Moving Forward

I have had trouble coming up with a good topic to post on.  Driving around town, I specifically remember a variety of interesting ideas coming to mind.  But I didn't make note of what they were, so when I sit down in front of my computer, I come up totally blank, and slightly distracted.  I want to put something up, because the somewhat deliberate (or OCD) side of my mind doesn't like going any longer between posts.  I have been a bit distracted and overwhelmingly busy recently, so I haven't had time to focus much on this.  And that is pretty ironic, considering I recently discovered the magnitude of the potential value in this endeavor in writing and sharing.  But since this process may have succeeded in fulfilling its original primary objective, it is a bit harder to find the motivation to stay so on top of it, with everything else going on.  But I also know that there are many other things to be gained from the process that I go through in writing these posts, so I don't intend to actually stop anytime soon.  And eventually I intend for the life narrative to catch up nearly to real time, but it is hard to find time to write down those experiences from the past, when I am so busy having new ones in the present.  Anyhow, that ought to suffice for now.

Writing Things Down so You Don't Have to Remember Them

On the surface, writing things down so you don't have to remember them seems like a pretty simple and obvious idea.  It is something I always used to avoid doing, because I didn't like writing, and had an excellent memory.  It seemed like a tedious waste of time.  As life got more complicated, I began to do so more frequently, with various systems of making notes for myself over the years.

But that concept can be applied at a much deeper level.  I make a point of writing things down when I don't want to be distracted by them.  This happens most frequently during quiet times at Bible Study, where ideas come to mind when I am trying to relax and be at peace.  I don't want to forget whatever occurred to me if it was important, but I don't want to be distracted by it, so I make a note of it on my cell phone.  And that allows me to refocus, since it is being "remembered" by my phone instead of by my mind.  I do that very consciously, as a tool for releasing small distractions from my mind.

They say that writing can be therapeutic, and I do a lot of writing now days, but I hadn't figured out to what degree that effect was true until recently.  My posts here describe all sorts of life events and experiences, most of which I remember from a long time ago.  So I have a pretty good memory, and am very conscious of things that have happened in the past.  (That is a characteristic that makes forgiveness harder for me.)

Anyhow, someone recently mentioned a major incident that they had read about on here, which almost caught me by surprise, because it had been so long since I had thought about it at all.  It was a somewhat traumatic initial experience that had pretty much defined one aspect of my life for many years.  After posting about it in detail, I guess my subconscious mind concluded that it didn't need to dwell on or remember it anymore.  And that is great!  I didn't even notice that it hadn't been on my mind for such a long time.  How does one know how much they have forgotten about?  I can think of a few other significant experiences I should post about on here, to help release them from the confines of my mind.  (Writing things down so I don't have to remember them.)  But I will get there, all in good time.  I am not usually someone who skips ahead, and when I do, I usually end up regretting it.

The Value of Giving Things Away

My mom had a variety of mobility assistance items, for people who have physical handicaps, which I had to sort through and get rid of this year.  That include a motorized scooter, walkers, and other accessories.  Her condition was not overly limiting, so the items were rarely used, and are practically brand new.  Most of them are quite pricey to acquire new, even though the cost to manufacture them can't be very high, but they have nearly zero resale value.

One reason for that could be the limited market for them, but there seems to be some other factor at play.  The resell value is so low, only because insurance will pay for new ones, for anyone who needs them.  (Private insurance in my Mom's case, and Medicare in the cases of most older people who need them.)  So no one is out actually buying these items, and with no competition between suppliers to attract the actual consumers of these products, the prices must be artificially inflated.  (Which I suspect is true of all of medical care at this point.)

But they are designed to be used by the disadvantaged, the widows, the lame, and the blind.  Biblically, those are the people who it is most important for us to help out and assist.  "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress."  (James 1:27a)

So I wanted to find a way to provide these items, which I have no use for, to people who really need them.  That ended up being much more challenging than I would have imagined.  I eventually was able to connect with someone who runs a support group for people with my Mom's specific disability, and even HE wasn't sure what to do with them.  But I figured he was much more likely to come across individuals who are in need of those types of things, so while they may not have found their way to help out new owners yet, I have given them to him to distribute.  He was pretty surprised that I was ready to give away things so valuable, especially to someone I didn't know, but I have no idea what else he thought I could otherwise do with them.

Maybe he will sell them on secret-black-market-for-medical-devices that I know nothing about, and pocket the proceeds.  Who knows?  But that is between him and God.  I did my part, and found the best conduit I could, to get them into the hands of people who really need them.  They sure weren't helping anyone out while collecting dust in my Mom's garage for a year.  The same could be said for a variety things God has provided in our lives, but is more extreme in this case, because of the lack of utility they provide to anyone else.  The "I might need that someday" line of thinking really doesn't apply, the way it could to say: a savings account.  Anyhow, that particular talent has been invested as well as I could, and the result of that is up to God, not me.  It always is, that fact just isn't always so clearly obvious.

Negotiating Purchases

For someone who frequently gets incredibly good deals when buying things, I am usually a terrible negotiator.  I used to estimate that I saved my company an average of $1000/day in purchase price discounts, for months before and after an office move.  We needed to buy a ton of equipment, and I was good at sourcing it cheaply.  My boss's specialty on the other hand, was in getting things for free, usually in exchange for feedback or joint PR.  That involved much more negotiating than the approach I took, but my deals were usually no strings attached, based entirely on comparing prices, and knowing where to look.  I built three editing facilities primarily out of parts I found on eBay.  But very little actual negotiating was involved in that whole process.  Most of the negotiating I did, was with our operations and finance officer, convincing him that I needed the funding, for things the company actually did need.

In my own personal finances, I am fairly thrifty as well, without being cheap.  My onne big extravagant “habit” is always having a nice laptop, but I usually get good discounts on those, and still no negotiating involved.  I usually attribute this to the idea that the only deals I bother pursuing or ones that are already so good, that they can't expect to be improved.  That assessment is probably fairly accurate.  My first three Craigslist purchases, I made half hearted attempts to knock down the price.  But all of them were already ridiculously, low as a prerequisite for me following up on them.  In two of those cases I had people with me, advising me on how to negotiate, but it was still a no-go.  And even without negotiating at all, I got great deals each time, on relatively large items.

So today was a new experience, starting with pursuing a deal that was merely good, instead of incredible.  And I had the right mindset going into it, being prepared to walk away.  Being in the process of rebuilding a house, I am buying a lot of things, and learning about them at the same time.  I found a matching set of high end kitchen appliances on Craigslist a while back, and since they were more expensive than I was originally planning, I wasn't sure whether to pursue them.  When they were still available two weeks later, and I was scheduled to drive within 10 miles of their location an hour away, I took that as a sign that they were worth looking into.  I had to learn a few things about high-end appliances in order to evaluate the deal, but that was good knowledge to acquire.  I ended up talking the price down from $1600 to $1250, which is not too bad, and makes what was previously a good deal into a great deal.  Now I just have to finish building the kitchen that I want to put them into.  And I still need to find incredible deals on a fridge, water heater, and washer & dryer.  Maybe I will even have to negotiate a bit more.

Feeling Pain and Pleasure

My body has taken a good bit of abuse recently, leading to experiencing pain in a variety of places.  Remodeling work takes a toll, from basic cuts and scratches on my hands, leading to wear gloves more, to banging my head enough times to prompt me to wear a helmet.  Spending three days doing plumbing and wiring in my attic was the worst, between the excessive heat, the fiberglass insulation getting everywhere, and maneuvers in tight spaces hurting my back.  Besides my gloves and helmet there where a variety of other pieces of gear I used to protect myself from pain, both immediately and in the future.  I had a respirator to protect my lungs from fiberglass, mold and asbestos, and goggles to protect my eyes and vision.

Regardless of all of those preparations, I have found myself in a lot of pain the last few days.  Pain is a strange phenomenon, in that it is a strongly negative sensation, contained entirely in our head.  It appears to come from other areas of our body, but in reality, it is just our brains giving us conscious warnings, based on signals it is receiving from those places.  Pain also doesn't need to have a physical source; it can be entirely emotional or spiritual.  One of the reasons the heart is associated with feelings, is that is the primary place people experience the sensation of pain, when their "wounds" are entirely emotional.

The actual sensation of pain is strange, in that it is hard to bear, even though it is just a feeling.  That is the whole reason it exists, as it provides the motivation for the reflex to protect our body.  Pain is usually perceived as a very bad thing, and while it is in a way, it serves an important warning system to prevent or minimize actual damage to our bodies.  Simple things like shifting our body weight are done subconsciously to avoid pain, but serve an important purpose.  Paralyzed people who have no feeling are not prompted to do that, and can wound themselves with there own bodies as a result.  Pain is a strongly negative sensation that serves as a motivation to action.

So that description of pain serves as a starting point for an examination of pleasure.  The concept of pleasure has been on my mind for a while, but I wasn't sure how to examine it in a post until I got the idea for this perspective:  Pain is the opposite of pleasure.  In the same way that certain things can feel "bad" to us, other things can feel "good" to us.  The broadest form I can think of is eating.  Eating can satisfy hunger, which can otherwise be a source of pain.  But eating can also be a true source of pleasure, based on flavor and texture.

Certain foods are more pleasurable to eat than others, depending on one's tastes. Frequently, it feels like the things that are the most pleasurable to eat, are the things that are the worst for our health.  Why would God set things up that way?  I believe that is an illusion in most cases, and that unless you are just eating Twinkies, most things are good for us in moderation.  It is only when that pleasure causes us to want to eat far too much of something, that it becomes unhealthy.  The other potential issue is eating far too much in general, but I suspect that lack of exercise probably plays a bigger role than excessive diet in most cases, at least in America, where the farthest anyone ever walks, is to their car.  Even fats and sugars are healthy for the human body, at least in limited quantities.  We would die without them.  They only get a bad reputation, because they tend to occupy a higher percentage of people's diets than they should.

The most extreme form of physical pleasure that I am aware of, is sexual pleasure.  Now this just as much "all in one's head" as pain is, if not more so.  But these sensations are strong enough to motivate people to do all sorts of crazy things, occasionally at great risk to themselves, in order to experience them.  And all for a "feeling" they experience for a few seconds, and then it is over.  There is no persistent result, requiring the experience to be repeated in order to feel it again.  The same is true for eating, which is what leads to that being a problem of excess for many people.

Pain on the other hand, is much more likely to be persistent, unless the source of the feeling is dealt with.  Imagine if pleasure operated more that way.  I don't know why it doesn't; maybe that is a result of the fall.  Life would probably be very different if pleasure was more frequently a persistent sensation.

Key People in the Inner Circle

My post on keys led me down a rabbit-trail about key "people," which I ended up putting off at the time.  I then happened to read CS Lewis's speech "The Inner Ring," which basically presented a similar idea to the one I was developing.  He focused primarily on the social dynamic of an "inner ring" developing in any large group situation, and discussed the ethics of the existence of that exclusive group, and the desire to be in it.  He also pointed out that because of that trend, the actual leaders in an organization may not be the ones at the top of the official hierarchy.  As someone who is less conscious of the social dynamics going on around him, the unofficial leadership part is the aspect I most related to.

A key can also be the most significant part of a larger whole or the foundation of something much bigger than itself.  The keystone is at the top of an arch, and the key to an idea, is the premise it is based on.  A key person fills an irreplaceable role in a group or organization.  The leader of an organization or the president of a company may not be the key person that makes it function successfully.  I am usually a key person where ever I am working, regardless of the fact that I am not usually technically the leader.  Frequently I am not even officially an employee, but my broad range of experience, understanding of logistical processes, and passion for maximizing efficiency, lead to rapidly finding myself in a key position, where ever I am working.

My uncle probably represents the pinnacle of the opposite approach.  He is a CEO, and therefore a technically the leader at whatever company he is working for.  But the leader of what?  That changes every year or two, which means he is technically a replaceable part.  Once he has made a few changes in direction that the board was looking for, he is on his way to another company.  Now don't get me wrong, he is "successful" and well compensated for his work for multi-million dollar publicly traded companies, but he does not become a "key person" in those organizations while he is there.  (Because the organization continues to function once he leaves, although he usually makes some "key changes.")

Firmly on the other end of the spectrum, any organization I have ever left, has taken a few tries to fill the role I has previously assumed, usually eventually with a team of people.  I do everything I can to make the transition as seamless as possible, but even with months of training, and hundred's of pages of documentation, no one can be expected to be able to operation and maintain a complex system better than the one who designed and created it.  I spent months transitioning out of the two positions I held at the university, and years transitioning out of my full-time job in Hollywood.

Similarly, my company has gone through many receptionists over the course of my time there, but one of those individuals became the office manager, and is still there.  The difference between her and all of the others, is that she managed to make herself an irreplaceable part of the organization, which led to a position that she is much happier with, and we all appreciate the role that she fills.  So now we are back to having a new face by the door every time I take a trip down south, leading me to need to introduce myself every time I show up at my own office.  And it is always amusing to observe the process as they figure out over the next few days, that I am a "key person" in the company, regardless of how little time I manage to spend there.

Collecting Favor

I am not exactly sure how “favor” works from a spiritual perspective, but I know it is a factor at work in our relationship with God.  It is much easier to see how favor affects practical interactions in the physical world.

I have a pretty good reputation for helping other people out, and it has been that way for a long time.  Back when I was in high school, by the time I graduated, nearly anyone in the school who I regularly interacted with owed me a favor, which I never really took advantage.  By my sophomore year of college, I was in the same situation, but over the next two years, most of those favors got cashed in to support the overly ambitious endeavors of one of my multimedia professors.  I don't think he really understood the full scope of the logistical details I took care of that way, until after I was gone.  On the other hand, in return, over the following seven years, he has sent his absolutely best students to come work for me, which is more significant than it may first appear.  (Good help is hard to find.)

Being a technology expert is helpful in that regard.  That can go two ways in a work environment: the IT guy can be the solution to everyone’s problems, or the source of them, by “implementing policy” to control end users, instead of supporting their needs.  I have always been one to find ways around problems, even if it bends the policy rules on occasion.  But while I am well liked in my office, the favor does not accumulate the same way in my work environment.

Outside the office, since graduating, I have helped more than my share of people move, because no one else in LA drives a full sized truck around.  I will probably never see some of those people again, but that is okay.  I wasn't helping them in order to get something back in return, but if I someday do, I am not going to feel guilty about it.

Now that I have recently become a home owner, many of the favors I have done in the last few years are beginning to be returned, which has been great.  I don't think I have spent a whole day working on my house alone yet, and have hardly had to pay anyone for their assistance.  I will start to do so pretty soon, as we get more involved with installations requiring skilled labor, but so far, it has been a very budget friendly endeavor.

With a recent issue disabling my truck, my family has been very supportive in solving that problem, to the tune of alternate vehicle use, space and tools to work on it, and hopefully, assistance in finishing solving the problem with a fairly major repair.  It definitely is bringing into balance a scale that has been severely lopsided for quite a while.

It is very helpful to have favor from others when you really need it.  I haven't felt that in quite a while, possibly just because as a fairly independent person, I haven't really needed and practical support in quite a while.  Emotional support is a little harder to come by, and isn't directly exchangeable.  But fortunately God has recently favored me with the right people being available at the right times, to repay those favors.