Bull in a china shop - From the Economist

Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is?
Curly: This. *holds up one finger*
Mitch: Your finger?
Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don't mean shit.
Mitch: But, what is the one thing?
Curly: That's what you have to find out. *smiles*

Now, in my thirties, I think back to the line, and I realise much more acutely why it appeals to those of us that have been working in the "rat race".  At work, one is easily buffeted by the chaotic expectations of those around you... work harder, faster, earn more, be more sociable, have more friends... etc.  How does one keep perspective when everyone shows a different set of priorities -- a different strategy for self fulfillment.  If one were to half-heartedly pursue these strategies, alternating from time to time, one could easily get lost by being defined by someone else's ethos.  The only way to resist this affect on your framework is by having a principle driven framework in place... so...

What are the victory conditions in life?

There are so many definitions.  Some want the most money or toys.  Some want a legacy, others want family and friends.  Some want notoriety.  Others might want amazing memories.  Still others just want out.  There are so many definitions for how to "win"... so many divergent strategies.

Within the same working group, each individual might have different strategies, and they may actually not conflict at all.  For instance if one person wants to be the most productive, his strategy might succeed, simultaneously allowing his colleague to succeed in his strategy of doing the least work in the group.  They both feel like they've "won" that encounter.

The problem, of course, is when you want to be seen as a winner by all.  The reality, is that you can't fulfill victory conditions for everyone -- nor should you want to.  If you've chosen a path that emphasizes human compassion over notoriety or money, it doesn't make much sense to envy those that have.  Those that have chosen a path to wealth may strangely consider their path best and most successful, even though others might look at their lives as empty.

The definitions of success differ -- and we ought to accept that those differences exist.

Yet what if there are, aside from these relative definitions of success of life, an absolute?  What if your strategy is based on the wrong assumptions about the mechanics of life?  We only get to live life once (I would assert), and reset buttons don't really exist... so it's quite conceivable that we would live based on wrong premises.

One can try to define the "conditions of victory" by oneself -- and in some sense, this is necessary for a well considered, introspective life -- it is, in a word, existentialism.  However, if a framework of meaning exists beyond human-centered definitions, this should form a more sound foundation for defining the meaning of one's life.

Relativistic Existentialism helps keep a mind clear, above the froth of constantly shifting priorities that any mass of humanity will generate.  However, self-definition of those strategy runs afoul with the possibility that one's assumptions are wrong. 

As far as I go, I try to base my "victory conditions" on the bible.  It's not always easy, but I think it's a far firmer foundation from which to view our world.

Cloudburst

The air hides its temperament
Gusts and whorls and swirls and gales
Invisible, unknowable, unassailable

As if from ether, passion appears,
A warm front and cold front collide --
Pressed into stone, warm flesh beats

Sweat sweet with love,
A rhythm beats strong with lust,

Hair wild with intent,
Eyes bright, expectant,
Of harboured hopes unspoken,

Piqued, hungry --
And hot tears fall, with ragged breaths
Possibly, amazingly,
Satisfied.

9.30.2009

Thoughtless -

Though at times my actions might make you weep,
Though you might feel lost while my heart you keep
Then you'll still find love within my arms
There you'll find yourself, far from harm

Thought that I might not love you?
That's a wasted, fanciful, useless idea...
Thus you should conclude, my love is yours
Thorough and thoughtful and thalassically thine...

3^2.3^3.3^2

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/st_20090926_4826.php

http://clapbangkiss.xanga.com/712583799/item/

TizzyAlexander's Post on Fighting
My Older post on Equilibrium
My Older post on Fights

I'm not married... but somehow, I always end up giving relationship advice -- and this has been true since I was in middle school, 4-5 years before I ever had a one on one conversation with a girl.  Bizarre, eh?  But somehow, for whatever reason, some people just assumed that I'd have some useful insight...

The real irony to responding to Tizzy's post is that I'm now engaging in a discussion with a rather wise and insightful young lady who is actually married and has spades of committed, covenantial experience with maintaining constructive harmony with a mate.  So... She can rely on 1) Scripture, 2) Experience, 3) Her partner, 4) Her wisdom/insight.  I'm relying on - 1) Scripture, 2) Philosophy, 3) Theoretical Conjecture, 4) Making stuff up.

Talk about discussing from a disadvantaged position! 

I'll start by saying I like her thoughts on the matter, but the purpose of discussion is to sharpen our understanding -- hopefully, I can do just that -- for I can give up on gainsaying her perspective~!

I don't actually know if this is completely true... Firstly, what are we using as a definition for fighting?  Using the inference that one would draw between the two statements that Vagrant and Tizzy make up mutual working definition: "we don't fight - we disagree, but we don't shout," and "Yes, we fight, but we don't shout," I think we can come up with a basis for discussion for what is a fight.  The modification in the above statement shows that fighting is a disagreement, with or without loud voices. 

That's probably the definition I used growing up...  Using my definition in the context of a relationship sometimes got me into bigger fights, because I'd say something to the effect of, "Why are you yelling at me?" meaning, "Why are you upset with me (even though you're using a low-volume voice)."  To which the other might say, "I'm not yelling..."  And then things would degenerate.

So, if we use the term disagree as a proxy for fight, then we have to pose a couple scenarios.

Tizzy's first scenario is one where we are completely unselfish. 

This is because conflict within marriage is caused by selfishness, and in an ideal marriage there would be no selfishness. Unfortunately the only place where we can have an ideal marriage is in Heaven, where, ironically, there is no marriage.

So while on earth, all of us are sinful and selfish, so we will fight. Most people think this is a BAD thing.

To clarify her statement, I think she's talking about selfishness as a subset of sinfulness.  While on earth, we will be given to sin, and thus self-interest, and thus be brought into conflict with another self-interested individual.  Why?  Because in the short term, our self-interests may at times coincide, but just as easily differ. 

But there's more to it than that.  Several of the problems two individuals have when trying to see "eye to eye" on any given topic is: 1) We have different lexicons/terms.  2) We have different basic operating definitions. 3) We have different priorities. 4)We have different methodologies for execution. 5) We have different "victory conditions."

If we were to be selfless, the above would still be true.  If we were sinless, and thus operating perfectly within God's revealed will and intentions, then the above is still probably true, as we were made differently (fearfully and wonderfully to boot).  If we had the mind of God, and were able to assimilate everything and thus perfectly understand every perspective within the fabric of contrary opinions, then we might be able to agree, despite every nuanced difference that we possess.

These differences will always create a need for on-the-fly adjustments, and moreover, since individuals are also dynamic, they too will change, and all of their decision/action characteristics will also change.  As such, even with perfectly unselfish people, they may define "good" for themselves and for their other differently, requiring re-definition and re-coordination. 

In short, I agree with Tizzy's conclusion that a fight-free marriage is impossible on this side of eternity, but for a slightly different reason.  We cannot be fight-free/disagreement-free without being perfect in motivation and insight.

We can, however, be harmonious in our disagreement.

But imagine what happens when we fight. One of us, or both of us, will not get our way. Considering that both of us are selfish, it is actually good practice not to get our own way. It is a way that God uses to teach us to be selfless. This is a GOOD thing.

I love this paragraph. 

And imagine further a selfish marriage within which there is no fighting. This means that one of the parties is getting his or her way all the time, and the other one is giving in to everything. This means that the selfish person will never get redeemed from his/her selfishness. This is a BAD thing.

There is, actually, an exception to this -- which is also patently impossible, though philosophically possible.  (I thought about this one in high school)...  If two self-interested individuals are actually seeking to please the other to get the other to please them -- then they might be given to this scenario.  More ominously, you could have two people who are selfishly coincident in their interests at all times.  Then they could both be free to "pursue happiness" at all times, and not get in one another's way.

Fat chance, eh? 

Or else, this could mean that both parties are getting their own way all the time, by not interacting with each other. Spouses that never cross paths rarely fight. Not only do they not get purified, they also don't really have a marriage. This is a BAD thing.

Well put.

Without them, you're not communicating.

Assertion 1).  You are "unique."  Therefore your characteristics will differ from your spouses, though perhaps only by degrees. (I put unique in quotations, because -- well, it's almost facetious to use this phrase at times).

Assertion 2).  You are intentionally made.  The differences are purposed and useful.  (Psalm 139:13-14)

Synthesis 1)  You and your spouse are supposed to be different, and those differences should be respected and esteemed.  When you disagree, take it as an opportunity to see how God has made someone differently, realising that those differences may indeed enhance you and your life together.  You, collectively, are a microcosm of the church.  If Romans 12 applies to us individually in the context of the body as a whole, then it certainly applies to us individually in the context of a marriage.

Assertion 3)  Everyone is a sinner.  Some of the decisions we would like to make will be erroneous and sinful. Some of the ways we do things will be hurtful.  (Romans 3:23)

Assertion 4)  There is strength in numbers: Ecclesiastes 4:9-12.   

Assertion 5)  God honours groups that gather in his name:  Matthew 18:20

Synthesis 2)  We tend to have many moments of weakness.  Having a spouse can help us continue onwards, even when we "fall down".  If one wants to be cute, you can say that husband + wife + God = 3... in the context of a God centered marriage.  But even if we don't want to be cute, the thought remains.

When we sin, or are about to sin, our mates can help remind us of our sinfulness... and remind us to be more like Christ.  This is less a difference in nature than a difference in timing.  One may be irritable and short, hopefully the other can try to quell such tempestuousness.

Assertion 6) We communicate differently and use different words

Assertion 7) Lack of understanding leads to festering conflicts.

Synthesis 3) It's better to bring a conflict out into the open to discuss and come to a common understanding than to "bury it" and let it simmer. 

Communication about points of disagreement can be explosive, but it doesn't have to be.  It can be civil... and loving.  I think by remembering that God loves the other as much as he loves you, it's easier to listen to the other with Grace and acceptance.  The disagreement may remain, but at least it will be understood.  Hopefully, you married someone's whose goals and operating methods aren't antithetical to yours.  If they vary by degrees, some synthesis should be achievable.

It's not win or lose, when we're talking about a couple.  As a couple, as one flesh, the unit needs to prosper, not the individual parts... I like to think of it this way; does your right brain need to "trash" your left brain, and win all the time?  Your composite mind may have a preferred mode, but its not ever all one or another -- unless the brain has been injured... 

A couple is more than the sum of its parts.  Each half has much to offer and some degree of disagreement is the rule; we are, after all, different.

Learning to coordinate these differences requires mutual respect and a heart that is "quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger."

Wow... that can be hard to do, eh?

I guess that's why we need Grace.

Oh...

¹⁶Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.  James 5:16(NIV)

The best thing about this is, you've got someone you'll be sinning against and confessing to...right in your own home.    Confess your sins... it's a vital part of healing.  (Too big a topic.)

Separation Anxiety

I had a conversation yesterday with a young person that has been dealt a rather difficult catch 22.  Remaining necessarily vague, I'll merely say that this person is facing a "crisis point" where they have to come to a new understanding of the relationship between parent and child.  Ironically enough, it's a stage of maturation that parents need to go through, and a stage that the child has to go through somewhat separately.  Of course the child gets to go through it as a parent later down the line.

¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. ¹²Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

My Hospital's CEO's comments on Obesity - Plain Dealer
Smaller Carbon Footprints - from the Economist
Insider Trading in Hong Kong - From the Economist

Having looked through some of the reactions that my post has generated regarding the natural give and take that occurs in relationships, it seems to me that I've some clarifying to do.  First of all, the push and pull is really a comment on equilibria that exist in any "relationship."  The above post discusses the issue from a biblical perspective about mutual servant-hood, giving and so forth... which are absolutely essential.  I mean, who can argue with the concept of two individuals completely given to giving to one another?  Striving to anticipate and out-serve the other?

If one could trust one's mate to always do what's in your best interest, how liberating would that be?  Would you then be liberated to try to do what's in their best interest also?  Hopefully... although I think that, left to our own devices, humanity is far more prone to a more self-centered response -- enjoy the benefits, and pursue more self-gratification by taking the sacrifices of one's other for granted.

I believe that with God's help, one can approach a much more self-denying sort of love, in the sense that one can put the other's needs before one's own and trust God for provenance of one's needs -- hopefully through one's partner...

The post about Equilibrium, however, is that our basic natures and impulses give us all divergent ways of approaching things.  This divergence, this multiplicity of perspectives allows for a greater depth of insight into issues and scenarios -- and this diversity/plurality should allow for better decisions -- though it does not obviate matters of headship etc. 

I think my hope was to spark an appreciation of differences of opinion and to remind the reader to try to regard disagreement as a tool for growth and improvement of one's life-course and way of doing things.  The thermodynamics of positive and negative feedback loops are well documented -- and I think offer insight into why it's a good thing that males and females operate differently -- and on a broader scope, why operating differently is good in general.

The Wisdom of Crowds.

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

 ¹²The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. ¹³For we were all baptized by^[c] one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

 ¹⁴Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. ¹⁵If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. ¹⁶And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. ¹⁷If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. ¹⁹If they were all one part, where would the body be? ²⁰As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

 ²¹The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" ²²On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, ²⁴while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, ²⁵so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. ²⁶If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

 ²⁷Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. ²⁸And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues. ²⁹Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? ³⁰Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues^[d]? Do all interpret? ³¹But eagerly desire^[e] the greater gifts.
      And now I will show you the most excellent way.

It should be noted that hand striking in K1, boxing and MMA are actually quite different for a number of different reasons.

The most obvious is probably the rule differences: because there are no take downs in boxing and K1, your stance can be optimized to shift your upper body to avoid strikes to the head, and you can concentrate training for striking combinations that wouldn't be as easy to apply if someone were trying to grapple with you all the time. 

Obviously the presence of kicks changes things a great deal either, as boxers don't need to defend their legs or torsos from kicks...

However, another major difference not often discussed is the gloves.  In boxing and K1, you can put up two arms and use a passive block and pretty much at least deflect the vast majority of strikes to your head.  The glove size precludes slipping a strike between paired forearms.  The glove size makes it easier to deflect a blow, and distributes the force on your opponents head differently.

MMA gloves are significantly smaller, allowing a different dynamic to striking and blocking.  Perhaps what might be more interesting is seeing K1 fighters using MMA gloves, under K1 rules.

If one really wants to see striking skills, let's remove all padding, and allow people to use ridges, bare knuckles, chops, palm strikes (and I don't mean slapping), knife hands etc.  Of course the disfiguring injury rate would go up unacceptably, but... the best way to see how high the accuracy could get would be to take away all the encumbrances, and see what else a striker like Anderson Silva or Machida could sneak in through their opponents guard. 

What's sometimes forgotten is that some of the advantages karate and other TCMs are supposed to have is body hardening of the striking surfaces.  A spear/knife hand can give you an extra 6 inches of reach, whereas a boxing glove, completely alters the profile of your spiking plane into a big blob.

In a sense, a boxer that can knock someone out with a heavy nerfball on his fist should be able to be really dangerous with bare knuckles... I think. 

Nevertheless, I think boxing gloves change a lot of fundamental factors related to accuracy because of the equipment. 

Mr. Muscle - Why men have more... From the Economist
Risky Business - Women, Testosterone, Finance, and Risk

I've also been watching a lot more Thai film lately.  Perhaps it's because I'm not familiar with all of their cultural symbolism, stereotypes, and icons, but I found myself quite taken by the style and content of many recent films.

Since seeing Shutter (a film about a murder and a photographer) and then Last Life in the Universe, I've gradually found that I've really enjoyed the Thai industries way of looking at stories.  Most likely, in 5-10 years, I'll have gotten used to their story telling methodology... but until then I'm really enjoying it.

Recently, I've watched:  Coming Soon, Vengeance, Chocolate (think Ong Bak for girls - but different story twist), Ong Bak 2, 4Romance, Fireball, and The Victim.  Probably the most stereotyped stories were Chocolate, Ong Bak 2 and Fireball... but they still provided interesting angles to the stories. 

Not bad, really.
That Chocolate employs what appears to be an autistic martial arts idiot-savant female in definitely a different twist.

But most striking to me is probably the fact that I've yet to see a Thai horror movie where the protagonists "win".  Moreover, the malevolence of Thai "bake" (sorry, used the Japanese word there... don't know the thai word yet) is really quite unearthly.  Most Chinese "ghost stories" tend to have a relatively sympathetic affect to the spirits -- there's a long history of romance with ghosts/spirits in chinese folklore.  Japanese Horror has its fair share of malevolence, but most have tended to be more personal, and there's at least an even chance that the protagonists will win.

Speaking of good quality horror, in the States, I really like Fallen and Session 9.  Those are some of my recent US horror favourites -- that is, in the last 10 years.

PS.
Does anyone know anyone who would be interested in funding horror movies?

Homeostasis - Wiki Entry
Negative Feedback Loops - Wiki Entry

I think that one of the cool things about the way God made people is we have built in neurological feedback loops to control muscular activity and behaviours, with rewards/pleasure and pain.  We also have diverse decision making algorithms built in; we often argue with ourselves internally, arriving at different decisions using different logics and points of view.  Your left and right brained ways of dealing with information allows for some very interesting syntheses indeed.

Taking it a step further, one reason, I suspect, that good marriages work well, is also related to good feedback loops, where each partner checks the more radical aspects of one another's decision making processes.  While not always pleasant, this sort of procedural error checking probably reduces the number of "dumb moves" that either might otherwise make.

Push, pull. 

It can actually help, perhaps?

Sometimes we resent other people for bringing up alternate ways of looking at things; it's silly, because we do so internally, right?  We don't normally hate ourselves for bringing ourselves up short... so, perhaps it might be helpful to be thankful when our other does so too?

Earlier related thoughts:
Fights
Dans Macabre
Dance as an Allegory