Denali

Understanding the Road Once Again

2008-02-06T19:00:48Z

I walk these empty streets
On the boulevard of broken dreams
While the city sleeps
And I'm the only one
I walk alone

Or something like that, as the Green Day song goes. I used to live that for awhile. But one thing I've been able to perceive yet again is that it's impossible to be alone unless you choose it. If you want to be with people, you can be with people. You need to be with people, love to be with people? Find ways to make it happen.

Sure, Den, you say, like it's easy to just overcome being a wallflower, shut-in, or massively shy guy/gal/dog/cat/pony. I kin just change over night and be the life of the party.

*holds up a finger* Did I ask you to change a thing? Nope.

The only thing I ask you to do is search for new doors. Don't /accept/ what the hand you have right now is in life; if you see your house as four walls, that's not much more removed than a prison cell when you never venture outside of it. I liken it to the old joke about the farmer, physicist, and mathemetician and the limited fence material that had to enclose the largest possible area:

The farmer built his fence in a square, because that was what he knew.
The physicist built his in a circle, because he knew that would enclose the widest possible area.
The mathemetician built the smallest circle and stood inside of it, and said, 'I am on the outside.' Because he defined his own boundaries and conditions.

This is not to say that you can do whatever you want, invent whatever religions you want to justify your actions; rules are rules.

Open the doors which you actually have keys for. Enter the places you actually have permission to go. Know who to ask in order to gain possession of keys and permissions when you do not have them.

So tell me this: what's the lock, and what's the key, for the thing you'd most like to do, but thought impossible? What sorts of things do you need to be out on the road that lies beyond the door?

Or, don't answer. :D Matters not. This is my truth to-day. This will be my truth tomorrow. I have a door and I just stepped through it.

There were some nice things on the other side.

I know how to laugh again.

-Denali

But they don't come in stealthy or black....

2005-10-25T02:43:03Z

Just got done listening to a radio commercial where a bunch of ninjas are trying to buy a 'midsized' Hummer H3, and extol the virtues of the thing.

And no resourceful ninja would ever ask if they could store their katanas in the roof racks. First of all, the ninja weapon of choice is a ... ninja-to. Do your market research, Hummer.

(I suppose they could be Ninja -turtles-...)

I'm sorry, but ninja vehicles? Need to fit in and be invisible, not bigger than traffic and require large amounts of time at a fill-up station to refuel, all the while with people looking at the hunks of wood in the passenger seats.

Still think someone needs to make an amphibious conversion kit and make it the H2O.

*nod*

-Dennay

Five Minutes On: Carpe Diem

2004-10-08T21:39:49Z

Or, in English, 'seize the day.' Made famous by 'Dead Poets Society', this is the concept of closing your eyes to tomorrow in order to enjoy today.

I'm still a bit reserved on the concept of screwing up tomorrow's security for today's happiness, but on the flip side, there is such a thing as 'missed chances.' It's rather a balance of right versus wrong, harmlessness versus long term effects, and being able to best understand the choices that we're given in life.

I ended up living so hard looking at tomorrow, and the bleakness of it, that I quit dealing with today; things I can't change today have had a way of affecting me today, day in, day out. It's hard to remember that one day at a time is the space between waking and not; I've spent days doing absolutely nothing when I could have been worrying -- mostly because I understood that I couldn't make the clock go any faster.

Somewhere in there I started looking ahead to something I can't dodge and I can't run away from, and it made me afraid; like the people down in Florida, I started boarding up windows to my emotional state and making sure all the roofing tiles were in place and the breakables stored, and then hid in the basement waiting for the inevitable storm.

Like the people in Alabama, it sits there, hovering off the coast of my awareness, never quite 'getting it over with', but rather, remaining a distinct possibility until forces outside my control take control and fix it -- or do nothing.

Doing nothing leads only to waiting.

If you get stuck in a hurricane with someone else, with no power -- you break out the cards.

Anyone want to play cards with me? Sure passes the time...

And that's five minutes.
-Denali!

Five Minutes On: Disbursive Bargaining

2004-08-13T03:30:36Z

(..instead of 'collective bargaining.')

Sometimes when you have to get something from someone, you have to pay for it up front. It's not so much a matter of getting the other person to be indebted to you, or to feel guilty about you doing nice things for them -- there are 'takers' out there who will walk away with anything you give them -- but rather, you need to be able to make -them- feel like you're not just using them. "Making it worth their while" works differently if you start by offering something up.

It's not quite the same as waving a white flag, but it is an attempt to parley by showing up with something they consider of value.

Rules are rules -- you can bend your own in order to give up an incentive, though, for future cooperation. Sorta like the way a lot of apartments offer up a month's free rent.

You can take the hard-line 'I am not going to compromise myself' line, but that opens fewer doors. Me, I'm more into being open and offering up the things that don't cost me that much in the grand scheme of things -- like saying you'll take someone to lunch versus taking them to dinner. (Since I don't drink coffee.)

There are things about myself I'll rarely give away. Deeply personal things, like some of my Big Secrets -- here's a secret -- if you offer something up before the other person asks for something, you're still giving something, but you're controlling the initial bid.

This is the reverse of why the Shadows in Bablyon 5 ask 'What do you want?' -- before saying what they want.

...and that's five minutes.

-Denali!

Five Minutes On: Communication (or lack thereof)

2004-08-10T16:23:34Z

E-mail doesn't work as a communications method when nobody really reads it.

Heck, people can tune you out even when you're talking directly to them.

I'll even admit to doing it now and again myself.

Our minds are not 'hard focus' by nature; like any other multitasking processor, it tends to get distracted by the zillion other signals that come into the system. It's also very true that it takes a little bit of time to comprehend the inputs that are so complex that computers currently don't exist that can recognize color, shape, and uniqueness yet.

Unfortunately, a lot of what we need to work with others (and play with others) is communication. It is only the /lack/ of communication that people tend to notice -- that dead air in the middle of a conversation, the fallout from when you and a colleague miss a rendevous, the thing left behind because both of you thought the other person was going to grab it -- that sort of thing.

Breaking the communication down into discreet packets is one sort of way to get your message heard -- you have to be smaller than the person's attention span. State of the Union addresses? Too long. Catchy bumper sticker phrases? Sure.

Anyway. As an exercise, before speaking, consider shortening phrases down by at least a third, and see what happens.

That's five (some text deleted: three and a half) minutes.
-Denali!

Fifteen Seconds: Observation of the Day

2004-08-03T02:02:14Z

It's -really- hard to read a book while you're dancing.

I needed to do both.

Dancing won.

That is all. *goes back to bopping about the room*

Rar.

-Dennay

Five Minute Update...keyword: juggling

2004-07-29T00:08:05Z

Juggling is the art of doing more than you have hands for. In the legends, Coyote juggles his eyes -- and loses them. Well, as those of us who can sling a jug (the term for a single toss-catch action, I believe) will attest, it's really hard to juggle blind.

He does, however, replace them with amber, which is why Coyote has yellow eyes.

Hm. Star Trek:TNG's Data has yellow eyes. Brent Spiner actually enjoys playing Stan Laurel, who may or may not have been distantly related to Coyote-as-whomped-upon-by-fate.

Seeing the world through amber could be construed as meaning that we see things by the moment, rather than as a free-flowing, changeable and mutable world it is.

*laugh* I know better than that. One of the first things I learned is that the only constant in this crazy universe is change.

I was talking about juggling, wasn't I?

Juggling is the art of being able to ascertain which things are your priorities -- namely, which thing will hit the ground first -- and focussing your attentions on that.

But it is also knowing when and where you can throw away an object because you don't care if it hits the ground -- or how hard.

And the art of quick-grabbing something out of the air, and throwing it up again, way high, so it doesn't come down for awhile -- but you still have to pay attention to it.

Okay. That's five minutes.

-Denali!

Winter Storms...

2003-12-17T09:20:13Z

The smart critters are hibernating by now. When it's easier to just sleep in someplace warm and dry, instead of burning energy trying to scare up scarce hunting, and competing with everyone else for too few things, sometimes it's just easier to hide down and wait for spring.

But who can say when Spring will come? Do we, perhaps, doom ourselves to a cold winter sleep, never to awaken, when we step away from the game that is so-called life? Will the world travel on without us, leaving us with no hope to catch up?

I do know that it has been entirely too long since I wrote anything here - I have my reasons, and some of them are very, very good. Others are significantly painful. But all of them are mysteries at the moment, and shall remain so for the time being.

Today's thought is about the gift of spirit - how one gives it, how one receives it.

Context is everything - looked at one way, it's religion; another, it's team camaderie; and a third, simply Christmas.

Someone told me that they were having trouble getting into the Christmas spirit. This puzzled me, because I don't understand the concept of giving spirit of the consumer/holly/holy variety - three roughly alien concepts to me, since I'm decidedly non-materialistic, non-religious, and usually decorating involves some level of effort that I've not needed to muster since moving out of my parents place. When you live several states away from family, you don't get invited to trim the tree; you can always visit friends trees or relatives trees or downtown trees. (Now -those- are trees.)

But yet, those things do not create Christmas spirit for me. As I understand it, it is supposed to contain one or more of the following: giving, good cheer, peace on earth, goodwill towards all men, religious ceremony, caroling, snow, gifts, Kris Kringle, decorating, holly, mistletoe, ivy, eggnog...

All things which I've gotten away from in my life, among other things.

And I don't miss it. I'm old enough to where I don't really need presents; I caught myself nearly falling into the trap of

I do miss other things, though. And there will be one thing I will sorely miss on Christmas.

Nope. You don't get to know what that is. Because that's off-topic.

I realize that the brute force approach with my friend would be heavy exposure to Christmas stuff, but owing to the fact that I'm decidedly cash-strapped at the moment, that's outside my budgetary realm. And I am concerned that seeing other people's displays will result in a homesick, depressed friend (as they number along the jobless cadre), instead of the desired result.

Not asking for help; just vaguely talking out loud.

I am at peace with myself these days; I do not need to 'get into the Christmas thing', and neither am I being a miser about all this; it's just been way busy, and I have to eat before I can hang mistletoe (it's poisonous, after all.)

All in all; going to be a very quiet Christmas. And I don't mind at all.

Maybe what I need to do is teach my friend how to do the same.

-Denali

Change Magister...

2003-10-23T17:44:56Z

Sometimes the magnitude of change that can happen in an eyeblink is simply overwhelming. Other times you see it coming, like sitting on a surfboard watching a wave forming as it rolls towards you, but there's nothing you can do.

And then there is the change you trigger, the moment you step out of a perfectly good airplane and trust that a square of silk will keep you from splattering in a cloud of dust.

Life is about all three; life is about also, holding fast to the things that are important to you, about enduring the re-entry burn to get home, and about walking the extra mile though your feet ache to get to a destination.

What we sometimes forget are the little things, the things which fascinate us, the things which choose to alight in our lives but briefly, and yet those things can cause the most profound change.

Think about it a moment; a simple 'yes or no' decision can lead to an unexpected adventure; waiting one minute or going one minute early creates or avoids an intersection of events.

Today I am thankful for the series of events which got me where I am. It is as unlikely as there being such a thing as a sun shower, but nevertheless things played out in interesting ways.

I have so many doors open in my life I forgot to close them all, and the sea rushed in.

Should've built the house on stilts.

-Denali

Non-Expert Systems...aka robots.text

2003-09-18T18:04:22Z

*grins*

For Neill, Kesh, and Prem: some thoughts on determinism. Anyone know how you compress comments down into the just-lines bits, or whether or not if you reply to a comment someone has made in reply to someone else, both get the reply up the chain, or just the one person you reply to?

"There is no fate save that which we choose for ourselves." -Sarah Connor, T2

"Oh great. It's another linear storyline." -me, reviewing a computer game

"Have you ever felt like you were in a dream... a dream you could not wake up from?" -Morpheus, The Matrix

*kicks back in his barrel* What are we? Are we pre-destined to be on one path, or a path that is limited by choices but all choices are predetermined in advance? Or are we protagonists of free will, allowed to go wherever our mind is free to roam? Do we have the flexibility and recognition to be adaptable?

It all boils down, for me, to one simple question:

Is life a game?

If the answer is 'yes', you have let yourself out of accountability for your actions. You are reacting to stimulus in proscribed ways, riding the rail that gives you few, if any routes that are not expected, getting your powerups where available, and eventually you lose the life you've been given and the game is over.

If the answer is 'no', you still might be in a MMORPG, wherein you interact with other people in manners (double-meaning intended) you have available to you, which may or may not offend them, and you can travel where you will, as long as ways through are available, avoiding dangers along the way.

Here's the key.

Who makes your choices?

Do you have the right to fight the orders you are given?

No matter who makes your choices, there will always be rules. Rules of conduct. Rules of law. Rules of physics. Defying those earns you a whole lot more pain than reward, or for some of them, cannot be broken. Is accepting rules a limitation, or a courtesy when it comes to sharing space?

Are rules restrictive enough to narrow your choices down to make your life determinism?

Your parents can do it to you if you aren't careful.

Show of hands: how many of us had parents that encouraged or discouraged us to follow a career path? (raises his paw)

When was the last time you followed a dream of yours?
But then again, where do dreams come from? Is it the inspiration of our subconscious determinism, trying to get us back on track? A mouse-and-pellet reward for getting ourselves back on our 'destiny'?

I'm weird. I believe in pseudo-determinism. I can go wherever I want between my life checkpoints, but I have to hit them in order to remain who I am.

Anyone remember the game Outrun? It was very much a tracked game, but starting with each checkpoint you got to decide which path of the decision tree you went down, to get to the next stretch of road. Each choice you made took you farther away from the endings available if you'd taken the other path. You were still on a road, but you picked where you would end up.

As long as I've lived, I have friends that I've gotten through a string of bizarre events and once-in-a-lifetime meetings that let me make choices that couldn't possibly be in anyone's plan. Certainly wasn't a plan to me.

I've also changed who I am several times since I was ten; discovering more of who I am, discarding who I wasn't anymore, that sort of thing. Walking in and out of places, of people's lives, shedding an old set of behaviors for new ones. Giving myself choices where I didn't let myself have them before.

(There's my reflexivity, Prem.)

I have my routines. Like an ant, I have my best-path to work, and an alternate if I need one, but for the most part I am executing a sequence of events that are strikingly similar, on a daily basis.

But the challenge changes. Just like the day changes. I am constantly learning new things -- and open to learning new things. I know if I really wanted to, I could abandon the course I'm on altogether and (as Kesh says) strike out across the country -- but it's not currently on my list of interests.

I'm middle-of-the-road, here, when all is said and done; I believe we are meant to do certain things, but I think I'm too complex to have everything laid out for me in advance. It'd make life less of a surprise if I knew how the story ended. And that'd be really tragic.

*turns the page*

-Denali!

Shared Spaces...

2003-09-17T18:06:42Z

Short of living in a cave on a mountaintop or a cabin in the hills, we have to share space with other critters pretending to be people. I say 'pretending' because entirely too many of them are either robots, herdbeasties, flighty birds, or bugs. (Which reminds me of the shamanic lesson I got on spiritguides -- we were told not to pick up insects, no matter how curious we were -- because they don't remap well to mammal-mind thinking.)

Robots
Folks who just follow a set of routines and decision trees which don't do anything except execute a program that gets them to the end of their programmed day, only to reboot the next time the sun comes up (pun intended).
Herdbeasties
Folks who pick a leader to follow without question. Who don't think any of their actions might be questionable, or downright wrong -- because their leader tells them so. No matter how much we're supposed to belong to a country of free thinkers here, an awful lot of us let our thinking go free in favor of someone else's.
Flighty birds:
Folks who lack the conviction of sticking with a path once they've decided on it -- the picture in my head is one from my childhood -- being able to run into a bunch of pigeons in a park and making the entire bunch scatter away from the food they were happily eating 'til I came along. This is akin to one person yelling loud enough to get their way.
Bugs
Folks who just... well, crawl all over everyone without mind to what the other person thinks of them. The folks you have an unfounded creepy-crawly feeling about -- some of them don't even try to act like people.

Everyone else, we have to share space with. And the topic came up on how we decide our space should be shared -- everything from divvying up a country to who gets to decide what radio station gets played when driving. (Cue Homer Simpson, to Lisa: 'When I'm driving the car, I get to choose the radio station.')

It's a matter of picking one person's consideration over another's -- none of this bit about compromise unless you can share an interest.

Arugably, there are territorial considerations -- such as 'if you are a guest in my house, you shouldn't be able to play music on my stereo that I absolutely hate'

-- but hang on a moment. Who's the 'you' in that statement?

If the 'you' is the guest, what if I want to share a musical piece that you haven't heard before? Or don't know that you hate my music? Or what if I'm a famous musician and you ask me what kind of stuff I'm working on?
If the 'you' is the host -- it's still my house, and maybe you haven't given my music a chance. Or my music is very important to me, and because I invited you in, I should have the right to be myself around you.

Sure. Still an easy answer, but I bet you had to think about it a little bit more.

The answer is 'politeness.' Or 'consideration.'

But how many of us know more people who are impolite and inconsiderate than we can count on fingers and toes?

"Sure, but I don't live with them." At least, I hope that's what you can say for yourself.

But I bet you have some friends (or friends of friends) that are. Tolerance by association, indeedy.

And how many of us live alone, indeedy? When it's no longer just your space, now you start getting into full-time compromise mode. Oh wait. We already covered that -- make it full time 'consideration' mode. (Cue Odd Couple music.)

We don't always have a choice who we live with. We might not always get the choice whose consideration is the stronger of the two -- and in reality, in such situations, one person is giving implicit right-of-way to the other person's needs.

One of mine: I'm allergic to pets. Not so much that I'd die, mind you, but cat allergies give me breathing problems after about two to five hours. Which means not only do I not own pets (and someone living with me would not be able to own them either), but I am less inclined to visit people who have 'em.

Do I have that right? It's an allergy, not a preference, but yet I've had people get unhappy because I never came to visit them at their place.

Consideration. Someone wins. Someone loses.

When you live with someone, that same issue will come up over and over. When you love someone, the issue can turn into a point of contention -- because you can't leave.

In a perfect world, you and your chosen living partner(s) are close enough in likes and dislikes, and any differences are no-conflict issues for your roommates.

But we all know what they say about a perfect world. And the likelihood of avoiding conflicts goes down the more people you live with.

The most effective solution seems to be to carve out individual space within the house, and to do what you want within your space. But it doesn't work when there are bathrooms and kitchens and living rooms to be shared. And hiding in your room gets you branded as 'anti-social.'
The second most effective solution seems to be 'rotating frequency' -- everyone gets their day in the sun. Unfortunately, that requires dividing lines that aren't always even -- 'whose turn is it to take out the trash again?' versus 'I'll just leave it til it's Graham's turn to do the dishes...' tricks.
The third most effective solution is to play 'lowest common denominator' -- like ordering a just-cheese pizza because nobody likes everyone else's toppings -- but then nobody's happy because everyone feels they're giving something up.
The fourth most effective solution is to nominate a head of household, and just go with their preferences. One person has the final say on things, but it tends to stink for everyone else.
The sixth most effective solution is for the person with the most preferences being offended to make up the difference in extra work, extra time, or leaving the room/house when the other(s) are doing things they don't care for.

But then, they aren't really solutions, are they?

Damn this need to have others close in our lives, anyway. For needing to have relationships, someone to share a bed with at night, someone to have pups with (for those of you who are into that), and someone to keep us from being alone.

But then again, step back: we also have to share a neighborhood with our neighbors, a road with people who won't share, and office/class space with people who have less-than-desirable characteristics.

Step back: We share a world; we share a universe.

We share an existence simply by existing at the same time as everyone -- and everything else.

Are you going to be a person who shares, and risk giving away your right to consideration -- or are you going to be a non-sharer, and make other folks unhappy for the sake of your own happiness?

Tough call, isn't it.

One of the strongest Coyote tenets is 'Vote with your feet.' But then again, that's the philosophy of a hunter/scavenger type.

And sometimes, there's nowhere to run.

Heavy thoughts, indeed...

-Denali

denaliyote @ 2003-08-28T12:01:00

2003-08-28T18:51:22Z

Circles within circles.
Whether storm or song is carried upon the wind
I stand here on the corner
Of civilization's need
Of desolation's want
And still I believe.

We all react to progress in different ways; we fight it, we embrace it, we ignore it, we fear it, or reinterpret it, depending on who we are.

Immortal critters fascinate us because of their longevity -- the ability to nigh-escape the ravages of time, to see the stars over milennia, and to watch the lifetimes of others like the seasons passing.

But where there is no magic, there is only the fighting for the things we have, the things we don't have, and the things we can only get if we fight someone else for theirs.

Where there is no sun, there is only darkness, though sometimes even the sun refuses to warm us.

Sometimes progress takes you down a road that is not the way you intended to go, wanted to go, or wish to keep going, but you sometimes have less desirable alternatives than staying on it, hoping that tomorrow will bring better news.

And sometimes you have to have blind faith that it could be worse.

I believe in winning when it is right to win -- but my sense of rightness is skewed on the side of championing the causes of others, still, though I have been known to neglect the causes of the people closest to me. Does this make me a bad person?

It does not. It makes me wrong, but it does not -- should not -- make me condemnable.

Circles are for people who do not know how to find the center, who prefer not to get burned by the thing in the center, or do not know how to strike out in a direction. But the wider the circle, the longer it takes to get back to the place you started.

Symmetry fascinates me. Because it represents that circle of change while remainng the same, in the end. It is that whole 'being true to yourself without realizing it', the story's whole being finally defined, and the understanding that comes from returning to rest.

Life is a risk you have to take. How much you take is up to you - how much it hurts you is sometimes a measure of how much you take.

I would rather be safe than sorry. But it seems I am sorry more than I am safe, because I cannot keep up with the people who strike out in all directions -- asking me to follow, hoping that I will share a road for longer than the breath of the moment.

There is only one me. I cannot fight that.

I will not fight for people I do not know; but it takes only a look, a smile, or a word of interest to claim knowledge. Sometimes it's just a look of distress that will do me in, bring me in.

I am tired. This, I know.

I can be hurt. This too, I know -- and yet it seems that other folks can forget that all too conveniently.

I am more than I appear. This I strongly believe with all my heart, because appearances are only on the surface.

I am less than I appear. Because assumptions are made from those first instances, those tiny soundbites of time.

I am allowed to change my mind, damnit. I am allowed to learn from my mistakes; I am allowed to repeat my mistakes if you will continue to forgive me.

I am not stupid, but I can be foolish in my compassion, in my need to /serve/, in my willingness to blend with the force of an incoming storm.

Sometimes tomorrow never comes, for some of us. But yet I treat it like it always will; I postpone like I'm immortal. I choose to do things because I really want to, at the moment, rather than scheduling, though I know very well one gets better results through scheduling.

I do love to feel the rain in the summertime.

It is only time, temperature, and climate that makes the difference between a summer's gentle rain and a winter's harsh storms; a symmetry that isn't because of outside influences.

We percieve rain as either a source of life, or a threat to our freedom to do things which require its absence, depending on how our small circle of world receives uncontrollable amounts of moisture falling into it.

As a friend of mine is fond of asking, "When was the last time you went dancing in the rain?"

"I've been too busy trying to patch the leaks in the roof," I say, "..in preparation from the winter storms."

Ant. Grasshopper. You know the story. I am so the ant, right now. I feel I have to be. Every step counts. Every effort means something. Progress is required where there has been none.

Funny, I never see grasshoppers drowning in the rain.

But I have seen them splattered on windshields.

"Be safe, be well, be happy." What's the order on that, anyway? Sometimes all three are mutually exclusive.

Well, two out of three aint bad.

And I live more when I'm the grasshopper. (quiet nod to someone special)

Balance, symmetry, and circles. Progress in moderation with respect for others.

It is. I am. I will.

-Denali

Oh dear.

2003-08-23T07:04:18Z

Curiosity dragged me in. Amusement got me to shuffle until I got...

My LiveJournal Sitcom
The denaliyote Show (UPN, 4:30): denaliyote (Ralph Fiennes) buys simmah (Mimi Rogers) a goat. At the same time, sonique (Adam West) finds a bicycle in aerowolf (Roberto Benigni)'s sock drawer. Afterwards, leopardwolf (James Earl Jones) draws a picture on mcgroarty (Tom Cruise)'s forehead. On the other side of town, soundlessblue (Burt Reynolds) takes neillparatzo (Sir Ian McKellen) bowling. Then, kesherz (Shawn Wayans) hypnotizes lady_serenity (Bill Pullman) but it doesn't work. Everyone learns a valuable lesson.
What's Your LiveJournal Sitcom? (by rfreebern)

My LiveJournal Sitcom

The denaliyote Show (UPN, 4:30): denaliyote (Ralph Fiennes) buys simmah (Mimi Rogers) a goat. At the same time, sonique (Adam West) finds a bicycle in aerowolf (Roberto Benigni)'s sock drawer. Afterwards, leopardwolf (James Earl Jones) draws a picture on mcgroarty (Tom Cruise)'s forehead. On the other side of town, soundlessblue (Burt Reynolds) takes neillparatzo (Sir Ian McKellen) bowling. Then, kesherz (Shawn Wayans) hypnotizes lady_serenity (Bill Pullman) but it doesn't work. Everyone learns a valuable lesson.

What's Your LiveJournal Sitcom? (by rfreebern)

Things I learned:

I can totally see Tom Cruise playing McGroarty. And Leopardwolf trying to Ink Ink.
I don't know which is more of a surprise -- that Aerowolf hides bicycles with his socks, or that Sonique is actually Batman.
Kesh ought to know not to try and hypnotize a unicorn.
Question is, Neill, do you identify more with Gandalf or Magneto?

Shadowcast....

2003-08-22T07:37:26Z

One of the things I do occasionally is hunt for Coyote wisdom out on the net. For being such a common term, it's surprising the kinds of treasures you can find out there, and it's often different every time.

Today's selection featured some rather introspective writing about proud-Coyote, who tries to convince people of his way, because he always believes he is right, and when things go wrong, it's always someone else's fault because they didn't listen, or didn't follow directions properly. Or didn't appreciate Coyote's wisdom.

And I had to look at myself, then, and ask, "Do I do that?"

I think I'm an anti-proud Coyote, by those measures. I think I'm wrong more often than not, and I'm more than willing to allow folks to think for themselves. I have trouble looking at myself in a mirror some days, but when I do, I do see myself. Perhaps a bit more critically than I ought to.

Nevertheless, the words of the writer were not new to me. I do know coyotefolk who believe only their way is the right way, and blame others for not following directions. (And no, Aero. I'm not talking about you.) But then again, such self-centric behavior is the way many of us were brought up, Coyote blood or no -- blaze your own trail, chart your own course, and everyone else can either follow or get out of the way.

But it's not really just about the being right now, is it. It's about getting people to believe in you, to listen to your life's experiences and judge them good enough to take on as their own. The so-called living years do not come with instruction manuals or web-based training for the important things, and all the common fella wants is to either be remembered for something, or left alone. To be important usually comes with the notion of proving that you're good at something, though a number of folks recently have followed the Harry Potter road to fame (no offense to you HP fans) simply by surviving while the real unsung heroes are the ones that got them out of the jam. (Pennsylvania miners come immediately to mind.)

Sometimes people feel that the best way to get good at something is to shove everyone else down. While it's very true that you have to pass everyone else to be number one, it's also lonely at the top, and it does not always come with instant respect. Especially if you had to step on folks to get there.

Me, I'd rather help someone else get into first place, so I don't have to look behind me. It's my secret to working in teams; help shine someone else up and just prove myself to be indispensible to them in as many ways as possible. I feel more comfortable helping than being helped.

That's why folks seem to be able to listen to me -- because I'm not trying to run their lives, just doing the best I can to be helpful.

So, do I get my Coyote license revoked now, since I'm not standing in my archetype's shadow, I have to wonder?

-Denali

Pattern Change...

2003-08-13T01:27:03Z

I've been pushing myself way past the point of exhaustion by going to bed too late at night to get up at the very last minute in the morning, in order to drag my tail into work. Not enough sleep + meetings = dozy coyoteboy.

I also have an office with a door that closes; I have, in the past, closed my eyes and the door and catnapped for a bit in order to keep up.

Problem with catnaps is that they're on par with good sex as a satisfaction agent -- you get out of them what you put in, and the longer and harder and deeper you can go, the better it is* -- and when you're just dozing in order to keep an ear out for footsteps in the hall, you wake up sometimes more exhausted than before. And no work done for the while you had your eyes closed.

I'd been using the net to keep myself awake, but there are days wherein I don't have anything interesting to contribute, and yet I stare at a screen expecting someone to say something witty (Ink is very good for that).

Not very productive.

Then there's journaling. Only some days, I can exhaust my entire reading list in the first half hour when I get to work.

I can play computer games, but that's also a guilty pleasure. :P

I've been scraping through my workday, more often than not. The answer usually is 'go to bed earlier' as a causality, but let's get real here. There's so many people to chat with late at night, and I'm one of those companionable folks that chats 'til the other person has to go.

(Funny thing is, I'm not like that in person anymore. Many's the critter who has expressed an interest in meeting me in person such that I can hold a splendiferous converse with them, and then I end up hiding my muzzle in my hands and talking about the weather when that moment comes to pass.)

T'day I decided to do something different. Coyote teaches, 'If something isn't working for you, change it.

I got my fuzzy tail up and dragged myself over to the exercise room. And found an unobtrusive exercise bike to sit myself on, and pedaled a whole four minutes, while reading a tech manual.

Now my knees hurt, and my legs will likely ache in the morning, but...

I'm awake.

Is it worth it? Let's see. Marginal amount of work done, not worried about driving home half-asleep at the wheel, eventual goal to get back into shape. No more (well, okay, fewer) catnaps, theoretical larger energy span, more initiative to get to bed earlier.

Let's see how long I can keep up with this.

Coyote says: "Sometimes you have to grab life by the scruff of the neck and tell it to do something, even if it's you telling you to do something. Expect to get bit sometimes, but either way, if you got yourself to move, you Did Something Different."

-Denali, hoping he doesn't sound as lame as he feels right now... ow.

* Ahem. Blame the full moon for that rather vivid simile. Jeeesh.

No Excuse For Pain....

2003-08-04T23:03:03Z

Sure, it's supposed to be nature's way of telling you to slow down, but.... some folks have to exist and function despite the pain.

Some of them are friends of mine.

Our focus is adversely affected by pain -- as are the various perceptions we have. I know people who spend episodes unable to see when they're in the middle of a pain session.

Some folks I know romanticize their pain, citing that as their driving force, but that may well be just the best coping medium available.

Me, I get minor discomfort and occasional reduced range of motion from a chronic back problem (oh, the wonders of trusting a bad chiropactor and genetics!) I can usually work through it, but that's because my job requires me to stare straight ahead at a computer screen for hours on end.

I'd never make it as a NASCAR driver, which requires me to look over my shoulder on a regular basis.

My physical limitations do not cause me pain -- but I percieve pain when I try and exceed them, such as trying to run flat out for longer than a few minutes. I register pain when I get hit by objects with a force of more than a few newtons, or when the barometric pressure gets to my joints.

"That's nice," I wish I could say, "..I'll stop what I'm doing."

But the pain continues on, because there's damage that takes anywhere from minutes for a minor cut to stop bleeding, to days or a week for bruises and cuts to fade. In some ways, bug bites are worse than paper cuts, because paper cuts don't -itch-.

"I haven't got time for the pain," the old commercial goes. But really, when do we have time for pain?

If we could willingly time when we were in pain, in order to function normally when it really counted, would it be worth it? Even if, say, the exchange rate was not 1:1 for time?

There are folks out there (no, I don't know any) who have no capacity to feel pain in parts of their bodies (like folks who are paralyzed from the waist down, for example). I've heard stories of folks who burn themselves horribly because they were unaware they were being damaged. That's an argument for having a pain detection system, okay.

But what argument can be made for emotional pain? Just because it doesn't leave a mark doesn't mean it doesn't hurt -- or doesn't keep hurting. Indeed, while cuts and bruises will fade in time (usually), some folks I know have emotional/psychological issues from over a decade ago that limits them in the now.

I'm one of them.

You can take painkillers for most anything that ails you, but those selfsame painkillers do not heal what causes your pain. There's a fine line between having them to be able to function, and harming yourself by not being able to acknowledge a limit from pain and/or preventing further damage.

That being said -- I believe we ought to do whatever it takes to function as normally as possible. I believe that modern medicine falls woefully short of the mark when it comes to fixing us, and even along the lines of 'making the pain stop.'

We can save a life; bring people back from the brink of death. But we've been doing that for a very long time. We can cure most contractable illnesses, even prevent them -- but by doing so, sometimes we make the conditions worse when the 'net' fails. And there are some things we have yet to find a cure for.

Like chronic pain.

It's like the rain: inexorable, sometimes light, sometimes heavy. You never know when it'll happen next, but if you're caught out in it, you get inundated with it.

Usually, it goes away, after awhile, but you never know how long that will be.

I like the rain. I don't think I'll ever enjoy pain.

But I know people who do, in small, controlled doses. And thereby we return to the question once again.

"Is pain really useful? Is it something we should have the right to choose, knowing most folks would choose to avoid it always?"

I'm not interested in the 'you must experience pain to comprehend pleasure' argument; I've heard that before, on a number of occasions. I'd like to be free of pain as long as possible, as consistently as possible, without giving up a lifestyle I enjoy.

Is that too much to ask, I wonder?

-Denali

The One.

2003-07-23T19:53:43Z

Is there such a thing as finding the One -- the one you should wait your entire lifetime for?

I've fallen in love more times than I have fingers -- sometimes fast, sometimes slow. I've fallen out of love just as many times, I think, because I still can't authoratively say I'm with the person I want to spend the rest of my life aligning my path with.

What I do know is what I like and what I don't like. And that love is about seeing more what you like in a person than what you don't like. And the things that you really, really, don't like, are the people who you can't stay in love with, at least, not in the same household without trying to claw them to death in the middle of the night.

We can -care- about lots of folks. We can watch out for lots of folks -- but when your partner's way of living ends up hurting, abusing, and mistreating who you are just by being you -- maybe it's time to move on.

Because we can trim a bit here, nudge a bit there, but once you cross the line into 'nag', 'passive-aggressive', 'codependent', 'power', and 'liar', you're living the latter -- a lie.

Also, people change. I wouldn't recognize myself ten years back -- twenty years back. My notions of right and wrong have changed - become more colored, and more gray at the same time. I laugh at things I would have been insulted by then. I maintain my dignity, but I let people take advantage of me. I am protective of people, but I am also empowering them to fail on their own, more than I have in the past. I used to live by the slogan "Saving the world, one person at a time," but nowadays it's "Opening the eyes and ears of anyone who will listen, and see."

Someone who surely loved the old me might not deal well with the current me.

If that is the case, how can we ever hope to stay in love forever?

Only if we have someone who can change with us.

But then, who controls the way the path leads for you both?

It should be negotiated in advance. Revisited time and again.

As the commercial goes, 'on the road of life, there are drivers, and there are navigators.' We have our strengths and weaknesses, but nobody should ever point out their weakness as a reason to never be productive.

We're only human. We forget. We make mistakes.

The ability to forgive is probably the most important quality of any One you should be seeking.

People's paths change suddenly. And some folks are worth waiting for.

It doesn't mean you put your life on hold for someone else's sake. It does mean that you stay in touch, that you hold that person's future close with your own. It does mean that you remind them that they're still special to you, in your own way.

At the worst, you keep a friend for life.

And by the way: life's better when you have friends. Especially the kind that help you move bodies.

Friends can be at any level of interaction. Friends don't have to be there for you when you need them -- but it's nice when they are.

And they still aren't the One.

But y'know, believing in the One is like saying you have a head in cyberspace.

Belief -- and communicating that belief in a convincing fashion -- is sometimes worth more than all the facts in the universe.

So. You can believe that you are loveable. Entertaining. Witty. Soon-to-be-famous. Talented. Charming. Free of pain.

...and then someone pops the bubble. Someone tells you they hate you, or the things that you do.

Coyote says: 'you gotta believe what you gotta believe. And if you believe you are bad, or wrong, or broken -- you fix it. You don't just say, "I'm broken." and expect people to accept it. You learn to live around it. Just like you wouldn't say, "This door is closed." and stand in front of it for the rest of your days -- just like you wouldn't walk into a clearly-marked hole in the pavement because you couldn't walk around it.

Sure, Dennay. That's all fine and good, talking in generalities -- but I'd like you to just think about it a moment.

Are the friends, family, and loved ones in your life people who get behind you and push helpful, or are they shoving you off a cliff? Are they people who drag you farther off your path than you can ever hope to recover?

Who gets to live your life, anyway?

You do.

Do you get to live your friends' lives for them?

Maybe vicariously. Maybe you can give advice. But when you get into a situation where you're making their decisions without consulting them, you are relieving them of their responsibility for living.

You should only do that for your kids under the age of ten.

Life interactions are by definition a committee of at least two.

Life decisions for you are a presidentship of one.

Sure, there are laws, rules, behavioral concepts, morals, justifications, no-choice junctions.

But that's just today.

What's tomorrow got in store for you?

Wherever your feet take you.

If your goal is to Find the One, I wish you the best of luck.

Me, I just want to see what's over the next hill. The next sunrise. Because suddenly, I don't worry so much about the plans for the future, the things I've yet to do -- because I recognize today, tonight, reaching tomorrow is just as precious.

Who I choose to do it with is up to me. Except for one part.

I gotta be there for it.

*wry smile* Thank you for listening. Hope you learned something -- I sure did.

-Denali!

Feet.

2003-07-16T23:21:05Z

"..such and such a person does not wear shoes, choosing to want to feel the ground beneath their paws."

How many times have you seen that in a description?

"..sometimes you have to just take off your shoes, walk around on the carpet, and make scrunchy motions with your toes." -paraphrased from Die Hard, the movie

I get funny looks when I walk around the office without shoes. Nobody has a problem when I walk around without 'em at home -- after all, you generally don't wear shoes in the house unless you're Fred Rogers, or you've just come in or gone out.

But there's just some times where you have to. Today seems to be one of them -- to feel that solidity between my feet and the ground every time I put my foot down. To have the flexibility to walk on my toes and streeetch just a little bit.

Gets my mind off an otherwise dull, non-motivating day where I got to see my department become a political shadow of its former fun self for a moment. Where I got my workload handed to me through the end of August -- and it's going to be busy.

Again.

Still.

Bleah.

And I'm supposed to get work done with this kind of attitude.

Mrf. Still. I'm responsible, I tell myself, and will get stuff done. Doesn't feel like I've accomplished much of anything yet, but at least my desk looks a little less cluttered. And my schedules are laid out.

But all the scheduling in the world doesn't get you anywhere if you don't make some work happen.

Focus. I did it this morning in order to make a meeting on time. No journey was ever arrived at without taking the steps with your own two feet, at least at some point. Nobody will carry me to my destination, fully, so I can -- I must do it on my own.

Sometimes you just have to put your shoes on first.

Or take them off.

-Denali!

Coyote Dreams...

2003-07-15T22:22:39Z

Okay. I think one of the things I'm going to do is start using this as a log for my dreams, at least the ones I percieve as signifigant enough and vivid enough to write about. Since I'd rather not have random passerby poking about the things in my head, I'm going to set up a custom-locked post group for such topics.

If interested, leave a note on this post. No offense taken if you want off at any time.

-Denali!

.friends

2003-07-10T06:08:20Z

A lot of my friends went to medical school; I almost went, too. I think my family was hoping I'd be a doctor -- free medical advice, you know. Almost did it, too.

Boy, would my life have been different.

I don't think I would have been as in to computers; would have never met the people that got me online. Would have never taken the choices that got me to be who I am today.

I'm a reclusive sort -- *nods to Neill* and while that doesn't mean I don't have a life, it does mean that I can be a very private person. I network like nobody's business, at the same time I hold my personal life back. It's not that I don't trust people -- it's just that ...well, I don't trust me. Maybe I'll explain some other time.

Tonight's thought of the day, however, stems from the concept that a lot of people in my circle of friends take for granted -- the concept of .friends. (Or, as was bandied about the Peak last night, '.hkfriends, .cafriends, .brfriends, .frfriends...')

There are some folks we consider friends who we will never speak with in person in our entire lifetimes.

But yet these are the selfsame people who we go out of our way to hang out with, albeit electronically, heedless of the fact that we're all over the world, in different time zones, weather conditions, and political boundaries.

And we have more concern about what we're plugged into the net on than where we are. And it's not just for the subtle taboo of asking where someone lives, usually, either. Usually, it just doesn't really matter from moment to moment.

Does that make us sad folks who have no lives? Shut-ins with self-image problems? Some folks might think so.

I don't.

Because it's all about shared interests that makes your friendships the binding things they are. And the world is a very big place, and we can't hope to traverse more than a fraction of it in our short lifespans, with our limited resources, and our often too-limiting responsibilities to others in our personal worlds. The 'net is out there, and if it puts me in touch with like minds and kindred spirits, I don't care where they live -- they're accessible to me.

I can say, "I know people who live in Holland!" and have it be the truth. I can, if I really want to, travel to most of the states in the United States and probably make an attempt to have tea with at least one person there within a one state radius. I may not be a party-every-weekend social animal, but my contacts aren't limited to the place I live.

And those of you reading this -- I like this life, and the knowing of the people I have in it. I think I made the right choice. So maybe I'm not rich, I'm not helping people of the world recover from strange polysylabic illinesses for large amounts of money that will go to lawyers and insurance firms, but I like who I am. I like who I have in my circle.

Even if it's a dark circle with lines of electronic bits radiating out of it. It's better than being stuck two hundred years earlier, in a clapboard house on a farm, where the nearest neighbor lives two miles down the road and his big thing is collecting antique kerosene lanterns.

But at least they still had barrels.

-Denali!

Nostalgia...

2003-07-08T07:36:33Z

I notice something we do a lot on HLM (Here Lie Monsters) is reminisce about old games. I suppose it's a community thing -- you have to be somewhat computer-savvy to get on a MU*, or know people who are, and considering one of our fearless leaders works for one of the big name game companies, plus a number of other folks are active in games, it's probably inevitable.

Somewhat less often, we reminisce about our childhoods; lot of folks seem to have less than stellar upbringings, be it parents, school, or both; but no matter what, things were good at least some of the time during our now-spent youth. Sometimes it's the food, or the movies, or the music -- but we find good things about our life to date, somewhere.

Will we look back at the now, at the craziness that we've created together, and laugh, also? Will we appreciate when we had journals you had to type into, art drawn special for folks, the way we are right now?

If all we do is create nostalgia for the days behind us, then that's a damned convincing argument for living to a ripe old age; to get as many of those cool things under your belt as possible.

To be happy for the moments of happiness we have with each other, and the things in our world.

Never know what tomorrow will bring. Something memorable. Something cool. The next killer app-- and the next killer memory.

-Denali!

Under construction

2003-07-06T23:01:00Z

One of the reasons I haven't gotten an LJ account until now is because... well, what can you say to an audience who isn't there? Or rather, won't be when you hit that Send button?

At least, when you're online and talking at folks, you get topical stuff, your jokes have the right timing (usually), and you get your well-deserve swattings for punning thrown at you up front. Here, the stuff you write is slightly less transient -- you put it up, and cross your fingers that someone will see it and appreciate it.

Sure is. Because as soon as we finish one project, one goal, one more thing checked off the cosmic 'to-do' list, we start seeking the next big thing. The next structure to build-- the folks who build infrastructure get to where they're going more often, but slower.

Neill challenged folks last night to name a single video game that wasn't a rehash or derivative of something from the 80's. The only clear winner was Samba Di Amigo, and the reason was that it had different controller surfaces; most games are directional, plus interaction buttons.

(And in a flight of Coyote irony, the current discussion in the Cobalt Cup is about Heathkit electronics construction kits.)

There are some things you do without the safety of a solid base to launch off of; that's flying, and most mortal human folk can't do it without an airplane. So the moral lesson here, natch is: 'you're safest when you don't take a flying leap, but sometimes the guy who takes the flying leap reaches the goal first.'

Is it better to arrive first, or in one piece? With all of your components, or to grab the prize with your two hands before anyone else will?

Life's that kind of choice.

Me, I'm not grabby -- I prefer to wait on the good things, have patience with the bad things, and trust in the believe that I'll be around awhile.

So. Where d'you fit into the grand construct of things?

-Denali!

Pick nose? No, pic-ture!

2003-07-06T21:26:47Z

*grins* Thanks, Ink. Figured that I'd get with the program, finally, and also, update you at the same time.

-Denali!