Action Figure Daniel

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  • Anti-Bucket List

    I have been told for a while that I should have a “Bucket list.” I tried making one once. Actually, I was required to make on for a class. After the first few items it felt contrived and unsatisfying. (In that same class, I was a bit thrilled to learn that I had already done many of the things on other peoples’ lists. It also made me a bit sad that these same people had done so little with their lives. I wanted to ask them, “What have you been doing for the past decade?” but decided it would be rude.)

    Recently, I took an opportunity to tour a performance venue and enjoy the view of the performance from the camera room and Production Control Room, a place that few people get to see. While I was sitting there, I realized that had I had a “Bucket list,” that amazing experience would not have been on it because it did not even cross my mind.

    As I have pondered back on the many adventures I have had, I find this to be true of most of them; most of my adventures I had not known enough about a year or more prior to know about, much less think “I want to do that someday.” I often consider what life must be like for people who have hopes of their greatest life adventures in some decades to come. More importantly, I consider what life is like when those adventure milestones are never met. Instead of pushing all my hopes and dreams into the future, and possibly ending up with regret over the adventures I could have had but put off, I would rather take the adventure in the reasonable now. Furthermore, I think that if I already had a list of adventures to have in the decades to come, I would stop looking for new adventures, ones that I had never thought of before.

    I guess, in the end, what I am really saying is: instead of bottling up perspective adventures and holding on to the notion that they will come someday, people should seize the adventure while they can. This will let them hold to the memory of the actual adventure instead of the notion of what is to come. It also means that the adventure is done and cannot be undone, unlike adventures that are yet to come which could easily never come. Also, living now shows faith enough in your life that there will be adventures later too. Instead of hording them all away, thus meaning there are fewer adventures, living freer means the adventures will come freer too.

  • Digital Journaling, Here I Come

    With the end of the old year, I was pleased to find myself cleanly at the end of my journal. I love it when things end and begin cleanly. With nigh a page to spare I had to make a choice: buy a new journal or switch to a computerized journal.

    The decision was hard mostly because I love paper memories so much. They somehow feel more fulfilling and better preserved (though I know that neither is really true). Perhaps it is just nostalgia. I tentatively started a digital journal to see how it worked and was pleasantly surprised, though I should not have been because I knew what the answer would be.

    I have found that I am more apt to write in my digital journal, though in shorter burst (which I think is actually better; perhaps this is only because it is new and thus somewhat exciting and should writing will eventually wane, time will tell). Not only do I write more frequently but I can type faster and often more coherently (mostly because I can easily edit) than I can write my thoughts by hands. This means that I find my entries more meaningful and more passionate that many of my paper entries. Finally, I can record my thoughts wherever I may happen to be (oh, the beauties of technology).

    In end, I think this foray into digital journal keeping has been mostly good all around.

  • “50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology” by Scott O. Lilienfeld, et al

    This book is a collection of myth busting study summaries (with a bit of common sense thrown in for good measure) in which the authors attempt to disabuse the minds of the general public of the sometimes rampant misconceptions people have about the way their minds work. For example, we do not know how smart the human brain can be, thus the assertion that we only use 10% of it cannot be true. Further, using brain scans we have found, at one time or another, every area of the brain in use.

    Interesting tidbit: blind people usually only dream with imagery if they had sight before the age of 7.

  • Art and Crafts

    I recently rediscovered and finished these:

  • “Good to Great” by Jim Collins

    In his “prequel” to Built to Last Collins does an incredibly in-depth analysis of publicly traded companies that have gone from mediocre to amazing. He then break the analysis into eight thing that he and his team found in common with all of the companies.

    Interesting tidbit: Most of the CEOs you have heard of have been outperformed by the CEOs on the eleven “great” companies identified in the book, most of which you probably have never heard of.