A Fun Little Puzzle

I just read this intuition confounder from Ludwig Wittgenstein, via Brian Eno, and it's really messing with my head:

You want to tie a ribbon around the Earth (which we assume to be a perfect sphere for the sake of this hypothetical story), but you accidentally cut the ribbon a bit too long — you're off by a metre. If you distribute the excess ribbon evenly around the circumference of the Earth, how far above the surface will it hover?

Math nerds, resist the urge to work it out, and just take a guess. It's meant to test your intuition. The actual answer, which I've verified with basic geometry and put in the comments section, will astound you.

This bit of mind-blowery is brought to you by Edge.org's list of interesting thinkers' favourite "deep, elegant, or beautiful explanations," Eno's of which is "The Limits of Intuition." Thanks, Jenny, for the endlessly fascinating link.

The Nature of Desire

Lately I've been feeling like I sort of actually get what J. Krishnamurti's always talking about. I mean, he's always had something valuable for me, philosophically, whenever in my life I've picked up any of his collected writings. But these days it's like I go for a walk and I can totally catch my mind doing exactly what he says it does, like deep in there at a fundamental level, and then the catching itself puts a stop to it and everything is just as it is for a few moments. It's very exciting, which of course sends my mind back into webs of desire and memories and hope and all the rest of it...

This short commentary in particular, which I read on a bus to Dartmouth the other day, really opened up some important spot for me. I don't know whether it'll do the same for you, but I thought I'd share it, just in case. It's from 1958.



My flu is completely gone now, by the way.

Sicko

Got the flu over here. Yuck. I'm cranking the heat in the apartment and spending a lot of time under the covers. Unfortunately, I'm also quite busy with work, so not as much rest as I'd like to get. But that means income, which means I get to eat, so hooray, I guess.

I'm also working on a couple of musical projects, one of which should see the light of day around the end of the month. The final stages are a little boring and time-consuming, but I think it's going to be worth it in the end. Stay tuned.

And, by the way, if anyone ever gets the chance to see a local musician named Gianna Lauren perform, they should jump on it. Caught her last weekend and it was just jaw-dropping. Here's a vidya.



Now back to the blankets...

Beach Day

Ali and I took a little drive to Lawrencetown Beach on the weekend. It was a cold January afternoon, but plenty of crazy people were still out there surfing. Here's some cool pictures Alison took. Nice textures, hey?

We Now Return Our Regularly Scheduled Program, Already in Progress

Feels good to be back into the swing of things. Work is trickling in appropriately, my yoga class started up again last night, and there's generally been a lot less partying. I have still been socializing some, but in a more low-key way. Dinners, brunches, dog-walking, watching full seasons of crappy TV shows, and the occasional rock jam or show. Oh, and I went skating once last week with a few friends... OK, I guess there's still plenty of social life going on.

Not that I didn't enjoy my holidays. My parents came to visit for a few days, and we had a great time wandering around Halifax and eating lots of great meals together with Alison.





There were also plenty of parties and shows to attend, many litres of soy nog to be drunk, and lots of around to be sat with a crossword puzzle or a good book. So I was never bored or anything, but it just all gets a bit... unstructured, after awhile. It's counterintuitive, but I seem to need limits on my time in order to get anything done. A very bourgeois problem to have, I guess. Anyone else feel that way?

Let's Make 2012 the Year of Conscious Attention

"'Learning how to think' really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot or will not exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed."

David Foster Wallace
This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

Another Green Year

Happy 2012! Hope everyone had a fun New Year's Eve and a regret-free New Year's Day morning. Here's my resolutions for this year. I guess I prefer to think of them more as aspirations to keep in mind, rather than things to be dogmatically resolved about. Anyway, thought I'd share them with you (see #2). Anyone else got any for the record?

1. Listen.
2. Share.
3. Be more committed to the truth than to a pat answer.
4. Be more committed to love than to any particular self-image.
5. Accept what life brings with gratitude, enthusiasm, and even enjoyment.
6. See projects through.
7. Keep up relations with the people I love.
8. Meditate twice a day.
9. Exercise daily.
10. Get enough sleep.
11. Read more fiction.
12. Write more poetry.
13. Play music daily.
14. Don't worry about money.
15. Look for beauty and mystery everywhere.