by Marty Coleman | Jul 1, 2010 | Anonymous, Technology - 2010 |
Day #4 of Tech week here at The Napkin Dad Daily
On the other hand a computer is, ironically enough, a good reminder to take your time, smell the smoking electronics and enjoy life. If you are freaking out about how long everything takes on your computer you either have a slow computer (who doesn’t at one time or another) or you have unreal expectations.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman “Never let a computer know you are in a hurry.” – Anonymous
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by Marty Coleman | Jun 30, 2010 | Technology - 2010, Walter Lippman |
Day #3 of Technology Week at The Napkin Dad Daily. By the way, I am up for an award. Check at the end of the blog today for details.
But YOU can still plant flowers if that same steamroller feels like it is running over you!
Machines can perhaps create a desire in you to achieve something. You see a new iPad and think ‘Wow, just imagine what I could do if I had that’. That is desire.
But initiative is something else. It is desire in action. It is doing something with your desire. An iPad, or any other technology, will never be able to give you the initiative. You have to have it, or build it, or borrow it, or fake it, but however you get it, it must, in the end, come from within you.
But if you do find it, in whatever way, then a steamroller is no match for you. Of course, it’s best to avoid known steamrollers (read negative people and situations) but that is not always possible. How you deal with the steamrollers of your life, both intentional from negative people and unintentional from the Universe itself, will be the deciding factor in how far your initiative will travel with you.
The light is green.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative; the jolliest steamroller will not plant flowers.” – Walter Lippman, 1889-1974, American writer, political commentator & journalist.
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by Marty Coleman | Jun 29, 2010 | Joseph Campbell, Technology - 2010 |
And for the most part the corporate world isn’t much different. It isn’t spelled out as exactly as it is in computer code, but it’s severity can also be just as strong.
To survive you have to adapt to that world, understand it’s boundaries and rules and play along even when there is an absurdist logic working within the company just as you have to do with a computer and other technology. For the most part, technology or a company will not bow to your individuality, you must bow to it.
That is why I was never all that great in a corporate world or in getting along with that Old Testament dude!
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“A computer is like the old testament God, lots of rules and no mercy.” – Joseph Campbell, 1904-1987, American writer, lecturer and mythologist. I saw Joseph Campbell lecture on James Joyce’s Ulysses back in 1982. I knew nothing about the book but he kept me, and the rest of the audience, enthralled for 2 hours. Now THAT is a good lecturer!
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by Marty Coleman | Jun 28, 2010 | Max Frisch, Technology - 2010 |
My late father-in-law, Dwight Johnson, who I have mentioned a number of times, was a photography buff. He was always taking photos of the family and of stuff. It was to the point where I sometimes felt he wasn’t really experiencing the event or scene, just recording it for future sharing or memories.
Now I am a photographer and have Flickr and Facebook and Twitter and a digital camera and an iPhone. Next thing you know I am seeing things the same way. I am wanting to both experience and record the event and I want to share it.
But I always make a point to experience it first, I want to know what it is I am recording. Last night for example we had incredible thunderstorms coming in from the west at sunset. I had to get out in the backyard and take the pics right then or it was over. I experienced the wind, the humidity, the wildly flying birds being blown about. I experienced the clouds taking shape, the light moving around the edges, the rising mountains and deep crevices of the clouds and the flashes of lightning. In some ways I feel like I experienced it even more intensely because I had my camera in hand. I was anticipating, waiting, watching, feeling changes happen.
But I know it is a different type of experience than simply looking at something. But overall I feel blessed being able to share the visual world I experience with others so I am not sure I would change a thing.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“Technology: the knack of so arranging the world that we don’t have to experience it.” – Max Frisch, 1911,1991, Swiss architect, playwright and novelist
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by Marty Coleman | Jun 25, 2010 | Benjamin Franklin |
I was midway through drawing this napkin this morning when I realized I have a problem. No, not my ‘have to run to the bathroom problem’, another problem. This one revolves around this quote. Within a well-balanced person this quote can take hold and be of value. You try to find the best in others, but because you want to be improving as you move forward in life, you know it’s a good idea to be aware of and figure out how to cope with, your vices. You already know your virtues, you don’t really need to go searching for them.
But I don’t live in a world of well-balanced people. I live in a world of terribly imbalanced people. How so you ask? Because so many of the people I know are already obsessed with their vices and ‘flaws’. That is all they see in themselves. They see the speck of dust in the corner of the room, not the entire beautiful home they live in. They see the pinch of fat on their tush, not the great shape they are in. They are obsessed with guilt about what they did or didn’t do, how they don’t match up, why they haven’t accomplished what they want, how they let someone down, how they look.
They don’t see their value, their contribution, their beauty (inner and outer), their humor, their impact, their wisdom, their sexiness, their progress. The reflection in their mirror is not the flower they are.
Can I, or you, do anything about this? I sometimes think I can, and other times I think whatever I do will be minimal at best. But we really only have 3 choices, right? 1) we can ignore it, just let it be. 2) we can agree with them, backing up their skewed version of reality. 3) We can do our best to help them see what they can’t see themselves, yet.
I choose #3. I will always choose #3. If I am successful in helping them, cool. If I am not, I know I have tried and perhaps my effort might still help out further down the road, the way lessons to a child often are understood many years later in life.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“Search others for their virtues, thy self for thy vices.” – Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790, American printer, publisher, writer, politician, scientist, inventor, statesman, soldier, and diplomat.
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by Marty Coleman | Jun 24, 2010 | Jose Ortega y Gasset |
I heard a report yesterday that with the turn down in the economy and more people unemployed a survey company thought it would be interesting to find out what people are doing with this new extra time they have. Guess what the survey showed? I’ll be back at the end with the answer.
Ever remember being in the middle of this dialog as a kid or an adult? “I am bored, there’s nothing to do.” the kid says. The adult responds: “Well, quit sittin’ around pickin’ your nose and go find something to do!”
Basically that is what this world famous literary giant (Jose Ortega y Gasset) is saying. It isn’t about being unemployed at a job. It’s about being unemployed in life, job or not. If your entire life was employed, what would it’s job be? Is it employed on behalf of something or? Your family, charities, friends, causes or? Is it employed in the pursuit of beauty, or truth, or the meaning of life, or the meaning of death, or the meaning of meaning or? Is it employed in creating art or science or a beautiful back yard or a great neighborhood park or?
The survey showed Americans are spending this new ‘extra’ time watching TV more and sleeping more. In other words, picking their noses. Don’t let that be you.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“An ‘unemployed’ existence is a worse negation of life than death itself.” – Jose Ortega y Gasset, 1883-1955, Spanish writer and philosopher
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by Marty Coleman | Jun 23, 2010 | Johann Zimmerman |
Another simple this = that statement. It’s akin to ‘you are what you eat’ and ‘you become what you think’.
It comes down to this. What do you pay attention to? Would you rather go get another 6pack of beer for the cookout or play in the pool with your kids? Would you rather work overtime non-stop or forego a bit of extra cash so you can have a date with your boyfriend or girlfriend? Would you rather watch mean spirited people act like they are real on TV or do some needed project around your house?
You will rise only as far as that to which you pay attention. Where is your attention today?
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“The value of what we love is the amount of our own value.” – Johann Georg Ritter Von Zimmerman, 1728-1795, Swiss physician. Author of ‘On Loneliness’.
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by Marty Coleman | Jun 22, 2010 | Communications - 2015, George Bernard Shaw |
I was raised in a somewhat loud, somewhat opinionated, somewhat verbose family. With an Irish heritage we blamed it on the Irish ‘gift of gab’. My mother was loud, funny and quick to throw a barb if she saw something pretentious. My father was argumentative and assertive in his voice and style while still being a charmer.
I married into a family in 1979 that was the exact opposite. They were instilled with a quiet and respectful way of talking to each other. Calm, cool, minimal in outward expression. They believed in saying nice things, well mannered things and not raising your voice.
Can you guess where this is going? My way of communicating, which I had always thought was pretty good, turned out to be so strong and aggressive compared to what my wife was used to, that most anything I said with any outward expression was taken as having much more meaning than I meant it to. She heard anger where I thought I was expressing passion. She heard insistence where I thought I was expressing enthusiasm.
In the meanwhile, my wife’s method of communicating, which I am sure she thought was pretty good, turned out to be so quiet, deferential and subtle that sometimes I didn’t even know that she had communicated at all. The passion she felt came out in such a way that it was easy for me to either not hear it, or dismiss it as not being all that important.
As you can imagine it took a long time before we clued into what the other person was really trying to express. We weren’t ever completely understanding about that and it was an underlying issue among larger issues that led to our divorce in 2000, after 20 years of marriage.
The reason I tell this story is to give you insight and an admonition. The insight might seem obvious to some, but we all have blind spots. Remind yourself that each individual hears uniquely, both sounds and meaning behind the sounds. The admonition follows from that. Do not go into any relationship, casual or serious, with the assumption that your way of communicating is the best way. You might have a good way, but chances are so does the other person. You might have blind spots about how you talk, the words you use, the manner in which you deliver them, that others see and don’t necessarily appreciate or understand.
Evaluating yourself to become better includes evaluating your words and their delivery.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” – George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950, Irish playwright. Just imagine, he was old enough to be aware during the American civil war (1861-1865) and lived to see WWII being fought and resolved (1939-1945). That is an amazing span of life.
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by Marty Coleman | Jun 21, 2010 | John Finley |
We live in Tornado Alley. For those of you not in the US, that is a swath of the American landscape that goes through the middle of the country, south to north, west to east. It is the line where the cold air from the northwest comes in and meets the warm air coming up from the Gulf of Mexico in the south.
When the 2 air masses collide and the conditions are right, we get very severe thunderstorms, unlike anything the rest of the country sees. Those thunderstorms sometimes generate tornados with winds up to 300 miles an hour. Nothing will survive if hit by one of those F5 (the most severe) twisters. We are always uncertain exactly when, how or where they will form.
I used to live in California. We had earthquakes there. I was near the epicenter of the Loma Prieta / World Series earthquake of 1989. As the building I was in shook hard, I ran like hell, uncertain if I would get out without the glass wall right next to me shattering or the second story overhang collapsing. I was uncertain for hours whether my wife and kids more than 30 miles away and over a large hill, were ok (they were).
I have been blown up on a boat and badly burned. My family was uncertain for weeks as to whether I would survive. My mother had a brain hemorrhage just over 6 months earlier. We were uncertain if she would survive (she did).
Certainty is not the default setting for life. Uncertainty is. If you want to live a successful life, a mature life, you learn this lesson and you deal with it. It takes practice and is hard, but the alternative is to be disfunctional and immature, never good at coping with reality.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“Maturity is the capacity to endure uncertainty.” – John Finley. There are a lot of John Finleys listed. But one was the first person to study tornados intensively, so I am going to say the quote is by him. It’s just too ironic not to.
1854-1943, meteorologist, tornado specialist
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by Marty Coleman | Jun 19, 2010 | Francois de La Rochefoucauld |
Vintage napkin from 2004. Drawn for my youngest daughter (at the time) and put in with her lunch.
So, maybe the key to enduring our own misfortune is to act as if we are someone else. Nice thought but we truly only have to endure our own pain first hand. Empathy and sympathy are the closest we can get to feeling what others feel. That is why those traits are of great value in having others feel love from you. Yes, it does increase our pain a bit, but the love and solace we give by being empathetic and sympathetic to others is well worth it.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“We all have the strength to endure the misfortunes of others.” – François de La Rochefoucauld
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