End of the world...as we know it

Tonight, I had ten minutes with nothing that I had to do. Class prep was done and the kids were with their dad, so I decided I would take 10 minutes to unplug (which is very rare for me) and go lay outside beneath the setting sun with nothing more than a towel and a bottle of water. My laptop nestled safely inside, I laid flat on my back. The evening sun felt wonderful on my face. Almost below the fence line, it was neither too bright nor too warm. That's when I did something I shouldn't have done. I opened my eyes.

If you're a frequent reader of my blog, you've probably heard me talk about the "Acme Effect" already. This is my name for the phenomenon where Wile E. Coyote can defy gravity, but only until he recognizes that he's doing it. Once he acknowledges that he's breaking the laws of physics, the jig is up. Well, that's very much the sensation that I had. Sometimes, when I look at very tall buildings or, apparently, cloudless skies, I am overwhelmed by the fact that no matter where we are on this planet, we are upside down to *someone*. In this case, it was the depth of the clear, blue atmosphere that caused me to lose my breath. Instantly, in a meaningless reaction, I clawed the grass...as if a handful of grass roots would keep me anchored should mother-earth decided to release her gravitational pull on my sunkissed body.

Now, logically, I know that I'm not going anywhere. I knew I wasn't going to fall wildly off the earth and spin out into space. The reaction was, instead, a larger clue into what was going on in my brain. It was a symptom of not trusting something that has always been there for me. The irrational fear of a good thing disappearing just because I've learned to rely on it. Whatever that moment meant, I'm certain that it wasn't my last waltz with irrational fear and the need to have control over myself. I've chosen to type this up, because as odd as my experience may seem to most of you, I'm certain that someone out there has felt something similar. Anyone wanna share?

It's written all over my face

The center of my brow is permanently furrowed. Now that I'm in my thirties, I've started looking a little closer at the lines I see in the mirror. Out of curiosity, I called about Botox for my forehead, but then I started to think about what hiding my facial expressions really meant.

First of all, I've only recently started thinking about the lines in my brow, even though I've had them for as long as I can remember. I showed my mother the face I would have to be making to create such a landscape and she told me that it was the exact expression that I had on my face when I was born. A little research taught me that the expression in question is associated with worry, anxiety and controlled fear. Not a big surprise. That's the undersong of my life. Apparently, my face does accurately represent who I am.

I find it amazing how well we can infer fundamental bits of one's character by looking at his or her face. When we start changing the cues to our emotions with injections and surgery, how do we change the way people interact with us? I suppose the depth of the concern over this would depend on how comfortable you are with showing emotions in the first place. Our faces, unfettered with pins or potions, can't help but give away telltale signs of what we try to hide. Take some of these famous faces for example...

Barack Obama's deep vertical eyebrow creases indicate masked anger.

















George Bush's tight lips and wrinkled full brow indicate contempt and confusion.

















Conan O'Brien's laugh lines and crow feet indicate a jovial personality.















So, even though I can't promise that I'm going to age gracefully, I *can* promise that I'll think twice before I paralyze the muscles that are responsible for advertising who I am. My lines may not be beautiful, but they're honest...and my mom taught me that honesty is a good thing.

It's All a Matter of Perspective

http://xkcd.com/721/


Flatland. Originally introduced in a novel in 1884, it has become an illustration of dimensional observation as well as a highbrow punchline in the century-and-a-quarter since. It's a 2-dimensional world whose residents cannot comprehend the free movement in three dimensions that we enjoy. The idea is that there's a square that lives on a single plane, unable to exist in multiple segments of the third dimension at one time. It sees the world differently, not understanding our enhanced view.

I've been thinking about Flatland lately. Actually, I've been thinking about the 4th dimensioners that would see us the way we see Flatlanders. We can witness a 4th dimension (time) only in individual slices, but is it possible that there is some being that can exist in multiple points of time the way we can in space? When I look at it this way, time and time-travel for a 3-D being makes so much more sense. It's not that different copies of us exist simultaneously in several parallel time periods. More likely, it is just as it would be with the square moving in the third dimension. When it enters a new plane, it must leave the old one. That's not to say that it has to travel the dimension linearly, maybe it finds a way to drop several units in an instant, but to the other residents of Flatland, it would seem to disappear instantly from one and appear instantly in the other. I think that's how time-travel would have to work for us.

What's more, Flatlanders experience time as well. They are, in fact, experiencing all of the same dimensions as a 4th dimensioner would, but they are only capable of expanse in two of them. Are there other dimensions out there that we are already experiencing one point at a time, but cannot perceive without the continuum? We don't know what we don't know. Dogs don't know that color exists, even though they mingle with those of us who can see it. Do we walk among bees that span centuries? Spiders that span gravitational leaks? Cockroaches must exist in at least six dimensions, right? And if there's truth to any of this, what is the Möbius Strip of higher dimensions? I'd love to take a walk on that!

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Google Reader will be the Death of Me.

Between the articles that I subscribe to on Google Reader and the articles that my friends share, I'm processing over 150 headlines a day and full-on reading many of them. There's so much information flying around me every day, that I don't know how I have any room in my brain for what I'm learning in school! Lately, the math articles have been keeping me particularly occupied. Graphs, fractals, how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop(TM)...all are problems that I get sucked into and can't seem to pull myself away from for the sake of dishes or laundry.

Recently, I've been thinking mathematically about "Less is More." The thought that you could take away something and actually have more. I guess that it makes sense in a natural way...if you deadhead your flower bushes, you end up with more blossoms later. If you trim your hair regularly, you end up with longer stronger hair eventually. But how do you get that numerically? I've been mulling it over for about twenty minutes now and this is what I've come up with.

-6 < -4

Okay, the above statement is easy to see. Negative six *is* less than negative four. So, if you have negative four, negative six times...

-4 * -6 = 24

And 24 is absolutely *more* than negative four. Here's what bothers me about that. First, in our initial step, we're relying on the premise that less is less. We can't start with one condition and then end with the opposite...that's proof by contradiction.

Now, let's look again at

-6 < -4

Could this statement be false to begin with? Well, mathematically, no...or else the world would turn on it's ear, Pythagoras would roll over in his grave and Radiohead may actually deserve some academic respect. But figuratively, one could look at this in such a manner. For example, If I owed my son four cookies and you owed him six, you would actually owe him MORE than I do. Taking away less actually leaves you with more and that's kind of a nice lesson in and of itself.

What *is* mathematically possible, however, is that less of one thing could mean more of another. Less blue marbles in a jar means there is space for more red marbles. So, when someone looks at your choice in accessories and tells you "Less is more, hon." You can just look at them and say, "It all depends on your perspective."

So. Emotions...what are those about, eh?

Emotions are crazy things, aren't they? Ups. Downs. Emotions we're extremely familiar with...ones that we don't recognize. What are we supposed to do with them?

Our bodies are genetically programed to respond to our emotions in order to keep us safe. A twinge of fear can cause a rush of adrenaline which allows us to do things that we may not be able to do under normal circumstances (run faster, lift heavier things) and some people believe that it goes even deeper than that. Here's an article about a woman who does an experiment with her blood and a microscope.

http://www.emofree.com/Research/Research-other/Emotions-Blood.htm

She finds that her blood really does look different as she induces strong emotions with a sort of sentimental meditation. What is even more interesting, is that the blood continues to shape-shift according to emotions once it's outside of the body. I wonder, along those lines, if other people's blood could actually shift according to another's strong feelings. I would assume more research is needed in this budding field. Actually, I think it's mostly crap, but it's pretty entertaining.

With all of that in mind, I want to know what the repercussions are of trying to artificially control our emotions. I, myself, enjoy feeling my full range of emotions. While I'm not one that people would describe as "stoic," my highs and lows fall in what I consider to be a very normal range. As badly as I hurt when I'm at the bottom of a down, I would much rather feel that than numb away any other part of the roller coaster. I acknowledge that it's my own personal preference for the dichotomy of living (I'd rather be sad than apathetic, have a bad day than a boring day, have a nightmare than no dream at all) which drives my decisions to ride out the hard times. Others may not share those preferences and they may experience swings of emotion that are far more wild than mine. So what is the consequence for the body when you admonish the natural feelings? Does it help you stay physically healthier to shave the stress and sadness in your life or could it possibly stop you from learning lessons that could keep you from getting hurt in the future? A caveman on Xanax, for example, may not flee the sabertooth tiger.

So this may be starting to sound like I'm against covering up our emotions, because I believe that we need to feel them in order to learn something. Maybe. The truth is, though, that I think it's very important to learn to control our emotions. I just happen to personally prefer controlling them on my own. When I was younger, I was very dramatic. I know, you're SHOCKED, aren't you? A woman with creative flair, purple hair and savoir-faire...whoda thunk? As a teenager, I would cry at the drop of a hat. It took almost nothing to shake me to my core. Life has a funny way of slapping us out of that. For me, it was a sadistic boss when I lived in Seattle.

In my early twenties, I had a boss that loved to make the women cry. It was a game for him and I swear he tried to improve his time each round. Whenever he would call one of us in to the office, the others would all feel so bad for her and some kind of group lunch was sure to follow. I'll relate one such instance of my own.

I am a good employee. I'm good at what I do and I hate to let anyone down. The first time Mr. Bossman (obviously a fake name, but hey, no one really cares who he is) called me in to his office, I thought it was just a routine check-in. He sat me at his desk and started to ask me questions about my personal life. He watched my face and when he would touch on something that was obviously sore for me, he would pry a little further. Being the innocent and emotional girl that I was, I didn't suspect his motivations. He asked me about my failures, about my family and about my future. He told me that if I didn't become more firm with my coworkers I wouldn't succeed in the company. He then started talking about what I would be like as a mom. Even though I didn't have kids at the time, motherhood was one of the most precious goals in the world to me. I wanted to emulate my own fabulous mother and having him tell me his opinion on how my kids would turn out was torturous. I started to mist-up and he belittled me. He told me to wipe off the doe-eyed sadness and get out of his office. But I had given him the fuel he needed for the future. From then on, whenever he wanted or needed something from me, all he had to do was call me in his office and focus on the weak spot. Working there was horrible, but it taught me to keep closer control of my emotions, because you never know how someone will use them against you.

Nothing highlights that concept more than a divorce. By the time I was done with my marriage, I was pretty sure that I was done with loose emotions too. Those renegade butterflies that take over your insides are only good for giving others weaknesses to exploit. For that reason (and a couple of others) I chose to limit my dating habits to one night only. For a while after my divorce, I had rules and guidelines and so many other crutches that I was positive that I would never let another ninja butterfly attack me. That is, until Patrick came along.

After my very first date with Patrick, I started to question all of the safeguards that I had put in place for myself. I kind of wanted a second date. I wanted to feel the tingles and I wanted to let him in. I just didn't want to tell *him* that. In fact, the one thing I still hold on to is the fear that sharing the true depth of my feelings will just provide ammunition for something unforeseen in the future. I'm convinced that without my former boss, Andre, I would still be hiding my love. Hearing the way I talked about "Colorado Guy," Andre would ask me why I don't just put myself out there. For conversation after conversation, I tried to convince him that if I could just control my emotions, it would be best for everyone. And each time, he worked a little harder to try to make me see that if I didn't open myself up to acknowledging what I was feeling, it would eat me up and wouldn't have a chance at finding the love that I deserve.

In a Hollywood production, those conversations would have been all that I needed. But really, it took all of those talks, visiting Patrick in Colorado, seeing him with the boys, then talking to my cousin who asked, "And how would you feel if he started seeing someone else tomorrow?" before I realized that whether my emotions are on display or not, I am equally vulnerable. What is worse is that if I didn't share what I was feeling, the possibility of getting hurt was even higher.

Alright. Now that I've showcased my talent for making a long story longer, let's get back to drugs. I want to know what you all think. Is there any difference between stifling your emotions with self-suppression vs. medication? Do you personally prefer one method over another? To what extent should one try to control their own emotional state? What good comes from feeling, besides feeling good? Please comment.

Social Media - Y U B H8n?

You Tube, Twitter, Wave...so many new online applications have been developed to help turn a scattered world into a cohesive population. But how are we to expect our peers to take full advantage of these when there is still such a rebellion against email in favor of snail mail and cell phones for land-lines?

We've all heard it.

"I got along just fine before cell phones were invented." or,

"If someone wants to reach me they can wait until I get home."

Well, that's fine if life as status quo is your preference. If you think your biggest risk is not being reachable in case of an emergency and you're okay with that, then you can disregard the rest of this blog. What these people don't get, the things they're missing out on are all of the millions of ways that the entire world is being offered to us, literally in the palm of our hand. There are many people who are put-off by the intensity of this information stream. I recently read an article by Peter John Lindberg in Travel and Leisure magazine, called "How Social Media is Changing Travel." It was very entertaining, I suggest you give it a look. In that article, Lindberg talks about the way technology is altering our vacations, saying (among other things) that it's robbing us of our serendipitous mistakes and spontaneity. I can see what he's trying to say, but think about all of the things that we're gaining. I, for one, missed my carefree and spontaneous years. I didn't travel at all during that time. Now, I'm a single mother of two young boys and I can't afford to be careless with my life or even with my time.

Take a look, for example, at the road trip I took with my boys (then 4 & 5) last summer. I would have been OUT OF MY MIND to attempt such a thing alone without the confidence of a constant connection. What if I had broken down on a deserted road? What if there were an emergency back home? What if Jack had an allergic reaction in the Painted Desert? That experience, the one that caused my boys to take interest in geography and helped us bond as a renegade group of explorers, would never have happened without my extra layer of protection in the form of an LG Versa.

Imagine if I had not had that phone. What would we have done when the van was overrun by ants and we needed to find a garden store that carried child-safe pesticide? Drive around LA for hours looking for a Home Depot while the ants climbed our legs? I don't think so! We looked it up on the phone and had Verizon's GPS take us right there. Problem fixed. Vacation saved.

What about my trip to China, in October '08? I was able to blog my experiences so that I didn't have to call multiple people (at $1.99/minute) to relay the same story over and over. I was also able to take advantage of Skype to see my children who I was over 5,000 miles away from for longer than I had ever been away from them before. Would I have gone on that trip if I didn't think I could be contacted in an instant if there was a problem with my babies? No way.

I use Dropbox to synchronize folders between home, work and school. I use Picasa to share photos of the boys with their grandparents. Google Calendar helps me keep several itineraries straight so I can share appointments with my mother and boyfriend. I watch TV on Hulu to save the $29.99 for cable and get my movies instantly online with Netflix. I keep up with friends via Facebook, sharing and learning things that I would have otherwise been unable to share due to lack of time. I tweet on Twitter (Twitter is a noun, not a verb) and...I blog.

Long story made a little shorter? The only reason I've been able to succeed on this chaotic, exciting path to improvement all by myself is because I'm never alone. Now, I challenge you to choose one application/technology that you've been avoiding and embrace it for a week. Then, let me know what you did and how it treated you!