{"id":9753,"date":"2012-02-03T12:49:44","date_gmt":"2012-02-03T17:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=9753"},"modified":"2012-09-24T06:33:12","modified_gmt":"2012-09-24T10:33:12","slug":"answers-in-mirror-are-closer-than-they-appear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/answers-in-mirror-are-closer-than-they-appear\/","title":{"rendered":"Answers in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: <\/em>xkcd #936, on password strength. Click image to enlarge; see\u00a0<\/em>xkcd<\/a> itself<\/a> for the full six panels and the punchline.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

This accidental
\nmeeting of possibilities
\ncalls itself I<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I ask: what am I doing here?
\nAnd, at once, this I<\/em>
\nbecomes unreal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Dag Hammarskj\u00f6ld [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Ch’ui the draftsman
\nCould draw more perfect circles freehand
\nThan with a compass.<\/p>\n

His fingers brought forth
\nSpontaneous forms from nowhere. His mind
\nWas meanwhile free and without concern
\nWith what he was doing.<\/p>\n

No application was needed
\nHis mind was perfectly simple
\nAnd knew no obstacle.<\/p>\n

So, when the shoe fits
\nThe foot is forgotten,
\nWhen the belt fits
\nThe belly is forgotten,
\nWhen the heart is right
\n“For” and “against” are forgotten.<\/p>\n

No drives, no compulsions,
\nNo needs, no attractions:
\nThen your affairs
\nAre under control.
\nYou are a free man.<\/p>\n

Easy is right. Begin right
\nAnd you are easy.
\nContinue easy and you are right.
\nThe right way to go easy
\nIs to forget the right way
\nAnd forget that the going is easy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Chuang Tzu [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.\u00a0“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil — he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”<\/p>\n

He continued, “The other is good — he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you — and inside every other person, too.”<\/p>\n

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”<\/p>\n

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Tim Johnson [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Letter Home<\/strong><\/p>\n

I love you forever
\nmy father’s letter tells her
\nfor forty-nine pages,
\nfrom the troopship crossing the Atlantic
\nbefore they’d ever heard of Anzio.<\/span><\/p>\n

He misses her, the letter says,
\ncounting out days of boredom, seasickness,
\nand changing weather,
\npoker games played for matches
\nwhen cash and cigarettes ran out,
\na Red Cross package — soap,
\ncards, a mystery book he traded away
\nfor The Rubaiyyat<\/em> a bunkmate didn’t want.
\nHe stood night watch and thought
\nof her. Don’t forget the payment
\nfor insurance, he says.<\/p>\n

My mother waits at home with me,
\nwaits for the letter he writes day by day
\nmoving farther across the ravenous ocean.
\nShe will get it in three months and
\nher fingers will smooth the Army stationery
\nto suede.<\/p>\n

He will come home, stand
\nbeside her in the photograph, leaning
\non crutches, holding
\nme against the rough wool
\nof his jacket. He will sit
\nalone and listen to A\u00efda<\/em><\/p>\n

and they will pick up their
\ninterrupted lives. Years later,
\nshe will show her grandchildren
\na yellow envelope with
\nforty-nine wilted pages telling her<\/p>\n

of shimmering sequins on the water,
\nthe moonlight catching sudden phosphorescence,
\nthe churned wake that stretched a silver trail.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Ellen Steinbaum [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Attempts to formalize commonsense knowledge have all encountered versions of [a difficult] problem — that in order to teach a robot to imitate even a limited range of human behavior, you would have to, in a sense, teach it everything<\/em>\u00a0about the world. Short of that, the endless subtle distinctions between the things that matter, the things that are supposed to matter but don’t, and the things that may or may not matter depending on other things, would always eventually trip up even the most sophisticated robot. As soon as it encountered a situation that was slightly different from those you had programmed it to handle, it would have no idea how to behave. It would stick out like a sore thumb. It would always be screwing up.<\/p>\n

People who lack common sense are a bit like the hapless robot in that they never seem to understand what it is that they should be paying attention to, and they never seem to understand what it is that they don’t understand.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Duncan J. Watts, from Everything Is Obvious (Once You Know the Answer)<\/em> [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

1. Movie you love with a passion
\n2. Movie you vow to never watch
\n3. Movie that literally left you speechless.
\n4. Movie you always recommend
\n5. Actor\/actress you always watch, no matter how crappy the movie
\n6. Actor\/actress you don’t get the appeal for
\n7. Actor\/actress, living or dead, you’d love to meet
\n8. Sexiest actor\/actress you’ve seen
\n9. Dream cast
\n10. Favorite actor pairing
\n11. Favorite movie setting
\n12. Favorite decade for movies
\n13. Chick flick or action movie?
\n14. Hero, villain or anti-hero?
\n15. Black and white or color?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(“Fifteen Movies Meme” found at Anomalous Material<\/a><\/em>, originally from Defiant Success<\/em>\u00a0[source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n

<\/a>Composer Stephen Sondheim can be one cynical bastard, especially on the (admittedly thorny) subject of relationships. The thing is, he’s just so cleverly<\/em>\u00a0cynical that it’s hard not to grin.\u00a0His 1970 musical Company<\/a><\/em>\u00a0centers on an approaching-35 bachelor, Robert, and all his married friends. At one point, as one of the women demonstrates her recent karate lessons upon her hapless husband, the group joins in on a litany of the great things about being married — led by the cynical Joanne (played by Elaine Stritch in the original cast recording):<\/p>\n

[Below, click Play button to begin <\/em>The Little Things You Do Together. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 3:07 long.]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

[audio:thelittlethingsyoudotogether_sondheimcompany.mp3|titles=’The Little Things You Do Together”|artists=Elaine Stritch et al.]<\/div>\n

[Lyrics<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n

Stinging little barb there at the end, huh?\u00a0But then the women leave, and Robert (Dean Jones) asks the guys one of the most obvious questions: given that you are<\/em>\u00a0married, do you ever wish otherwise? And Sondheim’s easy sneer softens a bit — just a bit, but it’ll do:<\/p>\n

[Below, click Play button to begin <\/em>Sorry-Grateful. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 3:30 long.]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

[audio:sorrygrateful_sondheimcompany.mp3|titles=’Sorry-Grateful’|artists=Dean Jones et al.]<\/div>\n

[Lyrics<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n

Gets me every time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: xkcd #936, on password strength. Click image to enlarge; see\u00a0xkcd itself for the full six panels and the punchline.] From whiskey river: This accidental meeting of possibilities calls itself I. I ask: what am I doing here? And, at once, this I becomes unreal. (Dag Hammarskj\u00f6ld [source]) …and: Ch’ui the draftsman Could draw more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,53,74,123,273,37,50,251,713],"tags":[971,2382,2773,2794,2795,2796,2797,2798],"class_list":{"0":"post-9753","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-movies-media","9":"category-music","10":"category-theater","11":"category-comics","12":"category-onlineworld","13":"category-language-writing_cat","14":"category-poetry-writing_cat","15":"category-humor-writing_cat","16":"tag-xkcd","17":"tag-stephen-sondheim","18":"tag-dag-hammarskjold","19":"tag-chuang-tzu","20":"tag-tim-johnson","21":"tag-ellen-steinbaum","22":"tag-duncan-j-watts","23":"tag-internet-memes","24":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-2xj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9753"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9778,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9753\/revisions\/9778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}