Monthly Archives: July 2009

On Being Well-Rounded

I don’t have specific advice or ideas about being a well-rounded human being, since I’m still relatively young (right?) and have gone deep on few topics rather than broad on many, but I did just have an idea thinking about the question of being “well-rounded.” It’s a notion that is used in the CrossFit exercise program, which is the idea of “the hopper.”

Think of a big rotating basket full of ping-pong balls like they use in bingo, but on each ball is a list of physical activities instead of a number. You spin the basket, pick out a ball, and do whatever is on that ball. It might mean running for kilometers; it might mean lifting heavy weights overhead; it might be body weight exercises; likely, it’s some combination of them all. An expert in some activity — a marathon runner, an olympic lifter, etc. — would do well on some particular activity, but if the wrong one came out they may not do very well at all. If you start doing what comes out of the hopper each time, you’ll become better at any random exercise that eventually emerges.

This works rather well for building athletes who are reasonably good at many, varied things.

I wonder if this idea could apply to other pursuits, in terms of improving one’s abilities and broadness of experience. This could just mean a simple way of producing challenges when one is pursuing something very new to them — if when learning to play music, if each day or week you got a random song you had to learn, or a random instrument you had to play, or both, would this help in the pursuit? This may not turn you into a virtuoso, but would it help you in becoming musical?

This could apply to a number of activities, I would reckon, though I do still admit being way too ignorant about way to many subjects to know for sure. But it might also help in choosing what to pursue — what if you had a hopper that produced a broad activity (learn an instrument, learn a language, learn electronics, learn woodworking) that you got to do each month or so. I don’t know if the time domain makes sense, especially since lots of things must require some significant instruction and practice. Taking your own decisions about what to do out of the picture tends to help sometimes.

Out of coincidence, I read this quote by Robert Heinlein today, and it did make me sit up and take notice:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

So pick something, anything. You’ll (a) be surprised at how good you can do it, or (b) be surprised at how hard it is, and will definitely (c) think differently at the end.

This is getting long, and I’m probably getting more joy out of writing it then engaging in any dialogue on the subject, but there you are.

I can give some answer on what I’ve done personally with my life so far, though I think it’s boring: I’ve been into computers and programming them since I ditched my ideas of becoming an artist Freshman year of college. I used to be very into astronomy and broad, popular science, and read a lot of science news. I tried to build a telescope but failed. I read many classic American and Russian novels. I’ve watched and been critical about many classic movies. As of late, though, I have only been programming computers for work (real-time control code for complex robotic bits, some network service work) and for fun (some open source stuff a while back, now I’m writing an iPhone app to try and get rich (not really)). I’ve been keeping up a CrossFit workout regimen. I studied Aikido for a few months before that. I have traveled few places, notably Europe and most memorably Scotland. I have had crushes on women, but have never been in love with one.

I don’t know what qualifies as a complete human life, but that doesn’t quite feel like it.

Thanks.

Exit Strategy

Maybe having a better exit strategy other than “not showing up any more” or “punching a co-worker” is a good idea.

w/r/t Water

This passage, from David Foster Wallace’s famous graduation speech, has been haunting me for some time now:

I know that this stuff probably doesn’t sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational. What it is, so far as I can see, is the truth with a whole lot of rhetorical bullshit pared away. Obviously, you can think of it whatever you wish. But please don’t dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon. None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death. The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness — awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: “This is water, this is water.”

It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out.

What this brought on for me is a real, serious and difficult-to-reconcile perspective on life and death and all that. That, for one, death is probably the end of any conscious existence we enjoy and find ourselves so wrapped up in day in and day out, and for two, that just sitting here, thinking, it’s like you feel it coming on.

I don’t know how best to describe this, but I’ve felt this way for so long. It’s like if you can feel the time slipping away. Like if you’re heading headlong into some brick wall, but only that brick wall is something so deep, dark, and unimaginable. I can’t even describe it well enough, here; it’s too weird to talk about, and just saying that “I fear dying” or even “I fear getting old” is just inadequate.

I do have to say that two times during my day I ignore this completely enough to feel like a human being again: one, when I’m drinking alcohol, and otherwise am among people that I like a great deal. Two, doing CrossFit. Both, the latter especially, are just such real and present experiences that any sense of time just gets put on the back burner. That, I think, is what people mean when they say coins such as “live in the now,” but it’s so difficult to remain in that presence. To remind myself that this is water.