to think yourself a great driver.
Rock climbing is the opposite. I've encountered many people who think it's ridiculously dangerous, and it is, if you're into that solo free climbing stuff. But barring the crazies, rock climbing is a sport with ample safeguards in place. Far more people die swimming each year. Okay, far more people go swimming, but a higher percentage of those die than of those who rock climb. High friction devices will stop rope from sliding through them when your belayer wants to stop you, and all the brightest physics goes into the design and placement of anchors and gear that holds the rope. More anchors than needed are aways used, at least, if you climb with me, and most of the people who trained me. Those ropes are designed and tested to suspend trucks, people are no problem.
Yet when you're clinging to a rock face and you can't figure out where to put your hands and you reach and feel yourself slipping, even though your rational brain remembers setting the solid anchors holding your rope in place, even if you can see the rope and feel it start to hold your weight...still, that amgydala kicks into high gear. It knows that heights + your body = potential recipe for harm, and you can't explain things like ropes and safety gear to the part of your brain that you share with lizards.
For instance, last Tuesday, I was in a car wreck on the way to going rock climbing.
Don't worry, I'm fine and so is everybody involved, minus the poor high school kid who rear-ended us who is now going to have a high car insurance bill. There was no need to cash in on that expensive individual health plan just yet.
Anyway.
I'm recalling a study I heard about (on NPR probably) citing the "Lake Wobegon Effect", in which everyone thinks he or she is an above-average driver (Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average). The saying goes that those who drive faster than you are maniacs, and those slower than you are morons. Interestingly, this effect applies to other, telling things these days: why AIG and friends still paid their execs obscene bonuses (because our people are above average, as exemplified by how much we pay them), the destruction of recently-graduated college student self-importance by the brutally competitive job market.
As far as driving is concerned, our self-delusion might be explained by the fact that human beings are just not wired to comprehend the true experience, including the danger, of riding in a car. Our bodies might respond with panic to 60, 70, 80, miles per hour, if we were exposed to the rushing wind or could view oncoming objects directly-- but kept safe in our little boxes, on our little strips of asphalt, our body doesn't feel how easy it would be for us to hurtle at high speeds into other objects that might also be going fast. Our instinct-brain may not even really understand the concept of that much speed, that not being something we had to deal with while we were evolving.
I suppose I am deluded under the Lake Wobegon Effect: I sure think other people drive recklessly all the time. Included in reckless drive are the obvious, as well as (studies show!) things like talking on a cell phone, changing cds, texting--all things I've seen even very level headed, cautious, and sensible people do without a second thought. This might be because even if (some of us) realize, rationally, that danger is nigh, that amygdala lizard brain, that part whose job is to press our guttural emotional buttons--usually at inopportune times--has no sensory input telling it to complain. Even when sudden brake lights surprise you, there may be some panic but the situation is still removed, unreal, unless an actual accident happens. You can go back to texting after a few deep intakes of breath, and perhaps even continue to think yourself a great driver.
Rock climbing is the opposite. I've encountered many people who think it's ridiculously dangerous, and it is, if you're into that solo free climbing stuff. But barring the crazies, rock climbing is a sport with ample safeguards in place. Far more people die swimming each year. Okay, far more people go swimming, but a higher percentage of those die than of those who rock climb. High friction devices will stop rope from sliding through them when your belayer wants to stop you, and all the brightest physics goes into the design and placement of anchors and gear that holds the rope. More anchors than needed are aways used, at least, if you climb with me, and most of the people who trained me. Those ropes are designed and tested to suspend trucks, people are no problem.
Yet when you're clinging to a rock face and you can't figure out where to put your hands and you reach and feel yourself slipping, even though your rational brain remembers setting the solid anchors holding your rope in place, even if you can see the rope and feel it start to hold your weight...still, that amgydala kicks into high gear. It knows that heights + your body = potential recipe for harm, and you can't explain things like ropes and safety gear to the part of your brain that you share with lizards.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Plastic Bags, The Eternal Question
NPR: California Moves to Ban Plastic Bags in Grocery Stores:
"The California Assembly on Wednesday passed legislation prohibiting pharmacies and grocery, liquor and convenience stores from giving out plastic bags. The bill also calls for customers to be charged for using store-issued paper bags."
Environmentalists hooray, right?
"Requiring stores to charge customers for paper bags is a cost Republican lawmakers argued some Californians can't afford.
"This is not the time to be putting a financial burden on families in a very tough economy," said Assemblyman Ted Gaines, R-Granite Bay, who estimated his family would spend $50 a year on paper bags."
"Sacramento shopper Brett Akacin, 37, said he recycles his plastic bags and that it would be a burden to carry a disposable bag."
Ah, the existential problem of being an environmentalist. There will always be people who assume you care more about plants and fuzzy animals than about the suffering of people.
Maybe those people are right, though if you have the values of caring about the impact your actions have on people, creatures and things outside of yourself--and especially appreciating the importance of working systems of animals and plants for the continued health of people--you are going to be perfectly willing to induce a little suffering on yourself, hardly thinking of it as such, and will fail to understand why others begrudge to do the same thing for the sake of The Greater Good. To an environmentalist, carrying reusable bags or paying an extra five cents even if quite poor, is not suffering, and the idea of helping The Greater Good, is a value in itself.
That's why, Ah-nold excluded, environmentalists are mostly (but not always) Democrats. Personal sacrifice for the Greater Good, in situations where agregate individual behavior benefits the individual but harms the community, is the more important value than personal freedom merely for the sake of it. Rather like how shouting "Fire!" in a public building is not really freedom of speech, Democratic environmentalists point to outcomes as reasons that absolute personal freedoms require some restrictions.
But you know, another way to look at enviromentalism, or self-scarifice for the Greater Good in general, is that having the personal freedom to make a choice that benefits the Greater Good is what makes that choice not something one does grudgingly, not something one even sees as a sacrifice or as suffering. One is excercizing one's capacity as a member of a society under a social contract, a social contract that only works because people have the freedom to act upon their ideas of right and wrong.
So, do you legislate society-bettering practices for all, like a Democrat, or do you uphold that the personal freedom to desist or not from harmful acts is what makes any of it meaningful, what must be protected above all because otherwise lies tyranny?
I myself have a hard time sympathizing with the burden one must take on in order to carry reusable bags around, when compared to many other real burdens that people suffer across the world. I see the argument about personal freedom, about the meaning of having personal freedom to make self-sacrificing choices rather than being required to make them. But I see what is practical too, and what works imperfectly to make happen a change that might be democratically agreed upon as being necessary. Do you assume that people are no better than marginally-agreed-upon progress using less-than-ideal methods? Or do you throw out possible measures toward fixing a problem, for the sake of idealism?
Maybe that's why I can't decide, sometimes, if I'm a liberal or a libertarian.
While the idea gives us angst here, Australia has had an outright ban on plastic bags in effect for at least five years. (My source for that is my dear Australian friend, who now works in Australian government.) Australia is quite more liberal than us, and is, more tellingly, smaller in population than the state of California. Truly, when we can't even work out political ideas of much greater weight, a federal ban on plastic bags would be downright...comical, among other things (ineffective, wasteful of govn't resources, slow and insensetive to local concerns), but perhaps it is within local or state government rights to enact such a law for the sake of the local or state environment, without it falling down that slippery slope toward socialist tyranny. At what level of govenrment does "Mutual coersion mutually agreed upon" become tyranny, anyway? It depends, once again, on what you think is important.
I think once-used bags, the utter wastefullness of them, is important. The grocery association apaprently got behind the ban when it was made clear that all grocery-selling establishments would be subect to it. If stores were for whatever reason spared the expense of providing bags of any kind, assuming they only did before because it would not have been competitive not to, then I think customers would have the ability to figure something out without excess difficulty. Is that liberal, or libertarian of me?
"The American Chemistry Council estimates the bill would amount to a $1 billion tax and threaten 500 jobs in the plastic bag manufacturing business."
Either way you go, someone loses. But I don't think that means that nothing can be done.
"The California Assembly on Wednesday passed legislation prohibiting pharmacies and grocery, liquor and convenience stores from giving out plastic bags. The bill also calls for customers to be charged for using store-issued paper bags."
Environmentalists hooray, right?
"Requiring stores to charge customers for paper bags is a cost Republican lawmakers argued some Californians can't afford.
"This is not the time to be putting a financial burden on families in a very tough economy," said Assemblyman Ted Gaines, R-Granite Bay, who estimated his family would spend $50 a year on paper bags."
"Sacramento shopper Brett Akacin, 37, said he recycles his plastic bags and that it would be a burden to carry a disposable bag."
Ah, the existential problem of being an environmentalist. There will always be people who assume you care more about plants and fuzzy animals than about the suffering of people.
Maybe those people are right, though if you have the values of caring about the impact your actions have on people, creatures and things outside of yourself--and especially appreciating the importance of working systems of animals and plants for the continued health of people--you are going to be perfectly willing to induce a little suffering on yourself, hardly thinking of it as such, and will fail to understand why others begrudge to do the same thing for the sake of The Greater Good. To an environmentalist, carrying reusable bags or paying an extra five cents even if quite poor, is not suffering, and the idea of helping The Greater Good, is a value in itself.
That's why, Ah-nold excluded, environmentalists are mostly (but not always) Democrats. Personal sacrifice for the Greater Good, in situations where agregate individual behavior benefits the individual but harms the community, is the more important value than personal freedom merely for the sake of it. Rather like how shouting "Fire!" in a public building is not really freedom of speech, Democratic environmentalists point to outcomes as reasons that absolute personal freedoms require some restrictions.
But you know, another way to look at enviromentalism, or self-scarifice for the Greater Good in general, is that having the personal freedom to make a choice that benefits the Greater Good is what makes that choice not something one does grudgingly, not something one even sees as a sacrifice or as suffering. One is excercizing one's capacity as a member of a society under a social contract, a social contract that only works because people have the freedom to act upon their ideas of right and wrong.
So, do you legislate society-bettering practices for all, like a Democrat, or do you uphold that the personal freedom to desist or not from harmful acts is what makes any of it meaningful, what must be protected above all because otherwise lies tyranny?
I myself have a hard time sympathizing with the burden one must take on in order to carry reusable bags around, when compared to many other real burdens that people suffer across the world. I see the argument about personal freedom, about the meaning of having personal freedom to make self-sacrificing choices rather than being required to make them. But I see what is practical too, and what works imperfectly to make happen a change that might be democratically agreed upon as being necessary. Do you assume that people are no better than marginally-agreed-upon progress using less-than-ideal methods? Or do you throw out possible measures toward fixing a problem, for the sake of idealism?
Maybe that's why I can't decide, sometimes, if I'm a liberal or a libertarian.
While the idea gives us angst here, Australia has had an outright ban on plastic bags in effect for at least five years. (My source for that is my dear Australian friend, who now works in Australian government.) Australia is quite more liberal than us, and is, more tellingly, smaller in population than the state of California. Truly, when we can't even work out political ideas of much greater weight, a federal ban on plastic bags would be downright...comical, among other things (ineffective, wasteful of govn't resources, slow and insensetive to local concerns), but perhaps it is within local or state government rights to enact such a law for the sake of the local or state environment, without it falling down that slippery slope toward socialist tyranny. At what level of govenrment does "Mutual coersion mutually agreed upon" become tyranny, anyway? It depends, once again, on what you think is important.
I think once-used bags, the utter wastefullness of them, is important. The grocery association apaprently got behind the ban when it was made clear that all grocery-selling establishments would be subect to it. If stores were for whatever reason spared the expense of providing bags of any kind, assuming they only did before because it would not have been competitive not to, then I think customers would have the ability to figure something out without excess difficulty. Is that liberal, or libertarian of me?
"The American Chemistry Council estimates the bill would amount to a $1 billion tax and threaten 500 jobs in the plastic bag manufacturing business."
Either way you go, someone loses. But I don't think that means that nothing can be done.
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