It's been a while since I blogged. I shall leave this little badger for now.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Sunday, May 26, 2013
ooook
I'm sparse lately, and it's because I'm not quite myself lately. I'll be back to my usual antics soon. Just thought I'd comment on Sihing Janzen's challenge last week about recording our forms. I did. It was incredibly, and unbelievably awful. 1 week has not been nearly enough time and practice for a retape. But it will be posted. The traditional before and after thingy. Until then,
Tooodle doo
Tooodle doo
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
mhmm
Dunno what to write... so here's a video of a model toy plane.
boooplurgghghh
Sorry. have to blog.
Disappointing, I know. It'll get better eventually. For now, RC toys are dangerous, I suppose.
boooplurgghghh
Sorry. have to blog.
Disappointing, I know. It'll get better eventually. For now, RC toys are dangerous, I suppose.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Captain's Blog, Stardate 2013.04.19, U.S.S. Enterprise - Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
I'm going to start off by saying that this has little to do with kung fu for the first while. It will though, eventually. But if you ask me, I would say that although it is important how it relates to kung fu, I think this is more important where it doesn't. So then, without further ado, let's begin.
I once read an article, that really resonated with me. I seem to forget about it now and then, but it always came back to me. The summary of it was that the author discussed the difference with the traditional roles and relations between the "smart kids" and the "cool kids". Now, if you've been to school, chances are you fell within one or the other. We have lots of names for this stuff and names for cliques and so on, but this is really what it boils down to, and it's nice to keep it simple. The conclusion that was delivered was incredibly simple, and logical.
It went such: The smart kids and cool kids are the same kid. At some point, people choose what they do with their time and ability. It rarely has anything to do with what comes easy, but more so about what they value and what makes them feel good. Now mostly, this is not a conscious decision, but just one that happens based on emotions. The thing that separates the "smart" and "cool" crowd has little to do with ability, and simply has to do with choice. The "smart" kids, spend more time being smart, and less time being "cool". Being a "cool" kid takes more time than any other job; given that in order for them to remain "cool" they are constantly judging how they react to people, situations, how they dress, and how they appear to others. This job never stops. Ever.
Now the "smart" kids, they go out and do their homework, they pay attention in class, they learn things, they're out spending hours being smart. To them, being "cool" is something they wanted, something that would be nice, something that is lower on the priority list than being "smart"
What and who we are has a lot less to do with "talent" and more to do with "choices". It is far too easy to say that someone is better than you at [BLANK] because they were born with certain advantages. Don't do this. In any way, any shape, any form. Save yourself the heartbreak. Don't let this happen. I don't know how to be any more clear. Whatever it is that you want to accomplish, you CAN, if you just stop giving yourself excuses as to why you are innately unable to achieve it. The fact is, out of all the people who read this, the people who know and live this will nod and have the appropriate acknowledgement.
The people who don't yet know this will probably fly through this without much thought. I probably won't reach them. The human mind is indestructable when it comes to self preservation, regardless of right or wrong. I'm ok with that. BECAUSE THIS ISN'T SOMETHING THAT OTHERS CAN DO ON YOUR BEHALF. THIS TAKES YOU AND YOU ALONE TO OVERCOME. Which if there was the default of accepting your own excuses, then that is also not possible. A bit of a chicken and egg problem. Which is really the crux of it, because the literal chicken and egg problem is easy. Pick one. Any. Move on. Neither the chicken nor the egg cares.
It may sound like I know what I'm talking about here. But I don't. Sorry. The fact is, I still occasionally make this mistake, even though I stopped looking around. It seems that even if I just look inside, if I just compare me to me, apples to apples, moon rocks to moon rocks, the same thing occurs. I have a constant battle to fight, because present day me, is always underachieving in one way or another, compared to potential future me, or past me.
Example, there are things I used to do well. My results tell me this. Given that in time, I grew out of those things. I was asking myself today, am I better today than I was before? I really didn't know, because I was looking in the wrong place, I was looking at ability. What took me awhile to remember is that even though I don't partake in the same challenges with the same measurable metrics, the fact is, I am probably better. I just chose to put my time into something else. Instead of placing all my time in [blank], I'm now trying what it's like to put all my time into [blank 2].
Which is why this brings me to kung fu again. I have been feeling the pressure with other parts of my life, and the extra time it takes is being taken from my kung fu. Given then, my kung fu has then suffered, and that makes me extremely upset, because why would my kung fu be worse than my past self's kung fu? What is wrong with me? The reality is that I just spend less time in it than my past self. That's all. Just like I spend less time in it than all the people around me who are all better than me. Now that's something I can't change yet, but when I can I will. It's not accepting something I have no control over, because I don't think I can't control it. I have simply accepted my own decision to temporarily prioritize other things in my life ahead of my kung fu, as I try to find my balance.
It's ok to not to be perfect. But I'm not aiming at perfect. Just that I won't accept being less that acceptable. Which means more effort. There are a lot of problems in the world, and a lot of smart ways to solve them. It's easy to forget when you come to a problem with no efficient solution, that the one thing the reliably solves problems is work. So grind it out, and if you need to get through a wall that you can't go around, maybe sometimes, ramming right at it is the thing to do.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
I once read an article, that really resonated with me. I seem to forget about it now and then, but it always came back to me. The summary of it was that the author discussed the difference with the traditional roles and relations between the "smart kids" and the "cool kids". Now, if you've been to school, chances are you fell within one or the other. We have lots of names for this stuff and names for cliques and so on, but this is really what it boils down to, and it's nice to keep it simple. The conclusion that was delivered was incredibly simple, and logical.
It went such: The smart kids and cool kids are the same kid. At some point, people choose what they do with their time and ability. It rarely has anything to do with what comes easy, but more so about what they value and what makes them feel good. Now mostly, this is not a conscious decision, but just one that happens based on emotions. The thing that separates the "smart" and "cool" crowd has little to do with ability, and simply has to do with choice. The "smart" kids, spend more time being smart, and less time being "cool". Being a "cool" kid takes more time than any other job; given that in order for them to remain "cool" they are constantly judging how they react to people, situations, how they dress, and how they appear to others. This job never stops. Ever.
Now the "smart" kids, they go out and do their homework, they pay attention in class, they learn things, they're out spending hours being smart. To them, being "cool" is something they wanted, something that would be nice, something that is lower on the priority list than being "smart"
What and who we are has a lot less to do with "talent" and more to do with "choices". It is far too easy to say that someone is better than you at [BLANK] because they were born with certain advantages. Don't do this. In any way, any shape, any form. Save yourself the heartbreak. Don't let this happen. I don't know how to be any more clear. Whatever it is that you want to accomplish, you CAN, if you just stop giving yourself excuses as to why you are innately unable to achieve it. The fact is, out of all the people who read this, the people who know and live this will nod and have the appropriate acknowledgement.
The people who don't yet know this will probably fly through this without much thought. I probably won't reach them. The human mind is indestructable when it comes to self preservation, regardless of right or wrong. I'm ok with that. BECAUSE THIS ISN'T SOMETHING THAT OTHERS CAN DO ON YOUR BEHALF. THIS TAKES YOU AND YOU ALONE TO OVERCOME. Which if there was the default of accepting your own excuses, then that is also not possible. A bit of a chicken and egg problem. Which is really the crux of it, because the literal chicken and egg problem is easy. Pick one. Any. Move on. Neither the chicken nor the egg cares.
It may sound like I know what I'm talking about here. But I don't. Sorry. The fact is, I still occasionally make this mistake, even though I stopped looking around. It seems that even if I just look inside, if I just compare me to me, apples to apples, moon rocks to moon rocks, the same thing occurs. I have a constant battle to fight, because present day me, is always underachieving in one way or another, compared to potential future me, or past me.
Example, there are things I used to do well. My results tell me this. Given that in time, I grew out of those things. I was asking myself today, am I better today than I was before? I really didn't know, because I was looking in the wrong place, I was looking at ability. What took me awhile to remember is that even though I don't partake in the same challenges with the same measurable metrics, the fact is, I am probably better. I just chose to put my time into something else. Instead of placing all my time in [blank], I'm now trying what it's like to put all my time into [blank 2].
Which is why this brings me to kung fu again. I have been feeling the pressure with other parts of my life, and the extra time it takes is being taken from my kung fu. Given then, my kung fu has then suffered, and that makes me extremely upset, because why would my kung fu be worse than my past self's kung fu? What is wrong with me? The reality is that I just spend less time in it than my past self. That's all. Just like I spend less time in it than all the people around me who are all better than me. Now that's something I can't change yet, but when I can I will. It's not accepting something I have no control over, because I don't think I can't control it. I have simply accepted my own decision to temporarily prioritize other things in my life ahead of my kung fu, as I try to find my balance.
It's ok to not to be perfect. But I'm not aiming at perfect. Just that I won't accept being less that acceptable. Which means more effort. There are a lot of problems in the world, and a lot of smart ways to solve them. It's easy to forget when you come to a problem with no efficient solution, that the one thing the reliably solves problems is work. So grind it out, and if you need to get through a wall that you can't go around, maybe sometimes, ramming right at it is the thing to do.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Friday, April 12, 2013
2013.04.12 First tangent - Part 3
Language allows us to learn from those who came before us, allows us to see the past, their achievements and mistakes, their thoughts and actions, their intent and the result. This is important, because without it, we would simply repeat exactly what they had done, as we would be exactly where they were. It allows us to build on the efforts of those who came before, and allows for the compounding of human effort. This flow of knowledge being passed to us, and us onward is an opportunity if you choose to utilize it. To read, and learn from others is a definite way to learn and grow your mind, to understand the concepts behind their ideas, so as to improve your own.
This leads into the last stretch of this introduction. One of the ways we can learn from others is to read. Usually, we read stories, rather than textbooks. I used to wonder why things like Aesop's fables stayed around, why Shakespeare? Why not the middle aged version of a math textbook? Do we learn more from these anecdotes than we do from a technical description of certain specific concepts (a textbook)?
It seems we do. Let's consider that given the assumption that a piece of writing has the purpose to pass along a thought, concept or lesson. We would then try to do so in a concise fashion that leaves nothing out, adds nothing extraneous, is not too vague, but only clear enough to be conceptual and applicable in many instances, since it is an idea and not an instruction.
My experience has been, that in any mathematical theory, there are always the exceptions. And corollaries. It seems to me, that they teach what the core lesson is, and then continue to spend more time after that showing and teaching every one of these exceptions, so that you see exactly the boundaries of each idea, no more, no less. In order to prove you learned it, you are then required to metaphorically draw out the exact boundaries of this idea you just learned, with every instance where it works, and every instance where it doesn't. Every. Single. One.
Then there are Aesop's fables, teaching by using a story as an example of a situation, showing the reader the actions and consequences. In this way, the reader strives to understand the concept, the idea behind the actions, and in doing so, by understanding the idea, they also know the boundaries and all the exceptions to each lesson intuitively without having to have thought about a single exception.
I use mathematics to represent communication in the scientific approach, simply because I believe that math is logic in graphic representation. But any scientific approach will do.
I am not saying that the scientific approach to learning is inefficient, because that is not true. In some instances, it is the only way to learn something. But I do find that in the present day, people are losing the ability to learn by listening, by hearing, by really understanding what another person is saying, through a story, through an anecdote. To read and hear the concept instead of the instruction. To hear what is implicit, over the ruckus that the explicit seems to be causing. It is through the scientific approach that we learn how to imitate, and memorize, but through the conceptual approach that we learn innovation through an intuitive understanding.
I find that in the present day, a great deal of problems arise simply due to a lack of communication. Not just words, but the things that don't translate well into binary. The expressions, tones, and gestures of whom you are speaking to. There is not yet a way to send someone these things via texting. All too common today, are shorthand spelling, tYpInG LiKe ThIs JuSt BeCaUsE, using punctuation and symbols instead of actual letters. Mostly only things my generation is guilty of, but it seems not a moment too soon to be mourning the loss of linguistic depth in casual communication. It may have been true that puns were all to common at one point, but I find that wordplay and turn of phrase has long ago started to fade from common usage.
This leads into the last stretch of this introduction. One of the ways we can learn from others is to read. Usually, we read stories, rather than textbooks. I used to wonder why things like Aesop's fables stayed around, why Shakespeare? Why not the middle aged version of a math textbook? Do we learn more from these anecdotes than we do from a technical description of certain specific concepts (a textbook)?
It seems we do. Let's consider that given the assumption that a piece of writing has the purpose to pass along a thought, concept or lesson. We would then try to do so in a concise fashion that leaves nothing out, adds nothing extraneous, is not too vague, but only clear enough to be conceptual and applicable in many instances, since it is an idea and not an instruction.
My experience has been, that in any mathematical theory, there are always the exceptions. And corollaries. It seems to me, that they teach what the core lesson is, and then continue to spend more time after that showing and teaching every one of these exceptions, so that you see exactly the boundaries of each idea, no more, no less. In order to prove you learned it, you are then required to metaphorically draw out the exact boundaries of this idea you just learned, with every instance where it works, and every instance where it doesn't. Every. Single. One.
Then there are Aesop's fables, teaching by using a story as an example of a situation, showing the reader the actions and consequences. In this way, the reader strives to understand the concept, the idea behind the actions, and in doing so, by understanding the idea, they also know the boundaries and all the exceptions to each lesson intuitively without having to have thought about a single exception.
I use mathematics to represent communication in the scientific approach, simply because I believe that math is logic in graphic representation. But any scientific approach will do.
I am not saying that the scientific approach to learning is inefficient, because that is not true. In some instances, it is the only way to learn something. But I do find that in the present day, people are losing the ability to learn by listening, by hearing, by really understanding what another person is saying, through a story, through an anecdote. To read and hear the concept instead of the instruction. To hear what is implicit, over the ruckus that the explicit seems to be causing. It is through the scientific approach that we learn how to imitate, and memorize, but through the conceptual approach that we learn innovation through an intuitive understanding.
I find that in the present day, a great deal of problems arise simply due to a lack of communication. Not just words, but the things that don't translate well into binary. The expressions, tones, and gestures of whom you are speaking to. There is not yet a way to send someone these things via texting. All too common today, are shorthand spelling, tYpInG LiKe ThIs JuSt BeCaUsE, using punctuation and symbols instead of actual letters. Mostly only things my generation is guilty of, but it seems not a moment too soon to be mourning the loss of linguistic depth in casual communication. It may have been true that puns were all to common at one point, but I find that wordplay and turn of phrase has long ago started to fade from common usage.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Captain's Blog, Stardate 2013.04.07, U.S.S. Enterprise - Internal pressure, motivation, the right thing, what feels good, and how they're never guaranteed to be the same thing
As I sit here and adjust the title of this blog post to suit this post, I find myself disappointed, angry, ashamed that the date I am changing is 03.17. This means that I haven't blogged this thread since march 17. I'm sorry to those who take the time to follow my blog, it appears that I have let you down in my absence. I can only commit to doing better, but it doesn't mean I'm off the hook. I'm just not sure what my consequence should be yet.
Today I want to talk about our internal pressures. We all have them, they can manifest in motivation, perseverance, tenacity, anxiety, and the list goes on. The point of which is just that it is all there, in all of us, and for those that aren't as introspective, I may sound crazy.
We choose to decide how we react to these pressures in our minds. We cannot choose how or when they occur, but we do choose what we do about it. For example, feeling frustration, overwhelmed, angry, these are all normally considered negative. But there are ways, that we can redirect these pressures in more productive ways. It is not at all easy, but to use the bottled frustration, and anger, and force it into the fuel tank so to speak, and to use it as energy to keep on going, in a positive way.
Why is it that confrontational avoidance is so difficult? I know it is the right thing to do, but why is it so difficult? Why does the right thing FEEL wrong?
Le sigh
Though at the top of my blog dashboard it reads
"Cross Disciplinary Celebration of Human Advancement Knowledge Discovery and Preservation Society Blog's blogs."
Blogger put the 's blogs behind it automatically, and the goofiness of how it sounds makes me chuckle.
Maybe sometimes that's all we need to relieve the pressure, a good laugh and chuckle here or there.
Today I want to talk about our internal pressures. We all have them, they can manifest in motivation, perseverance, tenacity, anxiety, and the list goes on. The point of which is just that it is all there, in all of us, and for those that aren't as introspective, I may sound crazy.
We choose to decide how we react to these pressures in our minds. We cannot choose how or when they occur, but we do choose what we do about it. For example, feeling frustration, overwhelmed, angry, these are all normally considered negative. But there are ways, that we can redirect these pressures in more productive ways. It is not at all easy, but to use the bottled frustration, and anger, and force it into the fuel tank so to speak, and to use it as energy to keep on going, in a positive way.
Why is it that confrontational avoidance is so difficult? I know it is the right thing to do, but why is it so difficult? Why does the right thing FEEL wrong?
Le sigh
Though at the top of my blog dashboard it reads
"Cross Disciplinary Celebration of Human Advancement Knowledge Discovery and Preservation Society Blog's blogs."
Blogger put the 's blogs behind it automatically, and the goofiness of how it sounds makes me chuckle.
Maybe sometimes that's all we need to relieve the pressure, a good laugh and chuckle here or there.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
I'm just checking in,
Just blowing through. Sorry I have yet to post something worthy for a while now, I find things are kind of slipping through my fingers. anyway, sorry, but I'll have something soon.
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