It occurs to me that I make a pretty bad leader. Most of my life I've avoided the major responsibility of taking charge of things either due to apathy or laziness, and I always believed that even if I did take the reins I'd still be able to do a pretty decent job of leading people to do something.
I suppose I always assumed leadership was purely about the decision making, which spans from playing too many strategy games. Dragoons move here, Zealots rush there, Templars go in and rape the shit out of everyone. When everything moves according to how I want it to, things tend to go in rather positive directions. Sure it doesn't mean that everything will go according to plan, but at least you can predict the outcomes and try your best to pull something good out of every situation.
Problem is, Zeus never says 'no'. Lina never gets distracted by boys during a fight, and Gondar never lacks motivation to run down somebody for the kill. There's this... instinctive frustration in me, when I'm in a position of leadership and things arn't going to way I asked it to, and not because of unpredictable external factors. I lack the... motivational ability that my mom teaches, and the reason why I never believed in it was because it never worked for me. Hence, the only motivational technique I know is the one that DID work for me, which apparently, doesn't seem to do much for anyone else.
Which... is starting to be a problem, I suppose.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Indestructible
There is something rather therapeutic about playing drums loudly at 10 in the morning. Nobody can complain because nobody's supposed to be sleeping at that time anyway.
Every day should start to Guns and Roses.
Every day should start to Guns and Roses.
Monday, February 16, 2009
The World Ends With Me.
I think I'm learning more. About myself, about others, and about how things work in general. At least I hope so.
I'd be the first to admit that I didn't really achieve anything last year. I spent most of the time wallowing in self-pity and loathing the situation that I was stuck in. Hell it's still quite alot of effort to not slip back into that state again. But what I did get out of last year was a far better realisation of myself, something clearer than I've ever seen in the mirror. I know now what drives me, and what I want out of life. The answers were, as always, there all along, it just took me some time to find it.
So that brings us to this year. If last year was intelligence gathering then this year's when the operation takes place. (Zomg army metaphor) It's started out pretty well, things are actually moving in certain directions now, rather than me just thinking about things all the time as usual. I guess now it's just up to how much I want to succeed to see how they go. If I'd a new year's resolution it would be to not regret another year of lost opportunities come Christmas.
In the grand scheme of things, I don't really matter. Nothing of which I do will be of very much great impact to society in any way, I think. But to me, everything I do matters. My world started with me, and my world will end where I want it to.
"The sky's not the limit. You are.'
I'd be the first to admit that I didn't really achieve anything last year. I spent most of the time wallowing in self-pity and loathing the situation that I was stuck in. Hell it's still quite alot of effort to not slip back into that state again. But what I did get out of last year was a far better realisation of myself, something clearer than I've ever seen in the mirror. I know now what drives me, and what I want out of life. The answers were, as always, there all along, it just took me some time to find it.
So that brings us to this year. If last year was intelligence gathering then this year's when the operation takes place. (Zomg army metaphor) It's started out pretty well, things are actually moving in certain directions now, rather than me just thinking about things all the time as usual. I guess now it's just up to how much I want to succeed to see how they go. If I'd a new year's resolution it would be to not regret another year of lost opportunities come Christmas.
In the grand scheme of things, I don't really matter. Nothing of which I do will be of very much great impact to society in any way, I think. But to me, everything I do matters. My world started with me, and my world will end where I want it to.
"The sky's not the limit. You are.'
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Stress Fracture
You know, someone once said a little bit of stress was good for me.
I suppose I agree, considering I go through a large majority of my life without it. But there's also the added problem of me not dealing with it very well. Not on a personal level, but I think other people are starting to suffer from it. Oh well. Not like they're helping anyway.
I suppose I agree, considering I go through a large majority of my life without it. But there's also the added problem of me not dealing with it very well. Not on a personal level, but I think other people are starting to suffer from it. Oh well. Not like they're helping anyway.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Badger
'I am writing a treatise just now,' said the badger, coughing diffidently to show that he was absolutely set upon explaining it, 'which is to point out why Man has become the master of all animals. Perhaps you would like to hear that?'
...
'People often ask as an idle question whether the process of evolution began with the chicken or the egg. Was there an egg out of which the first chicken came, or did a chicken lay the first egg? I am in a position to state that the first thing created was the egg.'
'When God had manufactured all the eggs out of which the fishes and the serpents and the birds and the mammals and even that duck-billed platypus would eventually emerge, he called the embryos before him, and saw that they were good.'
'Perhaps I ought to explain,' added the badger, lowering his papers nervously and looking at the Wart over the top of them, 'that all embryos look very much the same. They are what you are before you are born, and, whether you are going to be a tadpole or a peacock or a camelopard or a man, when you are an embryo you look just like a perculiarly repulsive and helpless human being. I continue as follows:
'The embryos stood up in front of God, with their feeble hands clasped politely over their stomachs and their heavy heads hanging down respectfully, and God adressed them.
'He said: Now, you embryos, here you are, all looking exactly the same, and We are going to give you the choice of what you are going to be. When you grow up you will get bigger anyway, but We are pleased to grant you another gift as well. You may alter any parts of yourselves into anything which you think would be useful to you in after life. For instance, at the moment you can't dig. Anybody who would like to turn his hands into a pair of spades or garden forks is allowed to do so. Or, to put it another way, at present you can only use your mouths for eating with. Anybody who would like to use his mouth as an offensive weapon, can change it by asking, and be a corkindrill or a saber-toothed tiger. Now then, step up and choose your tools, but remember that what you choose you will grow into, and will have to stick to.'
'All the embryos thought the matter over politely, and then, one by one, they stepped up before the eternal throne. They were allowed two or three specializations, so that some chose to use their arms as flying machines and their mouths as weapons, or crackers, or drillers, or spoons, while others selected to use their bodies as boats and their hands as oars. We badgers thought very hard and decided to ask for three boons. We wanted to change our skins for shields, our mouths for weapons, and our arms for garden forks. These boons were granted to us. Everybody specialized in one way or another, and some of us in very queer ones. For instance, one of the lizards decided to swap his whole body for blotting-paper, and one of the toads who lived in the antipodes decided to simply be a water-bottle.
'The asking and granting took up two long days - they were the fifth and sixth, so far as I remember - and at the very end of the sixth day, just before it was time to knock off for Sunday, they had got through all the little embryos except one. This embryo was Man.
' "Well, Our little man," said God. 'You have waited till the last, and slept on your decision, and We are sure you have been thinking hard all the time. What can we do for you?'
' "Please, God," said the embryo, 'I think that You made me in the shape which I now have for reasons best known to Yourselves, and that it would be rude to change. If I am to have my choice I will stay just as I am. I will not alter any of the parts which You gave to me, for other and doubtless inferior tools, and I will stay a defenseless embryo all my life, doing my best to make unto myself a few feeble implements out of the wood, iron and other materials which you have seen fit to put before me. If I want a boat I will endeavour to construct it out of trees, and if I want to fly I will put together a chariot to do it for me. Probably I have been very silling in refusing to take advantage of Your kind offer, but I have done my best to think it over carefully, and now hope that the feeble decision of this small innocent will find favour with Yourselves."
' "Well done," exclaimed the Creator in delighted tones. 'Here all you embryos, come here with your beaks and what-nots to look upon Our first Man. He is the only one who has guessed Our riddle, out of all of you, and We have great pleasure in conferring upon him the Order of Dominion over the Fowls of the Air, and the Beasts of the Earth, and the Fishes of the Sea. Now let the rest of you get along, and love and multiply, for it is time to knock off for the week-end. As for you, Man, you will be a naked tool all your life, though a user of tools: you will look like an embryo till they bury you, but all others will be embryos before your might; eternally undeveloped, you will always remain potential in Our image, able to see some of Our sorrys and feels some of Our joys. We are partly sorry for you, Man, and partly happym but always proud. Run along then, Man, and do your best. And listen, Man, before you go...'
' "Well?" asked Adam, turning back from his dismissal.
' "We were only going to say," said God shyly, twisting Their hands together. "Well, We were just going going to say, God bless you." '
- The Sword in the Stone.
On an entirely seperate note, am I the only one who doesn't know the existence of badgerbadgerbadger.com?
...
'People often ask as an idle question whether the process of evolution began with the chicken or the egg. Was there an egg out of which the first chicken came, or did a chicken lay the first egg? I am in a position to state that the first thing created was the egg.'
'When God had manufactured all the eggs out of which the fishes and the serpents and the birds and the mammals and even that duck-billed platypus would eventually emerge, he called the embryos before him, and saw that they were good.'
'Perhaps I ought to explain,' added the badger, lowering his papers nervously and looking at the Wart over the top of them, 'that all embryos look very much the same. They are what you are before you are born, and, whether you are going to be a tadpole or a peacock or a camelopard or a man, when you are an embryo you look just like a perculiarly repulsive and helpless human being. I continue as follows:
'The embryos stood up in front of God, with their feeble hands clasped politely over their stomachs and their heavy heads hanging down respectfully, and God adressed them.
'He said: Now, you embryos, here you are, all looking exactly the same, and We are going to give you the choice of what you are going to be. When you grow up you will get bigger anyway, but We are pleased to grant you another gift as well. You may alter any parts of yourselves into anything which you think would be useful to you in after life. For instance, at the moment you can't dig. Anybody who would like to turn his hands into a pair of spades or garden forks is allowed to do so. Or, to put it another way, at present you can only use your mouths for eating with. Anybody who would like to use his mouth as an offensive weapon, can change it by asking, and be a corkindrill or a saber-toothed tiger. Now then, step up and choose your tools, but remember that what you choose you will grow into, and will have to stick to.'
'All the embryos thought the matter over politely, and then, one by one, they stepped up before the eternal throne. They were allowed two or three specializations, so that some chose to use their arms as flying machines and their mouths as weapons, or crackers, or drillers, or spoons, while others selected to use their bodies as boats and their hands as oars. We badgers thought very hard and decided to ask for three boons. We wanted to change our skins for shields, our mouths for weapons, and our arms for garden forks. These boons were granted to us. Everybody specialized in one way or another, and some of us in very queer ones. For instance, one of the lizards decided to swap his whole body for blotting-paper, and one of the toads who lived in the antipodes decided to simply be a water-bottle.
'The asking and granting took up two long days - they were the fifth and sixth, so far as I remember - and at the very end of the sixth day, just before it was time to knock off for Sunday, they had got through all the little embryos except one. This embryo was Man.
' "Well, Our little man," said God. 'You have waited till the last, and slept on your decision, and We are sure you have been thinking hard all the time. What can we do for you?'
' "Please, God," said the embryo, 'I think that You made me in the shape which I now have for reasons best known to Yourselves, and that it would be rude to change. If I am to have my choice I will stay just as I am. I will not alter any of the parts which You gave to me, for other and doubtless inferior tools, and I will stay a defenseless embryo all my life, doing my best to make unto myself a few feeble implements out of the wood, iron and other materials which you have seen fit to put before me. If I want a boat I will endeavour to construct it out of trees, and if I want to fly I will put together a chariot to do it for me. Probably I have been very silling in refusing to take advantage of Your kind offer, but I have done my best to think it over carefully, and now hope that the feeble decision of this small innocent will find favour with Yourselves."
' "Well done," exclaimed the Creator in delighted tones. 'Here all you embryos, come here with your beaks and what-nots to look upon Our first Man. He is the only one who has guessed Our riddle, out of all of you, and We have great pleasure in conferring upon him the Order of Dominion over the Fowls of the Air, and the Beasts of the Earth, and the Fishes of the Sea. Now let the rest of you get along, and love and multiply, for it is time to knock off for the week-end. As for you, Man, you will be a naked tool all your life, though a user of tools: you will look like an embryo till they bury you, but all others will be embryos before your might; eternally undeveloped, you will always remain potential in Our image, able to see some of Our sorrys and feels some of Our joys. We are partly sorry for you, Man, and partly happym but always proud. Run along then, Man, and do your best. And listen, Man, before you go...'
' "Well?" asked Adam, turning back from his dismissal.
' "We were only going to say," said God shyly, twisting Their hands together. "Well, We were just going going to say, God bless you." '
- The Sword in the Stone.
On an entirely seperate note, am I the only one who doesn't know the existence of badgerbadgerbadger.com?
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Education
'The best thing for disturbances of the spirit,' replied Merlyn, beginning to buff and blow, 'is to learn. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love or lose your moneys to a monster, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then - to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the poor mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you. Look at what a lot of things there are to learn - pure science, the only purity there is. You can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six. And then, after you have exhausted a milliard lifetimes in biology and medicine and theo-criticism and geography and history and economics, why, you can start to make a cartwheel out of appropriate wood, or spend fifty years learning to begin to beat your adversary in fencing. After that you can start again on mathematics, until it is time to learn to plow.'
- The Sword In The Stone
- The Sword In The Stone
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Hero
'If I were to be made a knight,' said the Wart, staring dreamily into the fire,
...
'I should pray to God to let me encounter all the evil in the world in my own person, so that if I conquered there should be none left, while if I were defeated, it would be I who would suffer for it.'
'That would be extremely presumptious of you', said Merlyn, 'and you would be conquered, and you would suffer for it.'
'I shouldn't mind'
'Wouldn't you? Wait till it happens and see.'
'Why do people not think, when they are grown up, as I do when I am young?'
'Oh dear,' said Merlyn. 'You are making me feel confused. Suppose you wait till you are grown up and know the reason?'
'I don't think that is an answer at all,' replied the Wart, pretty justly.
Merlyn wrung his hands.
'Well, anyway,' he said. 'Suppose they didn't let you stand against all the evil in the world?'
'I could ask,' said the Wart.
'You could ask,' repeated Merlyn.
- The Sword In The Stone
...
'I should pray to God to let me encounter all the evil in the world in my own person, so that if I conquered there should be none left, while if I were defeated, it would be I who would suffer for it.'
'That would be extremely presumptious of you', said Merlyn, 'and you would be conquered, and you would suffer for it.'
'I shouldn't mind'
'Wouldn't you? Wait till it happens and see.'
'Why do people not think, when they are grown up, as I do when I am young?'
'Oh dear,' said Merlyn. 'You are making me feel confused. Suppose you wait till you are grown up and know the reason?'
'I don't think that is an answer at all,' replied the Wart, pretty justly.
Merlyn wrung his hands.
'Well, anyway,' he said. 'Suppose they didn't let you stand against all the evil in the world?'
'I could ask,' said the Wart.
'You could ask,' repeated Merlyn.
- The Sword In The Stone
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Of Men and Sports
It's kinda amusing how everyone turns into tennis experts when Federer plays Nadal. Or soccer experts at the World Cup Final.
That being said, it was still a pretty nice match to watch at a place where alot more was expected, which also made me realise I'm a Federer fan, although I've never really given much thought to the subject. Heh.
That being said, it was still a pretty nice match to watch at a place where alot more was expected, which also made me realise I'm a Federer fan, although I've never really given much thought to the subject. Heh.
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