I went to Utah for my brother’s college graduation the past few days. Drove across the desert with my parents and grandparents. If you’ve never been to a college graduation, they give the diploma to each student, one by one. Sometimes there are thousands of students graduating, and in severe cases it can last five or six hours. Hours of sheer boredom.
My other brother and I alleviated the boredom by bringing our laptops and trying to connect them so we could play Starcraft. We couldn’t break into the University wireless, so we settled on a Bluetooth connection. We also noticed a number of other people in the area had their Bluetooth turned on. If you have a bluetooth phone, and you are not using the bluetooth, you should turn it off because it uses a lot of battery.
Despite the utter boredom we went through all for ten seconds of cheering as my brother walked across the stage, I would still suggest you actually attend your graduation if you are graduating. There is nothing like dressing in a robe, that no reasonable person would ever wear from a stylistic standpoint, and getting your friends to come and cheer for you while waiting in utter boredom. Especially after driving 14 hours across the desert. Despite all that it was still a joyous occasion.
Oh, and I highly recommend leis for the graduate. An excellent tradition.
I found an article about different power couples in the world. I don’t want to be famous, but I like the idea of each person in the couple being competent and working towards their goals. In that article all the people are actors or politicians, but here is a different one:
Milton and Rose Friedman, two of the greatest economists ever
To me a power couple means that two people are working together towards the same goals, it isn’t one person taking care of the other, they are partners, they are a team. That is why I like power couples.
Peace is an unusually simple problem: it’s entirely a marketing problem. We don’t even have to get people to buy anything, all we have to do is get them to want it. The marketing is the whole problem. Once everyone wants it, then the problem is solved because no one will fight anymore. It really is that easy.
In talking to people, I have observed three broad ‘market segments’ that need to be addressed, three types of people. Maybe there are more, but this is what I have found so far:
1) Those who think that humans are violent by nature, and thus war is inevitable. These are believers in the ‘killer ape’ theory or perhaps they’ve just seen too much violence in their lives. Fortunately men are not violent by nature, the ‘killer ape’ theory is discredited, and in any case we are capable of choosing our destinies.
2) The second group are those who would stop fighting, but the ‘other guys’ won’t stop. These are most Americans. They didn’t want to attack Afghanistan originally, but the Afghanis struck first, so what choice was there? These people happily would support peace if they saw it as a viable possibility. Fortunately, peace is viable because it is the most profitable solution, we just need to help the world see that. The more people start supporting peace, the more this group will become convinced that peace is possible.
3) The third group is the most difficult group, because they actually have something to gain from war. In this category was Slobodan Milošević, who wanted to consolidate power in his country, or warriors on the edge of the Sahara who want to take others’ land for their own cattle. Some people fight because it is exciting, they like the thrill. These people need to see that there is a better way, and that their children will want to live in peace, and sometimes compromise is worth it. Anyone who has loved has learned the value of compromise. These people can too.
Try to talk to everyone you can about world peace, because word of mouth is the best type of marketing. Also, check out the movie.
They are awesome They are athletic. They are doing things. This is manly (even if they had to be stylized to make them look more manly. Look at Peyton Manning’s head). All men want to do things.
One feeling every guy feels is attraction. He will feel it more or less around every girl that walks by. Sometimes, if he feels really strong attraction, he will think he is in love. This is false. Soon, he will once again realize that other women in the world are attractive. Sorry women, your guy thinks other women are attractive. This is why relationships built on nothing but attraction can’t last (I think women feel most of these things too, but they feel them in different situations).
There is another, lesser known feeling, that men feel, and that is usually when they are with a woman they respect, and that cares about them. This is the feeling that makes men settle down. It is a feeling hard to describe, that I call, absolute satisfaction. Here is this feeling expressed perfectly, in a painting of Venus and Mars.
Notice the little kids are playing with his manly weapons. He has given up all thought of his manly goals, and is utterly satisfied to do nothing. Very satisfied. Note that a lot of guys have never felt this feeling, and have no clue it exists. It is worse because when they see another guy feeling this way, they just think he is lazy. When my friend got married, I thought he was lazy (of course: he’s sleeping when he could be doing something). When this feeling hits you for the first time, it is the most amazing realization ever.
Then suddenly, the guy realizes he is not being a man. He has betrayed his childhood heros. At this point, many men will give up, get fat, and pretend it wasn’t important. Others, not knowing how to handle this knowledge, will hit their midlife crisis, or their 7 year itch, and cheat. Then be penitent, confused, and get fat for the rest of their lives.
Some few will become true men, and will wake up from their sleep, and go do things. Maybe they won’t be basketball players or baseball players, but they will do something they feel is valuable; like excelling at work or volunteering at a homeless shelter. This is really scary to a woman, because suddenly he has broken free. Sometimes she will try to keep him down, but this is a mistake, because if she encourages his greatness and manliness, they will love each other so much more. Carla Bruni sings about this, and she does it right, encouraging her man who travels, and reminding him that while he is out doing his battling, he should still come home. Any true man will come home.
In my ideal world, the woman would be out with me not waiting, my partner to explore the world.
Some people say that chemistry between two people is something that happens, and it can’t be developed, but that’s not true. There are in fact techniques that can be used to develop chemistry between two people.
A simple technique that a lot of people don’t do is look in her/his eyes. Don’t just stare, the eyes are the window to the soul. Look deep to see what is in there, pain? fear? hate? love? A mix of different things? This is a scary technique because when you look in someone else’s eyes, they can look in yours, they can see in your soul. What are you hiding? Also, if you are a girl at a club and you look in people’s eyes, soon you will have guys surrounding you like flies, unless you smell bad.
‘Chemistry’ means different things to different people. If you are the type of person who thinks ‘chemistry’ is exciting/happy/wild/passionate feelings, then this technique will work for you: alternate being nice and mean to a person randomly. This technique is roughly known as the ‘mystery method’ and it can drive a girl wild, especially if the girl has low self-esteem. Personally I hate this technique, so please don’t use it.
I prefer being honest, so I like the technique called ‘the sincere compliment.’ This is basically if you like something about a person, you tell them, without asking anything in return. ‘I think you are beautiful.’ And that’s it, she doesn’t have to respond, you can change the subject. The hard part is you have to do it at a time when the person will believe you, because if you say it at the wrong time or in the wrong way, she/he will not believe you. It’s great because it’s not a trick, it is something absolutely true. Don’t lie with it.
‘Chemistry’ means ‘exciting feelings’ for some people, but for me it means both people understanding what the other is thinking and feeling. This kind of chemistry happens automatically for some people when they are both attracted to each other. It is easy because they are both thinking the same thing, “wow, you are so brilliant, beautiful and attractive.” They are both feeling the same thing, happiness and attraction. It’s really quite shallow. This kind of chemistry never lasts, though; hormones only stay around so long before you are exhausted, which is why any lasting relationship needs to be based on something more than attraction.
If you want to find that kind of true chemistry, you will have to do most of the work, because most of the rest of the world believes it can’t be built. So it is up to you. The first thing you will have to do is get good at understanding what other people are feeling. Looking in the eyes can help with that. Once you can do that, then it’s a lot easier to understand what they are thinking. Then you need to get your partner to realize he can understand what you are feeling, too. Easy way to do this is with questions, like, “do you understand what I am feeling?” Don’t ask this kind of question during an argument, arguments are mostly useless, I think.
Finally, teach him/her to do stuff you think is fun. He/she will appreciate it. If you think blowing kisses to each other is fun, first do it to him, in a way that he will think is fun, and after a few times he will start doing it back to you. If she doesn’t like talking on the phone, make sure when you talk on the phone the conversations are really enjoyable for her, and then pretty soon she will understand what is good about talking on the phone and start doing it herself. If she doesn’t, then she is really boring.
I read this quote today from Wikipedia about Eva Perón and it really touched me, so here it is to share it with you:
it was Evita’s work with the foundation that played a large role in her idealization, leading some to even consider her to be a saint. Though it was unnecessary from a practical standpoint, Evita set aside many hours per day to meet with the poor who requested help from her foundation. During these meetings with the poor, Evita often kissed the poor and allowed them to kiss her. Evita was even witnessed placing her hands in the suppurated wounds of the sick and poor, touching the leprous, and kissing the syphilitic. Fraser and Navarro write that though Argentina is secular in many respects, it is essentially a Catholic country. Therefore, when Evita kissed the syphilitic and touched the leprous she “ceased to be the President’s wife and acquired some of the characteristics of saints depicted in Catholicism.” Poet José María Castiñeira de Dios, a man from a wealthy background, reflected on the times he witnessed Evita meeting with the poor: “I had had a sort of literary perception of the people and the poor and she had given me a Christian one, thus allowing me to become a Christian in the profoundest sense….”
There is a lot of criticism of Eva, but it is certain she cared about the people, and her faults are most likely attributable to her inexperience. She was a great woman.
I have a cousin who is going through hard times. She has a boyfriend that beats her (in her defense, she also beats her boyfriend. It’s an interesting relationship). She parties too much, and sometimes steals from her boss (small things). Her dad was an on-and-off alcoholic, but that was better than her mom, who gave her up in the divorce settlement in exchange for money. So it is easy to see why she would have trouble figuring out life. But I still love her.
So I figure she has enough people giving her advice and telling her what to do, it probably doesn’t help much. She’s an adult, she can make her own decisions. When I see her, I give her a hug, or put my arm around her, try to help her feel loved, and maybe give her a little confidence and energy. She can solve her problems, I know that, but it’s up to her to actually do it. I just want her to know I am on her side, even if I don’t always agree with everything she does.
John Christy has spent years studying climate science, working with weather satellites, and he had some interesting things to say about global warming. He basically says it seems there is nothing to worry about, but you should read the whole article. Here is a quote I really like:
“Atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to increase due to the undisputed benefits that carbon-based energy brings to humanity. This increase will have some climate impact through CO2′s radiation properties.
However, fundamental knowledge is meagre here, and our own research indicates that alarming changes in the key observations are not occurring.
The best advice regarding scientific knowledge, which certainly applies to climate, came to me from Mr Mallory, my high school physics teacher.
He proposed that we should always begin our scientific pronouncements with this statement: “At our present level of ignorance, we think we know…”
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