Coded gray.

Saturday 19 March 2005

Screenshot Sims2

Pic of the day: Screenshot of student from Sims2. I'm not writing about the game today though.

Different studies

Yesterday I visited some Norwegian web sites dedicated to distance learning. Almost certainly this was caused by my playing "Sims2 University", for the studies I was looking at were all college level. I also checked out the web site of the local college. I know that some of my coworkers study on their free time. I wouldn't really do that, of course: I am an old man and looking forward to retirement, or at least that's what I tell myself. Admittedly my aunt took a college education around the age of 50, but then again she was a teacher.

Anyway, I found that distance learning over the Internet is still very expensive. Oh, I could probably afford it; but the equivalent of one semester full-time study would set me back the cost of two nice desktop computers. (Not that I actually need two more desktop computers, but it is kind of my unit of currency.) OK, I don't know if that is actually expensive by international standards, but it makes me think twice if I don't need it anyway. Which is as it should be, I guess.

Then I reflected on the fact that one can do a lot of study without schools or courses. Of course, these studies rarely lead to exams and new jobs, but they can be just as meaningful anyway. The Internet is like a giant library, only after a major earthquake... You can find pretty much anything, although you tend to find the good stuff by accident or a friend gives it to you. Even if you restrict yourself to knowledge that comes from respected institutions of science, there is no way you could keep up with more than a few narrow interests. It is a deluge of knowledge.

***

In addition to this dry and theoretical knowledge, there is the world around us. When I was a kid at school, we all had a project where we gathered leaves from different trees and flowers and put them in albums like photos. There was probably more to it, we must have preserved them some way so they didn't rot. I think we pressed them in papers that absorbed the water or somesuch. But the point is, there's always something to find in nature or even in a park. Plants, insects, animal tracks, college girls jogging... anyway, there are a lot of fascinating things in nature.

***

But isn't one of the most fascinating things in creation the human mind? And for good measure, we usually bring one along with us wherever we go. With a little training, we can observe it either briefly or in greater detail. For introverted people this usually comes easy, whereas it may take some time to get used to if you are extroverted. It is not really difficult, though. This is a wide field, from simple mindfulness -- being present in what we do -- to the whole discipline of meditation, which could fill entire lifetimes. (Note that I am not saying we actually have several lifetimes. There are those who think so, but I won't debate that here today.)

What I am talking about here is first of all a heightened self- awareness. The ability to sometimes stop and ask: What am I doing now? Not even why, which can surely be interesting in its own right. But to just take note of where I am, what I am doing, in detail. Not just "working" but "holding a cup of coffee while watching the computer screen". Let the senses scan over my body and take note of my sitting position, the way I hold my arms ... simply observing myself. Perhaps I find something useful there, or perhaps not. That's really beside the point. The point is to inject awareness into my real life.

One somewhat brute approach is an alarm clock or inexpensive timer which is set to go off at regular intervals. When it goes off (preferably not in a spectacular fashion), take stock of your current activity. Perhaps note the last thoughts that went through your head, in short observe yourself. After a while it should become routine. In fact, it may be a good idea to limit this to certain parts of the day, because otherwise you might wake up at intervals in the night, which is not necessarily a good thing. But don't be surprised if it intrudes on your dreams.

If you are familiar with even the basics of meditation, you can easily do that in times and places where you would otherwise just be bored, such as while standing in line or wating for a machine to perform some huge job. You will certainly not go deeply into altered stages of consciousness while doing this, but may notice a calm coming over you, tense muscles that relax, breathing that becomes deeper, reality asserting itself like a pond that quiets down after the wind. That is not a bad use of time that would pass anyway.

If you are not already familiar with the topic, I wrote a small introduction called the approximate truth about meditation a few years ago. Perhaps I should have called it "How to defragment your brain" instead? ^_^


Yesterday <-- This month --> Tomorrow?
One year ago: No entry
Two years ago: Thoughts on America
Three years ago: Short
Four years ago: Arrival
Five years ago: No visit to the moon
Six years ago: Fear and religion

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