Posts
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Endless Editing
We can edit forever. The text can always be improved. Take this short story. I just noticed that the word “perhaps” is used 13 times. That’s really bad. I should change it.
But I’ve already spend an hour editing. After spending about 30 minute writing it. I am not a professional writer. This is a hobby website. When is it enough?
The answer: It never is enough. It can always be better.
For now, I will have to be happy with the stream-of-consciousness writing sort. For this blog anyway. There will be some editing, but I will from now on lock myself in a “timebox”. A post took 30 minutes to write? Allowed editing time: 30 minutes.
This is similar to software development. We can always make the code nicer. More readable. More expressive. So we refactor it. And keep refactoring it. Ad infinitum, I’m afraid.
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Beach And Sky
This post is to see if pictures work on this new blog.
The photo was taken this summer at the Baltic Sea.
Being a book nerd I want to mention “War and Peace”. Have you read it? There’s this great scene when Andrej gets injured, lies on his back on the battlefield and is close to death. And he looks up and sees the sky and suddenly it strikes him that he never looked at the sky in the way as he did then. For the first time he actually sees the sky.
Here is an excerpt:
“What’s this? Am I falling? My legs are giving way,” thought he, and fell on his back. He opened his eyes, hoping to see how the struggle of the Frenchmen with the gunners ended, whether the red-haired gunner had been killed or not and whether the cannon had been captured or saved. But he saw nothing. Above him there was now nothing but the sky- the lofty sky, not clear yet still immeasurably lofty, with gray clouds gliding slowly across it. “How quiet, peaceful, and solemn; not at all as I ran,” thought Prince Andrew- “not as we ran, shouting and fighting, not at all as the gunner and the Frenchman with frightened and angry faces struggled for the mop: how differently do those clouds glide across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did not see that lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but that. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace. Thank God!…”
War and Peace is one of my favorite books. But, strangely, some people who read it say they dislike it. Perhaps they read it at school? Sometimes school can make us hate a book that would have been our favorite otherwise.
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Luke Turned Off The Targeting Computer
In Star Wars the climax in the final battle of the rebels against the Empire happens when Luke speeds in his starfighter through the metal canyon on the surface of the Death Star towards the ventilation opening that he must, precisely, hit with his photon torpedoes. He knows he can only try once. If he fails the lasers of the Death Star will destroy the rebel base and kill all his friends. The war will be over and freedom will be lost.
To accomplish this task his starfighter is equipped with a targeting computer. It tells Luke the exact moment when to pull the trigger. However, just moments before he is to shoot his torpedo the voice of his mentor, Obi Wan, tells him to switch it off and to fly the attack manually. (First he thinks it’s a voice in his helmet radio but then he realizes it’s from within.)
Luke is conflicted, he has to choose between the correct way to do it, as perhaps taught in space cadet school, or to go with the voice in his head, which is a stand in for his gut feeling. The gut feeling which comes from his personal experience flying similar approaches through canyons back on his home planet when he was a teenager.
It’s a left brain vs. right brain thing for Luke. He, of course, goes with the voice, with his gut feeling, switches off the targeting computer and the rest is history.
Sigh. What a movie.
Star Wars.. It’s packed with symbolism. After all, it’s supposedly inspired by the writings of Joseph Campbell. A philosopher and historian who wrote a lot about myths and symbols.
A symbol is something the audience will recognize, because it’s already there, deep down within us. They will feel what the Empire stands for, (lets say school, society, the established hierarchy) without George Lucas having to tell them. They will understand Luke’s decision (go with his own convictions vs what he has learned at school, for example). They will see themselves and the influences in their own life in the characters of the story. (Who is your C3PO?)
We, the audience, are of course also faced with many choices in our lives. We select our actions based on who we are and based on our experiences. Maybe we had a mentor or a role model when we were young. Maybe we have read certain books. Maybe a key event shaped our view on life in a strong way. And there are also our preferences and our unique combination of talents that we are born with. We process it all. It’s all data for the subconscious. This data is remixed and compiled for us benneath the treshold of our knowing. And the result is our own version of Obi-Wan.
This is the inspiration of the inventor. This is the muse of the artist. It is the voice in our head that at some point may surprise us and say: “Luke, turn off the targeting computer.”
This is the beginning of the end of conforming. And the start of living our life true to ourselves.
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I Wont Yield
Today I saw something rare. There is a “Zone 30” road nearby. It means you can only go 30 kilometres per hour. Of course many don’t care and go faster, so the city sometimes puts obstacles on such a road to physically enforce slow driving.
In this case the road was like a zig zag. Every 50 meters or so one side of the road was removed. Then there was a bush there or even a tree. The sides would alternate and the effect would be that the drivers would have to slow down to navigate around the obstacles. And if a car approached from the opposite direction it would be more difficult to pass. One car had to yield.
And usually this works well but not today.
Two drives stood in such a narrow spot. The cars faced each other and none of them wanted to move. Behind each a queue of other cars had formed. Four or five on each side.
Rarely someone honked. It was unusually quiet. Everyone was waiting for something. Watching. Pedestrians waited and looked, too. (I was one.)
I assume one driver must have believed he has the right of way because the obstacle was on the other side. And the other believed the opposite, because he had reached the narrow spot first and therefore he was entitled to be allowed through.
None of them wanted to let the other one pass.
The situation lasted for minutes. Perhaps five.
It was very strange. No shouting, no car horn. Except perhaps from some driver in the queue.
Someone walked over and tried to convince one of the drivers to back off. He was first ignored and then eventually he was calmly told something. I suppose it was that driver’s version of why the other must move.
It was completely unclear if this was a dangerous situation. Or if it was a funny situation. No hints. Nobody was giving anything away. It could have been a Youtube prank and all about the reactions of the bystanders, as far as I could tell.
Perhaps this was a good example of why it’s better that we can’t have guns in Europe like they do in America. Who knows what could happen if they had revolvers in their glove boxes.
Perhaps it was a very moving, human moment.
If yes then it was moving on a different level, though. You wouldn’t feel it in your stomach. It was mentally moving.
It was about remembering something about ourselves.
Us people, I mean.
We all had stressful days. Perhaps the familiy annoyed us. Perhaps we messed up at work. Perhaps two or three discouraging things happened on the same day. Life is like that sometimes.
Perhaps “life like that” happened to both drivers. Perhaps they looked at the face behind the windshield in front of them and instantly recognized this was the case.
This wasn’t a stand off of status. It was not in order to settle who the stronger, higher value man is. No, perhaps this was about understanding. About realizing again that we are all connected by the shared fate of being human.
We’re all colleagues. We’re all friends. On some level at least.
From time to time, we all feel captured. From time to time, we feel ecstatic. And sometimes we are afraid, because we remember that bad things will happen. After all, they will. That is one hundred percent certain. To each one of us. So each one is us. In some way.
Perhaps this was it.
The bystanders must have felt it, too. I know I felt something else than humor, worry or annoyance.
It might even have been a moment in which we briefly left the matrix.
Not angry. Not in need of venting or domination. Or comment. We were just outside of it for a minute.
Just breathing.
And then, someone came over and said something, this time to the other driver. I think it was a pizza delivery man.
It worked. The car finally moved and backed off a bit. Maybe half a car length. The other just passed calmly. I saw the face of the driver who passed. He looked rather relaxed. Thoughtful perhaps.
Perhaps he remembered about the matrix.
In my mind, he did.
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A New Blog
This is my new blog. I wanted to seperate the “create writing” stuff from my freelance programming blog in order to avoid a false impression. I do not want to appear as unprofessional, because my blog looks totally random.
After all, programming is a structured activity. While creativity plays a role there’s a difference between choosing the right architecture for a software application and writing a science fiction short story.
In other words: The other thing is for work, this is for fun.
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