Welcome to the Sea of Echoes

So I just finished another three hour session putting Tycho to bed.  I’d say that these are rare and that a more typical time is 45minutes to an hour, but sometimes when I try to shorten it things spiral out of control.

The doctor says that he should be able to fall asleep on his own without us lying down with him, but we’ve simply never trained him to do that, so he gets quite anxious trying to sleep alone.  He can be really really tired, but when I try to leave, he just starts getting upset that I’m not doing my job and taking care of him.

Here’s where the crucial decision in parenting style comes in.  I think the popular child-rearing strategy these days is to be a little tough, and use the crib or other techniques to just draw an absolute line, and then let the baby adapt.  I have no doubt that after a few days or weeks of something pretty strict that Tycho would adapt.

But here’s the rub.  Up until now, I think Tycho has been a remarkable open and well adjusted little boy, mostly because I think he knows he has so much love and people are always watching out for him.  My fear is that part of Tycho’s adaptation to a solitary bed-time would be to pull away a little, and maybe to view the world as a slightly more cold and lonely place.

So tonight I experimented with a strategy to gradually make him more comfortable being on his own, which almost worked, though it does take a lot of patience.

Keep in mind that there are many outcomes I’m looking for in this process:

• I want him to feel safe and cared for going to bed.
• I want him to know that he can depend on us when he needs us.
• I want him to be able to relax and get to sleep in 10-15 minutes, assuming we put him to bed at a reasonable time.

Related to my last post on emotional journeys I wanted to write a beat by beat analysis of some show and record the emotions displayed.  I chose episode 3 of Glee as my subject.

The highly incomplete list of beats is below.  A few important points stand out:

Tempo is Fast

Feelings change every 1-5 second.  During most of the dramatic scenes the feeling being expressed changes quicky.  A scene might last 45 seconds or so, a line might last 5 seconds, so that’s ten lines per scene.  Many scenes have sub-second camera cuts showing reactions or hinting at future conflicts.

Modern writers rarely seem to dwell on the same emotion so after a feeling is expressed or stated they quickly move to another one.  This keeps the show moving quickly.

Transitional devices.  There are a few transitional devices in the writing of the episode that are worth mentioning.

Feeling vs feeling

The camera or dialogue cuts between two characters expressing conflicting feelings.  This could be fairly static or have some kind of build

Forced transition

A common comic device is to present a feeling of discomfort (like getting the door slammed in your face) followed by something upbeat (like a dance number).  This transitional device makes light of the suffering or unfortunate circumstances (getting thumbs cut off, being taken to the emergency room) and lifts the mood - sort of like the story shrugging its shoulders and moving on.  In some cases these emotional shifts are accompanied by actual sighs or musical cues to denote that a situation is comic.

Musical numbers

These typically stick with the deeper development of a single feeling. “Bust the windows out your car”.  Instead of the microfeelings of a single camera cut, the music and pull us deeper and deeper into feelings.  Because most musical numbers have single point of view it is hard to accomplish the rapid alternation of conflicting or independent feelings that can be experienced in theater.  This raises an interesting idea of a duet of feeling vs feeling.

Primary arc of feelings:

• Excitement -> nervousness/tension (pregnancy subplot)
• Resignation -> Tension -> Frustrated/Concealed Desire (romance subplot)
• Confusion -> anger vs confusion (qb+subplot)
• Challenge -> Challenge -> Success (acafellas subplot)
• Challenge -> Challenge -> Overcoming -> Success (choreographer subplot)
• Frustration -> Comfort -> Disappointment -> Reconcilliation (gayvention subplot)
• Fear -> fear revealed -> comfort -> fear restated (gay subplot)
• Disappointment -> frustration -> fear -> decision -> overcoming (law school)
• … and more …

Beats from episode 3

• excitement - i cant hold it in anymore
• terry’s pregnant - pride, suprise, excitement // worry
• sigh
• toast
• 1:03: I’m really happy for you son
• “i was a mess”
• “that’s my fault, boys learn that from their fathers”
• “i was saving up for … law school”
• “didnt have “
• “guts!”
• 2:12———— dance
• frustrated looks
• “what’s wrong with the choreography?” - shock, nervousness
• “we’re a team now” - venom, cruelty
• nervousness fear
• “did you ever perform Mr schuster?”
• <new problem>
• 3:41 ————
• “oh no, theres none at all”
• “it’s great its wonderful”
• 4:26 ————- break room
• comic relief / disgust - “cutting off his thumbs”
• nervousness, discomfort, awkwardness
• “my life is a disaster”
• “i dont have thumbs” - misery
• “for he’s a jolly good fellow”
• “it’s creepy” <sigh> -> “this is how we do it”
• “testotertones”/acafellas
• 7:56 ——-bedroom——-
• “i hope so”
• “it was like she was trying to make a twin” - happiness
• <nervousness, fear vs. excitement>
• <sex>
• 8:21 ——-cookies——–
• “i just dont have time for all of it anymore”
• “all those in favor of hiring dakota stanley?” - confrontation
• 10:00——-hallway
• “glee is my one shot” -
• “i’ve moved on and I’m focused on my career”
• “you have feelings for me and you just dont have the guts to admit it” (realization)
• “yes” - confrontation
• 11:18———
• “i will not be satisfied…” - pride, gloating, evil
• “go after these glee clubbers one by one” - anger
• “i need a fog machine” - greed, gloating
• 12:12 ——-locker
• “have you ever kissed anybody”  - longing
• “but I want to” - frustration
• “we are superior to all of them” - pride
• <holding hands> - closeness
• “i dont think I’m his type”
• 13:28 ——-nightclub that girl is poison
• i felt like i was finally a star
• “yay! ken…” - false pride
• “this is huge”
• “i need their
• “prison food”
• 15:44 ——— break room ————–
• here come the acafellas - pride
• “stop right there william” - conflict
• “who is josh groban”
• “no sandy”
• “he’s looking for an opening act”
• 17:38 ——– parking lot ————
• until midnight
• vocal adrenaline
• “dont - hes a monster”
• 19:19 ———- vocal adrenaline - mercy ———-
• get off my stage
• 19:54 ———- parking lot ———————
• <new problem>
• how are we gonna get $8000
• 20:20 ———- practice room ——————-
• “i dont think I can be in the band anymore”
• “howards out”
• “is that what that was”
• “i have some bad news”
• “acafellas pressure is too much pressure for henri”
• “officially doomed now”
• “it was fun while it lasted”
• “i dont think you should give up”
• 22:10 ———–laptop ————————–
• i’m quitting glee too
• i didnt quit glee
• have the guts to stick with it a little bit longer
• trust me - i know
• 23:26 ———– moms ————————–
• i’ve got star potential/a cougar never disappoints/my above ground pool cleaning business went through the roof <pride><sex>
• if you mess this up for me… <anger>
• 24:28 ———— practice —————–
• swing that big old bat
• 26:19 ———— gay vention
• we need to have a gay vention
• you can do better
• what if I cant? nobody notice us <frustration/anger // sadness>
• kurt is sweet to me <hope/connection vs sadness>
• 27:13 ————- car wash —————-
• <sex>
• gratitude vs venom
• make it official
• that we’re dating
• i’m in love with someone else
• rachel?
• <violence> broken glass
• <sex/dancing>
• 30:05 ————-video —————–
• <sex/anger/violence vs anger/shock/surpise/confusion>
• 31:00 ————-menus—————–
• “at walking”
• “frankenteen”
• “you’re freakishly tall”
• “maybe you need someone whos going to lie to you”
• “do i want to be a winner of not”
• “wait” - barbara streisand
• “we’re gonna win because we’re different”
• “you’re fired” - anger
• 33:27  ———- dressing rooms ————–
• <nervous>
• “thanks for beliving in me”
• “josh groban is here” - excitement
• 34:41 — acappella number/tick tock you dont stop—-
• <dancing> <applause> <jealous glances>
• <not standing>
• 35:00 ——– after
• which one of you is sandy
• “this is restraining order” <comic surpise>
• “explosive”
• 37:45 ——— parking lot ————–
• “im sorry”
• “you were really good”
• “josh groban loves an alcoholic”
• “you ok?” “i am” - its enough for me …
• “you inspire people” - pride
• “i’m going to law school” - hope/pride
• 39:45 ———- locker room ————-
• “im sorry/i hope it works out”
• “i’ve never told anyone before”
• “the whole point of the club is to express what is inside you” <hope>
• “i cant… i’m just not that confident” <fear, doubt>
• 41:23 ———- sues office ————–
• “that’s the smell of failure” <anger vs fear>
• “when you really believe in yourself you dont have to bring other people down”
• 42:29 ———- dancing —————-
• “it was really good”

I had a conversation with someone the other day about severely obese people and the perception, right or wrong, that fat people are lazy or undisciplined.

I guess I think that it’s not a cut an dried case of willpower.  But even if it were consider this: is it easier for a person who is 100 pounds overweight to loose five pounds, or for a person who is five pounds overweight to loose five pounds?   After all, if you’re 100 pounds overweight there is a strong possibility that something is wrong with your biochemistry.  If you are only five pounds overweight, you are probably a normal person.  But those of us who are five pounds overweight might think that those last five pounds are the hardest to loose.

Consider this.  A can of soda has about 150 calories in it.  If you burn 2500 calories per day, this will get you by for a little more than an hour.  Say you’re on a diet but you get hungry at a certain point, and the hunger impulse tells you that a can of soda would be the bees knees.  If you say no to that impulse you’ve saved 150 calories.  Do that 23 more times, and you’ll have saved the equivalent of a pound of fat.  To loose five pounds, you’d have to say no to about 100 cans of soda.

Okay, some of you may be thinking, that’s easy because I dont drink that stuff anyway.  Well I unfortunately rely on the stuff to get through the workday, an unfortunate habit that started in all-night coding sessions in grad school when the only food in the lab was a vending machine.  The stuff is great for keeping mental focus, but there are side effects.

Today I asked myself to fast a bit in the afternoon and asked what the sensation of hunger feels like, and I realized something important.  The impulse to eat while working isn’t really hunger at all - at least not the hunger associated with an empty stomach.  I actually noticed that my cravings had at their source a general feeling of irritation and fatigue.   It was a sort of diffuse itchy tingling in my skin and throughout my body, which might have been resolved with a short nap instead of a snack.

Is it possible that the sugar and caffeine actually act as an analgesic?

I reasoned that if I stayed with this feeling of hunger long enough that I might become desensitized to it, but that experiment was interrupted by something else.  Maybe tomorrow I will try fasting some more and see what deeper insight I can get into hunger.

Okay - this is going to sound incredibly dorky, but for some reason I just started thinking about being a boy scout, like a million years ago.

Here is something we had to memorize way back then

“A boy scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent”.

All good values for people to have.  I actually dropped out of scouts after a year or so because I hated all the hazing and peer pressure.  Camping was fun though.  Ah, those were the days.

Sometimes it’s hard to think about the economy because it’s just so damn big.  A billion here, a billion there, who cares?  Real sums of money are measured in trillions.

Think about it - say there are 300 million people in the US.  A trillion dollars is about $10 per person per day.  So lunch in Palo Alto every day for a year for every one in the US.  Got it?  Okay.  Here are some interesting amounts of money:

Measures of production (annual)

• US GDP - $14trillion ($140/person per day)
• US Industrial output - $3 trillion ($30/day)
• US Imports - $2.3 trillion ($23/day)
• US Exports - $1.6 trillion ($16/day)
• Global Oil production - 31bil barrels - $3.1trillion - ($31/day)
• US Oil consumption - $0.9trillion ($9/day)
• US Oil production - $0.3trillion ($3/day)
• US Govt Spending - $2.7 trillion ($27/day)
• US Military Spending - $0.6 trillion ($6/day)

Stores of Value

• US Stock Market Cap - $17 trillion ($56k/person and falling)
• US Govt Debt - $6trillion ($20k/person and rising)
• US Mortgage Debt - $10 trillion ($33k/person)
• US Oil Reserves - 20bil barrels - $2.4trillion ($8k/person)
• Candian Oil Reserves - 170bil barrels - $20 trillion ($66k/person)
• Iranian Oil Reserves - 105bil barrels - $12 trillion ($40k/person)

I’m up again late after too much coffee, but I took the time to pay attention to my body a little more.  It’s strange that it’s taken me so many decades to develop a sense of self awareness.  I hope this ability will keep developing over time.  Someday it might be possible to develop the kind of sophistication in vocabulary for feelings that we have for foods.

For example, lying in bed I felt tired from a long day, but I could feel a kind of buzzing in my veins as though they were actively trying to flush something from my system.  I wonder if caffeine stimulates the body in the same way that a chili pepper arouses the taste buds - the chemicals send your metabolism a signal that it needs to get busy and get rid of the irritant.

Lately I’ve been feeling jumpy and stressed out because work feels like it could become a missed opportunity or at worst a dead-end.  My energy is very scattered and while things are positive, I don’t feel like things are going well.  It’s as if summer is slipping away.

This quarter I had the opportunity to participate in an experimental class called (PAID) (Personal And Interpersonal Dynamics) at the Stanford d.school.  For our final assignment we’ve been asked to write up a few takeaway points summarizing what we learned.

The class covered a lot of territory.  We talked about the Four Agreements, the difference between the analytical and inclusive parts of the brain, Extreme Honesty, the Johari Window.  There were also some very interesting meditation exercises including walking meditation, and meditation on a piece of chocolate.  We experimented with dynamic storytelling, storytelling with legos (*very* interesting where that leads).  All of these experiences are valuable vignettes that I’ll carry forward and hopefully be able to use later in life.

I think probably the most useful thing is that these experiences merely set the stage for areas of deeper exploration.  While I expected that the class would focus mostly on interpersonal dynamics, I was repeatedly suprised to find how the interpersonal depends on the “personal”.  Trying to become more aware of the inner exchange of voices and get some internal clarity and unity must surely be a first step to strong interpersonal relationships.

Here are the key abilities that I’ve noticed:

• the ability to become centered and check in with self
• the ability to be aware of thoughts without being driven by them
• the ability to be comfortable in spite of the discomfort of others
• the ability to simply and honestly say what I want without assuming that it will lead to conflict, and without feeling the fear of anticipated conflict
• the ability to recognize when a motivation or a desire is intrinsic or a result of group pressure or the desire to please

The recurring theme here seems to be knowing the difference between self and other and respecting that difference.

Of all of these, the bubbing surface of thought is perhaps the most interesting area to explore going forward.

I’m working on a project now in journalism and it’s a very interesting study in team dynamics and motivation.  We have a large group of seven really bright people on the team and there are a lot of ideas competing for attention.

Since I pitched the original concept for the team project I kind of got selected as informal project manager.  The management style I’m experimenting with is getting people to come up with their own ideas and run with them.  On two occasions I’ve noticed a tendency for people to try to give other people direction, which results in the ’subordinate’ person feeling trod upon or pissed off.

The theme of escaping mindless drudgery is a popular one in films like the Matrix, but it even works its way into books like ‘The Four Agreements’.  Most of us know what it’s like to be Neo at the beginning of the Matrix - facing a dead-end job which we probably wouldn’t choose but for necessity.

The funny thing is that this system of drudgery is built collectively by all of us.  When we gaze through the clerk at the checkout stand or ignore people passing on the street, we’re being Agent Smith.

Just finished reading the Four Agreements by Manuel Ruiz.  It’s a nice short book.  In case you haven’t read it, the four agreements are:

• Be impeccable with your word
• Never take anything personally.  (I liked this one best.)
• Dont make assumptions
• Always do your best 

The book has a couple big concepts that are worth remembering:

• “The Dream of the Planet” (miyote) is the set of beliefs that everyone has that we learn after birth.  The dream of the planet is described as being a hostile, arbitrary set of rules that we often feel in conflict with.
• Judge/Victim: Inside our selves we carry with us a “Judge” and a “Victim”.  The judge is an internal voice which is essentially a copy of discipline and punishment handed out by our parents when we were young, and the Victim is the part of us that suffers this.  One of the purposes of the four agreements is to get away from the influence of the Judge so we can live our own authentic dream.
• The Angel of Death: Facing death allows us to be ourselves, because we just don’t have the time to try to please everyone else.

(more…)

In the initial stages we interns were flown in from across the country and put through orientation, group lunches and training.  Most people knew maybe one or two other people and we were all excited to meet each other because most people were from out of town and didn’t have much to do.  The state of things was kind of like a gas with a lot of random interactions between energetic particles.

Very quickly, within a matter of hours, numbers and email addresses were exchanged, people looked each other up on facebook, and events started to be planned.  People initially went out on large group outings where the attraction was as much meeting new people as going and doing something.  At that point people might have had a few friends, but nothing really that serious.  As people are able to meet their social needs, their incentive to meet new people diminishes and less effort is spent on risk taking and initiating social contact.

Now three weeks into the process, arcs of communication have solidified.  Some links are strengthened by repeated positive feedback and some links have atrophied and been eliminated.  Even a few repulsive links have formed.

Some interesting observations:

• People have a finite amount of linkage to allocate to their friends and a desire to socialize that causes them to reach out to random people.  Increasing this capacity to reach out seems to be the key to having a good network.

• Early on people seem to affiliate based on school, proximity of housing.  The “cool” people in the group seem to seek each other out, and coolness is best communicated through physical attractiveness and dress.  This might mean living on campus next Fall is the right thing to do.

• Repulsive links tend to have a stronger impact on event planning that attractive links.  People will give up a lot to avoid unpleasant experiences and people.

• A lot of what drives grouping behavior is transportation.  I’m so much more popular now that I have a car and a lot of the interns dont.  Other shareable resources that form a point of community might be TV, a hot tub, or a BBQ.

It will be pretty cool to see how this evolves.  It’s always exciting to be thrown into a new group of people.  I should try to make sure this happens often.