In parallel with my earlier post on politics, I was thinking about the implication of “a simpler time”, a product I believe of a Sean Hannity remark clipped on the Daily Show. I got thinking about needing to finish The Way We Never Were. I’m three or four interesting books deep at the moment. It’s like the wikipedia affect but with books over here. My friend Adam over at Opscode has been promising a blog post about community that I’m anxiously awaiting and I’ve been thinking tonight about his insight into survivorship bias in open source (distracted giggling over “Bryan McLellan is looking out for you” release ensues). Anyway, I got thinking about “research” as noted in my last entry, thinking about The Way We Never Were, and got thinking about our (my?) tendency to read things we agree with. Now, I think I read things that I don’t yet agree with, but generally do in the end. How do I filter that? How do I really only buy books that I’m going to agree with, without having read them yet? Why don’t I ever bring home an Ann Coulter book? Is this a pattern similar to survivorship bias?

I took Client Casework today at ARC, which really should be called ARC Forms even though the point is empathy but I suppose it is more traditional to teach forms than empathy. The manila folder that you put all of the client paper work in? It is itself a form, 901 to be exact. The checks you give clients to give to hotels? A form, called a Dispensing Order, in carbon quadruplicate, form 140C. I jest, sort of. It was good anyhow. Anyhow, there is some emphasis in the other materials about active listening (and the aforementioned empathy) and two interesting terms are listed separately: pseudo-listening and rehearsing. Those are being distracted by other thoughts or events and acting as if you are listening, and when you start thinking about how you are going to respond before someone has finished talking. I’ve thought a little in the past about the stereotypical western cultural discomfort with silence and I’m thinking theres a relationship there. I’ve tried a little in the past to do my thinking after someone finishes talking and before I start talking. Socially this is typically impossible, because you often have at least one or two people in a crowd that don’t stop talking on are uncomfortable with the silence so they fill it quickly. One on one, I think it is usually possible, especially with more intimate conversations. In any case, I think it is worth some additional consideration and effort.

What else is on my mind? This year starts off busy. There is an important anniversary coming up next month that’ll make up two significant six-month btm-life-units, worthy of reflection. I’m not going anywhere this month but I have ARC training every weekend. February brings Shmoocon, although I don’t think I’m going to SCALE at this point. There are some work releases coming up that are going to be big changes, some of which I’ve pushed for and need to get more time into. The thought of a trip to Maine is still on my mind nearly daily, although I can’t shake the desire to want to take M more than anything. Mostly I think I feel such a strong desire to connect with her, and at the root of that it isn’t a new feeling, it is exposing itself in a new way. That’s fine. I’m thinking about physical feelings, like hunger, and comparing them to emotional feelings, like love, or maybe something more of a construct like attachment. Intensity aside, how are they different? Hunger makes one jump to pointing out that it comes from your stomach, where does one feel love and attachment? Speaking without metaphor, the chest, personally. Especially loss. All that aside, I’ve been thinking about the “this is not who I am, this is a product of my brain” concept I’ve picked up from The Mindful Brain and how it immediately strikes a fear of compassion-less existence in me, despite my siding with the science of love.

It’s a weird feeling, trying to reduce love to organic compounds. Fisher’s been doing it for years and is often asked if it takes all the fun out of love. She says no. “I can know every single ingredient in a piece of chocolate cake, but when I sit down to eat it, I can still feel the joy.”

“What were you doing five years ago?” he asked. I was in Maine. “Had you been to Seattle yet?” She asked. Not for a couple more months. Five years is a lot of units. I gave Tori a ride to work this morning and brought this up with her. Who was I a few years ago, and should I take this into account when interacting with people, especially loved ones? She offered that our twenties are often cited as being the most self-defining decade of our life, as opposed to our adolescence being more focused on our group and social identity. Perhaps later we find our cultural identity? Or that is merged in typically during the earlier periods? Regardless, the most stirring possibilities are still the ones requiring the most trust of others. And there it s.

We are nobody alone.

When I think about accomplishments, I take along humility as a worthwhile endeavor. Like everything, it is a balance, as it is not the absence of self confidence. Shirky chimes in:

Arrogance without humility is a recipe for high-concept irrelevance; humility without arrogance guarantees unending mediocrity. Figuring out how to be arrogant and humble at once, […] is the problem […].

I’m attached to the popular Isaac Newton quote,

If I have seen further than other men, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants

There’s an interesting note about how it isn’t about humility, but neither is this. Perhaps it was learning early in my life that there were limits to the feasibility of knowing everything, being the best at everything, and even being good at everything, that led me to the belief that my successes are all on the shoulders of other’s great successes. Perhaps in there I initially found my inklings of true humility. Maybe it was just in adolescent social torment.

I once told J a story about M (somewhere in the archives?) and she asked about her age. I did the math and noted she was (until recently, granted) under 25. That number is a shocker right now, while not being that far away, my earlier ruminations about what I was up to when I was 24 made me joke with Tori that I don’t know if I would hang out with me from three years ago today. Tori said she hung out with me three years ago and I reminded her that was three years ago for her as well. Anyhow, I told J about M being 24, and she “ohhed” and followed up with a comment about how it is usually around 25 that people realize their own insignificance.

I think about November, and this summer, what I’ve done, and how I’ve grown. Putting aside my current fascination with mirror neurons and how empathy for other people can give us empathy for ourselves for awhile, I’ve grown a lot. That keeps happening, funny. Most of what I mentally circled as lows have gotten better. Most? All. Goals were achieved, and that which wasn’t written out as a goal has still improved. Lets separate some of that out.

Building sheds, bikes, and whatnot have mostly been personal projects. To at least some degree, they’ve built on the experience I’ve gained from others from the Internet, friendships, and shared projects. Other “building” such as ToorCamp were definitely social events that were only so great because what the “collective everyone” committed. I suppose to some degree or another, it’s a matter of choosing a personal direction and while you’re walking along that path see who you meet headed along the same way. It takes both personal choice and courage, and the companionship of fellows along the way.

In thinking about a comment I made that “structure inhibits,” I find that incongruent with the previous statement. Structure that is immalleable inhibits. I think that is what I ultimately want to find in a partner, and perhaps what is necessary but often unrealized, is the agreement to draw on the strengths of the companionship while remaining open to life changing. Which does not mean that there is an inevitable parting of ways, as divorce and whatever you label irreconcilable differences in relationships as is… from the companionship one can draw the strength to steer something with more meaning than our independent personal musings.

As the whole is greater than the sum, perhaps after a certain point, who we are is less important than the collective we for those reasons.