Awesome

Okay, might as well start things off with something fun:

Tuesday, May 9th, 2006

9:04 am

Awesome I think there’s some rule, some natural law, that states that you always look dopey in old pictures. I don’t care how incredibly awesome you thought that picture looked when it was taken, as it sits in that photo album, over the course of ten years or so, unseen forces twist it slightly so that the next time you see it, you’re appalled. ‘Did I actually look like that?’ you wonder. No, you didn’t. You looked awesome. Remember? It’s just one of Mother Nature’s little tricks. The odd thing is, that’s even happened to my memories. I think back to things I did just a few years ago, and my first reaction is: “Did I really talk like that?” Even though little has changed about the way I talk now. My theory: Maybe the universe is just constantly getting cooler. You, me, and everything in the universe increases its awesomeness at a steady rate. I haven’t run enough calculations to yet determine if this awesome increase is constant throughout the immediately measurable universe, or if there are areas where the increase is more marked than others (I’m looking at you, Jamaica,) but my research has led to the inexorable conclusion that everything is increasing in awesomeness to some degree. I call this the awesometological constant. I hope to calculate its exact value soon.

Pretty cool, eh. I certainly thought so at the time. The trouble is, I originally composed this blog post 3 years ago and it's still about as awesome as it ever was. The implications are obvious: I've stumbled upon the principle of Awesome Relativity.

Awesomeness and bogosity are not absolutes, but are necessarilly measured relative to some frame of reference. This sounds like common sense, but can cause a lot of counter-intuitive complications due to the fact that there appears to be an upper-limit to awesomeness.

I can illustrate this upper-limit with the folowing thought experiement: Imagine an army of vikings fighting a hoarde of zombies. Now imagine that the vikings are armed with chainsaws. And then a bunch of redundant bionic vampire ninja cyborgs get involved for some reason.

You have probably noticed that the amount that the total awesomeness increases diminishes with each new addition to the battle, so that if a bunch of sexy amazon valkyries parachute in off the backs of luck dragons, the increase measured is on par with the emergence of subterranian penguin accountants, even though the rest awesomeness of the valkyries far exceeds that of the penguins.

And since all awesomeness is relative, it's possible for something to always appear to have the same level of awesomeness due to the fact that the ratio between the awesomness of that awesome thing and the squaresville frame of reference from which it's awesomeness is observed does not appreciably change.

Obviously further study of this phenomenon is warranted. I'm going to need a flamethrower and some nachos.

Mission statement musings

Okay, this is just a quick little mission statement-y post to try and figure out why I suddenly created this blog.

Unfortunately, like most of the ideas I have, this made a lot more sense before I tried to explain it logically. I've just deleted paragraphs and paragraphs of rambling drivel, and I suspect this will be another one of them. Hmmmm. I seem to lack adequate transistional elements to get to the meat of my ideas so.... Da Vinci.

Yeah, the well-known rennaisance artist-inventor who drew thousands of sketches of wonderful, fantastic inventions, and very likely never got around to building any of them.

I can relate.

It's possible that he and I suffer from the same personality/psychological/neurochemical disorder. It's more likely that I'm draping modern ideas of mind over an incomplete body of historical evidence. In either case, I've stretched this metaphor way way too far.

Here's the thing about Da Vinci: He was an Idea man. His mind soared out into the incredible realm of what might be possible, and got bogged down and dulled by the mundane world of what could realistically be done. Da Vinci had loads of vision, but no follow through. He was arguably, for his time, the worlds greatest planner, but its worst doer. If he hadn't been really into drawing, we'd probably have forgotten about him entirely.

Fast forward a few hundred years to me with basically the same dillemma. My ideas are vast, surprising, span all kinds of apparently seperate disciplines, and are almost never seen through to completion. In the past, I have attempted to remedy this problem through more intense application of willpower. I've created schedules, and partnerships, and competitions in the hopes of artificially motivating myself to see something through, and I've never made it into the final stages of any of my projects. Many of my less developed ideas, the ones I know would realistically require more work than I can expect of myself in a lifetime, flit by me like single frames in the movie of my life.

I've forgotten more than I could ever hope to relate. Shame I couldn't collect them all into a note/sketchbook of some kind for posterity...

A relative recently pointed out to me that I have enough great book ideas to fill at least ten novels. I knew that, but I didn't realize that such creativity was as rare as he seems to think it is. "There are plenty of people with dedication and skill who lack vision; It's a shame we can't get them together with people like you."

Recently, I've taken a completely different tack when it comes to overcoming my personal shortcommings. I've been looking at the task as less like building a bridge and more like diverting a river. No matter how hard you try, you can't make a river flow uphill. It's much better to look where it's going and see if some minor course changes can get it to a more favorable desination. If my mind is like a river, and it will always be more enamored with exploring fresh ideas than elaborating old ones, perhaps I should stop despairing at my inability to see projects through to fruition, and start turning my ability to concieve of the initial stepesinto more blessing than burden.

Anyway, that's the plan. I'll try to add at least one inspiring, entertaining, --and occasionally, downright crazy-- idea to this blog each week. I'll hash out the rest of the details as I go.