Thursday, October 20, 2005
just a thought
I went to this page to see the "huge loss" incurred by Ford Motor co., thinking the losses must be "huge" and dismissed it upon seeing that it lost only $284 million. On further consideration it seems large numbers no longer seem to have a huge amount of significance anymore. Really, what's a loss of a quarter of a billion dollars?
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Good grief where have I been?
August 27, "better get at it." Didn't get at it.
The world affords plenty of opportunity for the undisciplined mind to not get at it. The undisciplined mind, in this case of course, is my own mind. There have been plenty of distractions between my last post and now that have weaseled their way in front of me.
Many of those distractions have been superficial in nature, such as the limitless territory of a world wide web filled with curiosities of little significance blended with dolops of insight (someone should develop a banal filter for web-browsers,) and others of a more pressing issue, like merely surviving the rigours of an intense school schedule (made more intense by possessing an undisciplined mind.)
A survival mechanism ought to kick in at some point and shut down access to the internet. With its elimination, productivity on my part would no doubt double. School is the priority and this is where my energy should be concentrated.
However, that mechanism has yet to kick in and it is left to a willful act on my part, which has yet to materialize, to shut the system down. It is time, to cut out the clutter, avoid the information overload and get down to the business at hand: survival.
Fight or flight, the most basic equation of survival is universal in all animals. It is possible to do both at the same time. Consider a Zebra trapped between a hyena and a lion. At the same time the Zebra runs from the lion it can fight the hyena, and don't underestimate the power of a zebra's hoof thrashing into the chest or skull of a hyena.
For me, the internet is the lion and school is the hyena. Although school (publishing a newspaper, writing hard news stories, cutting and editing hard news stories on video and a range of other academic elements that seem to conspire against allowing one time to breath and raising the level of anxiety to hitherto unknown levels) has an intense pressure to it, the internet is by far the more dangerous of beasts when allowed to roam the plains unchecked for it has an ability to suck you in for hours at a time then spit you out with generally no noticible benefit from the experience.
Now I just have to start kicking.
The world affords plenty of opportunity for the undisciplined mind to not get at it. The undisciplined mind, in this case of course, is my own mind. There have been plenty of distractions between my last post and now that have weaseled their way in front of me.
Many of those distractions have been superficial in nature, such as the limitless territory of a world wide web filled with curiosities of little significance blended with dolops of insight (someone should develop a banal filter for web-browsers,) and others of a more pressing issue, like merely surviving the rigours of an intense school schedule (made more intense by possessing an undisciplined mind.)
A survival mechanism ought to kick in at some point and shut down access to the internet. With its elimination, productivity on my part would no doubt double. School is the priority and this is where my energy should be concentrated.
However, that mechanism has yet to kick in and it is left to a willful act on my part, which has yet to materialize, to shut the system down. It is time, to cut out the clutter, avoid the information overload and get down to the business at hand: survival.
Fight or flight, the most basic equation of survival is universal in all animals. It is possible to do both at the same time. Consider a Zebra trapped between a hyena and a lion. At the same time the Zebra runs from the lion it can fight the hyena, and don't underestimate the power of a zebra's hoof thrashing into the chest or skull of a hyena.
For me, the internet is the lion and school is the hyena. Although school (publishing a newspaper, writing hard news stories, cutting and editing hard news stories on video and a range of other academic elements that seem to conspire against allowing one time to breath and raising the level of anxiety to hitherto unknown levels) has an intense pressure to it, the internet is by far the more dangerous of beasts when allowed to roam the plains unchecked for it has an ability to suck you in for hours at a time then spit you out with generally no noticible benefit from the experience.
Now I just have to start kicking.
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