Some cool posts around the web -
11 Most Important Philosophical Quotations
Throw a lifeline to your future
Archive for February, 2007
Websurfing – Results
23
Feb
Video Games are Not Always Bad for You
23
Feb
John August had a GREAT post on his site that hit home for me on a multitude of levels, Seven Things I Learned from World of Warcraft.
I’ll repeat his bullet points here, but you should go to his post for his detailed expansion of them. Well worth your time if you are into gaming, achieveing your personal goals, or getting more organized.
- Kill injured monsters first
When facing multiple bad guys, the temptation is to go after the one who’s hitting you hardest. This is often a mistake. That injured razorback, the one who is running away? He’ll be back in 15 seconds, likely with other baddies in tow. So take a few clicks to kill him now. Once he’s dead, you can focus completely on the guy who’s smacking you. - Grinding is part of the game
In WoW parlance, grinding? is the process of killing a bunch of fairly easy monsters, one after the other, strictly to rack up loot and experience. There’s no adventure to it, no real challenge. It’s tedious and mindless, but it’s often the fastest way to level up, which is why everyone does it. - But grinding is not the game
It’s easy to confuse what you’re doing with why you’re doing it. Just remember: you’re not paying $15 a month to kill the same set of spawning critters. Grinding is a means of achieving a specific goal, whereas the game itself is supposed to be entertaining. So once you level (or get enough deer skins to fabricate that armor), stop grinding and start exploring. - Give away stuff to newbies
You start the game with almost nothing: a weapon and the shirt on your back. Each new piece of gear you accumulate is tremendously exciting. Cloth armor seems luxurious. But as you level up, that early gear becomes increasingly irrelevant and basically worthless. It’s not worth the trip to the store to sell it. So don’t. Instead, run back to the newbie lands, find the first character of your class, and hand him all the stuff you don’t want. It will take two minutes of your time, but give the newbie a tremendous head start. (Not to mention building your karma.) - Keep track of your quests
WoW is refreshingly open-ended you could spend all your time skinning bears, if you felt like it. In order to provide a sense of structure, the game helpfully provides quests: multi-step missions, generally to collect, kill or deliver something. While the system does a solid job tracking these official endeavors (?13 out of 25 tusks?), most of the time what you’re really trying to do (?find a better shield?) is frustratingly amorphous. The trick is to identify these unofficial quests and break them down into distinct steps:- browse the auctions to compare prices
- pick preferred shield
- sell off unneeded linen to raise needed cash
- bid
At any given point, you may have 10 of these pseudo-quests, and unless you take charge of them, you’re liable keep running around, cursing your stupid shield.
- Storage is costly
Perhaps sensing that messy teenage boys are a key demographic, World of Warcraft won’t let you leave something on the ground. If you don’t pick up that fallen warhammer, it will vanish, never to return. So one quickly learns the importance of storage: belts, bags, backpacks and chests. Unfortunately, there’s never nearly enough space, and adding more becomes ridiculously expensive. (That’s by design, clearly. The developers want to minimize hoarding.) So always keep in mind the carrying costs. If you never use that second bow, get rid of it, and use those slots for something you need. - Overthinking takes the fun out of it
Remember, the game is supposed to be fun. Yes, you can spend hours pouring through the forums, finding exactly the right talent tree. Or you could wing it: explore some new lands and kill some big monsters. Obsessive planning won’t make the game more enjoyable. It will just make it more like work.
LIMITATIONS – Chosen vs. Given
23
Feb
I’d like to consider the nature of limitations. One thing I find useful is to make a distinction between the limitations we are given and the ones we choose. In my life, much confusion and suffering has been caused by not understanding the distinction. Limitations that are given are the ones that nature has hard-wired us with. I have two hands, no more. I cannot pet a cat while holding onto the edge of a cliff and sip a cappuccino in a cup I hold. It is impossible. It is one of my given limitations, and to spend time begrudging it would be a fool’s errand. As an example of a chosen limitation I present the behavior that I do not mug people on the weekends to make ends meet. This is a soft-wired limitation, an ethical choice. Mugging random stranger goes against my grain in a strong fashion. However, despite the fact that I might use phrases like, “I would never do that!”, there is nothing inherently stopping me. Physically, it is perfectly possible for me to go out and make a little extra cash by bludgeoning some hapless passerby and making off with their wallet.
The two examples above are extreme, and obvious. It is when the distinction becomes harder to make that things get interesting. Am I an extrovert, or an introvert? Are the limiters on my social behavior chosen or given? Cries of, “I would never do that!”, make the implication that social limiters are given, but is that really true? Your body moves as you will it, you speak the words that you decide to speak. There is nothing in reality stopping me from doing whatever I choose. My social limits are chosen. Sometimes that choice is made without consideration, I simply behave how I was taught is right. But, as the bard says, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” Once I have opened my eyes to the fact that my social behavior limits are up to me, I can begin to question my way through life and disassemble the presumptions I have lived on. I may well end up choosing the exact same limits, but they will now be consciously mine, and therefore more authentic.
The four levels of Martial Art
23
Feb
There is an old theory of the levels of the development of martial art skill in the Japanese martial arts. My specific understanding of it comes mostly through the filter of O’Sensei, founder of Aikido, who spoke on the theory. Basically the theory posits four levels of martial art mastery -
- You attack me, I die – When the attack comes I collapse, and suffer the consequence of not putting up an effective defense.
- You attack me, we both die – When the attack comes I respond in kind, and at the same level. Both the attacker, and myself, end up injured or dead.
- You attack me, you die – When the attack comes I respond with superior skill and keep myself safe while defeating the situation by defeating the attacker; either injuring or killing them.
- You attack me, we both live – When the attack comes I respond with superior skill and dissipate the attack. Both myself, and my attacker, are kept safe and unharmed.
There is a fifth level which O’Sensei described, and was capable of. The attack is considered, and rejected before it commences. The target already displays such composure and skill that the would-be attacker either never has the idea of attacking, or realizes the futility before the attack is initiated. This is the practice of having no openings, and being constantly in a state of alert repose as described by the martial concept of zanshin.
In the above levels there is obviously a lot of wiggle room, and subjectivity. For one thing, levels three and four assume I am more skilled than my attacker. This depends on the skill level of the attacker. But, despite the subjectivity these levels are very useful tools for considering the goals of our training, and where we are in the achieving of these goals.
The levels are linear and represent a progression. One of the mistakes I see some martial artist making, particularly in Aikido (the art I love), is the belief that one can insert into a chosen level of development without first passing through the proceeding levels. I do not believe this is possible. In my experience all levels must be honored, and passed through. We must first pass though level one, if only in realizing the truth of our fear of physical harm, before even stepping into the dojo. And once there we may need to stay with level one for some time. We may have lofty goals of level four, learning to eliminate conflict without either party being harmed. I salute this goal, and share it. But, we cannot get there immediately. We must spend some time in the other levels along the way. Fortunately we have, if we have chosen our school well, a supporting environment where our fellows on the path will lend us the use of their bodies and energy to practice with. We will, in turn, reciprocate. There will be pain in training, bumps and bruises along the way, but in the end we will smile and sweat with each other. We will achieve.
I have found, for me, that no matter what level I have gotten to it is immensely useful to return to the previous levels routinely to make sure the taste of them is still fresh. I also find that respecting, and celebrating, the ability to be at all the levels I can is necessary for my training and any progression the gods of the martial arts may see fit to allow. When I train, I train hard, and expect my partners to train hard with me as well. This does not always mean executing the attacks in a forceful manner, but it sometimes does. I have also found that it is very important for me to not assume that the person I am currently working with is working on the same level, or nuance of the training.
Just like any other goal in life – It is a good idea to have a handle on where you are in the progression toward that goal and beyond.
We are water
21
Feb
Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.
I have always loved this quote, and its sentiment. I am a big fan of Bruce Lee, as a martial artist. As a man, he, like all of us, could have used some work. But, as a martial artist he was among the top of the game.
I was thinking about this quote the other day and realized it no longer quite works for me. We are all impermanent. We do not last. Even from moment to moment we are ever changing and in flux. Our thoughts race, our opinions morph. We are constantly taking in new information and adding it to the collection of data that informs our conscious processes. Our bodies are no more permanent, constantly in a state of growth and decay, hurt and healing, taking in of fuel and expelling of waste products. Our cells die, and mostly are replaced. The me writing this post is nearly 100% new material from the one that was just coming out of the newlywed stage four years ago. Down to a molecular level the coherent stack of biomass I call a body is in constant motion and change. Nothing that I feel that I am, will remain for very long. And, along side a mountain I will be for barely a twitch.
The struggle, for me, is not to be like water, but to accept that ‘water’ is all that I am. I am simply a form-set, or frame, for the current pile of biomass and thought-forms sitting at my desk, and that form-set is in constant flux. The body I once had was twice as large as the one I have now, by weight, and then some.
I am change, and I am changing. And, in that I feel such a tremendous power of potential that I cannot help but be awed. My thinking too often limits that great torrent of power to a small and petty shadow of what it could be. I need to learn to step out of the way, and let the great flood through, and be marveled at what it does, knowing full well that the actor in that mighty play is not me, but ME.
So, for me, the quote now is
You are water. That is all. Get over it.
