logging this for later parsing. setting as well a reminder for tonight’s blog entry. keys – language. pleonasm. communication. intention and assumption. alienation. societal expectation and related etiquettes.
[09:35] me: it is unusual for me to be distracted from work so completely that nothing else is getting done. congrats. heh. but i’m feeling guilty now… so i think i’ll get back to it.
[09:35] me: perhaps we will have chance to chat more later. i look forward to it. (smile)
[09:35] ********: i’d shake your hand, but you’d probably sign me up for some hair-brained scheme
[09:35] ********: chat later then, i’ve got work to o too
[09:36] me: in the meantime, if you have something in particular you’d like me to bump to splice… email me at the address previously provided. 🙂
[09:36] me: i know you do.
[09:36] me: (waves with a grin)
[09:36] ********: byebye
[09:36] me: only if you’re bald.
[09:36] me: which you’re not. heh. bye.
[10:31] ********: you ready for a break yet?
[10:31] me: definitely. heh.
[10:31] me: what’s on your mind?
[10:31] ********: i thought you might be interested in something i put on my blog
[10:31] me: hmm link?
[10:32] ********: it’s about the software i use for my music
[10:32] ********: ******************************************************
[10:32] me: which one?
[10:32] me: ol
[10:32] me: LKOL
[10:32] me: sorry
[10:32] me: laughing too hard to type
[10:32] me: i just bought this. 😉
[10:32] me: like, last night
[10:32] me: you’re confirming many things at once for me. so thank you.
[10:32] me: i love synchronicity
[10:33] ********: bought what? synchronicity?
[10:33] me: well the sound card anyway. i can’t quite afford Reason just yet
[10:33] me: no, there’s no buying synchronicity, believe me.
[10:33] me: but i get enough for free to keep me happy
[10:33] ********: afford? why not use a 100% legitamate er… evaluation copy off the internet like I do?
[10:34] me: hrm
[10:34] me: well there’s this balance..
[10:34] me: i do so much at once that i’m almost afraid to enable this any more than i have
[10:34] me: that may sound odd but
[10:34] me: hrm
[10:34] me: let me put it this way
[10:35] me: i never learned to do anything by half measure. and if i want to maintain a balance in life at all, it means being mindful of my own tendency to leap off cliffs.
[10:35] me: there are very few drawbacks to be passionate but this is definitely one of them. heh.
[10:35] ********: ah… an obsessive? one of those addictive personalities?
[10:35] me: i have long and long dreamt of a full setup.
[10:35] me: no, not obsessive.
[10:35] me: intensity, not compulsion
[10:36] me: focus, not fanaticism.
[10:36] ********: 🙂
[10:36] ********: you don’t drink, right?
[10:36] me: if i can’t do it right, or at least to my own standard of ‘best’, then i do not want to do it at all.
[10:36] me: no, not at all.
[10:36] me: well, ok, water. and coffee.
[10:36] me: heh
[10:37] ********: good idea, probably not compatible with your personality! you’d neer have half a bottle of wine!
[10:37] me: i’ll try anything once, but i’m a firm believer in being honest about my own core competencies and not making life painful trying to be something i’m not. heh.
[10:37] me: i like a good merlot. but i gave it up when i took the precepts.
[10:38] me: not a loss, really.
[10:38] ********: precepts?
[10:38] me: i’m buddhist.
[10:38] ********: good
[10:38] me: i think so. (chuckle)
[10:38] ********: it’s the best of thm all, imho
[10:38] ********: if you’ve got to have one
[10:39] me: i’m also dyslexic, so i suppose i lay awake at night thinking of thoning. or perhaps i’m a dubbist. heh.
[10:39] ********: 😀
[10:39] me: got to? no. more like it has me. hard to explain. it was very odd to live my entire life and build my own belief system thinking it was mine, and then finding something that not only is almost precisely ‘what i created’, but finding out it had been around for 2500 years without a single break in transmission.
[10:40] me: what i believe myself is far from buddhism, but the motivation of the tradition is noble, so i’m willing to bear the label, which for me is rare.
[10:40] me: actually.
[10:40] me: hrm
[10:41] me: i just wrote that up. context is different, but i think you’d enjoy it. a moment. incoming link (soon)
[10:41] me: ***********************************************
[10:41] me: my blog. heh
[10:41] ********: i like that there is no buddhist “god”, that’s the bit that appeals to me
[10:42] me: ah, control issue, rebel against authority, or intellectual commitment to the scientific method? (curious look)
[10:42] ********: dyslexic? that why you spell it like “fenix”?
[10:42] me: hah
[10:42] me: no
[10:42] me: Phoenix is from the Latin Fenix
[10:42] me: Exsultare means leaping/jubilant
[10:42] ********: well, laaaa deeee daaaa!
[10:42] me: actually, yes. (grin) i love language.
[10:43] ********: aaaaggghhhh! your blog has loads of dense text in it! can you put some diagrams in? i’m a man
[10:43] me: get over it. hold your nose and dive in. there’s good stuff there unless you’re adhd
[10:43] me: (grin)
[10:44] me: or not. not like you need to know me. heh.
[10:44] me: but if you want to, it’s all there. good, bad, ugly, and indifferent.
[10:45] ********: i’ll have a look when i have a spare week! (just kidding)
[10:45] ********: my name’s **** btw
[10:45] me: Ah, greetings and well met, ****.
[10:45] ********: or ******** if i’m in trouble
[10:46] ********: that’s my what my mum and wife call me when i leave a mess
[10:46] ********: that’s two different people!
[10:46] ********: *phew!
[10:46] me: I like ********. It just sounds … hrm… refined. elegant. solid. stable. it also would roll better in a whisper. I have always believed that someone’s name says the most when it’s whispered. hard to explain. not sure i should try.
[10:46] me: heh.
[10:46] me: well i figured you weren’t from alabama
[10:47] ********: nah, uk. we’ve all got just the 10 fingers here
[10:47] me: yes, ‘git’ and ‘mum’ told me. 😉
[10:48] ********: i’m not really any of those things that “********” should be, but i can always dream *sigh*
[10:49] me: i suspect you are and either don’t know it or aren’t comfortable with it.
[10:49] me: a moment, someone is here.
[10:51] me: being called away. oh the joys of being needed. heh.
[10:51] me: will return.
[10:51] ********: later then
[10:51] me: i’d be very curious to hear what you think ‘******** should be’
[10:51] me: when i do. (smile) until then, enjoy the day.
[10:59] me: backl
[10:59] me: -l
[10:59] me: heh happy fingers. it is really good to love work again.
[10:59] ********: hello there
[10:59] me: hello there!
[10:59] ********: is that because of the work or chatting to me?
[11:00] me: both in this moment, but i was speaking of work, yes. (smile)
[11:00] ********: what you working on?
[11:01] me: now that is a tale. heh. i’m actually pulled in house for a time to get some documentation in order. as is often the case, i turn out to be the best at translating from geek speak to user speak. which means i wind up doing things like training courseware and manuals. which i don’t mind, because i like the idea of someone actually being able to do something they couldn’t before… because of my efforts. (i suppose that’s my ego showing… heh.)
[11:02] me: the paradoxical nature of complex simplicity interests me. actually, the nature of how all simple things are not, and all complex things are not is what interests me. i believe paradox is the purest and most telling indicator of truth in existence.
[11:03] me: and it makes me chuckle how locked up humans get around it… because it is completely self inflicted.
[11:04] ********: i think i understand. i’m forever telling colleagues that simple is hard to do and complex is easy. especially when it comes to solution development (software and process)
[11:04] ********: the think same is true for life in general?
[11:04] me: i do a lot of work with process. and the thing that floors me every time is that people do not really know they are pattern and process recognition machines.
[11:05] me: awareness is lacking. be it by genetics, choice, or ignorance.
[11:05] me: the beautiful thing is, once the neuron fires, it never shuts off. (grin)
[11:05] me: i have had people write me years after the fact to both thank and curse me. hah. which i love.
[11:05] me: of course, i’ve done the same to those who gave me insight. 😉
[11:06] me: it’s all connected.
[11:06] ********: this might amuse you, i’m in the middle of implementing a little resource assignment tool i wrote, the PM is planning to roll it out without a process to go with it. she can’t understand my problem with that
[11:06] me: lol
[11:06] me: ask her what she does when she wakes up in the morning.
[11:06] me: actually…
[11:06] me: when she answers with something other than ‘open her eyes’, ask her again
[11:07] ********: 🙂
[11:07] me: until she either gets to that answer or gives up
[11:07] ********: i usually get out of bed before i open my eyes
[11:07] me: then tell her that’s the reason why process is important. the assumption of knowledge is a dangerous thing and it responsible for more loss, error, and rework than anything else.
[11:07] me: perhaps. the point remains the point. 😉
[11:07] ********: indeed
[11:08] ********: favourite word?
[11:08] me: hmm thinking.
[11:08] me: toss up between interdependence and indigo. no. wait. wrong. suadade.
[11:08] me: definitely suadade
[11:09] ********: excellent, i would have been disappointed if i didn’t have to look it up…
[11:09] me: lol
[11:09] ********: standby…
[11:09] me: pronounced saw-dodge, it is portuguese.
[11:09] me: and if you find an actual definition, let me know. heh.
[11:09] me: because its entire beauty
[11:09] me: rests in that it has no real translation
[11:09] me: (grin)
[11:10] ********: did you mean Saudade?
[11:10] me: the closest you’ll ever really get is ‘the whisper of joy underlying every sadness, the whisper of sadness beneath every delight’.
[11:10] me: and yes, damn dyslexia to everlasting blackest fucking hell
[11:10] ********: oh… well… EVERYONE knows THAT word 😉
[11:10] me: sigh
[11:11] ********: the wikipedia entry is good
[11:11] me: it gets close, yes
[11:11] me: but that’s just it
[11:11] me: all words get close
[11:11] me: none actually touch
[11:11] me: even as they all touch. if you know what i mean.
[11:11] me: or have the power to…
[11:11] me: the finger pointing at the moon. heh. is not the moon.
[11:12] me: words are not things. but they point at things.
[11:12] me: even as they are things. but not things that exist outside the mind.
[11:12] me: heh
[11:12] me: circles in circles. dig it?
[11:12] me: memes
[11:12] me: muahahah
[11:12] ********: very existential of you
[11:12] me: not at all
[11:12] me: buddhist, really
[11:13] me: ultimate reality and the reality we know.
[11:13] me: gross and sublime
[11:13] ********: hmmm, ultimate reality, think there is one?
[11:13] me: zazen. 🙂
[11:13] me: yes. but i also think we are incapable of more than conceptualizing it, and very likely that is something only possible in the last oh… three thousand years.
[11:13] me: pure hypothesis, of course
[11:14] me: but in the end, it all is… which is kind of ironic. 😉
[11:14] me: how do you know what you know? you believe that you know it.
[11:14] ********: i consider absolute reality is the preseve of creatures without higher brain functions, that exist only in the now
[11:14] me: the whole point of certainty is not the same as certainty, but it’s as close as we’re getting right now thing…
[11:15] me: ooh
[11:15] me: no you didn’t!
[11:15] me: lol
[11:15] me: does the past exist?
[11:15] me: does the future exist?
[11:15] me: can you know either more than in your head right here, now?
[11:16] ********: know? it’s al about frame of reference, surely?
[11:16] me: epistemology
[11:16] ********: lol, i prefer metaphysics
[11:17] ********: are you a scientist ******?
[11:17] me: should i be, ********?
[11:17] ********: lol!
[11:17] me: (grin)
[11:17] ********: was i in therapy?
[11:18] me: aren’t we all?
[11:18] ********: can you stop answering questions with questions?
[11:18] me: hmm. i don’t know. can i? (thoughtful look)
[11:18] me: (grin)
[11:18] me: sorry.
[11:19] me: feeling giddy happy dancing in the meadow delighted to meet a new mind and be exploring it.
[11:19] me: thank you for that. 🙂
[11:19] ********: my favourite word?
[11:19] me: what is it?
[11:19] me: heh
[11:19] ********: pleonasm
[11:19] me: lol
[11:19] ********: especially relevant to you i feel
[11:20] ********: that’s why i raised the question in 1st place
[11:20] me: more than necessary, eh?
[11:21] ********: er… concise is NOT a word i’d use to desribe your commentaries
[11:22] me: i feel like the girl in chitty-chitty-bang-bang when they’re floating on the ceiling and can’t get down, and the uncle tells her to think of a sad thought to manage it. so she did. and it worked. and she bumped her tookus on the ground. =/
[11:22] ********: my second favourite word is demagogue, and i’m glad you don’t appear to be one
[11:22] me: what else would someone who loves words be other than wordy?
[11:22] me: sorry. feeling a bit of a sting. synchronicity is kind noce more and i’m called away. will return.
[11:22] me: /brb
[11:27] me: back. and thank you.
[11:27] ********: “feeling a bit of a sting”, what do you mean?
[11:28] me: heh. no way to tell you without being verbose. but the reason i’m thanking you is that you’ve sparked tonight’s blog entry. which i cannot write in this moment, but is already spooling in the back of my head.
[11:29] ********: i didn’t mean to be mean, know what i mean?
[11:30] me: i’m touchy about words. actually, about my love of them and how it often winds up being a curse. and how i adore that there are 30 words for blue, and why i love those 30 words and get a feeling akin to despair every time i hear someone say to me that blue is enough. or should be. for many reasons. including ego, i suppose.
[11:30] me: i do know
[11:31] me: and take no offense. just makes me sigh.
[11:31] me: i can be succinct. but it feels like trying to push a watermelon through a sieve.
[11:31] ********: i like that analogy
[11:31] me: it works.
[11:32] me: i wonder if there is a word for using too much color. or in music, a word for too many notes? you know?
[11:32] me: other than ‘trash’ rather than ‘art’ or ‘noise’ rather than ‘symphony’.
[11:32] ********: i like words too, there’s no excuse for being lazy, but sometimes it’s complex to keep things simple
[11:32] ********: right?
[11:32] ********: cacophony?
[11:34] me: i have a hard time reconciling simple with anything other than lazy in communication. mostly thanks to the advent of text speak, leet-ism, etc. i don’t know… i think the world is choosing overall to settle for the lowest common denominator mentality. expedience at the expense of expression. i can count on one hand (with the thumb down) the number of people i know who can write a damn letter.
[11:36] ********: but isn’t it like the training material you’re working on? where it’s a challenge to translate high-concepts into simple ones?
[11:36] me: no.
[11:36] ********: sorry… i’m baiting you. must… be… constructive…
[11:36] me: because when i’m writing documentation, there’s only the process. but when i’m talking to a human, i’m trying to convey more. trying to connect. wanting to know they feel it, experience it. know it as more than mere words.
[11:37] me: must you? not really. i suppose it depends upon interest and intent. (grin)
[11:37] me: but i appreciate that constructive implies good.
[11:37] ********: i agree with your lowest common denominator point, but i’m often accused of being a grammar fascist
[11:38] me: sounds like the accuser has an issue. it isn’t your issue.
[11:38] me: unless you accept it.
[11:38] ********: i usually retort with, well at least i can spell grammer!
[11:38] me: lol
[11:39] me: do you know how rare it is to meet someone like this… who is both willing and able to just… dive… swim… be? i’m enjoying it. you. thank you again.
[11:40] ********: there’s no need to thank me. is this level of gratitude a buddhist or a ****** thing? or are they the same?
[11:40] me: the same.
[11:40] me: nothing wrong with appreciating people, most never bother.
[11:41] me: though i realize it often seems odd, but that’s usually just due to the overall lacking.
[11:41] ********: true.
[11:41] me: isn’t that sad? i think so. when i think on it.
[11:41] me: so easy to appreciate. and yet…
[11:42] ********: it’s unecessary with me though, i see gratitude as a form of payment, a currency, but i’m getting something out of this too, otherwise i wouldn’t be doing it, does that make me machiavellian?
[11:42] me: it is never unnecessary. that’s kind of the point. the complete overthrough of the idea that appreciation could ever possibly be unnecessary.
[11:42] ********: i only thank people if they’ve done me a favour, otherwise i pay them
[11:43] me: precisely.
[11:43] me: it has been made into a currency. but it is not one.
[11:43] me: honor of that difference is the motivation for appreciation just because.
[11:44] ********: ah, subtle difference there, between gratitude and appreciation
[11:44] me: gratitude implies debt. yes.
[11:44] ********: need words to show appreciation, thanks doesn’t cut it
[11:45] me: indeed.
[11:45] me: (smile)
[11:45] me: good thing i have a few. (grin)
[11:45] ********: ah! we normally use non-verbals to show appreciation, that’s why we don’t have s many words
[11:45] me: actually
[11:45] me: once upon a time
[11:46] me: words went with actions. and you needed both to demonstrate sincerity.
[11:46] me: the schism runs deep. doesn’t it?
[11:46] ********: hey! that’s scope-creep, stick with appreciation
[11:46] me: hah
[11:46] me: but it’s all connected.
[11:47] ********: lol, i wouldn’t expect a comment like that from a buddhist (!)
[11:47] me: how do you know appreciation is sincere? (grin)
[11:47] ********: i don’t, i assume it’s not
[11:47] me: you wouldn’t expect a buddhism to say all things are connected? (puzzled look)
[11:48] me: ah
[11:48] me: you choose to think it isn’t rather than it is because….?
[11:48] ********: the (!) denotes sarcasm
[11:48] me: ah. got it.
[11:48] me: assimilating your syntax! Muahahahah! (grin)
[11:49] ********: i normally use an interrobang
[11:49] me: hrm?
[11:49] ********: ?!
[11:49] ********: as one char
[11:49] me: ah
[11:49] ********: as in “you did what?!”
[11:49] me: looping back… curious… you choose to think appreciation is insincere rather than sincere… why?
[11:51] ********: i see it as a form of flattery, as a means of manipulation
[11:51] me: oh my
[11:51] me: no wonder.
[11:51] me: got it. thank you.
[11:51] ********: doesn’t mean i don’t like it!
[11:51] me: heh of course not
[11:51] me: but that means…
[11:52] me: every word of appreciation lands with pain, even as it feels good to the ego. one more chit in the bucket of affirmation toward the idea of it being other than genuine. that has to put quite a callous upon the mind over time. =/
[11:53] ********: i’m not narcissistic enough to over-indulge in it, it’s like eating chocolate
[11:53] ********: pain might be over-stating it
[11:54] me: are you speaking of the enjoyment, or the chit in the bucket?
[11:54] ********: they’re the same thing, it starts nice, then you get full
[11:54] me: hm. can one be full of appreciation?
[11:54] ********: over-appreciated?
[11:55] ********: anyways, i got to go pick my wife up, duty calls!
[11:55] me: enjoy
[11:55] ********: nice chatting, we must do it again soon
[11:55] me: look forward to it. be well.
[11:55] ********: see, i appreciate you!
[11:55] me: yes, thank you.
[11:55] me: and i you.
[11:55] ********: lol, byebye
[11:55] me: bye
[11:55] *** “********” signed off