Monday, October 22, 2007
decline of an empire
I remember reading Isaac Asimov's foundation series. It talked about how when a civilization begins its decline it no longer produces great things, followed by slowly being unable to maintain the great things it has already made. Leading in a long downward spiral towards chaos and the end of the civilization until another rises to take its place. Sounds overly dramatic in the context of what I'm about to say, but keep the idea and just scale it down.
My company had built a small miniature golf course between some office buildings back during the .com boom. They stopped building things like that after the boom ended, but we got a basketball court and a few other niceties. You could go out during lunch or just when you had a little free time and putt a few holes, get your daily dose of vitamin D, and clear your mind for your 3:00 meeting. Lately it had been becoming run down, missing clubs and balls and pieces of green carpet. Then very recently they came along with a buldozer and I thought, "finally they are going to fix the mini-golf course". But my company is the great empire that is past its peak. The mini-golf is gone.
Lack of mini-golf is probably the least relevant sign of our decline, there are business related things that actually indicate it more. I could make a laundry list of them. But the mini-golf is a tangible physical change that I see with my eyes right before going through the front door and right after leaving the building to go home. It frames my work day as a monument of how things used to be.
My company had built a small miniature golf course between some office buildings back during the .com boom. They stopped building things like that after the boom ended, but we got a basketball court and a few other niceties. You could go out during lunch or just when you had a little free time and putt a few holes, get your daily dose of vitamin D, and clear your mind for your 3:00 meeting. Lately it had been becoming run down, missing clubs and balls and pieces of green carpet. Then very recently they came along with a buldozer and I thought, "finally they are going to fix the mini-golf course". But my company is the great empire that is past its peak. The mini-golf is gone.
Lack of mini-golf is probably the least relevant sign of our decline, there are business related things that actually indicate it more. I could make a laundry list of them. But the mini-golf is a tangible physical change that I see with my eyes right before going through the front door and right after leaving the building to go home. It frames my work day as a monument of how things used to be.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Giving blogging another go
I'm going to give blogging another go. It's been over a year since I've posted. Part of the reason is after it has been awhile I felt I needed to post something really good when I started again. Well, here is something not really good, more of a pointless ramble. Maybe if I just lower my standards I'll stick with it. To what end I'm not sure, but maybe I'll find that path. So without further ado.
One day, today, I woke up (or rather didn't go to sleep) and found out two things. I don't have many friends, and most of those few friends are rock climbers. Nothing wrong with rock climbers. But I would have thought spending so much time at work that I would have made some good friends there. Lot of people at work, you'd think I'd find a few fast and true friends just through statistics. But really I just have a lot of work acquaintances and some casual friends. I play ultimate frisbee, have for 5 years or so, several times a week. Many of the people I play with probably don't know my last name. Or maybe friends via my daughter, you know my daughters friends parents become my friends. I really thought I'd make some close friends at church. I went to two churches, each for 3 years (to be clear I'm still going to the second one). People at church share a common faith, are nice, etc. They even know my last name. But they don't really know me, and at the first church when I stopped going nobody noticed. And as much as I like the second church if I stopped going not many would notice, and those wouldn't think too much of it.
So I'll attempt to answer the second question, or rather statement, first. It would be easy to say most of my friends are climbers because I spend a lot of time climbing. Time I am sure is a prereq, one I have less of now that I have kids, but judging by my other activities that I do still spend time on time alone is not a sufficient condition in and of itself.
Cathy, one of my climbing friends, was reminiscing with me and I said it was strange we had become good friends, because outside of climbing we had nothing in common. She said it had to be because we always had such a good time, we meet up in these beautiful places and have these grand adventures. There is probably something to that. But I've gone camping and backpacking with people from my church and it's not enough to break past the acquaintances barrier into the friendship zone. I think the real thing is that rock climbers tend to drop all superficial things. They tend to not be very superficial to begin with and drop what little of that they have when they are out.
Which bring me to why I don't have many friends. You see, I used to have friends. In elementary school, both high schools, & college. I am realizing now that those friends were close because we were open, we put it all out there, didn't hide anything. We didn't make small talk or avoid subjects. But more importantly we were like that before we were friends. This distinction is important. Ignore the rest of the ramble but remember this. We became friends after we were open with eachother, not before.
So it turns out I have changed. I have become superficial. That's about to end.
One day, today, I woke up (or rather didn't go to sleep) and found out two things. I don't have many friends, and most of those few friends are rock climbers. Nothing wrong with rock climbers. But I would have thought spending so much time at work that I would have made some good friends there. Lot of people at work, you'd think I'd find a few fast and true friends just through statistics. But really I just have a lot of work acquaintances and some casual friends. I play ultimate frisbee, have for 5 years or so, several times a week. Many of the people I play with probably don't know my last name. Or maybe friends via my daughter, you know my daughters friends parents become my friends. I really thought I'd make some close friends at church. I went to two churches, each for 3 years (to be clear I'm still going to the second one). People at church share a common faith, are nice, etc. They even know my last name. But they don't really know me, and at the first church when I stopped going nobody noticed. And as much as I like the second church if I stopped going not many would notice, and those wouldn't think too much of it.
So I'll attempt to answer the second question, or rather statement, first. It would be easy to say most of my friends are climbers because I spend a lot of time climbing. Time I am sure is a prereq, one I have less of now that I have kids, but judging by my other activities that I do still spend time on time alone is not a sufficient condition in and of itself.
Cathy, one of my climbing friends, was reminiscing with me and I said it was strange we had become good friends, because outside of climbing we had nothing in common. She said it had to be because we always had such a good time, we meet up in these beautiful places and have these grand adventures. There is probably something to that. But I've gone camping and backpacking with people from my church and it's not enough to break past the acquaintances barrier into the friendship zone. I think the real thing is that rock climbers tend to drop all superficial things. They tend to not be very superficial to begin with and drop what little of that they have when they are out.
Which bring me to why I don't have many friends. You see, I used to have friends. In elementary school, both high schools, & college. I am realizing now that those friends were close because we were open, we put it all out there, didn't hide anything. We didn't make small talk or avoid subjects. But more importantly we were like that before we were friends. This distinction is important. Ignore the rest of the ramble but remember this. We became friends after we were open with eachother, not before.
So it turns out I have changed. I have become superficial. That's about to end.
