Who is the Man with the Name that Rhymes ?If the name don't rhyme it ain't mine.

 I love reading. Being so ubiquitous, we take it for granted how useful it is. For English, all we need is less than 40 distinct written symbols for us to convey practically every thought imaginable. We can express our thoughts and feelings, communicate events, describe how our world works just with abstract symbols. Even with all stuff mankind has created, the written language is still one of its top inventions; without it most other great inventions aren't possible.All this shit should be obvious to anyone reading it, but it's worth repeating. Reading is fundamental to any sort of higher learning regardless of topic. 

Immersion into a different world of thoughts and experiences is how I look at reading. Regardless whether the material is a novel, news, a discussion of economics, computer code, text messages, or a facebook post, writing allows you to understand a person's thoughts and insights. Over enough words, you will start to understand not just thoughts but the thought processes that create the words in the first place.

That's where the learning happens. Deeply engrossed in reading, temporarily disassociated with what's going on around you, you're able to not only read and understand the words but also imagine what is being read. Being able to visualize what I'm reading is strong indicator that I'm learning something or at least the information is compelling. If that isn't happening, either the information isn't interesting or there's something I'm missing. That's a important detail I try to remind myself, especially when I'm wanting to understand something. Sometimes that takes discipline and focus, but that is the essence of understanding practically anything when it comes to reading. Although, Quantum Mechanics still throws me for loop when I try to fully understand it.

I've been trying to keep at least a post per month going on here. I keep reminding myself to post more, but my time gets divided between a multitude of things. Moreover, I'm aware of it; when I realize my time is divided up, too much to focus on everything, I start disregarding things. It's a mental attribute I've picked up that allows me to focus on the tasks I have at hand. It's helpful in someways (it allows me to focus on things to accomplish), and harmful in others (myopic view points, forgetting other important things, etc.). For better or worse, that's how I make sense of everything. I feel, as long as I realize the disadvantage it puts me in, I still am strong. However, it does mean less posts from me here.

I'm probably taking things too seriously here. This is one of those times where I laugh is good. I think its one of nature's defense mechanisms for us. Whether its schadenfreude, some sort of cosmic irony we are enlightened with, or some off the wall non-sequitor, I think laughter is a mechnanism built into us to make us smile, relax, and prevent us from focusing too intensely on the world. Perhaps the best laughter, parody in some form, makes us realize this and somehow helps us understand the world around us. I don't feel like I've been laughing enough lately. Dissatisfaction with my life? Bordom? Thinking too much? I don't know why.

Most likely, I'm thinking too much. That's another problem. I'm too smart for myself. My head is a rapid cloud of neurons, firing so fast that its luminence makes me blind to the world around me sometimes. I find myself where my body is out of sync with my mind. I'll notice with a lot of activities that my head is thinking two, three, four steps ahead before the first step starts. It's not too hard to correct this once I realize it, but it's very distracting at times; it's a lot easier to control the body than the mind. For example, try telling yourself not to do something versus trying not to think about something. I'll keep working at trying to achieve a mind/body parity.

I'm getting near 30 years old. It sure doesn't feel like it. My mind feels as sharp—no—actually more sharper than it's ever been. I'm more aware of who I am, what's going on, where I at, why I'm doing it, and how I'm going to do it, than I've ever been before. Maybe that's wisdom talking, or it's hubris; I leave it to the reader to decide that one.

Bodywise, I feel like I'm probably been in the best shape I've every been as well. That does come with some caveats however. My body is definitely slowing down, that's for sure. I don't feel it too often, because I've always caried myself about the same, using my body more for endurance than peak output. However, I've noticed the changes in my metabolism. I'm certainly not the drinker I used to be too. The weekend at Purdue a few weeks ago was great, but these days a night of heavy drinking will put me down for a day or so. Not that I really miss it though. I'd prefer my balance of smart/somewhat heavy drinking without getting stupid/forgetful drunk over heavy drinking; it's a better balance.

Getting back over to the world of the mind, I've noticed over the last few years I've been really able to really focus my thoughts to pinpoint percission. This has been incredibly helpful since I've taken on my various computer-related jobs (web, software developer, etc.) over the last few years. Especially since working with  modern computers, inherently multitasking machine these days, can be as distracting as it is productive. There's been a ton of news out there about how the brain isn't built for multitasking and it just makes us perform each task worse. Let's call it the mental equivalent of being a jack of all trades, master of none(thanks Wikipedia for more obscure knowledge!).

When dealing with computers, the more complex computer systems you have, the more chances occur for something to screw up. This also means while you try to fix things, you have more chances you'll be presented with false leads and dead ends. Thus, making all the more important you don't get distracted or lead off path with superfluous, or irrelevant, details. In order to achieve this hyper-focal thinking, I often have to mentally shut off my senses where I'm completely enveloped in one feeling, that of thought.

In this state, I try to jack into (I'm not one for cliche cyperpunk phrases but this is the best thing that comes to mind to describe it) the mind of the computer to understand what's going on, using a kind of theory of the mind for the computer brain. You see, computers are completely linear, left brain, thinking machines. While the complexities of computers make it seem, at face value, that they don't operate that way, but they do. Each action a computer takes is the result of some series of instructions, a script, an algorithm. If you can see the script, or source code, you can figure out what the computer is doing. This however is complicated by modern computers that have many different instructions going on in different places. You have to figure out what which scripts are interacting with which. It's not an easy task; it's near immpossible for the brain to conceptualize everything running on a modern computer at once, the best you can hope for is to minimize interactions and isolate different parts that are relevant to each so that you can gain insight on what's going on.

As useful and intersting as this sort of hyper-focal thinking is, I think it puts a toll on me. Not in the sense that it wears me out; mental exhaustion isn't something I feel too often unlike physical exhaustion. It's more about the consequences of thinking one particular way. It disorts my thinking, like I'm thinking in only in one dimension with the left side of my brain. That probably isn't completely true, but it feels like it sometimes. I don't think I'm a very fun person to be around when I'm in that perspective. I don't joke as much, I stick to whatever task I have at hand, and tend not to focus on the bigger picture. I could on about this particular topic, but I'm going to put it down for now. There's a lot of ideas & thoughts I've been sitting on for some time that is related to this. I'll revisit it sometime later.

I've been in a constant state of agitation lately. If I had to describe it, I would say its a state of constant pressing thoughts. To use a  'pedia article I read some time ago, my brain is constantly make using of its executive functions. Between my job, finding a home, following the market, and other responsibilities, I've been set into this mode where I'm constantly taking in new information and making decisions on what I should do about them. I'm sure all of this is taking some toll on me. I've been managing my stress pretty well. Agitation turn aggravation has mostly been reserved toward computers whether that be fixing them or just interacting with them.

Recently I've taken a long hiatus from videogaming, a topic I'm sure to cover in here some time soon, but even though I put that down I still find I'm using the same skills in dealing with computers. Perhaps even more so now since less of my attention is focused on performing just-frames or EWGFs in Tekken. There are many times now where I find the computer lagging me where I can input data/keystrokes/etc. For example, the other day I had to bring back my Sanyo RL-4930 phone (with the kung fu grip!) from the dead when my POS Palm Centro fried (last Palm phone I'll probably ever buy). I had to update a lot of contacts in the phone since it hadn't been touched in 2 years.

As I was entering in #'s which was painfully slow, I slowly picked up the same input keys I was using over and over again: down, down, OK, number, OK, OK, right, OK. The more I kept doing it (I think there was 20-30 numbers to update), the quicker I got. Eventually I got to a point where I could time it so fast the display would lag behind where I was entering the keys to enter data and select options. The display was peripheral; at this point my mind had its own mental picture of the computer that was more accurate that what the display was telling me. This stuff usually only has happened when I was in an intense gaming session.

When I've noticed this happening before I get a real spooky feeling. Because as that's happening I notice I can completely take my mind off the physical task at hand. That is to say I don't have to think anymore about the what my body is doing to interact with the computer, it just happens automatically while my brain can think about other things as if my mind is now part of the machine. Of course, I can't do this for too long before I start to lose control. Or as I called it in videogaming, the "oh shit..." moments where I realize that I'm losing control of something in game and failure is eminent.

Thinking about your actions as you do them will help perform them better, but at some point you will level off to where more intensity won't result in better performance. This is because you can't control everything. As much as you can become a master at some action, whether it be typing, running, speaking, or what have you, there are some factors that you can't control. Profoundly, this is the source of my agitation; trying to control every essence of my actions, my life, that, while admirable, is inevitably futile.