The Joy of Discovery

Sometimes you don't even realize it--that the article, or the road, or the song, or the show--whatever that moment of choice led you to--is really a new discovery.  And the moment you start denying yourself certain choices is the moment when discovery is lost.  That said, not all discoveries are good ones, and some have far-reaching consequences; Pandora's box opened, after all, has let the atom bomb into the world.  And that certainly can't be put back in the box again.

That said, I have to admit that over the past few weeks as I work to find new ideas and new thoughts to share with you all here, I find myself inundated with this amazing amount of information.  Still, like Solomon, I worry about what I put here--what is right and what is wrong--good or evil--true or false.  I wonder if the knowledge that I share with you will have far- reaching consequences, and I worry that even my own desire to find something interesting or new may one day serve to lessen my credibility as a truth-seeker.

And yet, ...I still can't stop myself from clicking on that next article, or reading through hundreds of Facebook posts, copying pictures, and saving things to my favorite's bar because I think they might be of some use or importance in the months and years to come.  I'm learning as I go that what might not seem a big deal right now may later prove to have been prescient, and I'll admit that even I want to learn the secrets of how to discover a thing--to search out a method that says: This thing is important to know about now, as it will be relevant in the years to come.

Science fiction writers always seem to have a leg up on this--their imaginations and their own interests and discoveries leading the way for "future tech" and scientific research.  But the truth of the matter is that these people could see problems and then speculate about the kinds of solutions that might be created--ideal and otherwise.  They believed in a better world, and whether they were satirizing the present, theorizing about a utopian or dystopian future based on currently held beliefs of the world, or just trying to push social, moral or cultural agendas, they did so by inviting us to discover something new.

With that in mind, and seeking to emulate some science fictional ideals of discovering the world around me, I have a few articles to share with you today that made me rethink my ideas of cultural myths, historical figures, and how bad I am at making friends.

The first is an article by Gizmodo that talks about the Bermuda Triangle.

Now let me just say that I have always had a love of mysteries.  My dad loves that stuff, and when I was growing up, we watched a lot of TV shows that tried to explain the seemingly unexplainable.  My dad loved discovering things, too, and he passed along that love to me; it is something I cherish to this day.  That said, ...sometimes the love of the mystery can be almost as important as knowing the reality.  But I think that the reality, in all cases, is just as important.

So if you're wanting to know some truths about the Bermuda Triangle, I encourage you to check out the article.  It 's definitely worth the read.

Next on my list is an article about daylight savings time.  It stems from clicking on a link that I found at the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle link, and I just couldn't pass it up: Today I Found Out.

So it turns out that daylight savings time was something of a proposal written by Benjamin Franklin, and it was more or less written in jest.  If you'd like to read more about it, I urge you to, and check out the bonus facts at the bottom of the article.  They're pretty interesting.

And for those of you wondering when daylight savings time is this year, I went ahead and did a search for that for you, too.  Here it is--your calendar warning.

Daylight Saving Time begins on Sunday, March 9, 2014 (in 45 days) and ends on Sunday, November 2, 2014.

Which brings me to my last bit of discovery: making friends isn't easy for me.  Maybe it isn't easy for anyone.  But John Cheese's article at Cracked.com today made me feel a little less weird about it all.  So if, like me, you have some issues making friends and want to discover the secrets to unlocking the friend-verse, I urge you to have a look at the article.  Also, ...you can friend me, or add me to your Google+ circle, or ....  Yeah.  You get the point.

The Moments In Between

So I've been writing this blog for a little over a week now, and as the days go on, I find myself stuck sometimes, like today--trying to figure out what I want to say that I haven't all ready said.  I look around for something interesting to talk about and find myself at an impasse.

But you told me the possibilities were endless! you say.  You said inspiration was easy to come by!

And it's true.  Those two things haven't changed.  What's changed is my ability to make those possibilities and inspiration into something that is, in my opinion, worth reading.  And that, I suppose, is the hard part.

I could, for instance, talk to you about my gaming addiction with World of Warcraft.  I could talk to you about a few Kickstarter projects I pledged to last year.  I could even wax poetic, or talk about a new song I heard that I thought was interesting (or an old one that made me think of something interesting).  But none of those things have yet inspired me to write something interesting about them.

What keeps sticking in my head, however, is this idea that we live in a manufactured culture--one that spends millions (and likely billions) of dollars every year telling us that we need to buy something in order to be happy.  To fit in, we need to wear the latest styles.  To be considered wealthy, we need to have the latest gadgets.  To be fulfilled, we need to have these things in our homes.  And to be all that we can be, we need to buy organic, or take these drugs, or use these beauty products.

And I'd say I'm frustrated with it, but even I want to look pretty.  I want to be thin and healthy.  I want to live the way rich people do, and have investing problems like they do.  I want to have a personal lawyer who helps me with my taxes.  Hell, I even want a new TV, though I'm pretty sure the one we have is still good.

So I'm trapped--living in this ideal that someone else has created for me because they want me to live like this.  I'm a sheep being herded to the next big thing by the corporate shepherds and their political sheep dogs.

And maybe I don't want to be a sheep any more.

So here's this moment--this moment between deciding that something should be changed and coming up with a plan of action.  And suppose I made up that plan of action; there'd be another moment just like this one where I'd have to stop going over my plan and decide to actually follow through with it.

And I imagine a lot of us get caught up in those "in between" moments.  We doubt ourselves.  We're afraid of change.  And we're afraid of being wrong.

And I imagine most of us fall back into old habits.  We eat that extra cookie, or buy that thing we don't really need, sending ourselves further into debt.  We fall into the trap that tells us we aren't happy because we're not like all those people we admire and want to be.

And we decide that maybe it's easier being one of the sheep.

Yesterday, I read an article by @Sadhguru that talked about managerial skills and the hallmarks of good leaders.  I expect it was intended for business leaders and the like, but I decided to read it anyway.  And I want to share with you something that he said:

Desires drive people: desire to possess, desire to achieve, desire to be recognised. If today you desire a new smartphone, tomorrow you’ll want something else. If I give you the whole planet and make you the queen, will you be fulfilled? No, you’ll want the moon and the stars. That is why turning inwards is very important. You’ll do things more consciously. Right now the world is functioning compulsively and that’s our problem.

So that started me thinking about the way we do things in the world: the way we choose to live, the way we look for answers, the way in which, in short, we do everything.  Do I do something to fulfill a desire, or do I do something that is fulfilling?  Do I stay a sheep and believe that what I'm being told is the truth, or do I pull the wool off of my eyes and find my own truth?

I'll leave you with one last article by @JohnCheese of Cracked.com.  He talks about what it takes to really make a change in your life--the things that need to happen to make it happen.


It only takes one little step--one moment that goes from thought to action--to leave behind the person we are, and to become the person we want to be.  So please, don't get stuck in all the moments in between.