Curiosity: Part 2

A while ago I posted about being curious, and I talked about a spreadsheet of terms I had put together so I could do well in my studies. Now that I have been working in my new field of study for a while I don't find myself looking up quite as many terms as I did then, but I haven't given it up completely. I think I added some to my spreadsheet just last week, but as I said, it isn't quite as much the life line it was when I started. Despite this, I think I am still curious. This week I worked on a Dinosaur Train (aka I talked to little kids and their parents about dinosaurs while they went on a train ride. There was a fair amount of down time and I found myself asking the conductor and the other train workers about their jobs and how the train worked. I asked one of the teenagers that worked on the train something about one of the procedures. She had no idea (I'm not sure she had even noticed). So I guess I still count as curious. :)
Another thing I have noticed though, is sometimes I use curiosity as a coping mechanism. Occasionally when I am stressed or decidedly uncomfortable (especially in a new environment) I will start studying the mechanisms around me, trying to figure them out so I don't think too much about whatever I'm stressing out about. So, if I ever become excessively engineer minded it might be because I'm stressed out.
On another note, I find that my curiosity sometimes heads in a different direction then most peoples. On the train perhaps the two most questions about dinosaurs was "What was the biggest dinosaur?"^ and "How big was a T-rex?"* But I don't really care about "the biggest," "the fastest," "the smallest." I guess I'm just more about the stories then the stats. (You can google the stats if you need them for some reason). So, when I wasn't answering stats questions I tried to tell people things that they wouldn't be able to find out with a quick google search... well they could, but only if they knew what to ask, which--granted--would be the hard part, especially when doing it off the top of their heads. However, I am sympathetic. Good questions are sometimes hard to think of, especially when you are asked kind of out of the blue, so I guess I was even more grateful when people asked good questions.


^The Argentinosaurus, a long neck that was 130 ft long and about 90 tons (roughly the weight of two passenger train cars). And yes, it was found in Argentina.
*About 15-20 feet tall.

Textures

Last week I was laying on some pea gravel rubbing my bare-feet through it. At least twice a friend asked what I was doing with a tone that said she thought I was crazy. Then she did it and admitted it felt pretty good. I've been known to do the same thing with mud.
I hate lotion. The slimy feel of it makes me cringe, but my two year old niece brings her mom lotion and cries if she doesn't put it on.
I like al dente noodles and toast and crunchy things... in fact squishy things, or even a large quantity of non-crunchy foods with a homogeneous texture make me gag. Texture is a huge thing for me in regards to eating.
So, overall I dislike squishy things (eating or feeling...unless it's mud apparently.... I don't get it) solely because they are squishy.
My mom hates "weird fabrics," I think this means shiny smooth ones or spandex like with a stretch, because she hates the feel of them. However, she has no problem with eating squishy foods.
It is just interesting to me that it seems like many people (I won't generalize to "all") have very distinct reactions to textures, but not always in the same category. Food is the primary category that texture is an issue for for me but for my mom it is cloth. So maybe different body parts are more susceptible to being picky about texture for different people. Or maybe it is something else... I guess I will have to ask more people about this.

Deciphering Character

I just finished rereading Brandon Sanderson's novella, "The Emperor's Soul." This is a fantasy novel with a complex, original magic system. Recently, I have also read some of Sarah M Eden's books. She primarily writes clean regency romance. Today I realized that I actually like "The Emperor's Soul," and Eden's books for the same reason, or at least some of the same reasons.
"The Emperor's Soul," is about a girl who is a master forger, and in her world that doesn't just involve the typical type of forgery we have in out world but with an intricate type of magic if she knows the history of an object she can essentially rewrite it's presence. But what is cool, is that she does it for a person. In order to be successful she has to do a ton of research. She not only has to know what his favorite color is but why... even if he did not know himself. This is because:
 "a person [is] like a dense forest thicket, overgrown with a twisting mess of vines, weeds, shrubs, saplings, and flowers. No person [is] one single emotion; no person [has] only one desire. They [have] many, and usually those desires conflicted with one another like two rosebushes fighting for the same patch of ground." The whole book is about how she not only learns about the Emperor (who she is trying to forge) but also those around her as she discovers their motivations and their own deceptions and idiosyncrasies.
Eden's books are usually categorized as clean romance, which they definitely are, but unlike many romances (and just books in general) her characters are very well rounded and as the hero and heroine get to know each other they are discovering each other's motivations, and deceptions and idiosyncrasies, and why. Just like getting to know real people they are slowly piecing together each other through words and actions and sometimes they are able to come to conclusions that are true but might not even be recognized by the person. I just reread her book "Seeking Persephone" and Persephone recognized that Adam is shy, genuinely uncomfortable talking to people. Yet when you are in Adam's point of view he never once thinks of himself as shy.
I feel like I'm pretty self aware (I have made some of those types of connections about myself before) and I also find if fascinating to observe and talk about this kind of thing in other people. Plus, doing this well is one of the more rewarding parts of writing. So, I guess it is really no surprise that I like reading about it too.

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.