Self Reflection

You may also have had this experience.
As a kid, you know every facet of your room. You know all the cracks in the roof, where the carpet is loose from the wall, the patterns in the wood of your furniture and even the creaks and squeaks of your door. OK, you might not have known these exact specific things, but you did know the unique facets of your room/house that really made it your house.
I find that as we get older we stop paying attention to those little details. We only have time for the "important" things and rarely stop moving to just take in our surroundings. Moving from computer to the TV news, to HW to reading, to cooking, to shopping, we often don't take the time and just sit and look around. To explore. To wonder.
I noticed this one day as I took a break from writing a paper, and instead of switching to checking an email or taking a nap, I just sat on my couch and looked around. And I remembered what it was like as a kid to just sit in one place and just look around.
Even when we have a day off from work or school, we still don't stop and look around - even when their might be a religious normative message to do so. We often go from meal, to sleep, to errands, to readings and still keep ourselves busy by always doing something.
However, I think that this constant moving around takes its toll. Not only do we lose the details that for some reason provide those aesthetic beautiful memories, but we also lose the time for self reflection. We know so much about so many things in life, but we don't know a lot about ourselves. Besides the larger philosophical questions of who we are and where we are going, I think we must ask the smaller questions that pay attention to details-
What motivates us to do work?
What meals of the day make me feel more energized?
How productive am I each day? Each week?
What makes me mad? How can I be more patient?
What can I do differently?
Is what I did today the best way to have done it?
I think that we often take the first answer that comes into our minds. While these might be good answers, they may not include a more comprehensive list. We should really think and rethink and try to understand what it is that makes us tick; how we work and respond to different situations.
We must pay attention to our inner details and really try to "slow down," reflect, and relax.

The News

Everyone complains that journalists sentimentalize news stories. However, news networks still have good ratings and everyone still watches the news. Knowing that what they see should be taken with a grain of salt, viewers continue to encourage sentimentalized reporting.
Think about the alternative: People stop watching news networks that demonstrate bias. Instead they opt for new coverage that is fair and controls for misrepresentation and other socio-cultural errors. These news stories would be less engaging and people would stop watching.
This accounts for why people continue to watch highly biased networks (well the news network of your choice that best fits your own news outlook) and still complain that the media is unfair and weighted.
Circular logic at its best. - wanting the best of both worlds...
Ever wonder?

Time Speeds up with Age

We have all heard parents claim that lives pass them by quickly and that their children grow up quickly. We also recount at the end of a high school or college how quickly time has passed by.
We also remember that when we used to be kids and our parents promised us 10 more minutes, those 10 minutes seemed like forever. Now, 10 minutes is 1/4 of the time it takes to get ready in the morning...

Now it could be that we were so self absorbed as kids that we didn't know that the 10 minutes our parents promised us was really 30 minutes. but I have a different theory:

I think that it has to do with our relationship with time. Therefore, when we are 4, a year is 1/4 of our lives! That is a very long time. Similarly, when one is 16, 4 years of high school is 1/4 of our life.

However, when you are in college at 20, those 4 years now become 1/5 of your life. Then when you are 32 and you have a 4 year old who grew up so quickly, it only took 1/8 of your life.

The point is: as time goes on, your points of reference continue to expand. Long periods of time seem shorter and life seems to pass by quicker.

That is my theory. Thoughts?

Hiccups

Take the moment to think about hiccups.
Its pretty strange that our diaphragm twitches as often as it does for long periods of time, while other twitches that we have only last a few seconds.
what makes it different than other muscles?
I am betting that it probably has to do with the fact that breathing is both involuntary and voluntary. I don't know why I think that, but I wouldn't be suprised if those two factors have something to do with it.
Why do we get hiccups more often than any other twitch?

Text Messages are not IMs

Perhaps this experience has happened to you:

You get the simple text: "Hey, what's up?" Now, you obviously respond: "nm, whats up?" but you really want to say: "Thanks for wasting a text."
Then they respond: "I have a qusetion for you"
OK, two texts in, and still you don't have any information.
Then they ask the question, you respond, and then they have a follow up, so you respond again. Then they thank you.
They have sent you five, you have sent four back and you are now 9 text messages shorter than you were before.

I think that this happens because of IM technology. People become use to the ease of sending a gazillion messages a second on a computer and they translate those tendencies into phone texts. The fact that they have unlimited text messages doesn't help either.

Still, there is a much more efficient way. If you want a conversation, just call. If you can't call, then don't have a conversation. Ask the question and use all 160 characters, get the response and then be merry. If you need a follow up then that is OK. But 4 is much better than 10.

Since text messages are still new, the etiquette for their use is still under construction. Hopefully, by the end of the decade, we will have figured it out.
What other technological ettiquette are we still constructing?
Think about it!

The Poke

Ever think about the Facebook Poke? From an objective standpoint, what is the point? It is alike a perpetual ping pong game. It loses its meaning and the poke continues just for the sake of pride and continuation.
At first the poke is a little fun gesture. but it never ends. And then people are poking for a month and it is habitual. And then over the years you lose touch with the other person and you are still poking them.
WHY?

Computers From the Past

Think about all the components of the computer that have lost their significance and meaning over time.
The Keyboard
- Think about the Escape key. Escape. Now that is a word that makes you feel stuck in a program and you need to close the program. Today however, we use that key to do very little. Besides ESCAPING from a full screen video, I never use that key.
- What about the function keys. F4 and F5 I used often, but the other 10? Nope never never.
- The insert Key. Please. When do I ever type and want insert on. Whereas the escape key can sit there and not cause problems, the insert key is a pain all around. When that key is accidentally pressed, your essay or blog post will never be the same as it used to be...
-Scroll Lock?!?!

The Mouse
- Now that the mouse has scroll wheels, why include scroll bar buttons on the sides of windows? OK, so some people might not have them, and sometimes the wheels arn't accurate, but it still makes you think how redundant some features of computers are.

Other Things
- Why is the save icon a floppy disc. I bet there are people who don't even know what those are. At least printers still look like printers.
- Do you have any other thoughts?