A Pixelated Mind » note to self

Group think

Pixel — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 20:00:10 +0000

There’s an episode of How I Met Your Mother where one of the characters talks about how groups of women always look hotter than each individual woman. They called it the “Cheerleader Effect.”

In high school, my group of friends was huge. As a result, we would go out and do things almost every day. There was always something going on and always enough people so that any event would be well attended… and awesome. It was one of the best times of my life.

I think about that time still to try to understand what happened and why it fell apart. First, of course, time changed our circumstances. Pam & Miguel went to Albuquerque, Fernie joined the Navy, and so on. Second, people’s priorities changed: motherhood, getting into careers, etc. Third, there was some intra and inter-group relationship drama.

But mostly, I just don’t think most individual pairs of people in the group had that strong of relationships. The relationships were strong in the abstract, but when the group as a whole began to dissolve, many of the constitutive relationships also fell apart.

This didn’t just happen with my high school group (indeed, most of those relationships have been the most resilient to time), it also happened to my friends at Turnbull Hall in IUP, the gaggle of friends I made in Australia, and the TRUpers from my time at the student newspaper. I still hold special places in my heart for dozens of people I met in each of those places— and still talk regularly with a few— but my relationship with the rest of the assorted group is more of a casual acquaintanceship with memories of better times. I wouldn’t feel comfortable asking to stay at their house, for instance.

So yeah. I don’t really have a point. I’ve just been thinking about this recently.

¡¡o!o

Pixel — Sun, 29 May 2011 13:50:08 +0000

It turns out I’m… 26 now.

I think 25 was nice. I did cool things and hung out with cool people, though never enough of either. It was actually a fairly okay year, though it seems uneventful in retrospect. Probably because there weren’t super huge highs or huge lows. I think I prefer the much more eventful years… I’ll regret saying that some day.

I’m looking forward to the festivities tonight. Mexican food! Great friends! Margaritas! Alcoholic Smoothies! Hurray!

My roommates are the worst!

Pixel — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 20:49:52 +0000

“I’ve decided that the best way to live my life is to treat myself with the same basic decency with which I would treat complete strangers.”

– Mari A-H

My roommates are these two guys: Future Me and Past Me. I never actually get to see them, because their schedules tend to be as hectic as my own. Generally, I’m on good terms with Future Me– he seems to be on his way up in the world. But Past Me is this jerk, you know? He doesn’t clean or make the bed or anything, and it really gets to me.

If I try to get back at him by doing the same thing to him that he does to me, it only hurts Future Me, because he ends up having to clean up after the both of us. I’ve tried talking to him about it, but I can never seem to get ahold of him. So Future Me is left not being able to distinguish between myself and Past Me.

Why do I even live with these guys? Because Past Me’s paid every month’s rent for a long time… and Future Me says he’s going to handle the rest from now on.

So I’m going to start eating better, being more courteous, and tidying up more often. Maybe then Future Me and I will have a better relationship. And maybe Past Me will learn by example.

A Daily Checklist

Pixel — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 13:03:45 +0000

(Crossposted)

This is a list of items I hope to do every day. If I fail at any particular item, it’s okay, because there are many items on this list and I just want to do most of them:

Run 5k
Write microfiction for 20 minutes
Write one sentence
Write e-mails for 10 minutes
Read RSS feeds for no more than 20 minutes
See people for social reasons for 10 minutes
Not drink alcohol (Sunday thru Thursday)
Call someone
Work on a personal project (podcast/video) for 10 minutes
Read/write for my dissertation for 20 minutes

My friend Mari thinks I have too many items on my list. She may be right. I’ll let you know how it works out.

Rules for Promises

Pixel — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 19:33:57 +0000

I haven’t broken a promise in the past ten years. It’s very important to me. Probably more important than my life or other silly things. My moral outlook is somewhat inconsistent with this, but I find that I need to have a word of gold to make sense of my life.

So I have these rules for myself. You can follow along with me, if you like. I find it’s been very helpful in my life to distinguish between things I say, which are very likely to be true except in cases where feelings or fortunes depend on their falsity; things I say I’ll do, which generally always happen, but can fail do to circumstances beyond my control; and things I promise, which will always be kept.

Don’t make promises often. This is key. Promises have to be special or else they’re not worth their breath.
Remember your promises. Keeping the first rule will help with the second. But even so, keeping track of what you agree to do vs. what you promise to do is crucial.
Don’t make promises that depend on circumstances. You can’t control the world, no sense promising things that depend on it.
Don’t make promises that depend on other people’s actions. This is why I will very likely never get married. (Nor do I have the desire to.)
Never make a promise that’s been requested. When people find out that I don’t break promises, every once in a while they try to get me to guarantee something will get done by asking me to promise it. This is horrible. It cheapens promises and puts you in a tricky position to either deny the request and imply you won’t do something or accept the request and risk breaking your word. This rule is your way out.

The 10-Point Public Bathroom Grading Rubrik

Pixel — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 20:08:41 +0000

I’ve told people about my 10-point rubrik for public bathrooms. Here it is, for the first time ever. Each item present earns the restroom one point. A Perfect 10 is a restroom worth planning trips around. What does the restroom nearest you score? The one at the Guglhupf scored a 9 before I used it. It’s probably a 4.5 now. My bad.

There is running water
There are toilets/urinals that work
Toilet paper is in good supply
Toilet Paper is two-ply or more
Toilets have doors
Flushing is appropriate
There is soap
There is no grime/stuff lying around. In other words: it is pretty clean.
The soap/faucet/drying devices are appropriate and not frustrating
Doors do not pull inward

What is your life even for?

Pixel — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 03:45:55 +0000

(cross-posted)

These are the seven themes of my life. Things I strive for whenever I’m not decompressing.

Trust. I’d rather die than break a promise. I haven’t broken one since I was 15. I have lied many times in that decade. Some of them hurt more than others. I try to minimize my lies.
Laugh. I can’t help but to find everyday things in life hilarious. Sometimes I feel it is my duty to permanently warp the senses of humor of those around me.
Friends. My friends matter more to me than anything except for trust and whatever seems funny at the time. When I’m in a giddy mood, this is bad news, but generally I’m a great friend.
Create. There are things that I can say, do, write, and draw that people must be aware of. I can just feel it.
Genius. I’m a pretty sharp guy. Some day I hope to do something with that.
Chicks. This is on my list because 13-year-old Pixel would be very sad if it weren’t.
Ethics. I want to lead an exemplary life. To do as little harm to the people, animals, and ecosystems around me as possible. I have found that my mind too easily justifies my actions on consequentialist grounds even when the consequences turn out to be disastrous. So in order to maximize the positive consequences around me, I lead a life according to duties and virtues of my own devising…. it’s not perfect, but it tends to be much better than what the people around me do.

¡¡oo!

Pixel — Sat, 29 May 2010 05:08:23 +0000

I’m… 25?

I wouldn’t repeat 24 if you paid me, but I’m looking forward to the festivities tonight. Drink Potluck! Dessert Potluck! White Elephant Gift Exchange! Huzzah!

Some more types of problems

Pixel — Tue, 04 May 2010 15:13:21 +0000

My friend Benjamin Jagear used to always say to me, “Pixel – look at all of the problems in your life and ask yourself: how many of those problems were caused by your enemies and how many can be traced back to your friends?”

The idea was simple: your enemies, in real life, tend to steer clear of you. They might harbor feelings of revenge and cut up the cords to all of your office electronics or drive by at night, slowly, to scare you. But they don’t really take a big enough part of your life for it to matter.

Your friends, on the other hand, do. And since they’re your friends, they have a way of making their problems yours. Say your friend is arrested and he needs bail money. That problem– which you had no involvement in! (that they can prove) – has just become your problem too. Say they’re dealing with girl drama. That problem– which you totally didn’t cause– is now yours.

(...)
Read the rest of Some more types of problems (424 words)

Dear Pixel, age 23,

Pixel — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 20:40:16 +0000

The trope is to say something like,

“I wouldn’t skip any of the adversity I had to face, because that made me who I am today. And I like myself.”

Luckily, I don’t have that problem. I don’t like myself. I’m a tool. I’d love to do whatever I could to change that. Only I don’t know if the problem is that I’ve been through too much adversity or not enough.

Seeing as how I don’t like the things you’re about to do, I might as well take the ‘more pain’ route to future happiness. Who knows? Maybe next year I’ll be able to write that silly trope to you.

So here’s how to really mess up your life in just one year. This includes lots of stuff you will do and some stuff that you just might do.

Plan to live with lots of people, even if you don’t know who they are or if this will happen. Money is just a silly fake thing anyway, right?
If you find a girl that cares about you a lot, act aloof and ignore her. This will only bring about positive, reasoned results.
If, however, you find a girl that is distant and pulling away, pay as much attention to her as you can. Forget all past wrongs, just focus on not losing her now.
When you think things might hurt people, keep them hidden and lie about them for as long as possible.
Don’t wear a seat belt: it chafes your mentionables.
Sign up for every interesting class you can regardless of how much free time you think you’ll have. This will let you succeed wildly.
Stick it in crazy.
Start lots of projects
Pleasure and business go well together.
Play video games. You know, to relax.
Even if you really can’t do something, fake it for a long time until someone calls you out on it.
Be nice to strangers.
You can trust yourself. Your convictions will never waver, no matter how tempting something is.
Drink, like, all the time.
Don’t meet people from outside the department.
Get attached quickly and fiercely.
Punch an elderly person.
Go abroad as often as you can.
Let things get weird between you and the people you care about.
Never give up.
Rob a liquor store.
Just admit it, you’re probably gay.

Good luck with that. Seriously.

… I hate you,

Emotional Faithfulness

Pixel — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 23:09:46 +0000

I’m not saying I buy ‘emotional cheating,’ but let’s say I did. Even if it truly existed, absence of emotional cheating would not equal emotional faithfulness. There’s a gulf between emotional cheating and emotional faithfulness.

Emotional cheating is when you no longer love the person you are with exclusively. Let us define it as such and worry about ‘love’ later. It is often contrasted with physical cheating. But there is another, orthogonal contrast. And this is between emotional cheating and emotional faithfulness.

	Cheating	Faithfulness
Emotional	Not solely loving the person you are with	Solely loving the person you are with
Physical	Sex/whatever with a person who is not your partner	Solely being intimate/whatever with your partner

Let’s ignore bivalent logical systems and consider the senses of ‘emotional cheating’ and ‘emotional faithfulness’ rather than the exact denotation. Because in standard logic, of course not emotionally cheating will equal emotional faithfulness. QED.

Consider the case in which someone is unfaithful physically but claims to have been faithful emotionally.

I would argue that such a case is impossible.

Assuming the sex was consentual, it was not an open relationship, and the person did not forget they were with you, then they consciously decided to sleep with someone they did not love that was not the person they loved. But what can this sense of emotional love be if one is so callous with their physical body? The idea is that if one is willing to do something like that, then it could not have been the sort of love that would put the other person above themselves. And if it’s not that sort of love, then what is the sense in even talking about them being emotionally faithful? Their emotions are obviously impoverished.

But suppose, on the other hand, that it is that sort of love and their emotions are not impoverished. Then by being willing to physically cheat, they demonstrated that they did not truly love the person they were with. At least not at that moment. And if this is the case, then the consequences are even worse: because now it is a sporatic love.

I have sympathy for such people, but it is not sympathy worthy of a relationship. I build my relationships with a solid foundation of trust. When that gets knocked down, I don’t try to repair it, I scrap it and start anew somewhere else.. no matter how much it sucks.

Because if you don’t have trust, what do you really have left?

Personality Crushes

Pixel — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 04:43:23 +0000

Have you ever met one of those people that you just can’t get enough of? They may not be the funniest or the smartest or the most charming, but you’re always excited when you see them and always enjoy talking to them?

I don’t mean general friends here. I love hanging out with my friends. When I need to see a movie or a ride to the airport, they’re always there. I enjoy the time I spend with them and look forward to events that will bring us together in the future. But these people are people that you begin to miss when they’re not around. People that make your life warmer and so you want to seek them out constantly. I call them personality crushes.

I’ve met a few people like that in my life. Some have been my friends and I lived with one once, but mostly they’re just friendly acquaintances you can’t see all that often. There might be a correlation with that: if you saw them enough you’d be more likely to stop thinking of them as special. But I think the biggest factor is the fact that almost all of the people we’ve ever met aren’t in our current social circle. So there’s a lot of lame people you don’t see anymore, but there’s also a few of these personality crushes.

I always wonder about whether I’m someone else’s personality crush. I mean, I know I have been. People have told me almost as much in the past. But because I didn’t have a word for it then, I just smiled and went on with my life. Which sucks, if you think about it, because that means that I don’t often reciprocate other people’s personality crushes.

I guess that’s the way the numbers have to work out. It just sucks that that’s the case, doesn’t it?

2008 Off Paper

Pixel — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:02:12 +0000

At the end of the year, I usually write a post in which I go over the previous year‘s resolutions and compare whether I’ve achieved them or not.

Back in 2005, I wrote a post I still think about called “remember when…” in which I recalled the mini-adventures that may or may not have made it onto the blog, but still reminded me of very cool events.

I repeated it in 2006, because that also seemed like another chapter of my life being closed (though, when I get my actual memoirs published, it’ll end with a dinosaur fight rather than a blog post). I didn’t do it at all in 2007, because all it felt like I did that year was try to get 150 hugs. I succeeded, but at what cost? Indeed, I ended up calling this year 2007 pt. 2 because I felt like I hadn’t accomplished anything worth writing in the previous year.

So… here’s 2008 as I remember it. I’ve also included 2007, but that could really just be summed up as work, travel, hugs, visits, and grad school apps.

Applications to grad school and the bitter torture of waiting.
The first death of a friend I’ve had to deal with in my adult life.
I had blue hair.
Sadly, people I wanted to respect me got to see it.
Anson looked like Trotsky.
I kissed three people I should not have and not a single person I should have.
I was punched. In the FACE. By a fat man. Sadly, this was still not one of the top three worst days of 2008.
I had the absolute worst 12-hour period in my life. I would not wish that day on my worst enemy…. And, because of promises and such, I can never say why to anyone. Ever.
I got into Fucking DUKE!
I moved in with an old, rich lady with very large dogs that would always bark when I came home.
… and she sort of fell in love with me.
Skype chats
E-mail exchanges
Three months of vacation
A week away in an awesome mansion
Visiting T-Rob.
Living alone
Going out drinking on weekends with a few good buds.
Driving, ugh.
Helping far too many people move.
Getting to see people that truly matter.
Meeting all the other fabulous people here.
Getting involved in USP.
The three-day campout for basketball tickets.
Dancing.
Far too many people falling for me. *sigh*
Thursday foodin’
“Spot the Logical Fallacy” parties
“Buzzword Bingo”
Helping the blind
Hurting the deaf
Tutoring in maths
Applying to graduate school and feeling miserable doing it.
Trying to collect hugs.
Visiting everyone I cared about, worried it would be the last time I’d see any of them.
Being right about one of them.
B-ball games
Drinking coffee just to see a cute girl
Work ponchos
Reassessing life again and again
Being funny again, being creative again, but being unable to dedicate time to it.
Snowboarding
Finals
The scariest presentations of my friggin’ life.
Finding out I was an introvert in situations where I’m afraid I’ll look foolish.
Bad sweater parties
Moving away without telling people: multiple times
NaNoWriMo, oh no!
NaBloPoMo times so many months.
Twitter!
Visiting exes
Going camping
Getting a GPS
Losing moneys and material goods and not caring
Magnetic fields
Tightrope walking with people’s emotions

… I’m forgetting a thousand things.

100 Things about Me, pt. 100 of 100

Pixel — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 06:19:09 +0000

100. I have no middle name, but the middle letters of my first and last name are “arlo” “arisca.” That amuses me because it over emphasizes the a’s.

For the previous one hundred posts, I posted one new fact about me just so that you could get to know me better. I hope it helped. If I missed anything you want to know, let me know, I’ll go rewrite some of the 80s and 90s. They were pretty lame. Comments and complaints are appreciated.

Note: I wrote this post three months ago, if some new fact about me came up since then, it is not reflected in this 100 things about me list.

More Grad School Games

Pixel — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 12:26:36 +0000

99. Every two years, I get really into politics. I care a lot, but as I hate arguing with people, I tend not to say anything. I sometimes fear I’ve gotten too lax about people throwing out their beliefs. I only ever speak up if people contradict themselves (which happens surprisingly often).

The Hidden Artist

Show up before class every day and draw something amusing on the chalkboard. Then leave for a few minutes and come back when there are other people in the class. You lose if your drawing is acknowledged or erased throughout the class period. Winner is the one with the most amusing and elaborate drawing.

You may never get caught.
Bringing your own colored chalk means extra points.
No revealing the nature of the game.
You may not actually lie to anyone. If anyone asks you if you did it, you must be honest, even if it violates rule 2.
Violating rule 2 or rule 3 disqualifies you, so try not to be asked any questions.