There are all kinds of personality test books that give language to describe the kind of people we are. Last spring a friend of mine forced (not an exaggeration) all of her friends to take a test so she would know the inner workings of all of us. She took the book everywhere, and if there was a person who had not taken the test, she stopped everything and forced (not an exaggeration) the person to answer all 70 questions and then do the analysis to find out what kind of person they were. I am an INFJ.
The most beneficial book I have ever read that describes personalities is called Now Discover Your Strengths. The author made the point that if a person focuses on their strengths, and lives out of them, that person will be a much more effective _______________ (fill in the blank).
One of my strengths is responsibility. As with any strength, it has good stuff and bad stuff. The good stuff is that I make sure things get done. The bad stuff is I take responsibility for things I have no business being responsible for, and sometimes so much responsibility (without cutting myself any slack) that I run myself ragged.
In order to keep my life straight, I have to write down a task list of all the things that keep my life moving in the direction I want it to. When I construct my list, I have 3 sections: past events, present events, and future events. Every time I look at my task list, I have to tell myself (and I always use the stereotypical psychologist tone) that I can't change the past and I can't control the future, so I am left to focus on my present tasks. When I don't get a task done at the scheduled time, I have learned that it is normal to feel some pressure, but it is no reason to have a nervous breakdown. I am practicing my breathing techniques right now.
I have been serving lunch every other Saturday for the past few weeks. This past Saturday, according to the schedule, was the next lunch. But I was sick. And tired. And I didn't sleep the night before. And I am sure I could come up with three hundred and twenty seven other excuses, but the truth of it all is that I just wanted to rest. So I did. And the world kept turning. The sky is still firmly in place.
A friend pursuing a similar goal with his work told me that his work is a product, or expression of who he is. When he delivers his product, it is a result of what is going on in his life. When life bears down on him, he has to outsource his manufacturing process. I am not being very clear here, but what it brought me to realize is that I can only do what I can do, and I asked myself if it was more beneficial to maintain a thing that in the end might wear me down to a ragged mess, or to maintain myself and take a breather when I am out of breath. I assume that the disclaimers about laziness, and self-serving are understood here.
A few months ago, I read the best book I have ever read on business and life. It is worth reading whatever your occupation, check it out here. The book kept hammering the idea that healthy people have a healthy influence on the people around them, and they benefit the people they care about, the more healthy they are.
So at the risk of going against my compulsion to run myself ragged in order to keep my "system" in place and causing a nervous breakdown, I gave myself the day off and I will be eating lunch with my friends again this Saturday.
26 November, 2006
13 November, 2006
Fifth lunch
After a lunch, there are so many things to write about. I always get something from going through the process of feeding people. It has been a month since I have done Free Lunch (I was out of town during the last Free Lunch at Billy's wedding, Patrick filled in for me). This week I took Billy and Holly. Holly's brother does a similar project in San Diego. He is associated with a church and it sounds cool. Check it out here.
After making the lunches, we drove around the usual route and tried to find people under the bridge, but I didn't find anyone. We drove through downtown, and it was pretty quiet. For the first time ever, I had enough lunches to feed everyone on the east side. I learned that 3 people make the east side much more manageable. It felt good to have enough food. I also forgot my glasses, and me driving without glasses is not so good.
I don't know what it will take to break the ice with the people on the east side. For the most part, they still grab and go back to their spot on the curb. I haven't formed any real relationships with anyone yet, and I don't really expect to for a little while, but I am still holding out hope (and that is allowable under the protocol for building relationships as outlined in an earlier post).
Free Lunch puts my feet back on the ground and reminds me of what I can do. If you take a look at the 10 commandments from the Bible, the first 4 deal with a relationship with God, and the last 6 deal with relationships with others. Honor your parents, Don't murder, Don't commit adultery, Don't steal, Don't lie, Don't covet. That's a lot of don'ts for me. Some are easier to follow than others, but if I walk around keeping in mind all the things that I am supposed to don't, I am afraid that I won't do anything.
The new testament keeps it simple (and simple is good). Do love God. Do love your neighbor. I was talking with a friend this past weekend about the ability of humans to do any selfless act. Her thesis was that it is possible to accomplish a selfless act, even if that produces a good feeling for the giver. The good feeling is not the motive, because the act of giving may or may not produce a good feeling. Sometimes it does, and that is great, but I don't think it is possible to prove that a good feeling is always the product. I forgot to ask her how she completed her argument, because I was too selfish to ask her any more about it and I probably started talking about myself. This is probably tied to my need to have everything planned and under control. God forbid I learn anything new from another person. In my experience, my own selfishness has been the single biggest roadblock to getting to know others and being surprised by what the world has to offer. Don't listen was not one of the 10 commandments, neither was don't be teachable, don't wonder, don't explore, don't ask questions, don't be open to change, don't ever be wrong, don't learn, or don't speed while driving.
The transition from don't to do offers a lot of freedom for me. Of course there are still rules, but the produce is more important than the protocol.
Do you like how I slipped in the fact that the 10 commandments says nothing specifically about speeding in a car? I have 5 speeding tickets in the last year and I am trying to figure out some way to justify myself.
After making the lunches, we drove around the usual route and tried to find people under the bridge, but I didn't find anyone. We drove through downtown, and it was pretty quiet. For the first time ever, I had enough lunches to feed everyone on the east side. I learned that 3 people make the east side much more manageable. It felt good to have enough food. I also forgot my glasses, and me driving without glasses is not so good.
I don't know what it will take to break the ice with the people on the east side. For the most part, they still grab and go back to their spot on the curb. I haven't formed any real relationships with anyone yet, and I don't really expect to for a little while, but I am still holding out hope (and that is allowable under the protocol for building relationships as outlined in an earlier post).
Free Lunch puts my feet back on the ground and reminds me of what I can do. If you take a look at the 10 commandments from the Bible, the first 4 deal with a relationship with God, and the last 6 deal with relationships with others. Honor your parents, Don't murder, Don't commit adultery, Don't steal, Don't lie, Don't covet. That's a lot of don'ts for me. Some are easier to follow than others, but if I walk around keeping in mind all the things that I am supposed to don't, I am afraid that I won't do anything.
The new testament keeps it simple (and simple is good). Do love God. Do love your neighbor. I was talking with a friend this past weekend about the ability of humans to do any selfless act. Her thesis was that it is possible to accomplish a selfless act, even if that produces a good feeling for the giver. The good feeling is not the motive, because the act of giving may or may not produce a good feeling. Sometimes it does, and that is great, but I don't think it is possible to prove that a good feeling is always the product. I forgot to ask her how she completed her argument, because I was too selfish to ask her any more about it and I probably started talking about myself. This is probably tied to my need to have everything planned and under control. God forbid I learn anything new from another person. In my experience, my own selfishness has been the single biggest roadblock to getting to know others and being surprised by what the world has to offer. Don't listen was not one of the 10 commandments, neither was don't be teachable, don't wonder, don't explore, don't ask questions, don't be open to change, don't ever be wrong, don't learn, or don't speed while driving.
The transition from don't to do offers a lot of freedom for me. Of course there are still rules, but the produce is more important than the protocol.
Do you like how I slipped in the fact that the 10 commandments says nothing specifically about speeding in a car? I have 5 speeding tickets in the last year and I am trying to figure out some way to justify myself.
04 November, 2006
On vision
There is this older guy that I know only by what is written* about him. He died a long time ago, but from what is written about him, he sounds like someone I would have liked to know. This is a speech he wrote down before he spoke it one Fourth of July toward the end of his life:
---------------------------------------------
Children-
When I was a young man the Lord came to me and put His hand just here on my right shoulder. I can feel it still. And He spoke to me, very clearly. The words went right though me. He said, Free the captive. Preach good news to the poor. Proclaim liberty throughout the land. That is all Scripture, of course, and the words were already very familiar to me at the time. But it is clear enough why He would feel they needed special emphasis. No one lives by them, unless the Lord takes him in hand. Certainly I did not, until the day He stood beside me and spoke those words to me.
I would call that experience a vision. We had visions in those days, a number of us did. Your young men will have visions and your old men will dream dreams. And now all those young men are old men, if they're alive at all, and their visions are no more than dreams, and the old days are forgotten long before we are.
The President, General Grant, once called Iowa the shining star of radicalism. But what is left here in Iowa? What is left here in Gilead? Dust. Dust and ashes. Scripture says the people perish, and they certainly do. It is remarkable. For all this His anger is not turned away, but His Hand is stretched out still.
The Lord Bless you and keep you, etc.
---------------------------------------------
I have written before about this project being a vision. if you have been reading this blog for a while, you would have noticed that I changed the title to the first entry from 'the vision', to 'the purpose'; I am still not resolved as to what the title should be.
In graduate school, I worked at one of the worlds leading visualization research labs (VRAC, Iowa State University, go Cyclones). Part of my project was to figure out how to create an image in three dimensional space that would describe multi-dimensional equations. We see things in three dimensions. Math uses equations to describe complex systems with equations have more than three dimensions. So part of my job was to figure out how to render images of these multi-dimensional equations so that we could interact with them and see how the shape changes as variables change. I was not very successful creating anything of value in this part of my research, but I had good coffee and muffins in the small room where I defended my thesis, and I think the aroma satisfied my professors enough that they let it slide. Although I think there is a solution to this problem, no one to my knowledge has found a good one, so I hope anyone who has tried to present a solution also has good coffee in the room. It's helpful if the presentation is made first thing in the morning; academics are notorious for working late nights.
After studying that problem, I concluded that a vision was something I could re-create in the form of an equation, and ultimately something that could be conveyed through a projector to a screen. Like TV. In a world where tele-visions are the primary media in which I receive a majority of the information that forms my perspective of reality, I have come to expect that any-vision will come by paying 90 bucks a month to Time-Warner. And since I am too busy to receive my vision when they have scheduled to transmit it, I pay an extra 5 bucks a month for the ability to record the visions and watch them commercial free when it is convenient for me. Just as an interesting side note, 'tele' is Greek prefix meaning distant. I looked up the Greek word for 'vision', and found one definition that read, 'the power of sight'. I never thought of sight as a power...I wonder what other secret powers I don't know about.
The speech above caused me think about visions in the form of an experience. An experience is more like art than math. Although, I would argue that math and art have a high correlation, but that is for another thought. Free Lunch is the product of a journey. The journey is an expedition to discover the unknown. An exploration of the places where truth and beauty and love and understanding are hidden. An excavation of ancient ruins to find out what remains of lives and cultures from history. When light hits the unearthed artifacts that remain, maybe I will know what will remain from my life and my community. These are all things I want to experience in my life.
I am having trouble creating some thing that renders the whole vision of Free Lunch, when I try, the vision eludes my description. It’s like trying to use a bucket to skim oil off the top of a lake. When I lift my bucket up thinking I have all the oil contained, I look back and the oil I didn't get has once again re-covered the small amount I was able to scoop up. I use the same method to try again...this vision is expansive.
It doesn't matter what you believe about life and death and God, but the Scripture that was referenced in the speech has been one of the most studied collection of letters and stories ever written. I think that so many people have studied it (regardless of belief) because it contains this mysterious power to speak to you wherever you are at on your journey, at whatever depth you are traveling. And no matter what depth you are at, or what depth you think you are at, its depths are not charted by any earthly map. My point is not to get you to read the Bible, but to draw some conclusion as to why I am compelled to write about Free Lunch. I like the stories in the Bible. I know a little more about who wrote them, and the people they are about when I read them.
I write because I want to be known. I want to share my life with the people I care about. I want to open the doors to the parts of my life that I have a hard time talking about in conversation (which is nearly everything, I am shy in a crowd). I write because it is the best I can do to convey a vision that I think is worth sharing. I won't be able to do it well, and that is why I am not satisfied to let this vision turn in to a dream. I am going to do my best to experience it. I hope the remains that are found one thousand years from now are more than a pile of dust and ashes.
*Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, see also, Gilead
---------------------------------------------
Children-
When I was a young man the Lord came to me and put His hand just here on my right shoulder. I can feel it still. And He spoke to me, very clearly. The words went right though me. He said, Free the captive. Preach good news to the poor. Proclaim liberty throughout the land. That is all Scripture, of course, and the words were already very familiar to me at the time. But it is clear enough why He would feel they needed special emphasis. No one lives by them, unless the Lord takes him in hand. Certainly I did not, until the day He stood beside me and spoke those words to me.
I would call that experience a vision. We had visions in those days, a number of us did. Your young men will have visions and your old men will dream dreams. And now all those young men are old men, if they're alive at all, and their visions are no more than dreams, and the old days are forgotten long before we are.
The President, General Grant, once called Iowa the shining star of radicalism. But what is left here in Iowa? What is left here in Gilead? Dust. Dust and ashes. Scripture says the people perish, and they certainly do. It is remarkable. For all this His anger is not turned away, but His Hand is stretched out still.
The Lord Bless you and keep you, etc.
---------------------------------------------
I have written before about this project being a vision. if you have been reading this blog for a while, you would have noticed that I changed the title to the first entry from 'the vision', to 'the purpose'; I am still not resolved as to what the title should be.
In graduate school, I worked at one of the worlds leading visualization research labs (VRAC, Iowa State University, go Cyclones). Part of my project was to figure out how to create an image in three dimensional space that would describe multi-dimensional equations. We see things in three dimensions. Math uses equations to describe complex systems with equations have more than three dimensions. So part of my job was to figure out how to render images of these multi-dimensional equations so that we could interact with them and see how the shape changes as variables change. I was not very successful creating anything of value in this part of my research, but I had good coffee and muffins in the small room where I defended my thesis, and I think the aroma satisfied my professors enough that they let it slide. Although I think there is a solution to this problem, no one to my knowledge has found a good one, so I hope anyone who has tried to present a solution also has good coffee in the room. It's helpful if the presentation is made first thing in the morning; academics are notorious for working late nights.
After studying that problem, I concluded that a vision was something I could re-create in the form of an equation, and ultimately something that could be conveyed through a projector to a screen. Like TV. In a world where tele-visions are the primary media in which I receive a majority of the information that forms my perspective of reality, I have come to expect that any-vision will come by paying 90 bucks a month to Time-Warner. And since I am too busy to receive my vision when they have scheduled to transmit it, I pay an extra 5 bucks a month for the ability to record the visions and watch them commercial free when it is convenient for me. Just as an interesting side note, 'tele' is Greek prefix meaning distant. I looked up the Greek word for 'vision', and found one definition that read, 'the power of sight'. I never thought of sight as a power...I wonder what other secret powers I don't know about.
The speech above caused me think about visions in the form of an experience. An experience is more like art than math. Although, I would argue that math and art have a high correlation, but that is for another thought. Free Lunch is the product of a journey. The journey is an expedition to discover the unknown. An exploration of the places where truth and beauty and love and understanding are hidden. An excavation of ancient ruins to find out what remains of lives and cultures from history. When light hits the unearthed artifacts that remain, maybe I will know what will remain from my life and my community. These are all things I want to experience in my life.
I am having trouble creating some thing that renders the whole vision of Free Lunch, when I try, the vision eludes my description. It’s like trying to use a bucket to skim oil off the top of a lake. When I lift my bucket up thinking I have all the oil contained, I look back and the oil I didn't get has once again re-covered the small amount I was able to scoop up. I use the same method to try again...this vision is expansive.
It doesn't matter what you believe about life and death and God, but the Scripture that was referenced in the speech has been one of the most studied collection of letters and stories ever written. I think that so many people have studied it (regardless of belief) because it contains this mysterious power to speak to you wherever you are at on your journey, at whatever depth you are traveling. And no matter what depth you are at, or what depth you think you are at, its depths are not charted by any earthly map. My point is not to get you to read the Bible, but to draw some conclusion as to why I am compelled to write about Free Lunch. I like the stories in the Bible. I know a little more about who wrote them, and the people they are about when I read them.
I write because I want to be known. I want to share my life with the people I care about. I want to open the doors to the parts of my life that I have a hard time talking about in conversation (which is nearly everything, I am shy in a crowd). I write because it is the best I can do to convey a vision that I think is worth sharing. I won't be able to do it well, and that is why I am not satisfied to let this vision turn in to a dream. I am going to do my best to experience it. I hope the remains that are found one thousand years from now are more than a pile of dust and ashes.
*Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, see also, Gilead
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