I drove from Oakland to Los Angeles on Thursday. I couldn't help thinking what a supremely inefficient way it was to get my body from one place to another. As it happened, I needed a car in LA and I was planning on bringing a large box back with me, so it made more sense to drive than to fly. Economically, the price of driving was basically the same as flying. Adding in the cost of renting a car once in LA made driving a no-brainer. However, while in progress, the process feels ridiculous. Get in the car, turn on the iPod, put on the cruise control, and turn my brain off for the next six hours.
I don't know how interstate truckers do it. Driving endlessly, day after day. One "short" drive from the SF Bay to LA makes me nuts. Driving to and from Colorado (which I have done four times,) is absolutely painful. Doing this as a job would be the third ring of hell for me.
I passed a truck on the highway that had a bumper-sticker reading "Without trucks, America stops." Its true. The amount of stuff shipped by truck in this country is amazing. The number of cars and trucks on I-5 in California at any given time of day or night is absolutely staggering.
While driving I can easily turn the cruise control on, but I can't turn my brain off; I can't stop thinking. Driving on I-5 makes me think in particular about the tragedy of the war in Iraq. The cost in lives lost and ruined, the cost in dollars, the damage to the nation of Iraq, the damage to the reputation and economy of the United States. This war has truly been a crime against humanity.
I am sure that eight years ago we did not have an extra trillion dollars lying around to spend on anything. We didn't have a trillion dollars to spend on education, or health care, or infrastructure. Where did we find a trillion to spend on a war in Iraq?
Driving down a busy, car-filled I-5 at noon on a Thursday, I couldn't help thinking of what it would have been like had we spent a trillion dollars over the last eight years building the worlds greatest high-speed train system. Imagine if we had taken the brave men and women that we sent to Iraq, given them a trillion dollars, and said "build this nation a train system that will be the envy of the world."
Think of the jobs that would have been created! The economic impact of the people building the trains, manufacturing the rails and cars, feeding the workers, housing the workers, building the train stations, making clothes for the workers and the engineers, the uniforms for the wait staffs at the cafes in the train stations, the salaries of the people manufacturing the cups to hold the coffee sold at the train station cafes... And think of the value added to our nation for generations to come! A trillion dollar train system would have instantly reduced our dependence on oil, foreign or domestic.
Instead we have thousands of children cut down in the prime of their lives, a foreign nation in ruins, an insatiable desire for oil, and a planet full of people who hate us for it.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Laziness
I think that I am a supremely lazy person. All things being equal, given the choice between doing something and doing nothing, I tend to choose nothing. Of course, that is an overstatement; I don't really know how to state the reality that I feel - everything I say here must be an approximation. The fact that I am writing this at all belies what I am saying. Blogging is not laziness.
Whenever I expound on my lazy nature, my friends always tell me I'm wrong. They point to my accomplishments in my professional career, they note the things I have created in my life, and the effort I put into friendships themselves. But I can't help feeling lazy and truly enjoying that laziness. I love the feel of sun and breeze on my skin. I want to sit in the sun and let the moments go by, watching thoughts float through my head on their way from somewhere to somewhere else. I inculcate serenity.
As for my professional accomplishments, I like to recite a quote that I have always attributed to Ben Franklin (of course, searching online now I cant find it): "If you want to find a really efficient way to do something, ask a lazy man how he would do it." I believe that my whole career boiled down to being super efficient in the way I did things, and that I was able to be super-efficient because I was supremely lazy.
I have all kinds of behaviors that compensate for my laziness. I make lists. I tackle projects so I don't have to think about them. I organize and arrange things for easy access. From the outside this undoubtedly looks like active efficiency and accomplishment. From the inside it feels like expediency driven by laziness.
I think its time for my mid-morning nap.
Whenever I expound on my lazy nature, my friends always tell me I'm wrong. They point to my accomplishments in my professional career, they note the things I have created in my life, and the effort I put into friendships themselves. But I can't help feeling lazy and truly enjoying that laziness. I love the feel of sun and breeze on my skin. I want to sit in the sun and let the moments go by, watching thoughts float through my head on their way from somewhere to somewhere else. I inculcate serenity.
As for my professional accomplishments, I like to recite a quote that I have always attributed to Ben Franklin (of course, searching online now I cant find it): "If you want to find a really efficient way to do something, ask a lazy man how he would do it." I believe that my whole career boiled down to being super efficient in the way I did things, and that I was able to be super-efficient because I was supremely lazy.
I have all kinds of behaviors that compensate for my laziness. I make lists. I tackle projects so I don't have to think about them. I organize and arrange things for easy access. From the outside this undoubtedly looks like active efficiency and accomplishment. From the inside it feels like expediency driven by laziness.
I think its time for my mid-morning nap.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Rebel Rebel
This morning the song in my head was Rebel Rebel by David Bowie.
Why? How did my brain pick that song? I own Diamond Dogs and the other albums on which the track appears. I have it in my iPod as well. So its quite possible that the song came up while I was driving and entered my sub-conscious though my conscious mind lost track of it. But I don't think so. Perhaps I saw an ad for some product, a Canon EOS Rebel camera or a Nissan Rebel for example, that used the song as backing track. I've been reading Malcom Gladwell's Blink, which has brought to mind the power of the sub-conscious. Clearly Rebel Rebel could have been prompted by something in my day.
Still, frequently songs come into my head that I'm sure I haven't heard for a very long time. Songs that I don't own. Songs that I don't even like. Interestingly, they are usually pieces that I don't know well. Usually it is just a snippet, often only the refrain. And it goes over and over and over in my head. The only technique I've found to consistently cure this affliction is to sing a song (in my head) that I know and like. That will almost always drive the intruding musical phrase from its track.
I am consistently amazed by my mind's ability to score a soundtrack for my day. Quiet moments are rarely quiet inside my head. I wonder whether this is something that all people share, or a personal dementia. But most of all, how do I choose the songs? Why an old track from an early XTC album, followed by one sentence from a Brittney Spears song, followed by Rebel Rebel. Perhaps I will need to be a cognitive psychologist in my next lifetime.
Why? How did my brain pick that song? I own Diamond Dogs and the other albums on which the track appears. I have it in my iPod as well. So its quite possible that the song came up while I was driving and entered my sub-conscious though my conscious mind lost track of it. But I don't think so. Perhaps I saw an ad for some product, a Canon EOS Rebel camera or a Nissan Rebel for example, that used the song as backing track. I've been reading Malcom Gladwell's Blink, which has brought to mind the power of the sub-conscious. Clearly Rebel Rebel could have been prompted by something in my day.
Still, frequently songs come into my head that I'm sure I haven't heard for a very long time. Songs that I don't own. Songs that I don't even like. Interestingly, they are usually pieces that I don't know well. Usually it is just a snippet, often only the refrain. And it goes over and over and over in my head. The only technique I've found to consistently cure this affliction is to sing a song (in my head) that I know and like. That will almost always drive the intruding musical phrase from its track.
I am consistently amazed by my mind's ability to score a soundtrack for my day. Quiet moments are rarely quiet inside my head. I wonder whether this is something that all people share, or a personal dementia. But most of all, how do I choose the songs? Why an old track from an early XTC album, followed by one sentence from a Brittney Spears song, followed by Rebel Rebel. Perhaps I will need to be a cognitive psychologist in my next lifetime.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Sleepless
I finally hired a contractor yesterday to create my dream home (a whole nuther story there.) I guess it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that I didn't sleep well. I had trouble falling asleep even though I was bone tired and still not over my cold. Finally I did fall asleep, but then there I was, wide awake, looking at a clock that said "2:00," with my head full of fireplace flues and soffits and trellises.
I've been living the details of this project since October of last year - I've allowed it to become very consuming. There are a lot of interesting and exciting custom details and I believe it will be an amazing house when its done. But the price is really high - much more than I ever planned to spend. Oh well.
So I closed my eyes, cleared my mind, and lay there, wide awake. Window trim features stomped through my mind, followed by that damn chimney flue again, and a grand parade of lighting fixtures. I looked at the clock. It said "2:45." Had I slept, or had I been laying there awake for 45 minutes? I really had no idea. It felt like I had been awake. The 80's New Wave lyric "Up all night... oooooh, we're stayin' up all night" took up residence in my brain. So I got up, had a drink of water and wrote an email to my architect describing the five possible solutions I had come up with to solve the chimney flue problem.
By now I was really tired and went back to bed. 3:00am. More and yet more chimney flues grind and grind away in my brain to an endless, endless refrain of "Up all night.... oooooh, we're stayin' up all night...." I have no idea who sang that song, nor when I last heard it. How did my sleepless brain dig up that little ditty from the detritus of the 1980's?
I look at the clock. It says 4:45am. How did that happen? Did I sleep? It doesn't feel like it, but it doesn't feel like an hour and 45 minutes have passed either. I roll over a couple of times, then wake up again. This time I was definitely asleep. It's 5:20am, but I know I was dreaming. I was in a restaurant where you prepare your own food. I was with two other people, whom I know, but I have no idea who they were. We've ordered little dumplings, but at this restaurant the dough is made from peanut butter and Reeses' peanut butter cups and sesame seeds. Since this is the "make your own" restaurant, what we receive is a plate of these ingredients. We start mixing batches of dough and kneading and kneading it. The dough seizes up as I am kneading it. I try adding more and more water too it, but it just gets slippery without getting any softer.
Bam I am awake. It's 5:20am. My brain says "Up all night.... oooooh, stayin' up all night." I'm exhausted. I wonder if my architect got the drawing for the art niche in the kitchen to the contractor and if that feature was included in his bid. I wonder if I really want to spend all that money. I wonder if the living room is big enough. I wonder if I should skip putting cabinets in the workshop, or if I should just use the old desks that I've used in the past. I wonder if I'll sleep.
Bam I am awake. It's almost 6:00am. I was racing around town in some kind of super-mini-van. I needed to get to the restaurant, but I kept taking wrong turns. Every time I took a wrong turn, I corrected by doing some amazingly illegal maneuver - a U-turn on the highway, a left through a red light, driving over a median or a sidewalk. Each time there was a cop right there, watching me do the illegal move, but they never stopped me or pulled me over. "Up all night.... oooooh, stayin' up all night." Should I cut the trellises out of the project to save money?
Bam I am awake. I don't bother to look at the clock. I had been kneading dough. Lots of batches of dough. I don't know what I was making, but I had to keep getting more and more water, one cup at a time, to add to the dough. "Up all night.... oooooh, stayin' up all night." Crap. Who wrote that song and how do I get it out of my head. Maybe if I knew more than just that one line I could sing the whole thing to myself and get it done with. Alas, that one line is all I have. "Up all night.... oooooh, stayin' up all night."
Bam, its almost 9:00am. I'm exhausted. Did I sleep last night? It feels like I was awake all night long, but I have these distant memories of weird dreams. I know I sent an email in the middle of the night. Ooooof. Time to make the coffee.
I've been living the details of this project since October of last year - I've allowed it to become very consuming. There are a lot of interesting and exciting custom details and I believe it will be an amazing house when its done. But the price is really high - much more than I ever planned to spend. Oh well.
So I closed my eyes, cleared my mind, and lay there, wide awake. Window trim features stomped through my mind, followed by that damn chimney flue again, and a grand parade of lighting fixtures. I looked at the clock. It said "2:45." Had I slept, or had I been laying there awake for 45 minutes? I really had no idea. It felt like I had been awake. The 80's New Wave lyric "Up all night... oooooh, we're stayin' up all night" took up residence in my brain. So I got up, had a drink of water and wrote an email to my architect describing the five possible solutions I had come up with to solve the chimney flue problem.
By now I was really tired and went back to bed. 3:00am. More and yet more chimney flues grind and grind away in my brain to an endless, endless refrain of "Up all night.... oooooh, we're stayin' up all night...." I have no idea who sang that song, nor when I last heard it. How did my sleepless brain dig up that little ditty from the detritus of the 1980's?
I look at the clock. It says 4:45am. How did that happen? Did I sleep? It doesn't feel like it, but it doesn't feel like an hour and 45 minutes have passed either. I roll over a couple of times, then wake up again. This time I was definitely asleep. It's 5:20am, but I know I was dreaming. I was in a restaurant where you prepare your own food. I was with two other people, whom I know, but I have no idea who they were. We've ordered little dumplings, but at this restaurant the dough is made from peanut butter and Reeses' peanut butter cups and sesame seeds. Since this is the "make your own" restaurant, what we receive is a plate of these ingredients. We start mixing batches of dough and kneading and kneading it. The dough seizes up as I am kneading it. I try adding more and more water too it, but it just gets slippery without getting any softer.
Bam I am awake. It's 5:20am. My brain says "Up all night.... oooooh, stayin' up all night." I'm exhausted. I wonder if my architect got the drawing for the art niche in the kitchen to the contractor and if that feature was included in his bid. I wonder if I really want to spend all that money. I wonder if the living room is big enough. I wonder if I should skip putting cabinets in the workshop, or if I should just use the old desks that I've used in the past. I wonder if I'll sleep.
Bam I am awake. It's almost 6:00am. I was racing around town in some kind of super-mini-van. I needed to get to the restaurant, but I kept taking wrong turns. Every time I took a wrong turn, I corrected by doing some amazingly illegal maneuver - a U-turn on the highway, a left through a red light, driving over a median or a sidewalk. Each time there was a cop right there, watching me do the illegal move, but they never stopped me or pulled me over. "Up all night.... oooooh, stayin' up all night." Should I cut the trellises out of the project to save money?
Bam I am awake. I don't bother to look at the clock. I had been kneading dough. Lots of batches of dough. I don't know what I was making, but I had to keep getting more and more water, one cup at a time, to add to the dough. "Up all night.... oooooh, stayin' up all night." Crap. Who wrote that song and how do I get it out of my head. Maybe if I knew more than just that one line I could sing the whole thing to myself and get it done with. Alas, that one line is all I have. "Up all night.... oooooh, stayin' up all night."
Bam, its almost 9:00am. I'm exhausted. Did I sleep last night? It feels like I was awake all night long, but I have these distant memories of weird dreams. I know I sent an email in the middle of the night. Ooooof. Time to make the coffee.