I recently noticed something about some street names, particularly ones in small subdivisions along the route to my current work.
Some of them are odd and look suspiciously like a misspelling (perhaps a transcription error?) of a more common word or name.
Cases in point:
Calis could have been Calais?
Moring could have been Morning or Mooring?
I speculate whether this phenomenon is the origin of odd street names going back who knows how long.
I also speculate whether this will become increasingly rare with the increasing use of electronic data reducing the opportunities for transcription errors.
But if nobody ever checks the names along the way?
Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Friday, July 25, 2014
Motivation
I have a long-standing issue with motivation in my life. There's very little (outside of food and shelter) that pushes on my very hard.
Most of my life efforts have generally been motivated by avoidance of discomfort, not seeking something for its own worth to me.
Otherwise I've done things in service of the needs, desires, demands of others (or, at least, what I perceived those to be).
In my early life, the Other that I served this way was my mother. As I became an adult, I started to focus on whoever I was intimate with.
This ties into my earlier posting regarding Futility. I don't think of myself (and in particular, my needs and desires) to have any real worth; everyone else comes first (even my dogs). As a result I don't find much enduring motivational value in my personal needs/desires. It all seems pretty much pointless.
I long for something that matters enough to me to get out of bed for (other than going to work to earn enough to put food on the table and a roof over my head).
On recurring theme in these feelings is the imperative that anything I do be "productive" (something I think I picked up from my mom).
I really can't do anything for its own sake or purely for enjoyment without feeling like I'm slacking. Reading for pleasure, at least in certain contexts (bedtime mostly), feels exempt from this.
This means that most of my preferred leisure activities come with a burden of guilt and shame over not doing other things that I "ought" to be doing (housework, yard work, repairs, remodeling, or anything that will earn well-defined, more or less immediate monetary benefits).
It's a "business before pleasure" imperative (which feels like my Grandpa, my mom's father). The problem is that "business" in this context is basically never-ending, there's always something else practical, "productive" that I could be doing; so there's little room for genuine pleasure.
It feels like anything I find enjoyable is at least slightly tainted.
I think this is at least part of why I struggle to get a head of steam going about my writing. There's a part of me that shames me that it's a waste of time.
Most of my life efforts have generally been motivated by avoidance of discomfort, not seeking something for its own worth to me.
Otherwise I've done things in service of the needs, desires, demands of others (or, at least, what I perceived those to be).
In my early life, the Other that I served this way was my mother. As I became an adult, I started to focus on whoever I was intimate with.
This ties into my earlier posting regarding Futility. I don't think of myself (and in particular, my needs and desires) to have any real worth; everyone else comes first (even my dogs). As a result I don't find much enduring motivational value in my personal needs/desires. It all seems pretty much pointless.
I long for something that matters enough to me to get out of bed for (other than going to work to earn enough to put food on the table and a roof over my head).
On recurring theme in these feelings is the imperative that anything I do be "productive" (something I think I picked up from my mom).
I really can't do anything for its own sake or purely for enjoyment without feeling like I'm slacking. Reading for pleasure, at least in certain contexts (bedtime mostly), feels exempt from this.
This means that most of my preferred leisure activities come with a burden of guilt and shame over not doing other things that I "ought" to be doing (housework, yard work, repairs, remodeling, or anything that will earn well-defined, more or less immediate monetary benefits).
It's a "business before pleasure" imperative (which feels like my Grandpa, my mom's father). The problem is that "business" in this context is basically never-ending, there's always something else practical, "productive" that I could be doing; so there's little room for genuine pleasure.
It feels like anything I find enjoyable is at least slightly tainted.
I think this is at least part of why I struggle to get a head of steam going about my writing. There's a part of me that shames me that it's a waste of time.
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Realizations
I've had a couple of revelations over the last few days.
The First I'm recognizing right now (not for the first time really) is that I need to write down my revelations pretty damn quick or I'll forget them.
The Second I came across last week, having to do with how I don't finish things or generally allow myself to get too deeply involved in anything.
School and work are exceptions to that, they trump that impulse (though I did go through some periods where school took a back seat)
The Third I came upon this morning while driving to work. I had a whole train of thought I wanted to blog about and now I can't recall what it was. God, I hate that.
Perhaps it will come back to me as I write.
Later...
It did come back to me. It was about reason and spirituality. I was asking myself whether I think (believe?) there's something bigger than reason and logic.
Clearly there are things other than that; but I ask myself whether there's something that encompasses them, but goes beyond. How would I know what that is? How do I trust it if it's not amenable to the intellectual tools I have?
The First I'm recognizing right now (not for the first time really) is that I need to write down my revelations pretty damn quick or I'll forget them.
The Second I came across last week, having to do with how I don't finish things or generally allow myself to get too deeply involved in anything.
School and work are exceptions to that, they trump that impulse (though I did go through some periods where school took a back seat)
The Third I came upon this morning while driving to work. I had a whole train of thought I wanted to blog about and now I can't recall what it was. God, I hate that.
Perhaps it will come back to me as I write.
Later...
It did come back to me. It was about reason and spirituality. I was asking myself whether I think (believe?) there's something bigger than reason and logic.
Clearly there are things other than that; but I ask myself whether there's something that encompasses them, but goes beyond. How would I know what that is? How do I trust it if it's not amenable to the intellectual tools I have?
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Another Annoyance
What is it with web site registrations that insist you supply a "Title"?
I'm Stephen Posey, I don't generally go by "Mister" Stephen Posey and I don't care to be addressed that way, yet when registering for some sites, I'm forced to pick a title or I can't complete the registration.
Thinking about this, I speculate some sites may use this as a proxy for asking for people's gender, which I suppose is not PC (if not, in fact, of questionable legality).
The problem is not all the titles offered on most sites are gender specific ("Dr." in particular), so the result is imperfect.
For most sites, I'd suggest asking themselves why they think they need to know a person's gender, and why they think they can't ask for it directly.
If there is insufficient reason (and better targeting advertising is not a good enough reason, IMNSHO, YMMV), then don't ask and don't try to do an end run by demanding some proxy factoid.
Sites with legitimate "need to know" (e.g. health, financial, certain kinds of surveys) are logically exempt from this.
Otherwise they should be up front about what it is they want to know (and why); and allow that the registrant may not want to provide the information.
I'm Stephen Posey, I don't generally go by "Mister" Stephen Posey and I don't care to be addressed that way, yet when registering for some sites, I'm forced to pick a title or I can't complete the registration.
Thinking about this, I speculate some sites may use this as a proxy for asking for people's gender, which I suppose is not PC (if not, in fact, of questionable legality).
The problem is not all the titles offered on most sites are gender specific ("Dr." in particular), so the result is imperfect.
For most sites, I'd suggest asking themselves why they think they need to know a person's gender, and why they think they can't ask for it directly.
If there is insufficient reason (and better targeting advertising is not a good enough reason, IMNSHO, YMMV), then don't ask and don't try to do an end run by demanding some proxy factoid.
Sites with legitimate "need to know" (e.g. health, financial, certain kinds of surveys) are logically exempt from this.
Otherwise they should be up front about what it is they want to know (and why); and allow that the registrant may not want to provide the information.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Futility and Passion
Yet again I read something about how to live a fulfilled, happy human life by finding something larger, something more important that oneself to pursue (latest was in the New York Times this past Sunday).
To me, it's not that I can't decide which is most important, rather that all of them seem pretty equally unimportant.
I've been told a few times to "just pick one", but that eliminates precisely the sense of purpose and passion that seems part and parcel of the whole notion.
It's far from clear to me that anything any of us do is of any consequence in the scheme of the long unfolding of the universe. Humans are relative upstarts on planet Earth, and will one day be no more (possibly sooner rather than later given our current proclivities to foul our living space).
Eventually the Earth itself, then our sun will be gone; and (if current physics has it more or less right) ultimately all matter in the universe will disappear into a steadily cooling fog of subatomic particles.
True, this outcome (if accurate) remains billions of years in the future, and it's a fair question of why that should matter to my individual life or be a consideration of the current sweep of human history/existence; but I also ask why shouldn't it?
They say that operating within the context of awareness of one's own mortality can be a great motivator, but everyone dies; species become extinct; eventually the Earth will become uninhabitable in some fashion, and even stars burn out or explode.
The prospect of my Death holds no great terror for me, in fact there's some appeal, it's the opportunity to leave behind all this foolishness and to find out what actually happens (I suspect nothingness).
So why does anything anybody does matter?
I feel compassion for those who proceed in ignorance of -- and hold a certain admiration for those I see around me who feel compelled to do something anyway, in spite of -- this Truth.
That admiration that doesn't affect my own feelings of demotivation to put out any great effort toward any temporary purpose; and it appears to me, in human terms, all purposes are temporary, in the more or less short-term, and assuredly in the long-term.
So, why am I still hanging around on Planet Earth? You may well ask.
I don't have a good answer for you, there was a time I postponed doing anything about it because I'd committed myself to certain people, and I didn't want to abandon them or cause the distress that my leaving would produce.
That's particular people, particular commitments, not the sort of grand purpose that's supposed to underlie a worthwhile life.
I feel stuck. Like I'm just marking time and "Just waiting on the pier til Charon comes." as Klaatu put it in "A Routine Day".
My main motivator is avoidance of discomfort, mixed with some hedonic search for minor pleasures (food, knowledge, intellectual challenge, love, sex, dreams).
I search for something that inspires true passion in me and come up empty-handed.
Can I turn this problem on its head and make my it my passion to search for something that's really worth being passionate about?
What are the candidates for that? More later.
To me, it's not that I can't decide which is most important, rather that all of them seem pretty equally unimportant.
I've been told a few times to "just pick one", but that eliminates precisely the sense of purpose and passion that seems part and parcel of the whole notion.
It's far from clear to me that anything any of us do is of any consequence in the scheme of the long unfolding of the universe. Humans are relative upstarts on planet Earth, and will one day be no more (possibly sooner rather than later given our current proclivities to foul our living space).
Eventually the Earth itself, then our sun will be gone; and (if current physics has it more or less right) ultimately all matter in the universe will disappear into a steadily cooling fog of subatomic particles.
True, this outcome (if accurate) remains billions of years in the future, and it's a fair question of why that should matter to my individual life or be a consideration of the current sweep of human history/existence; but I also ask why shouldn't it?
They say that operating within the context of awareness of one's own mortality can be a great motivator, but everyone dies; species become extinct; eventually the Earth will become uninhabitable in some fashion, and even stars burn out or explode.
The prospect of my Death holds no great terror for me, in fact there's some appeal, it's the opportunity to leave behind all this foolishness and to find out what actually happens (I suspect nothingness).
So why does anything anybody does matter?
I feel compassion for those who proceed in ignorance of -- and hold a certain admiration for those I see around me who feel compelled to do something anyway, in spite of -- this Truth.
That admiration that doesn't affect my own feelings of demotivation to put out any great effort toward any temporary purpose; and it appears to me, in human terms, all purposes are temporary, in the more or less short-term, and assuredly in the long-term.
So, why am I still hanging around on Planet Earth? You may well ask.
I don't have a good answer for you, there was a time I postponed doing anything about it because I'd committed myself to certain people, and I didn't want to abandon them or cause the distress that my leaving would produce.
That's particular people, particular commitments, not the sort of grand purpose that's supposed to underlie a worthwhile life.
I feel stuck. Like I'm just marking time and "Just waiting on the pier til Charon comes." as Klaatu put it in "A Routine Day".
My main motivator is avoidance of discomfort, mixed with some hedonic search for minor pleasures (food, knowledge, intellectual challenge, love, sex, dreams).
I search for something that inspires true passion in me and come up empty-handed.
Can I turn this problem on its head and make my it my passion to search for something that's really worth being passionate about?
What are the candidates for that? More later.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Worth
Starting to write about my writing has gotten me to think about worth and value. In particular my worth and value.
I say I want to write and I want it to be so important and compelling to me that I can't not write (as I've heard is true for some artists and craftspeople about their mediums).
But the voices in my head (normal mental "tapes", old "shoulds" and "don'ts", nothing psychotic, at least not yet ;-)) tell me that I have to do something "productive", and outside of the writing that I do for my work and a few technical articles I wrote years ago, I don't have much to show for my writing (I did have a story published in my high school newspaper and I did win that literary essay contest in college).
Does "productive" only equate to financial remuneration? If it doesn't contribute directly to the "bottom line" of daily living, is it worthless?
I hear the voice of my grandfather (my mother's father, who grew up during the Great Depression). He impressed upon me the necessity of doing something worthwhile; which to him meant putting food on the table and a roof over your family's head. Personal preference and desires were of little importance.
He was a very practical man, he appreciated art and literature (at least that produced prior to his birth) but seemed to look askance at the lifestyles followed by many artistic types; I think he felt that someone who made their living doing something so "frivolous" was somehow cheating.
If I genuinely want to do this with my life, then I need to get past these old preconceptions.
I say I want to write and I want it to be so important and compelling to me that I can't not write (as I've heard is true for some artists and craftspeople about their mediums).
But the voices in my head (normal mental "tapes", old "shoulds" and "don'ts", nothing psychotic, at least not yet ;-)) tell me that I have to do something "productive", and outside of the writing that I do for my work and a few technical articles I wrote years ago, I don't have much to show for my writing (I did have a story published in my high school newspaper and I did win that literary essay contest in college).
Does "productive" only equate to financial remuneration? If it doesn't contribute directly to the "bottom line" of daily living, is it worthless?
I hear the voice of my grandfather (my mother's father, who grew up during the Great Depression). He impressed upon me the necessity of doing something worthwhile; which to him meant putting food on the table and a roof over your family's head. Personal preference and desires were of little importance.
He was a very practical man, he appreciated art and literature (at least that produced prior to his birth) but seemed to look askance at the lifestyles followed by many artistic types; I think he felt that someone who made their living doing something so "frivolous" was somehow cheating.
If I genuinely want to do this with my life, then I need to get past these old preconceptions.
Atheism
So, from some of my earlier writings this you might infer that I am an Atheist;
but I have to say I'm not sure what I am, I'd be all too pleased to feel
differently, but to me the evidence is pretty strongly against any being like
the classical interpretation of "God". I don't pretend to know
for certain one way or the other.
While I'm dubious about God, in my life I've personally encountered some things that lead me to believe/suspect that the purely physical universe of Logical Positivist reductionism is not the whole picture; but again I don't pretend to know precisely what those things imply about the true nature of reality.
Our brains seem wired to attribute "agency" to the processes of the natural world, this can be sensibly traced to our evolutionary history and so such attribution is suspect at best.
I'm not a solipsist; I'm convinced that something other than my consciousness and sensorium exists.
It seems highly unlikely that all the other wildly and wonderfully exotic beings I encounter in my experience (animals, other people) are merely internal constructions.
Nonetheless, it remains unclear to me how I can be certain that anything I perceive is necessarily real.
So, where does this leave me?
I find myself in a bit of a quandary. I badly want there to be something other than/beyond mere physical existence; but I'm also very determined not to allow myself to be deluded by hope and wishful thinking. I'm all too well aware of the human proclivity for self-deception.
While I'm dubious about God, in my life I've personally encountered some things that lead me to believe/suspect that the purely physical universe of Logical Positivist reductionism is not the whole picture; but again I don't pretend to know precisely what those things imply about the true nature of reality.
Our brains seem wired to attribute "agency" to the processes of the natural world, this can be sensibly traced to our evolutionary history and so such attribution is suspect at best.
I'm not a solipsist; I'm convinced that something other than my consciousness and sensorium exists.
It seems highly unlikely that all the other wildly and wonderfully exotic beings I encounter in my experience (animals, other people) are merely internal constructions.
Nonetheless, it remains unclear to me how I can be certain that anything I perceive is necessarily real.
So, where does this leave me?
I find myself in a bit of a quandary. I badly want there to be something other than/beyond mere physical existence; but I'm also very determined not to allow myself to be deluded by hope and wishful thinking. I'm all too well aware of the human proclivity for self-deception.
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