I've spent most of my life hating winter. Well, maybe hating is too strong a word. Despising? Detesting? Anyway, winter in Wisconsin and I were not on the best of terms.
Oh, as a kid I enjoyed it a bit. Playing in the snow, making snowmen, etc. Of course, that was before I had to shovel the driveway, or drive on shitty roads, or avoid shitty drivers on those shitty roads. For all of my adult life, however, I spent all of winter counting the days to spring, clean streets, good bike-riding weather, and all that.
Last year, for Christmas, I received cross-country skis, boots, and poles. I managed to go skiing once with my sister, for about half an hour, then all the snow melted. Damn global warming!!
This year, Wisconsin has been trying to set some sort of record for snowfall, and I have managed to get out skiing several times already. And something strange has begun to happen. I'm not hating winter anymore!
During the summer, on beautiful sunny days, while I am at work, I find myself staring wistfully out the window at the blue sky and open road, wishing I could be out there on my bike, pedalling away the miles, working up a sweat, and enjoying the countryside. Today, in the middle of a snowstorm that is supposed to drop seven inches overnight, I found myself at work staring wistfully out of the window at the massive snowdrifts, the gray sky, the falling flakes, wishing desperately that I could go out in it on my skis, working up a sweat, enjoying the wooded trails, and feeling my beard freeze.
That was when I realized - I love winter!! I have something to do now that makes me love winter just as much as I love summer! After over forty years, I can finally enjoy Wisconsin in all its harsh winter glory! Yay snow!!!
P.S.: I live in a condo now, too, so I don't have to shovel anymore!
Oh, as a kid I enjoyed it a bit. Playing in the snow, making snowmen, etc. Of course, that was before I had to shovel the driveway, or drive on shitty roads, or avoid shitty drivers on those shitty roads. For all of my adult life, however, I spent all of winter counting the days to spring, clean streets, good bike-riding weather, and all that.
Last year, for Christmas, I received cross-country skis, boots, and poles. I managed to go skiing once with my sister, for about half an hour, then all the snow melted. Damn global warming!!
This year, Wisconsin has been trying to set some sort of record for snowfall, and I have managed to get out skiing several times already. And something strange has begun to happen. I'm not hating winter anymore!
During the summer, on beautiful sunny days, while I am at work, I find myself staring wistfully out the window at the blue sky and open road, wishing I could be out there on my bike, pedalling away the miles, working up a sweat, and enjoying the countryside. Today, in the middle of a snowstorm that is supposed to drop seven inches overnight, I found myself at work staring wistfully out of the window at the massive snowdrifts, the gray sky, the falling flakes, wishing desperately that I could go out in it on my skis, working up a sweat, enjoying the wooded trails, and feeling my beard freeze.
That was when I realized - I love winter!! I have something to do now that makes me love winter just as much as I love summer! After over forty years, I can finally enjoy Wisconsin in all its harsh winter glory! Yay snow!!!
P.S.: I live in a condo now, too, so I don't have to shovel anymore!
I just got back from a week in Mexico with my ex-wife and several of our friends. There were a couple of birthdays to celebrate, so we all had a blast.
The ex got a little depressed one night, because everyone else was a couple, and we weren't, but she was fine the next day, and it didn't seem to get in the way of our enjoying spending time together. I feel bad that she gets sad about us not being together, but I think that most of the time it is the general "I wish I had somebody" sort of sadness, rather than specifically missing me.
I'm just glad that we can spend time together and have fun without all the bickering that would have accompanied the week if we were still trying to pretend to be a happily married couple.
Oh, and by the way, Mexico, more to the point, the Yucatan peninsula, is great! I got to climb Mexico's tallest pyramid, swim in an underground spring, go snorkelling, rappel into a cenote, and learn a little bit about the Mayan culture.
I also drank the best tequila I've ever had, every night, and had a rum and coke by 9:00 every morning.
I highly recommend taking a vacation somewhere in the Caribbean every year in the middle of winter. It feels so good to have a little warmth around Christmas time. Sucks to come back, though.
Interesting note - I found in the nightstand of my room, instead of the Gideon Bible, a book called "The Wisdom of Buddha". I managed to read the majority of it during my stay, and was absolutely fascinated. I don't plan to begin calling myself a Buddhist, but I do intend to study more about the religion, and incorporate into my own world-view as much as I can.
I believe that every religion in existence has validity as a portion of the truth of the universe. Even the Flying Spaghetti Monster may hold one small part of the eternal and enormous message that God/Tao/Buddha/Allah/whatever is trying to impart to humankind.
The more different religions one studies, the more one can see the similarities among them, and winnow out the truths that bind them all together. The notion that one religion is "right" while all others are wrong is, to me, distasteful and ignorant. And rather conceited to imagine that the explanation and understanding of the entire Universe and all that it contains can be understood by our puny little primate brains. It's like expecting that a single mouse could gain a complete understanding of quantum physics.
I have a post planned that explains my view of the religion and "God's message", but that will have to wait until later.
Until then, namaste!
The ex got a little depressed one night, because everyone else was a couple, and we weren't, but she was fine the next day, and it didn't seem to get in the way of our enjoying spending time together. I feel bad that she gets sad about us not being together, but I think that most of the time it is the general "I wish I had somebody" sort of sadness, rather than specifically missing me.
I'm just glad that we can spend time together and have fun without all the bickering that would have accompanied the week if we were still trying to pretend to be a happily married couple.
Oh, and by the way, Mexico, more to the point, the Yucatan peninsula, is great! I got to climb Mexico's tallest pyramid, swim in an underground spring, go snorkelling, rappel into a cenote, and learn a little bit about the Mayan culture.
I also drank the best tequila I've ever had, every night, and had a rum and coke by 9:00 every morning.
I highly recommend taking a vacation somewhere in the Caribbean every year in the middle of winter. It feels so good to have a little warmth around Christmas time. Sucks to come back, though.
Interesting note - I found in the nightstand of my room, instead of the Gideon Bible, a book called "The Wisdom of Buddha". I managed to read the majority of it during my stay, and was absolutely fascinated. I don't plan to begin calling myself a Buddhist, but I do intend to study more about the religion, and incorporate into my own world-view as much as I can.
I believe that every religion in existence has validity as a portion of the truth of the universe. Even the Flying Spaghetti Monster may hold one small part of the eternal and enormous message that God/Tao/Buddha/Allah/whatever is trying to impart to humankind.
The more different religions one studies, the more one can see the similarities among them, and winnow out the truths that bind them all together. The notion that one religion is "right" while all others are wrong is, to me, distasteful and ignorant. And rather conceited to imagine that the explanation and understanding of the entire Universe and all that it contains can be understood by our puny little primate brains. It's like expecting that a single mouse could gain a complete understanding of quantum physics.
I have a post planned that explains my view of the religion and "God's message", but that will have to wait until later.
Until then, namaste!
Right to Life
I've been thinking recently about rights. Specifically, the right to life. And I've decided, I don't really believe anyone has a “right” to life.
Sure, our country was founded on the premise that every citizen has an automatic “right” to be alive, along with some other rights that we use as the basis for our social system. That doesn't mean that I have to believe in them. Our country was also founded on the premise that God exists, yet we don't require our citizens to believe in Him, either. Yet.
Back to rights. It just doesn't seem to me to make sense that anyone has a “right” to be alive. Most of us have a strong desire to stay alive, and we do many things in order to ensure that we remain alive for a long time. But just because I am capable of staying alive doesn't give me the right to, any more than my ability to knock you down and take your wallet gives me the right to do that.
If you don't believe in God, and you don't believe in the soul, if you believe that we are all meat, and when we die we just stop, then there really can't be any “rights” at all. Without some entity to grant you those rights, you don't have them. Not in the larger scheme, that is.
If you believe that you have a soul, and that your soul continues on after your death, either to go to some better place for eternity, or to be reborn into another body until you reach some sort of enlightenment, then there really is no need for a right to life. After all, your soul is immortal, and the body is just a machine for carrying around your soul. If you die, you either get a new body sooner or later, or you go off to Paradise and live happily ever after. Sounds like a fair trade to me.
And if you do believe in God, and the soul and all that, then you either believe that He loves all his creations equally, and doesn't place any one being above another, or that He made you and all the other humans better and more special than every other living thing on Earth. If you believe the first one, then you again have no right to life, or, at least, you have the same right to life that every other creature on Earth has. But what if there is a conflict? When the fox is chasing the rabbit, does the rabbit complain that his right to life is being violated? No, he runs like hell. Sometimes he lives, sometimes he dies. Neither he nor the fox debates the issue.
So if every creature has the same right to life, then no creature really has any right to life, because something else has an equal right to take that life from them. That's pretty much the same as having no rights at all.
But what if you believe that humans are more important than all other creatures, and that we totally have the right to life, even at the expense of the lives of everything else? And what if the conflict is between two human lives? Who keeps their rights, and who loses them? And who decides?
You can see that the debate could go on forever, for every individual case, and never get resolved. That's why I don't believe we actually have the right to life. Just like the rest of life on Earth, you pays your money and you takes your chances. Sometimes you live, sometimes you die. What are you going to do when you get to Heaven, call God and tell him you want to sue the guy who killed you? Where are you going to find a lawyer?
I've been thinking recently about rights. Specifically, the right to life. And I've decided, I don't really believe anyone has a “right” to life.
Sure, our country was founded on the premise that every citizen has an automatic “right” to be alive, along with some other rights that we use as the basis for our social system. That doesn't mean that I have to believe in them. Our country was also founded on the premise that God exists, yet we don't require our citizens to believe in Him, either. Yet.
Back to rights. It just doesn't seem to me to make sense that anyone has a “right” to be alive. Most of us have a strong desire to stay alive, and we do many things in order to ensure that we remain alive for a long time. But just because I am capable of staying alive doesn't give me the right to, any more than my ability to knock you down and take your wallet gives me the right to do that.
If you don't believe in God, and you don't believe in the soul, if you believe that we are all meat, and when we die we just stop, then there really can't be any “rights” at all. Without some entity to grant you those rights, you don't have them. Not in the larger scheme, that is.
If you believe that you have a soul, and that your soul continues on after your death, either to go to some better place for eternity, or to be reborn into another body until you reach some sort of enlightenment, then there really is no need for a right to life. After all, your soul is immortal, and the body is just a machine for carrying around your soul. If you die, you either get a new body sooner or later, or you go off to Paradise and live happily ever after. Sounds like a fair trade to me.
And if you do believe in God, and the soul and all that, then you either believe that He loves all his creations equally, and doesn't place any one being above another, or that He made you and all the other humans better and more special than every other living thing on Earth. If you believe the first one, then you again have no right to life, or, at least, you have the same right to life that every other creature on Earth has. But what if there is a conflict? When the fox is chasing the rabbit, does the rabbit complain that his right to life is being violated? No, he runs like hell. Sometimes he lives, sometimes he dies. Neither he nor the fox debates the issue.
So if every creature has the same right to life, then no creature really has any right to life, because something else has an equal right to take that life from them. That's pretty much the same as having no rights at all.
But what if you believe that humans are more important than all other creatures, and that we totally have the right to life, even at the expense of the lives of everything else? And what if the conflict is between two human lives? Who keeps their rights, and who loses them? And who decides?
You can see that the debate could go on forever, for every individual case, and never get resolved. That's why I don't believe we actually have the right to life. Just like the rest of life on Earth, you pays your money and you takes your chances. Sometimes you live, sometimes you die. What are you going to do when you get to Heaven, call God and tell him you want to sue the guy who killed you? Where are you going to find a lawyer?
A guy I was working with tonight was telling me about spending the other evening playing some sort of multiplayer console game with his wife and some friends.
Then he asked me, "Dude, is it bad that I want to make out with my wife's avatar?"
Comedy gold, right there.
Then he asked me, "Dude, is it bad that I want to make out with my wife's avatar?"
Comedy gold, right there.
How does a writer create characters? More to the point, how does he create characters that people want to read about, who develop a life of their own?
I read a lot, and my favorite authors are those whose characters come to life within the first few paragraphs of a story: Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Robert Heinlein. I don't even get past the first page of any of their books without becoming intensely interested in the characters. By page two, I absoutely have to find out what happens to them.
Conversely, writers like Michael Crichton, who I think is marvelous at creating ideas, plots, suspense, etc., has characters that I can't tell apart, even three quarters of the way through the book. I loved Jurassic Park, but at the end of the book, I still could barely tell who was who.
I would love to be able to write, to tell stories that other people would want to read, that would affect people emotionally, or at least make them laugh. I even have ideas, some rather interesting, that might be turned into good stories, but for one major stumbling block. I don't have the slightest clue how to make my characters come alive.
With all the reading that I do, I can recognize excellent character writing when I see it, but reproducing it is another matter entirely. It's like recognizing the craftmanship in a perfectly created gourmet dish, but not having the cooking knowledge to be able to recreate it at home. Frustrating, no?
I plan to try to take some creative writing courses, starting next January, but in the meantime, if there are any writers out there who have discovered any secrets or tips for good character creation, I'd love to hear them.
I read a lot, and my favorite authors are those whose characters come to life within the first few paragraphs of a story: Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Robert Heinlein. I don't even get past the first page of any of their books without becoming intensely interested in the characters. By page two, I absoutely have to find out what happens to them.
Conversely, writers like Michael Crichton, who I think is marvelous at creating ideas, plots, suspense, etc., has characters that I can't tell apart, even three quarters of the way through the book. I loved Jurassic Park, but at the end of the book, I still could barely tell who was who.
I would love to be able to write, to tell stories that other people would want to read, that would affect people emotionally, or at least make them laugh. I even have ideas, some rather interesting, that might be turned into good stories, but for one major stumbling block. I don't have the slightest clue how to make my characters come alive.
With all the reading that I do, I can recognize excellent character writing when I see it, but reproducing it is another matter entirely. It's like recognizing the craftmanship in a perfectly created gourmet dish, but not having the cooking knowledge to be able to recreate it at home. Frustrating, no?
I plan to try to take some creative writing courses, starting next January, but in the meantime, if there are any writers out there who have discovered any secrets or tips for good character creation, I'd love to hear them.
Wow! I've stayed up way too late browsing around the site.
Joined a few groups, checked some message boards, made a few comments. This site is very easily addicting. Been listening to the Digitally Imported radio station on Shoutcast. Euro trance and techno, very cool. I love Internet radio.
I still haven't joined all the groups I want to, and haven't even checked out huge section of the site, but I really need to get some sleep. So I can dream about the Suicide Girls, yeah . . .
Joined a few groups, checked some message boards, made a few comments. This site is very easily addicting. Been listening to the Digitally Imported radio station on Shoutcast. Euro trance and techno, very cool. I love Internet radio.
I still haven't joined all the groups I want to, and haven't even checked out huge section of the site, but I really need to get some sleep. So I can dream about the Suicide Girls, yeah . . .
So I finally did it - I muscled up the nerve to join Suicide Girls. w00t!
I have to thank Wil Wheaton for turning me on to this site. He doesn't know me (duh), but I've been reading his blog for several years, and when he became a columnist for SG, I had to check it out.
I was immediately captivated by the site - not just the models, who are the kind of real-life, kick-ass women you really want to meet but never get to, but also the sense of community, of a place where people from all over the world, with completely different points of view, likes and dislikes, quirks, and personalities can come together and share the fact that they are all different.
My kind of place . . .
So now I'm a member, although I'm not much of a blogger, nor a chatter, nor a board poster. I'm going to make an attempt to be a little more of each of those, to maybe find a real niche in this community. This journal entry is just the beginning, I hope.
We'll see . . .
Taolie
I have to thank Wil Wheaton for turning me on to this site. He doesn't know me (duh), but I've been reading his blog for several years, and when he became a columnist for SG, I had to check it out.
I was immediately captivated by the site - not just the models, who are the kind of real-life, kick-ass women you really want to meet but never get to, but also the sense of community, of a place where people from all over the world, with completely different points of view, likes and dislikes, quirks, and personalities can come together and share the fact that they are all different.
My kind of place . . .
So now I'm a member, although I'm not much of a blogger, nor a chatter, nor a board poster. I'm going to make an attempt to be a little more of each of those, to maybe find a real niche in this community. This journal entry is just the beginning, I hope.
We'll see . . .
Taolie
