Satisfaction

I find hard physical labor satisfying, and the dirt, scratches or soreness that goes with it is a reminder of that satisfaction.

I also find solving problems satisfying whether it is fixing something by tightening a screw or getting a query in a database to work properly.

I like being useful whether that means answering someone's question, holding the door open for someone with too much in their hands, reading a book to a child or making a thoughtful observation that someone finds helpful.

Creating something new out of old things, or just a new drawing, painting, etc. is also satisfying.

No matter your occupation or position in life I think everyone finds aspects of it that they like better than others. Sometimes when we feel unsatisfied with life currently I feel like there is a tendency to want to drastically change your life. Move somewhere else, quit your job, etc. However, I'm not convinced that is necessarily the answer, because as I said before there are always things that we don't enjoy..... but maybe instead of trying to drastically change our lives we can instead try to find opportunities to incorporate things that give us satisfaction.

I don't often have the need to do hard labor but the other day when a friend was moving I volunteered to help. Once when my Mom needed a handout for a lesson I volunteered to whip one up instead of just letting her get one offline (sure she could have just used a pre-made one but it was more fun for both of us that I made one).

That said I think there will always be times of discouragement and depression whether you are living a balanced life or not but I think recognizing what makes you satisfied and looking for opportunities to do them does help.

Reach Higher

I went to an uplifting lecture a couple of years ago on a college campus and the speaker told us to hold our hands over our heads. We raised them. Then for the next 60 seconds or so he kept urging us to make sure that we were reaching as high as possible. Then, he paused and with great energy said "Reach Higher." The whole room moved as we each shot our hands past our "maximum" height, just a little higher.
Over the last couple of months I have had several daily goals. One is to go to bed between 10:30 and 11:00 and the other was after I got home from school to work for a half hour on school work and another half hour on one of my own projects. So in other words after I got home between 4:30 and 5:30 I would be productive for at least an additional hour before going to bed.  Most days I would succeed, but sometimes it seemed hard to fit it in.
This week I decided I could do better and made my goal at least two and a half hours of productivity, plus going to bed a little earlier. It was a struggle and I didn't quite make it two days but the other three days I exceeded my new goal (by smidgens). I did less entertainment and more projects and I feel like I got a lot done this week.
I guess it is easy to sell ourselves short sometimes. Our hands are up, isn't that good enough? Or maybe they are even as high as we can reach at least until we try to reach harder...

On the Shoulders of Giants

Standing on the shoulders of giants is a saying that suggests that we only can achieve what we do because of the foundation already provided by generations before us. This analogy seems especially prevalent when thinking of education, perhaps, particularly science education although most fields can see it. Instead of working out the answers of problems that people faced previously we can start by learning the answers they came up with and then seek to answer the questions that come to light because of this new view.
That seems pretty straight forward but there seems to be downfalls.
First, what do we lose when we don't walk the same path that our predecessors  did? There is a knowledge, an understanding, that you can't get any other way except by solving the problem yourself. And by jumping that step I think you miss out. This may (in most cases) be a worthwhile sacrifice but it is still perhaps something to thing about and gratitude for the previous work should be acknowledged (as the statement in question implies).
Second, in some topics this philosophy seems.... less effective. Some problems appear over and over again, seeming to reappear with every generation. Just from my own observation, and comments from my Dad, these problems that must be rediscovered are moral in nature. Each generation has to rediscover, and redefine in their changing culture, what honesty is, how to balance religion and science, individual roles (economic, caste, gender), etc. Some of this can be taught by the previous generation and some individuals will get it but it seems that as a whole the generation must reestablish itself.
I'm not sure why moral issues are more difficult to be built up on. Maybe because the evidence tends to be more qualitative rather then quantitative. Maybe because often both sides (or all sides) seem reasonable especially in varying circumstances.
In some ways it seems ironic. We, as the human race, are so far ahead in some ways and yet we are continually going over the same ground in others.

Punctuality

I have a friend who is always late and usually by quite a bit (20 minutes or so).
When I'm late for some things it is super stressful for me, but other things I actually like being a little late too. Also, some things I find it easy to be on time for while others I always feel like I'm almost always accidentally late. So what is the difference?
Things like church and classes I'm taking, I find it relatively easy to be on time for (and I hate being late to). These things are consistently at the same time and I usually can gauge the exact time it will take for me to get there because all it entails to get there is to walk there from my current location (which is usually the same place).
Social engagements especially with larger groups of people I sometimes prefer to be late (5 to 10 minutes) because that way you aren't awkwardly early and it is easier to slide in unnoticed. But half the time I am more late than that. I think my lateness usually derives from being overly optimistic about the time it will take me to get somewhere. This is especially problematic when I'm in the middle of something else, because it is easy to say "oh I can just finish this one thing and still get there. It won't take me that long."
Unfortunately, it is the unusual appointments with only 1 or 2 people that I get most stressed about when I am late, but are also some of the most difficult for me to get to on time because I am likely to already be involved in other things before them and I'm also probably not used to going wherever it is so I will be overly optimistic about the time it will take me to get there... A rather unfortunate combination.

Learning about Ink

The last couple of weeks I have played around with drawing with pen and ink. It has been fun and one thing that is kind of interesting about using real tools and not digital ones is that now I am the absolute expert out of all the world on my nibs. Even other people that use pen and ink and might know just from looking at my nibs how they will perform more or less don't know how it will work as well as I do.
It is like knowing exactly how to close the door so that it won't jam.
A couple of things I learned.
Pen and ink is amazingly forgiving. If you don't put the first line exactly where you want it you can just draw another line over it. I didn't love how the hindfoot of this mulgara turned out so so I just drew the tail over it and you can't really tell.

Pen and ink is amazingly unforgiving. If the proportions are off when you start with those first couple of lines you will fail. That's why after a while I started using pencil to sketch out my pictures and then followed with ink. These fighting gemsbok are the first sketch that I started doing this with, and is probably my favorite.

Being familiar with the nib you are using is very important. While working on the gemsbok above I think I accidentally broke my favorite nib. The next image I drew in pencil and I thought it turned out quite well (especially because it is a person and I struggle with people), but then my nib had broken so I was trying out other ones and the one I choose was too thick for what I was trying to do here so it turned out kind of weird, especially the face and shading.

Overall I think I like drawing animals best. I guess that shouldn't be a surprise to me,but here is one of the plants I did, a canaigre plant.

I really haven't worked with pen and ink for a long time (all my ink was dried up so I had to keep pouring water into it the first couple of days), but it was fun to play around with it again. Especially because when I did ink drawings before I mostly did it with modern markers and used the nibs and ink for calligraphy.

A couple of other things I noticed is that I do SO much better when I have a good reference picture, even if I modify it after I draw it. I also realize that I have a hard time scaling down from my reference picture.

Snap Decisions...Which I Know Nothing About

About a year and a half ago there was a week long fieldtrip that was half way across the country and they were inviting anyone from the department. The day before they left I contacted the leaders of the group to say I would go, and then I went.

My first companion on my mission and I had a conversation about snap decisions and she said "You never make snap decisions." I was a little offended, of course I do. Isn't the above example a snap decision?

I think my companion was right. What I didn't say before is that I had known about the fieldtrip for maybe an entire month and I had really wanted to go but wasn't sure I should and only that last day did I finally decide to go for it.
In general I stew about decisions for a long time. During this stewing I avoid answering the question about what I have chosen, what I want to do, because (1) I don't know what I want to do and (2) I don't want to commit myself that I might not be able to follow through with. When I do finally decide I have a tendency to make it abruptly and then I am all in. When talking to my companion I had mistaken that final sudden decision for a snap decision... but it isn't really.
If I get bullied into giving an answer earlier than I feel obligated to follow through with my decision (even if it is just whether I'm going to some activity or something).
This is not necessarily an ideal way to make decisions but at least I understand it myself now. . .  I guess.

The Rules for Stirring Hornets: Part 2

Background: I go to Brigham Young University, a university partially subsidized by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. BYU is unalterably connected with the Church.

The last couple of weeks there has been some excitement in the geology department. An advertisement was printed in the university newspaper for an expo that included some speakers who some of the students and professors had already run across and found to be.... less than scientific and they have a religious bent. Some of the students got pretty excited about it and one wrote up a letter to send to the paper to say we as a department questioned the authenticity of this individual's science. The author asked a few of us to proofread his letter. I did so and I asked him to add something about how the advertisement, simply by its presence in the school newspaper) implies the university (and hence the LDS church) actually condones this expo. He added it and then several professors and students signed the letter and it was sent in. The school newspaper removed the advertisement and printed the letter in full. A few days later another newspaper wrote an article quoting from our letter and using some other sources.
I felt proud to be a part of it. A part of something bigger than just me. And proud to stand up for something that I believed in. I'm not sure I would have felt as strongly about it if I had been at another university. BYU in many ways represents the LDS Church (that is not always a good thing, or how it should be, but that is how it is).
The downside, as my Dad pointed out, is if we hadn't posted the letter would anyone have even noticed the advertisement. Even though we made the expo receive bad press, it still gave it press which it probably would not have received otherwise.
My initial response to most things like this is "yeah that shouldn't be happening" but I don't do anything about it. Arguing in public venues usually doesn't seem effective. And yet, sometimes I think it does need to be done. A couple of years ago I posted about how sometimes stirring hornets is worth it. The question is how do you know when to do it? and how do you make sure it will be more helpful than harmful?
I was flattered when two of my peers, who had been less involved in the conversation and the letter writing, both said they were willing to sign it when they learned that I had proofread it first. They trusted me to be civil, and reasonable. I hope I was. They already knew the author would be straightforward and clear. He was.
I don't know if those are the only things important when you decide to stir up hornets but I think it is at least a start.