Well, arhem…I suppose this is where I really should have started, but me being myself, I got carried away and posted before introducing myself. So here goes:

Really, I’m not sure what my calling is, but I know it’s something artistic. My main concentration is Indian Ink, and I do a lot of painting and drawing (cartoons, manga, nature, pseudo/abstract…a bit of everything really). I also play a variety of instruments, act and write. Needless to say I could never really pick one thing I wanted to do, so I tried to do them all at once, and it’s kindof worked for me so far. I’m sure I could have been much better at one thing had I simply settled on one choice, but right now I’m happy to be where I am at all those things.

I often get a million ideas at once in my head and they somehow make it on paper, but rarely make sense to other people besides myself. I thought this forum was the perfect place to post some of them and see if anyone else out there sees a little bit of the world in the same shades as me. I hope it will also help me better my written English, seeing as my first language is French.

All my spontaneous feelings and ideas are thrown into my blog, where it really doesn’t matter whether they make sense; sometimes I feel all that matters is to get them out of my head.

I have posted twice on this site, once in Short Story (Fall) and once in Life (Eternal Haven); all comments and suggestions are more than welcome.

Pleased to meet you all, and looking forward to enlighting exchanges

StarLizard - 25 October 2006 03:40 AM

sometimes I feel all that matters is to get them out of my head.

Sometimes, I think that is absolutely correct.  I have had the experience of being torn apart inside while an idea occupied my mind - an idea which I didin’t think had much merit but teased me with its ramifications or tributaries or some kernel of pure universal truth that it contained… and then I wrote it down and was no longer tortured.  These things sit in a file on my computer and they are fun to go visit - I just thank myself for getting them the heck out of my head.

Dave, you’ve taken it to the next level.

You have just simply and beautifully written what was in MY head!!

I call it futuristic nostalgia - the feeling that I’m missing out on wonderful ideas that may never be developed to their full potential. Being nostalgic about what may never be.

I think I’m right at home at Litmocracy!

WOW!

I have this model in my head:  If we could assign a monetary value to every little thing (we can’t but just pretend we could), then human interaction can be a little better explained.  If you walk into a room at work and say “Hi” to someone, that’s nice - like it’s worth a quarter.  They say “Hi” back -it’s payback - but only worth 20 cents.  So if you’re always the first to say Hi and they say it back and that’s as far as it ever goes (rare, but you can imagine), eventually you stop because the other person owes you too much.  Then you forget about the loss and move on with your life.  BUT…

If the other person responds flirtatiously, that’s like worth $.50 (okay, maybe more to a guy, less to a girl… whatever), and it encourages you to say hi next time.  Each interaction you do pays the other person back some or all of what they have paid you.  As long as the account remains close to a balance of ZERO, you continue interacting.  And here’s the really cool part.  When you first say “Hi” - you’re only willing to give up a quarter or maybe a dollar - maybe you’ll say hi four more times over the next week or two, and, getting no reply, you’ll stop.  But after you’ve interacted quite a bit (become friends) you’re willing to spend FAR more than just a dollar - you let the account go WAY out of balance because you trust the relationship to bring it back into balance.  Another way to view this is that what you do might be worth more to the other person than it “costs” you to do, which means the relationship is actually creating money for both of you and that’s why it grows.

So there’s a simple economic/financial model of the development of relationships between humans.  Ok, so you posted an intro and I replied, paying you back.  But then you used the term “futuristic nostalgia” or something like that which I totally dig!  Definitely creating some intellectual wealth here.  Anyway, there you have it, an example of something that was kicking around in my head that I wrote down even though it might not be worth much.  Now it’s getting too self-referential so I’ll stop

Thanks!

Ohhhh myyy….the possibilities…

You know why I am really amazed right now? Get this:

Your brain and mine work the same way. I mean exactly.

Except for one thing. You’re left-brained. I’m right-brained*. You almost lost me from the start (money exchange/value/logic of transactions etc), but I kept on reading because your reply was worth - yes, already! - a lot to me. So wanting to get everything I could out of it, and with the hope of building on an expanding valuable relationship, I had to read on, simply because of the length of it, which suggested to me that I had said something that was worth something to you.

Because I’m visual, that is what triggered my initial reaction. Because I’m right-brained, the sheer idea of us sharing the same thought process - although inversed - kept me reading on.

And now this answer should be worth something - or I hope - and if I’m right in my ‘deductifying’ (as my friend Big Red would say - re: Holmes on the Range, Steve Hockensmith) is right, then you’ll grace me with a ‘repartie’ (re: could not for the life of me find an English equivalent that made sense).

So really, what I mean to say is…thank YOU

*You know that newsletter you sent? About how right-brained people who did not understand the concept of comparing pieces? That kind of gave me a hint I would be valuable to you

Well, I’m finding in these forums that I’m being more right brained.

I think there’s a common fear among left-brainers:  that if we let the right side break out of our logical and grammatical constraints, no one will understand us.  But I’ve started letting go anyway.  I can read something I posted that doesn’t have all the left-brain details that I usually include, but I’m still comfortable with some kind of a sense that what I wanted to say is there.  The forums are teaching me that it doesn’t have to be cut and dried and logical; there’s something more wholistic I can count on.

Ok, so two things for you.  First, the english version is repartee.  Second, put these names in order from your least favorite to your most favorite: Dave, Gertrude, Meg, Shaun, Abdul, George.  Whatever order you decide on, the first is “better” than all the others, the second is “better” than all but the first, etc.  When a computer sorts a list of words, there’s always some function that says “give me two words and I’ll tell you which comes first.”  I have no idea if this information helps, but there it is .

If you email me your address, I’ll send you a copy of “Brain Juice” - my short book of short stories. ie You’re welcome!

Dave.

hahahaaa!
I love it!
Right brained doesn’t mean total chaos! (well ok sometimes it does…). I have to say I often envy the left-brained - simply because they seem to ‘get’ a lot of things so easily…but then again, right brained people get other things. I think we all use both brains, only some use more of the left, and some more of the right. I don’t think there is any ‘perfect balance’ other than the one every individual is comfortable with. It’s good to let go of the ‘cut, dried and logical’, because we all use so much of it everywhere else…in writing, I do agree that all those elements can be well understood in a more abstract way. Dare I say even better understood?

First, thank you for ‘repartee’. The words I can never find are often the more obvious ones…I seem to think that if I don’t know the right word to use, it must be really complicated or far from the French one…seems our languages have a lot in common.

Second, I’m not sure I quite understand the logic of the exercise. If I am to put these names in the order of the one I like least, then how can I list the one I like better first? I guess my left brain just isn’t developed enough..? You have succeeded in handing me an assignment that totally confuses me. Then again, that isn’t very hard to do

Oh, and by the way…I think we have been successful at proving your theory right. And it only took what…6 messages between us? My address is in your inbox and a BIG thank you!

Ok, look at it this way then:

Order the names from the one you like best to the one you like least.  You’ll notice that sometimes you are deciding which of two you like better.  And of course for every pair in the list (first and second, first and third, first and fourth, second and third, etc) one is better than the other.

Ok, if that doesn’t help I’ll have to go with the theory that you’ve got umm… I’m not sure what to call it, but my wife has it… graspophpobia - the fear of understanding something - or at least letting on that you understand it.  You get it, but you don’t want to admit it, so you keep asking questions.  And anyway, I do that to my kids a lot because it makes them really smart.

Graspophobia…hmm..
I am quite undecided on whether or not I suffer from this malady. On the one hand, I know I am enough of a smart ass to be quite happy (and proud to publicize) when I do grasp something. On the other hand, I do fear the prospect of not quite grasping something and being wrong, and that makes me ask a lot of questions.

I’ve thought about your exercise, and do understand the assignment and the logic of the computer thing. The truth is, I have been sitting here for 10 minutes not sure what to write because I did not understand the POINT. I actually had to start writing down the names and then it hit me. You’re trying to explain how the computer sorts votes. Duh.

See, understanding the exercise wasn’t really a problem. Understanding the reason for the exercise is what trhew me off.

Go figure

So thanks Dave, now I understand how the computer sorts votes. And I know that my problem isn’t understanding logical problems themselves; my problem is I just need to complicate my life and see them much bigger than they really are.