What's something that really moves you, gets you all riled up inside?
For me, it's whatever music encapsulates the emotions I've been feeling for a while. Recently, I've been filled with regret, anger, frustration, etc. This tune captures all of that together. Every time I listen to it I get stirred up and tear. My soul feels ignited when I listen to this song because I feel as if I should be doing something against injustice, or at the very least bettering myself in any way possible.
So, what ignites your soul? It doesn't have to be music, it could be a poem, book, piece of art (I've really been into Os Gemeos lately), spoken word, sound, smell, anything.
Having something "click" in a way that makes the chain of resulting understandings overwhelming. EG: "Wait... you mean c is c because there's a relationship between time and space, so that the speed of light is really a product of the ratio between time and space?" Click. "So THAT's what c is doing in E=mc^2, and why time slows to zero and mass increases to infinite and distance contracts to zero as you approach c. And you can't go faster than c because, from your point of view, you will have reached your destination before you had time to accelerate any faster, AND the slowing of time is the reason why a man on a train traveling at near c who turns on a flashlight will perceive the light to travel at the same speed as someone standing on the platform..." and... and... and... until I'm pacing back and forth, explaining it back to myself, snapping my fingers at each new rock this new crowbar can turn over. Hours later I'll realize I've been in a fugue for most of the day, there's twelve tabs open in the browser, many of them Wikipedia pages, and I've written 2,000 words of essay without effort. It happens for culture, too, particularly when I recognize an actor, look up what else they've been in, and start laughing like a madman. "AHH!! Billy Mumy played Lennier in Babylon 5, but he was the original Will Robinson from Lost In Space. AND he was the omnipotent kid in The Twilight Zone. AND he was the guy who sung the 'Fish Heads' song!" I've started to call it "Actor Nerding". It's like your head explodes.
I'm not sure I understand. What I meant was that--tongue in cheekishly--it's as if there was a culture of people who get off on making and discovering connections between things. Hawking and Burke are good explainers and famous for it, so if you fell asleep in science and history class because the professor was boring, having things opened up makes you feel less of an idiot. You get a rush. My eyes always glazed over in high-school math classes, but then somebody loaned me a copy of _Godel, Escher, Bach_ and my teenage mind devoured it. As a teenager I got the impression that Calculus was something only brainiacs could understand and that I was too dim to grasp it, and then my Dad gave me his old, 1969 reprint of _Calculus Made Easy_ by Silvanus P. Thompson (F.R.S.) and things started to make more sense. Today I might be in a crowd and mention Hofstadter, Burke, or Silvanus and there'll be someone who's eyes light up, and you instantly know that they're not just aware of them, but are excited, too.
Oh! Right. I just wasn't sure about your use of the word "shibboleth." But yes -- I can sleep through all physical sciences in high school because that's not where I want to be, but if reading Bill Bryson or Wikipedia is where I want to be than I'm all over it for hours.
The book I was talking about is A Short History of Nearly Everything. If you want to start small, his book on Shakespeare is fantastic and only about 150 pages I think. Also recommend At Home and A Walk in the Woods. One of my favorite authors.
This is incredible. I can tell this ignites your soul because of the passion even in your writing. Keep having stuff click man.
When this one guy at my company, who is sometimes my boss but not really, gives me a project to do. He literally will just say "Hey so we need to build X that accomplishes Y, and will be displayed on Z." And him, my programmer, and myself will sit down and try to figure out the best way to go about it. Then I just get to do it. No micromanaging. No updates once a day. Just do it. And I get to just be creative and lovely and code and listen to music and design and really just get inspired and take the time to actually create something. Occasionally I'll ask for feedback on functionality or colors or proportions. And he gives it and I go back on my journey of creation. It's fucking fantastic.
That's incredible. I doubt many others lack the freedom you have within the work space. Whenever a musician gets a grant, I imagine a similar feeling is had. To be paid to be creative, and paid well, is something I think most strive for.
It's only the one guy, who is the head of tech and has no formal education yet is the most brilliant, sane person in the company. He has been in the same position as me and knows his creative problem solving / freedom is hindered by the over-managing higher ups at times. So when I get projects from him, he doesn't do the same. This is a pretty rare occurrence as I am usually busy with the CEO and Presidents and marketing tasks but boy is it nice when it happens.
Nice. Do you feel as if this is often your best work?
I do. If you go to http://supergeniustay.com/slate.html that's my current work in progress. I have added JS stuff in the last few days to make it actually work... but I haven't updated it to have that server yet. But you get the idea. It's purpose is for restaurants and or hotels to put these 7 inch tablets in rooms or the lobby for people to order and play etc from the unit. It has pretty cool potential. This is like version -1.7 so lots of work but when we show the semi functioning one to potential clients we will figure out all the API and redesign etc for the client.
I imagine you like reading a lot of quotes then? What is your favorite book and why?
I think you'd enjoy A Sea of Quotes. My girlfriend has it as her home page and is always showing me how well collected the quotes are. The Glass Bead Game sounds like a book that I'd like to read.
That's an incredible idea. Want to set it up? If not, I could. Although, you probably have a more expansive knowledge of incredible books than I do.
Feel free to use the #hubskibookclub tag and maybe invite past participants.
I like that idea, I've always felt rather limited in my knowledge of great books so I'd love to experience some new books, especially outside my comfort zone (scifi).
Sometimes, it's writing. Although, sometimes writing can make me sick too. Other times, it's performing. It doesn't matter what it is either. It could even be teaching, which I consider a significant amount of to be performance, though not the majority. There's something about that moment when you know you've got someone hooked, where you'll lower your voice and they'll lean in to hear whatever it is, when whatever spell you've been weaving nears completion. Too much of that can be unhealthy too though, I think. It makes a person hungry for it.
I'm not sure if teaching is performance in general, but it totally is to me. Within the structure of the curriculum and the lesson plan, one of the most enjoyable aspects of teaching is working the room, finding ways to deliver the content in meaningful manner, connecting with your students, ensuring that everybody is on the same level, etc... If that's not performance, then...
The science of space exploration and understanding the universe we live in.
What discovery would you say has stirred up the most emotion in you and what about it impacted you so deeply?
It's not really one discovery, more just the culmination of it all. The moon landings happened before I was born, but that was impressive and emotional for everyone on our planet. A Mars landing someday will provide a similar situation. Manned exploration is just super emotional for me and makes me happy and excited for the future. A future I won't be around to see, but I'm glad that even though we aren't doing much, at least we're doing something. Our fate is to eventually live out there somewhere. I got super emotional when Challenger failed, I got even more emotional when I read the true story that they weren't killed by the explosion but more likely the impact with the water minutes later. I got emotional when Columbia broke upon re-entry. On the other end of the spectrum I was happy watching the shuttle launches, I was happy watching Soyuz launches, I am extremely happy with how the private companies launches are going. I shit-you-not got quite emotional the night of the Curiosity rover landed successfuly, as I had been waiting for that for years. Kepler was another probe I anxiously awaited, and it's proved some amazing things and helped solidify the Drake equation a bit better. Sure these are just individual experiments and probes and missions, but the whole idea of what they are trying to accomplish moves me to great levels of emotion. It's inspiring and exciting. They are the modern day pioneers of the only frontier we have left. Sure, I'm not a part of any of these things, nor did I help build them, design them, or do any of the ground breaking physics that lead to these devices and capabilities to help us explore space... but I'm a human. And space exploration is about being a human, and figuring out where we came from, and where we are going next. There's nothing more spiritual than that. But if I had to choose one discovery, it would be when they figured out where the elements of the periodic table came from, and that all that stuff was manufactured in stars before our solar system even formed. To know that stars are responsible for the chemistry within our bodies. To know that when I'm looking up with the stars it's not so distant feeling. We aren't "a virus" as many critics say, we're just another part of this universe, and we're made up of the same stuff. And so far, we're the only species that we know of capable of understanding it, and exploring it, so I feel like we owe it to 13+ billion years of the universe's existence to explore it a bit.
Oof. Dat rhythm section. Have you listened to the album ESP?
I may be the worlds greatest worst jazz fan. I love it. It rips my heart out and chews it up and puts it through a meat grinder. I love it. but I know almost nothing about it. I know some of the big names. and every time a song from the local NPR jazz station hits my square in the chest - I swear to myself that I'll remember the artist... I don't. worst greatest jazz fan ever.
Haha, well at least you're into it. I once had a jazz history lesson series on here. I do have plans to bring that back.