Realigning the magnetism
May. 22nd, 2005 12:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pseydtonneI was driving down a one-way street in the South End the other day. I started signaling to turn left while I was in the right lane (it's a one-way, you can do that). I got tired of this taxi being weird behind me so I stopped to let him go first. Then I get angry when he doesn't go. I decide to turn left by sweeping well to the right and he sort of passes on the inside. It doesn't dawn on me for half a block what a load of mixed signals I've just been sending: I'm signaling to turn, I'm not moving, I'm expecting someone else to read my mind, I can no longer be predicted in an environment that requires it, I'm fuming.
Mixed signals. I've been sending them a lot. I keep confusing myself as to what I want, where I want to go, what is actually worth it for me. Part of this is adjusting to my new demands and mental growth from the new job. Part of it is realizing that I am giving far too much emotional weight on aspects of life that don't mean much to the other people involved. Part of it is realizing I'm in a very different headspace than I had been even in January but not having the external clues I would normally use to feel that change internally.
The most important part is realizing the power of garbled transmission, how it causes crosstalk that prevents the sender from being understood or even understanding himself, and that a change in course must be started immediately to prevent real injury.
I love my new job. I say it a lot but it's also very true. I answer questions. In order to answer them and see the next question coming, I have to do a lot of research. I am still cramming a ton of data in my head: inner workings of the product, outer signals and errors, learning how to administer one operating system where I'd only been a user for a decade (Solaris), learning another operating system and its administration completely from scratch (the cryptic AIX), learning much more about Linux and Windows XP Pro admin than I ever had guessed could be added.
It's a good thing I already have multitasking, writing, phone and public interaction skills or I'd be hosed. In fact, I'm still coming off the sales vibe so I still have the easiest time when I can make a pitch for my case. When I found out I have no clue what the customer is saying, I find myself distracted and lost. I'll print out a string of email conversation to read it over and over, dissecting with a highlighter and a pen. I'll use the margins to develop a fresh set of thoughts and dissolve them again. My mind hasn't been so awake in a log time and I am falling in love with my own prowess like I had when I was in college.
It's great having my mind back but it's also overwhelming. Since I am far too used to repressing any deep-thinking instincts (you have to when you deal with the public all day), it's meant unlearning uncertain mental tricks and getting more confident in myself. It's also meant having a case of Absent-Minded Professor Syndrome (AMPS!), wherein one can have really profound thoughts and ignore obvious events in the real world. I'll come up with a better answer for a major problem only to realize that it's damn late to be at work or that I've stopped very short on a sharp incline slick with rain (leaving myself only a foot from the car in front of me). This is not healthy behavior. I can now see how some people wind up with personal assistants.
I am thinking about what triggers these problems and what would be necessary solutions. Case in point: I still do not have a wristwatch. Having that consistent source of analog time in my field of vision turns out to be my metronome. Without it, time moves a lot more quickly but I am not budgeting it properly. Thus the debate about types of watches may take a back seat to buying a damn watch.
This gets me to another point I have been learning about getting to a true signal: send one instead of debating sending one because you're still transmitting either way. If you need to change the signal later, you can. It's a signal, not marble. (If mankind could transmit rock boulders the way it transmits rock and roll, we would be able to construct skyscraper foundations with computer programming instead of graft.)
Some of my mixed signals come from losing one of the ways I receive signals. Since I've gone on an SSRI, I can no longer tell what season it is simply by my emotional mood. This made the past winter a lot easier but it's also made a cold May seem impenetrable. Thus my internal clock of the year can still think it's March or April even though we're heading into the last week of May. Now that I cannot sense the seasons I need a visceral moment to tell me what season it is. We haven't had a heat spell yet. I hate hot days but I won't know what time of year it is until I have my hatred. Then again, maybe I won't experience that hatred at all even when it does get hot.
I had to stop confusing the world with my signals. I started with a few simple changes. I started being more mindful of my driving, the way I was when I first learned to drive stick. I have also changed some eating habits back to the better ones (I'd been lapsing).
The most important change has been letting go of emotional involvements that weren't being reciprocated. This is harder to describe but I'll simply say it's too easy for me to tap my energy when I think someone else needs it and that person doesn't. I'm being vague here on purpose. Let me simplify by saying I cut bait on one emotional goal and that freed up a lot of resources much the way killing a zombie process on a Unix machine can free up a lot of RAM very fast.
Speaking of computers again: I am in a sudden spurt of computer fixing. Nothing was happening for a long time (merely the gathering of parts) because I kept saying to myself I wanted to build the quiet server. I had to give up on wanting only the ideal in order to begin any real server construction and analysis. Realizing the ideal is only possible when you accept that the ideal is an infinitely approachable limit but the approach, stumble and re-approach are all we mortals have outside of staring at our navels. So I built a couple boxes: one a fix of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
michigansundog's work box; the other an Athlon 1.2GHz on a (small) flexATX motherboard in a small-form box that turns out to have one loud power supply. I have let go of certain parts to build up others. I am stirring again.
I'm also writing again.fuzzplugjones pointed me at the entry about me at The Harpur Radio Workshop Wiki he's built. I was just about to leave work Friday evening when I clicked on it. I had to fix... myself! So I did. Then I started clicking and making entries and seeing all sorts of stuff. I am absolutely engrossed with this Wiki stuff now -- it has builtin revision control! That's my day job! How could I not blow three or four hours making entries and comparing the differences in a graphical utility? Oh man, it's sweet. Any of you HRW alumni *cough* dobrovolets *cough* should make some useful entries. The Reaper beats me by a long shot for the quantity of entries as well as the quality. I'm still finding a consistent voice that synchronizes with the desired group mind of this Wiki. However, I really enjoy writing on it.
-click on this link if you just want to see a pic of me from '96
Mixed signals. I've been sending them a lot. I keep confusing myself as to what I want, where I want to go, what is actually worth it for me. Part of this is adjusting to my new demands and mental growth from the new job. Part of it is realizing that I am giving far too much emotional weight on aspects of life that don't mean much to the other people involved. Part of it is realizing I'm in a very different headspace than I had been even in January but not having the external clues I would normally use to feel that change internally.
The most important part is realizing the power of garbled transmission, how it causes crosstalk that prevents the sender from being understood or even understanding himself, and that a change in course must be started immediately to prevent real injury.
I love my new job. I say it a lot but it's also very true. I answer questions. In order to answer them and see the next question coming, I have to do a lot of research. I am still cramming a ton of data in my head: inner workings of the product, outer signals and errors, learning how to administer one operating system where I'd only been a user for a decade (Solaris), learning another operating system and its administration completely from scratch (the cryptic AIX), learning much more about Linux and Windows XP Pro admin than I ever had guessed could be added.
It's a good thing I already have multitasking, writing, phone and public interaction skills or I'd be hosed. In fact, I'm still coming off the sales vibe so I still have the easiest time when I can make a pitch for my case. When I found out I have no clue what the customer is saying, I find myself distracted and lost. I'll print out a string of email conversation to read it over and over, dissecting with a highlighter and a pen. I'll use the margins to develop a fresh set of thoughts and dissolve them again. My mind hasn't been so awake in a log time and I am falling in love with my own prowess like I had when I was in college.
It's great having my mind back but it's also overwhelming. Since I am far too used to repressing any deep-thinking instincts (you have to when you deal with the public all day), it's meant unlearning uncertain mental tricks and getting more confident in myself. It's also meant having a case of Absent-Minded Professor Syndrome (AMPS!), wherein one can have really profound thoughts and ignore obvious events in the real world. I'll come up with a better answer for a major problem only to realize that it's damn late to be at work or that I've stopped very short on a sharp incline slick with rain (leaving myself only a foot from the car in front of me). This is not healthy behavior. I can now see how some people wind up with personal assistants.
I am thinking about what triggers these problems and what would be necessary solutions. Case in point: I still do not have a wristwatch. Having that consistent source of analog time in my field of vision turns out to be my metronome. Without it, time moves a lot more quickly but I am not budgeting it properly. Thus the debate about types of watches may take a back seat to buying a damn watch.
This gets me to another point I have been learning about getting to a true signal: send one instead of debating sending one because you're still transmitting either way. If you need to change the signal later, you can. It's a signal, not marble. (If mankind could transmit rock boulders the way it transmits rock and roll, we would be able to construct skyscraper foundations with computer programming instead of graft.)
Some of my mixed signals come from losing one of the ways I receive signals. Since I've gone on an SSRI, I can no longer tell what season it is simply by my emotional mood. This made the past winter a lot easier but it's also made a cold May seem impenetrable. Thus my internal clock of the year can still think it's March or April even though we're heading into the last week of May. Now that I cannot sense the seasons I need a visceral moment to tell me what season it is. We haven't had a heat spell yet. I hate hot days but I won't know what time of year it is until I have my hatred. Then again, maybe I won't experience that hatred at all even when it does get hot.
I had to stop confusing the world with my signals. I started with a few simple changes. I started being more mindful of my driving, the way I was when I first learned to drive stick. I have also changed some eating habits back to the better ones (I'd been lapsing).
The most important change has been letting go of emotional involvements that weren't being reciprocated. This is harder to describe but I'll simply say it's too easy for me to tap my energy when I think someone else needs it and that person doesn't. I'm being vague here on purpose. Let me simplify by saying I cut bait on one emotional goal and that freed up a lot of resources much the way killing a zombie process on a Unix machine can free up a lot of RAM very fast.
Speaking of computers again: I am in a sudden spurt of computer fixing. Nothing was happening for a long time (merely the gathering of parts) because I kept saying to myself I wanted to build the quiet server. I had to give up on wanting only the ideal in order to begin any real server construction and analysis. Realizing the ideal is only possible when you accept that the ideal is an infinitely approachable limit but the approach, stumble and re-approach are all we mortals have outside of staring at our navels. So I built a couple boxes: one a fix of
michigansundog's work box; the other an Athlon 1.2GHz on a (small) flexATX motherboard in a small-form box that turns out to have one loud power supply. I have let go of certain parts to build up others. I am stirring again.I'm also writing again.
fuzzplugjones pointed me at the entry about me at The Harpur Radio Workshop Wiki he's built. I was just about to leave work Friday evening when I clicked on it. I had to fix... myself! So I did. Then I started clicking and making entries and seeing all sorts of stuff. I am absolutely engrossed with this Wiki stuff now -- it has builtin revision control! That's my day job! How could I not blow three or four hours making entries and comparing the differences in a graphical utility? Oh man, it's sweet. Any of you HRW alumni *cough* dobrovolets *cough* should make some useful entries. The Reaper beats me by a long shot for the quantity of entries as well as the quality. I'm still finding a consistent voice that synchronizes with the desired group mind of this Wiki. However, I really enjoy writing on it.-click on this link if you just want to see a pic of me from '96
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 01:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 08:01 am (UTC)Welcome back. I missed reading your self annalisis. I usually find them grounding and helpful in my own life.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 02:27 pm (UTC)I better think about what to put on it. And dig up my old pics.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 03:35 pm (UTC)If you have any pictures, scan them at the most ridiculously high resolution you can and e-mail them to me (and don't tell me to e-mail Jim and tell him to do it, he's your husband! :-)), and I will put them up.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-23 08:34 pm (UTC)I knew about the wiki, I just didn't know there was a whole entire page to be dedicated to ME!
Why the fuck anyone would read it, I have no idea.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-25 06:44 am (UTC)In short, I need every fucking word in your brain that has even the slightest thing to do with WHRW typed out in that thing, and I need it YESTERDAY. I want to go public with that thing at the fall General Interest meeting (which you know will be the last week of August or the first week of September) and when I do, I want it ESTABLISHED, AND I want NO ONE to be able to say "This is just Scudder's revisionist history, it's all bullshit and it's not even worth editing his bias out of it." I know that I pulled some mad shit in previous years, and I'm working my ass off to cross my T's and dot my I's so that I can hopefully show by example that I'm in it for Moe, not for me. But I need YOUR help and the help of anyone you can think of, or it ain't gonna fly. These kids now, yeah they know what readings are, but there's so much more they don't know! That's where you guys come in. So I'm not being snipping, I'm being fearful. We've gotta wing this thing into the air as hard as we fucking can so that when somebody else catches it, they'll want to do more with it. Don't do it for me, man. Do it for Moe. And fuckin' Paul. Paul would be all like, "Hey Scudder, I like your wiki." And then he'd leave. But if you saw that, you'd be all like "Dude, I TOTALLY want to work on the Wiki!!"
So yeah, or something. And cheese.