Trying to get this blog working the way I want reminds me working on my old car — only without the broken knuckles. Try something, see if it works, try something else, see if it works, repeat until it works.
My back hurts.
I dead-lifted 110 kg for six reps this morning, and it seems that my body has decided that was too much. My mind considers this weight to be embarrassingly light, but my body has other ideas.
Now, I’m not one to chant the “no pain no gain” mantra, and it’s safe to say that you will never see me crushing a beer can on my forehead. However, as I sit here in my ergonomic chair waiting for my back to go into spasm, I have to conclude that if I didn’t injure myself slightly every once in a while, I would probably be doing something wrong.
It about limits. If you go beyond your limits, you injure yourself, but the only way to know what your limits are is to occasionally go beyond them. And, of course, once you go beyond your limits a few times, you discover that your limits aren’t where they used to be and the process begins anew.
This is true, not only in sports, but in business, relationships, new experiences, and just about everything that’s worth doing.
Had dinner with some of my old artist friends the other day. I don’t do it is often as I should. It’s always like stepping into a time capsule and revisiting part of my life. Little of importance seems to change. It always leaves me with mixed emotions.
I’m convinced that some people perceive the world differently in a real rather than a metaphorical sense. Everyone’s brain is wired a bit differently and some people have wiring that puts them outside what is generally considered normal.
A person a couple of standard deviations from the norm is creative and interesting. Someone three or four is eccentric and strange. People further out are generally unable to function in society. But it’s all a matter of degrees.
Some of the most interesting artists will look at a tree and see a hand or will hear a descending augmented arpeggio and see yellow. I don’t mean that they are reminded of a hand or they imagine the color yellow, but rather that is quite literally what they perceive. It doesn’t freak them out because that’s what always happens.
Most real artists are very aware that normal people don’t perceive things the way they do. However, people who are just deviant enough to be considered creative might not even know they perceive things differently. After all, if you and I perceived b-flat differently, how would we even know?
Still though, I have to say I am glad to be out of the game. Artists, even the most financially successful ones, are not often happy people.
I was recently interviewed for the Japan Entrepreneur Report. The transcript can be found here.
I had forgotten what a nice little town Winchester is. I went downtown today to register for my absentee ballot. City Hall has a sign on the door saying “Shirt and shoes required.”
Last night I went to my twenty-year high school reunion. I almost decided not to go because I expected it to be a night of men comparing cars and watches and women trying to determine who was best defying the ravages of time and gravity.
Fortunately it was nothing like that. Everyone was simply and genuinely happy to see each other and to catch up. It was a blast to see how old friends are doing. We have a bona-fide rock star, a state judge, most people leading perfectly normal and happy lives, and me kicking around Japan starting companies. I’m sure survivor bias comes into play to a degree. Someone living under a bridge in Southeast D.C. would not have made it to the reunion, but I prefer to think that everyone is doing well.
Even after 20-years of American fast food, most of the class has somehow avoided being super-sized. The only odd thing is that there were decidedly more blondes at the reunion than there were at graduation, but no matter. I was glad to see that many of the girls who were babes in high school are still babes, and a few that were geeks somehow managed to become babes along the way. And just like old times, these girls remain inaccessible. Now, of course, because they are married with children, and back then because I was a complete dork. It’s nice that some things never change.
We danced until the early hours to shamelessly out-of date music, and generally behaved like the “old” people we made fun of when we were in high school. Oh well, what did we know?
I got lucky!
The plane was over-booked, and I got bumped up to first class. Hot damn! Bigger seats, better food, cuter stewardesses, and a two-hour shorter flight time. Well, maybe not, but what a difference! Instead of having a shrink-wrapped, microwaved meal heaved across two other passengers in the general direction of my tray, I ate decent food with a linen tablecloth served on real china and silverware — except of course a plastic knife. ANA takes this counter-terrorism stuff seriously, you know. Come to think of it, I would wager that an enterprising individual could do a lot of damage with this metal fork.
The stewardess seemed genuinely disappointed when I declined her offer to try the chocolates and the brandy they were bringing out. “Oh, but you should try one. There’re really good.” she pouted.
I’m enjoying this while I can. No doubt I’ll be back in cattle class for the return trip.
I’m off to Washington DC, my old hometown, for a week or so. It’s been over two years since I’ve been there. Just a short little 14-hour shuttle hop and I’m there.
OK, I admit it. I’m not linked in, plugged in, wired in, or even clued in.
Joining one of these social networking sites is like going for a free personality test at your local Scientology office. It all seems like harmless fun at the time, but it can have unforeseen consequences.
At first LinkedIn was fun. I caught up with a lot of people I had not seen in years, and I had no problems forwarding on requests of one friend asking for an introduction to another.
The problem is when a friend of a friend asks me to forward contact information to a friend of some other friend. There is a good reason these four-places-removed introductions do not occur in real life. If I have no clue who two people are, it is hard to care deeply whether or not they ever get together.
You can’t ignore the request since the system will hound you incessantly. You can’t decline the request because not only would that be rude, but the system requires an explanation of your rudeness which is then archived forever. You can’t even pass on the request without adding some inane comment of your own.
Please, I don’t want to be one of the cool kids anymore. How can I make it stop?