Posted by Ryan
November 5, 2008
There was a lot on my mind last night as I walked home from work. Or more accurately, there was a lot on my mind as I walked from work to the subway, rode the subway, and then walked from the subway to my friend’s apartment in Queens where I sleep on a couch that folds out into a bed. The point is, there was a lot on my mind last night.
The streets are crowded in the morning, afternoon, and evening. They are at night as well. Especially if you go to Time Square. Especially if you were at Times Square last night with the whole election thing going on. Normally, though, the streets are generally less crowded at night than during the day, just like every other place I’ve been.
I have noticed that whenever I drive on a crowded freeway I tend to drive faster. At night, when the freeways are far less crowded, I slow down. I’ve caught myself driving under the speed limit on more than one occasion at night. I walk slower at night than I do during the day.
It’s not my intention to delve into the fundamental attribution error yet again, but I can’t help realizing that the way I act on the streets and the way I drive is not so much about what kind of person or driver I am as it is my environment that in large part determines what kind of person and driver I am and and what other people think I am. It also effects how I feel about myself and about my driving. Time constraints also play a huge part (eg. during the day you’re more likely to be in a hurry). Something to think about.
My friend’s apartment is located in Queens. It’s not really his apartment as he’s renting from someone else, but I digress. The apartment is on the 3rd floor of a building with more than 3 floors. I do realize how incredibly not useful that is in helping you create an image of the building in your mind. I think it has 4 floors. The apartment is very small and the floor is dirty (at no fault of my friend).
Queens is what’s called a borough of New York City. The other boroughs are Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bronx, and Staten Island. Queens is basically east of Manhattan, and as I understand it, one of the best places to get good, cheap food (cheap for here).
Last night on the way home we stopped at a 24-hour grocery store. 24-hour grocery stores are nothing special or out of the ordinary. In fact, there’s nothing at all special or out of the ordinary about this place at all. It wasn’t even that late when we stopped there. We did stop there, though, and I bought some chips, grape nuts, raspberries, and milk. I know, very exciting.
Upon arriving at the apartment the number of items on my mind decreased, but only because one of the items decided to take up all my thoughts. As it was election day that item was, naturally, chips.
Seriously. It’d been a while since I’d had a good bag of chips to munch on. There are few things I like more than opening a bag of chips and eating it all in one sitting. Especially if cheese is involved. Or salsa. Both is even better. I didn’t eat the whole bag, for the record.
Since I didn’t have cheese or salsa I bought a bag of lime-flavored tortilla chips to compensate for the lack of pizazz that the cheese and salsa usually bring to an otherwise boring bag of chips. Believe me when I say that the pizazz was not missing with the lime chips. If you’re on a small budget and want some pizazz in a bag, go for lime-flavored chips. If you’re in the UK I highly suggest the lime-flavoured variety (chips meaning chips, not chips as in “french fries.” the brits are just confused).
As the events of the evening unfolded before my bag of chips and I (along with my friend and his roommate), it became increasingly clear to me that I should have purchased two bags of chips. And maybe some ice cream.
Posted by Ryan
September 22, 2008
Fix not thy heart on that which is transitory.
- Henry David Thoreau
For quite a long time now I have read and listened to podcasts and articles dedicated to speculation. Speculation about upcoming products, who will win the browser war, the OS war, political races, what will happen in the next episode of a TV series (Doctor Who is the only one I’ve ever speculated about), and on and on. Speculation galore.
The speculation is important, perhaps, at least for people who work in those specific industries. I tend to think, though, that it’s all a waste of time—nothing but a huge distraction. The successful ignore the distractions and work smart.
Yes, this is an oversimplification and perhaps even speculation, but I can’t help thinking that we’d all be a bit better off if we spent less time worrying about that which is transitory. Does it really matter that much? Probably not.
I challenge you to spend a little less time on the transitory and more time on the truly meaningful: on your family, friends, and the world around you. You’ll be happier and less stressed.
Posted by Ryan
July 29, 2008
Take a moment and think about your best friend, or several good friends. Can you remember when you first met? Was that meeting memorable? How was it different than meeting any of the hundreds or thousands of people you’ve met since then?
More likely than not, meeting your best friend, or whoever we’re thinking about here, was just like meeting anyone else: nothing special. Perhaps you were introduced through another friend, bumped into each other at school, or maybe he/she punched you in the face.
The memories I have of my best friends are there, but faded. Best childhood friend: my dad took me over to his house shortly after he moved in to meet him and his family. I think I was 5 years old. There were lots of unpacked boxes in his room and all over their house. We might have played with legos. That’s about all I remember. Two friends I’ve had for 14+ years now were public enemies number 1 and 2. I couldn’t stand them, and I’m pretty sure their feelings towards me were pretty hostile, too. Of course, looking back, I have no idea why we didn’t get along. Maybe we did the first time we met? No idea. That’s not the point though.
The point is, when I look back on those first meetings, I remember very little about what actually happened. What I do remember is the outcome. I think of how it is now. Looking at those first meetings from the perspective of someone living in that same time period, nothing special happened. Looking at it from 2008, it’s quite different.
The poem is a good example. For the most splendid line becomes fully splendid only by means of all the lines after it; if you went back to it you would find it less splendid than you thought.
- Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis
Perhaps you’re married. Think of the first date with your spouse. Was it that different from any other date you may have been on? Probably not. But you remember it with fondness because of what your relationship has become.
People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it’s more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey… stuff.
- The Tenth Doctor, Doctor Who (British sci-fi TV show), in the episode “Blink”
To think of our experiences, all the people we’ve met, everyone we really know, as being part of some time line places a brick wall between us and who we are. We aren’t on some time line. Well, perhaps we are, but I don’t see it that way. I see it like this: today is the only day there is. There is no tomorrow, there is no yesterday. There is only today. All our experiences fill our life, our today. That doesn’t mean we can’t correct mistakes; it makes correcting mistakes possible. You don’t have to change the past. You can’t change it, because it doesn’t exist. The only thing you can change is what is actually real: yourself.
A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered. You are speaking, [Human], as if the pleasure were one thing and the memory another. It is all one thing. … What you call remembering is the last part of the pleasure, as the crah is the last part of a poem. When you and I met, the meeting was over very shortly, it was nothing. Now it is growing something as we remember it. But still we know very little about it. What it will be when I remember it as I lie down to die, what it makes in me all my days till then–that is the real meeting. The other is only the beginning of it.
- Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis
When you reflect on what we call the past, when you remember pleasures gone by, do not wish you could go back. Remembering pleasures is what makes the pleasure full. It makes it real.
And how could we endure to live and let time pass if we were always crying for one day or one year to come back–if we did not know that every day in a life fills the whole life with expectation and memory and that these are that day?
- Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis (emphasis added)
