Expectations Revisited

I think I've mentioned this before, but if I can, at some point I'd like to make a youtube video showing the mathematical impossibility of living up to all the expectations you hear from advice experts.  Sleep eight hours a day, brush after every meal, exercise an hour a day, go to all your kids little league games and involve them in every sport and extracurricular activity imaginable, pick a job you like and get a PHD in that field, be the last one to leave at work every day, spend quality time with your family, get a part time job for extra money, give 10% of your money to your regular savings, 10% to the church, 10% to charity, remodel your house, pay all of your kids tuition, pay for your parents long term care, save up 10% of your income for your retirement, get the newest i-phone whenever it comes out, read 30 minutes a day, go to church twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday, go to every PTO meeting, get involved politically and volunteer for campaigns, diversify your investments and pay close attention to each one of them daily, learn a new language, write hand-written letters to all of your distant friends to keep in touch, sponsor a child living in a foreign country, read every word of every obscenely long legal document you're given before signing it, listen attentively to every jabroni that crosses your path and give them a big friendly smile, update your will once every year.  Who has the time or money to do it all?  You just got to prioritize as best as you're able with the limited resources you have.  You can't let all this stuff drive you nuts, and some of it you're just going to have to cut out.

Spoiling

Spoiling somebody is giving them whatever they want exactly when they want it.  If you give them whatever they want but not when they want it, you're not spoiling them.

Talking to the Wind

A lot of times I think, what use is an idea if it's never shared?  But now I realize that even an unshared idea may be worth a lot.  I believe Laozi was full of ideas, and was prepared to place himself in isolation forever until a guard at a palace practically begged him to spread his ideas.  Laozi must have seen the value in talking to the wind, whereas most people would consider it a waste of time.  Why spend so much time coming up with so many ideas and never tell them to anyone who can hear them?  Did Laozi believe if he spoke to the wind the wind would magically tell somebody else his idea?  Probably not.  But he had enough peace within his soul to realize that promoting himself just to get his ideas heard isn't worth it sometimes.  Sometimes it's just better to stay quiet and let your ideas die peacefully within yourself, rather than let your ego get the best of you and spend your whole life trying to get someone to hear what you have to say.  But the wind is always happy to listen and never is offended by anyone that wants to share.  It always has time to listen.  So take the time to talk to it and give it your ideas.  Ideas help you and the wind, even if they hinder everyone else.

Celebrity Revenue Service

The other day I was tempted to create a code to parody the ridiculous Internal Revenue Code.  I'd call it the Celebrity Revenue Code and keep it just as complex and just as goofy as the Internal Revenue Code it represents.  The main form would be a 1040 form of course, but everyone with capital gains would have to fill out a schedule D to see how much they owe Justin Bieber, and a form 7347 to see if their deductions are eligible to be paid to Snooki instead of Kim Kardashian.

Angry Charities

Which person is better, the one who automatically wills to do good and goes along with it, or the one who automatically wills to do bad and fights against it?  Obviously the one fighting against his own will has to go through a lot more work.

With that in mind, I'd be interested in seeing a website called angrycharities.org.  It would be based on an idea that there are some people in this world who do not want to do good, but feel obligated to do good and do not wish to disguise that fact.  They desire to be sincere and not mask themselves with a smile, but they still wish to do the will of God in taking care of his people.

Service with a frown.

Also, I'm wondering if the emergence of angry charities would encourage more people to avoid getting into situations that drive them to depend on charity.  "Shoot, that charity was mean to me.  I'm going to try to support myself so I don't have to deal with those a-holes anymore."  Of course it would still be a bummer to be rough to people in legitimate need.  But oh well.  That's why angrycharities.org is just fictional.

Still it would be refreshing to see a dose of anti-hypocrisy, where people try to make themselves look bad while doing good, instead of trying to look good while doing bad.  Imagine if we had a politician that did that.

What is proof?

I don't like for a mathematical proof to be more than four pages long if at all possible.  A proof that's over 100 pages in length doesn't even seem like a proof to me.  Okay, so you proved something to five people that can actually understand it.  But everybody else just has to take you and those five eggheads at your word.  But, I suppose in a way, if you can prove one thing just to yourself, you have proven it in a way.  If you build a monster like Frankenstein's monster that nobody ever sees, you have created life without anyone else knowing.  You haven't proven something to the world, but you've at least proven it to yourself.  And that means something.

A complicated proof can have some value to a small number of people.  A simple proof that someone with limited resources can follow can have a much greater value to a much greater number of people.  It's just too darn bad that the world is as complex as it is and so much is out of the common man's reach.  I guess God intended it to be that way to limit our abilities.

Arguing Vs. Voting

Right or wrong, I'd rather have the right to argue than the right to vote.