Wednesday, June 29, 2011


When I was a child I made a lot of promises. I took oaths and pledged allegiances to Gods, a country, and a host of associated ideals. Whether I realized it at the time or not, I committed to being a writer and a creative person as well. Every time I make a promise I try to remember the context of those promises. Always examine the things you've chosen to fetter yourself with.

I love my country and the people in it. I think my homeland is worth defending, building and preserving. I'm patriotic. I fervently believe in the faith introduced to me as part of my upbringing. Like any belief in the intangible, it is often misguided and even harmful left to the hands of men. I'm jaded, but still faithful.

I think that a person is supposed to struggle with their religious and civic identity. To merely accept something as truth without seeing it tested or practiced can amount to a sure faith, but not an examined one. I believe we wouldn't be granted access to logic and the mathematics that lay behind it if we weren't intended to use them.

Relative to my own struggle, it is all math. The more I learn and see, the more I understand the scope of understanding a person can hope for in this life. In truth, even the smartest person that ever lived won't come to understand even a fraction of anything meaningful relative to the scope of all existence. We're just too small, too insignificant relative to the span of the cosmos and everything in it.

That tiny mote of knowledge is extremely liberating for me. I like being small.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Intangible Things

We enter this life with nothing. I've heard a lot of people say you'll exit it the same way, because you can't take any of "it" with you. I think it's probably somewhere in between. Basically no one knows and they are willing to make up or believe whatever will comfort them in a world that makes no sense.

I feel a genuine connection to certain people. I can't dismiss these feelings and I'm reasonably sure that many things happen for a reason. It's easy to assign those feelings to what is probably an evolved state of the species that allowed us to survive much of prehistory. Stay together, work together, form unbreakable attachments and similar. It's the instinctual circuitry that would allow an ancient human race to survive together what the individual never could.

I see people who operate with temporal perspectives clashing with folks of various faiths who possess eternal perspectives. The secular and the spiritual unable, in spite of all their vaunted enlightenment, to reach the basic conclusion that they need each other. Inevitable and tragic as that might be, people spend their entire lives attempting to validate or ignore their identities.

I think that we each enter this life with a quantity of intangible things. These rough stones will be carried everywhere we go, growing smoother with time and use. Some carry a greater number than others, but those people also carry a greater weight in this life. Regardless, we choose the person we will be even if that choice is to follow the legacy of our societies and families.

There are many circumstances that we do not get to choose. There are always things we cannot control that make us feel alone or isolated from other people. That being said, those are likely moments of clarity where we are seeing ourselves in the truest state.

All of our instincts, faith and circumstances aside - we are utterly alone in this life. I find that I enjoy the quiet of that circumstance more now than I ever did before. I need to be more choosy about what I am fettered by in this life to be sure.

One moment at a time.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Standing Desks

Roughly two weeks ago I bought fifteen dollars in cinder blocks so that I could set up my standing desk. I'm fortunate in that my office has room for both a standing and a sitting workstation. The arrangement served well with regard to trying out a standing and a sitting position when working.

The first week was awful. Standing was uncomfortable and I found myself generally unable to focus, but I knew that was going to likely be the case. I forced myself to persist even if it meant doing something mindless like reorganizing my workflow or backing up files. I made sure I spent at least five hours a day standing at the desk and working toward one project or another.

My work, tedious or otherwise, continued as normal.

After acclimating to the standing position I found that I had probably set the desk two inches too low relative to my height. This made using my tablet to draw difficult. It was relocated to my sitting workstation. For everything else it was as good or better than my sitting workstation.

Your stance will vary depending on the setup of your standing desk. I do recommend standing away from the desk at least ten inches or more depending on the length of your arms. Avoid positions that encourage leaning on the desk as this will increase the time it takes for you to get comfortable standing. This allowed me to lean in an relieve pressure on my wrists without getting too close to my monitor.

If you find yourself really needing to lean in on your desk, get a footrest instead.

Health benefits of the standing desk? In dealing with the portions of my workflow I find boring (but necessary), I have much better stamina for them at my standing desk. If you find yourself getting sleepy at your workstation and using inordinate amounts of coffee or other stimulants to stay awake, a standing desk might be for you. Aside from the impact on your health such things have, there's the time and energy used preparing a cup of hot bean juice.

Being able to more quickly and efficiently deal with the banal things I find myself doing at my desks helps me get to the good stuff I like more quickly. Relative to my mental health, that's definitely a benefit.

I love playing computer games at my standing desk. I find that I'm more alert and able to play more effectively than if I were sitting. Also, I tend to be able to play longer, if I desire, before growing tired or restless. These days I can only play a video game for about an hour before I get jumpy and desire to go and do something else. The standing desk makes an evening of WoW or Spiral Knights with my friends more tolerable and enjoyable.

All told, for generating raw text for my works, nothing beats my bean bag chair, a semi-dark room and my MacBook Air or iPad. It's really nice to have options though.