This is a test to see if I can update my blog and send a copy of the update to my other two email addresses at the same time!
Monday 9 August 2010
Wednesday 7 April 2010
Muchness
I went to see the new Alice in Wonderland movie this weekend. Not a great movie. Not a bad one either. It was good. Good is fine with me.
I mention it here not because I want to post a review but because a line in that film had a particularly strong impact on me. I don't recall the exact wording but in one scene the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) turns to Alice and says 'You've lost your muchness. You used to be much. . . muchier'.
That line stuck with me. It stayed in my mind all evening and all night. In the morning I woke up and there it was, sitting there like a little yappy dog wagging its tail and waiting for me to figure our what it wanted.
And then I did. The Hatter was telling Alice that, in the time since her first visit to wonderland, she had lost something. Something about herself. He called it her 'muchness'. Something that made her more herself than she had become. Her essence. Her sense of and understanding of her own self. She'd 'grown up'. We all do. But does that mean we must lose ourselves?
I think the reason it stuck with me was that I've often worried that I was losing my sense of self. My understanding of my own essence. Diluting myself to fit in with the world. I guess it happens for two reasons. Either you feel the need to conform to society to achieve your aims or something about yourself causes you pain and you want to block it out. I've had both. Years of what I hesitate to call manic depression made me fear that feeling of utter happiness and oneness that comes with a manic episode because, like Pavlov's dog learned to associate a bell with dinner time, I have learned to associate that feeling with the horrible depression that comes after. I yearned for flatness. A calm sea. By doing so I rejected myself. I allowed my fears and the pressures of the world to make me hide. I've decided to not do that any more. Life is too short.
I think maybe Frank Turner said it best. So I'll leave you with this, from Photosynthesis:
'If all you ever do with your life is photosynthesize, then you deserve every second of your sleepless nights that you waste wondering when you're gonna die'.
How very true.
I mention it here not because I want to post a review but because a line in that film had a particularly strong impact on me. I don't recall the exact wording but in one scene the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) turns to Alice and says 'You've lost your muchness. You used to be much. . . muchier'.
That line stuck with me. It stayed in my mind all evening and all night. In the morning I woke up and there it was, sitting there like a little yappy dog wagging its tail and waiting for me to figure our what it wanted.
And then I did. The Hatter was telling Alice that, in the time since her first visit to wonderland, she had lost something. Something about herself. He called it her 'muchness'. Something that made her more herself than she had become. Her essence. Her sense of and understanding of her own self. She'd 'grown up'. We all do. But does that mean we must lose ourselves?
I think the reason it stuck with me was that I've often worried that I was losing my sense of self. My understanding of my own essence. Diluting myself to fit in with the world. I guess it happens for two reasons. Either you feel the need to conform to society to achieve your aims or something about yourself causes you pain and you want to block it out. I've had both. Years of what I hesitate to call manic depression made me fear that feeling of utter happiness and oneness that comes with a manic episode because, like Pavlov's dog learned to associate a bell with dinner time, I have learned to associate that feeling with the horrible depression that comes after. I yearned for flatness. A calm sea. By doing so I rejected myself. I allowed my fears and the pressures of the world to make me hide. I've decided to not do that any more. Life is too short.
I think maybe Frank Turner said it best. So I'll leave you with this, from Photosynthesis:
'If all you ever do with your life is photosynthesize, then you deserve every second of your sleepless nights that you waste wondering when you're gonna die'.
How very true.
Monday 25 January 2010
Personal Finance 2.0
Finances are complicated. That's a given. I believe that things can be made easier. The following is an outline proposal aimed at just that.
The Finances Summary Page
This would be a web service sponsored by the state but run by the private sector overseen by the FSA.
The service would provide a monthly summary of your finances in one place. It will include any loans, Higher Purchase deals, bank accounts and credit cards. The summary would simply point out basic metrics that point towards good or bad financial management such as the amount of debt you have in short term unsecured debt, how costly that debt is and so on as well as the likelihood that you could make savings by changing the way your finances are geared and how substantial those savings are likely to be if you were to choose to do something about it.
The output should be simple. You see a summary of available cash, savings, debts and non-liquid assets and a red, yellow or green status that informs you of how healthy your financial situation is. If you see a red status you know that it is worth looking in to transferring debts, re-financing loans or taking up other options.
This financial dashboard would be the jumping off point for any and all changes to your financial status. It could be linked easily to official assistance programs as well as services offered by the private sector to help people. It may also inform people if they are missing the opportunity to make their money work harder by checking how much they are placing in ISA or other high yield savings accounts.
This service could be run at little cost and with few security concerns as account specific information is not held there. Link this to other context specific information such as the birth of a child or retirement and you have a wealth of possible benefits.
The Finances Summary Page
This would be a web service sponsored by the state but run by the private sector overseen by the FSA.
The service would provide a monthly summary of your finances in one place. It will include any loans, Higher Purchase deals, bank accounts and credit cards. The summary would simply point out basic metrics that point towards good or bad financial management such as the amount of debt you have in short term unsecured debt, how costly that debt is and so on as well as the likelihood that you could make savings by changing the way your finances are geared and how substantial those savings are likely to be if you were to choose to do something about it.
The output should be simple. You see a summary of available cash, savings, debts and non-liquid assets and a red, yellow or green status that informs you of how healthy your financial situation is. If you see a red status you know that it is worth looking in to transferring debts, re-financing loans or taking up other options.
This financial dashboard would be the jumping off point for any and all changes to your financial status. It could be linked easily to official assistance programs as well as services offered by the private sector to help people. It may also inform people if they are missing the opportunity to make their money work harder by checking how much they are placing in ISA or other high yield savings accounts.
This service could be run at little cost and with few security concerns as account specific information is not held there. Link this to other context specific information such as the birth of a child or retirement and you have a wealth of possible benefits.
Tuesday 5 January 2010
The Endless Dance
Some things never change. Some things seem to change but actually don't. A few things seem to not change but really do. A tiny number of things appear to change and do, in fact, change.
What's interesting here is not so much that the above is true, but the fact of it being true. That is to say that we, as a species, are poor judges of our own reality. You hear people say that things are not always as they seem. This is true. You hear them say that there is a massive amount that we do not know. This is also true. Individually we know almost nothing and as a species we know a smidgen more than almost nothing. What worries me is that our lack of knowledge and understanding of reality is frequently used to justify belief in things about which which we know even less.
Does the below scene ring a bell to anyone?
Person 1: So I heard this sound on the stairs and I went to see what it was and there was no one there. Then, a second later there was a big bang and I went to the front room and the chair was on it's side! It must have been a ghost!
Person 2: I don't believe in ghosts.
Person 1: Well how else could the chair have turned over?
Person 2: I don't know.
Person 1: Well there you go then!
Person 2: Well . . .
Person 1: You're such a skeptic!
You see what has happened here? The lack of information about one thing has been taken as confirmation of something of which we know even less. The only sensible conclusion would be that something happened but we don't know what. We can't know what. Insufficient data available.
The lack of logic is not surprising really. We see this sort of thing all the time. What worries me more is the fact that the term 'skeptic' has now become almost entirely a derogatory term. To be skeptical is considered awkward, boring and mean. You are expected to believe. If you ask for data, information, evidence or proof you're a kill joy. It seems that to question a deeply held belief is in itself rude. You may make someone feel bad if you point out flaws in their worldview.
Well this is my stand. I can't claim this is the greatest and noblest stand ever made. This isn't civil rights or women's lib. This is merely a call to arms for the forces of reason. You don't have to believe. You don't have to accept. You can be a skeptic! You can demand reason. You can request clarification. You can choose to hold no position. It's better to know that you don't know than to fool yourself that you do. Skeptics of the world, unite!
What's interesting here is not so much that the above is true, but the fact of it being true. That is to say that we, as a species, are poor judges of our own reality. You hear people say that things are not always as they seem. This is true. You hear them say that there is a massive amount that we do not know. This is also true. Individually we know almost nothing and as a species we know a smidgen more than almost nothing. What worries me is that our lack of knowledge and understanding of reality is frequently used to justify belief in things about which which we know even less.
Does the below scene ring a bell to anyone?
Person 1: So I heard this sound on the stairs and I went to see what it was and there was no one there. Then, a second later there was a big bang and I went to the front room and the chair was on it's side! It must have been a ghost!
Person 2: I don't believe in ghosts.
Person 1: Well how else could the chair have turned over?
Person 2: I don't know.
Person 1: Well there you go then!
Person 2: Well . . .
Person 1: You're such a skeptic!
You see what has happened here? The lack of information about one thing has been taken as confirmation of something of which we know even less. The only sensible conclusion would be that something happened but we don't know what. We can't know what. Insufficient data available.
The lack of logic is not surprising really. We see this sort of thing all the time. What worries me more is the fact that the term 'skeptic' has now become almost entirely a derogatory term. To be skeptical is considered awkward, boring and mean. You are expected to believe. If you ask for data, information, evidence or proof you're a kill joy. It seems that to question a deeply held belief is in itself rude. You may make someone feel bad if you point out flaws in their worldview.
Well this is my stand. I can't claim this is the greatest and noblest stand ever made. This isn't civil rights or women's lib. This is merely a call to arms for the forces of reason. You don't have to believe. You don't have to accept. You can be a skeptic! You can demand reason. You can request clarification. You can choose to hold no position. It's better to know that you don't know than to fool yourself that you do. Skeptics of the world, unite!
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