1. to carry out, or bring to realization, as a prophecy or promise.
2. to perform or do, as duty; obey or follow, as commands.
3. to satisfy (requirements, obligations, etc.): a book that fulfills a long-felt need.
4. to bring to an end; finish or complete, as a period of time: He felt that life was over when one had fulfilled his threescore years and ten.
5. to develop the full potential of (usually used reflexively): She realized that she could never fulfill herself in such work.

The above definitions aren’t bad, especially #3 and #5.  I believe #3 is the most accurate as to what I am looking for, with one problem, you would then have to define the word satisfaction, which would be sort of circular.

To me, fulfillment is something you feel.  You either feel fulfilled at a given moment, or you do not.  The feeling to me, is mostly about feeling like I have done something useful, toward the betterment of my self.  For some reason though, going to work, getting a paycheck, or paying a bill on time, does not fulfill me.  What does fulfill me, is, taking a day off of work to do things I enjoy, writing a blog post, or helping out a friend.  I suppose, to me, being fulfilled is directly tied to feeling like I am making a difference in someones life, even just my own life.

The problem is, for me, that feeling is rare, and often short lived.

Do you feel fulfillment should be something along the lines of a “high” where you feel it directly after you do something useful, or more of a constant?  I tend to believe it should be a constant.  You should feel like your life is fulfilling, all the time.

When people see my life from the outside, they think I am just some sad dude, with no reason to be.  I make a good living, have a stable job, a great girlfriend, a house, a new car, and a dog.  What’s not to like?  To quote another comment on my last entry by MooGoo:

I’m starting to think that overall, happy people are happy regardless of their situation, and depressed people are depressed regardless of their situation.

Happy people have this mystical ability to accept whatever life throws at them. Non-acceptance, always wanting something else, thus never having what you want, is depressing.

Knowing that “you have it pretty good (compared to some other people)” is small comfort. After all, you’re not some starving African kid with AIDS, so you should stop bitching right?

I have to say, I agree with this 100%.  I am starting to believe that I am simply one of those glass is half-empty sort of people, and as such, never satisfied.  Being compared to someone less fortunate than I, does nothing to make me feel better about my current life.

If I was a starving kid in Africa, and you gave me a warm house and tons of food, it would probably only take me a few weeks to complain about something.

The American Dream is belief in the freedom that allows all citizens and residents of the United States to pursue their goals in life through hard work. Today, it often refers to one’s material prosperity, which is dependent upon one’s abilities and work ethic, and not on a rigid class structure.

Although the phrase’s meaning has evolved over the course of American history, for some people, it is the opportunity to achieve greater material prosperity than was possible in their countries of origin. For others it is the opportunity for their children to grow up and receive an education and its consequent career opportunities. It is the opportunity to make individual choices without the restrictions of class, caste, religion, race, or ethnic group.

To me, this is not a dream.  Perhaps if you come from another country where you have been previously oppressed, the life I live would seem like paradise.  Perhaps, I am just a spoiled brat who can’t accept that the life he has is actually quite good.  No matter how you want to label me, I think the American Dream sucks, and I think it is an illusion.

So what is the modern american dream?  I would summarize it as saying:

To live in America, in a nice housing development, with two kids, a dog, a cat, and a heaping mound of debt.  To work at a job you barely enjoy, to make money, so that you can spend it on shit you don’t need.  Hope that you can afford to put your kids through college so they can live the same life you did.  Retire, and actually start to enjoy your life, once you’re almost 70 fucking years old.  Then die in a retirement home because your selfish kids didn’t want to deal with you.

I am just a ray of sunshine aren’t I?  But seriously, boiled down, this is the modern American Dream.  This is what the lucky members of our society are living.  Not to discount the fact that in reality, I know I have it pretty damn good.  It’s just that, living life should be what you want it to be, it should be enjoyable.  That’s the point, right?

This is where I am.  Should be enjoyable.  Without sounding too emo and suicidal about the whole thing, I can make an analogy.  If you are reading a book, and you don’t like it, do you continue reading it?  If you are playing a game, and it’s not fun, do you continue playing it?  If you are with a girl, and you are unhappy, do you stay with her?  The answer to all of the above questions is clearly, no.  So then, how come if you are living a life you hate, it is unacceptable to simply quit life?  Suicide is obviously a bad idea, it is the most selfish act one can commit.  I am not suggesting anyone do it, nor would I ever do it.  I am simply posing the question - Why is it so unacceptable?

How can I find Joy in my life?

Yup.

Education and Employment

For most people, from the time you are born, you are being sculpted.  Sculpted into what you will become someday.  From the time you are about 3 years old, barely even self-aware yet, you being the process of formal education.  Saving pre-school and kindergarten, you spend about 8 hours per day, 5 days a week, at school.  From the time you are about 6 years old, to the time you are 18 years old, you are being taught.  Trained.  Shown the things you need to know to be a successful adult.  After you are 18, many people volunteer for more education, with the expectation that the more educated you are, and the more pieces of paper you have, the more successful you will be.  Success?  A topic for an article in itself, the concept of success has become very warped.

From a very early age we are given the idea that we need an education to work towards a goal, that goal being, a good job.  So at 18, we either go to college for several more years, or we jump right into the workforce.  Those that go to college, after those years spent learning even more, we jump right into the workforce.

Why?  To make money.  If anyone even tries to suggest that they want/get a job for any other reason, then to make money, they are a liar.  So basically, we spend the first couple decades of our lives being groomed into a money making tool, so that we can provide income to ourselves, and our family, under the pretense that having that money will provide us the things we want, and need, to be happy.

The system has been designed in such a way that one cannot survive without money, and that one cannot obtain money, without a job to provide income.  Clearly these jobs can vary greatly on the scale of how much they suck, but even the best jobs, still suck.  Even pro athletes, and movie stars, I am sure, would much rather spend their time in leisure, or with their families, then being grossly overpaid to do things that to us, seem fun.

The purpose of your life

So then, if it can be argued that the purpose of your life in this day and age, is essentially a linear progression of:  Birth, Infancy, School, More School, Work, Retirement, Death.  What would you say the progression should be if you had to choose what you did?  If you did not need money to survive, if someone else provided everything you needed to you, what would you do?

Since the dawn of time, man has sought purpose.  No other organism on this planet has such a superficial life with such superficial purpose.  We are given roughly 75 years of life on this planet, to do with it what we choose.  Nature’s only concern is that we reproduce.  In days of early man, time was spent raising a family, making babies, and hunting food.  Later, we decided to make tools to aid us in this effort, even later, someone devised the idea that one could make a tool for someone else, and sell it, for a fee.  And even later, our entire life on this planet became being spent devising ways to make our lives easier, and, finding ways to profit from those ideas such that our own lives can be even more comfortable as we reap the benefits of our ideas.

Fast forward to modern times.  A system of currency has been developed, companies that provide such goods that our lives are more comfortable proudly provide us with all the things we need to live a happy, comfortable, fulfilling life.  Problem is, we need to be able to give these companies something in exchange for their goods.  Since we cant trade skins anymore, we trade labor.

You work for me helping to create these items of value, I will give you tokens for your efforts.  You give me those tokens back, I will give you the items you desire.  And thus, the cycle starts.  The purpose of our lives has become a constant uphill battle of obtaining the objects of our desire, and working hard to earn the tokens we need to pay for them.

When we age too much to be viable labor anymore, we retire, and enjoy the last few years of our life, doing what it is we wanted to be doing the entire time.  Nothing.  Shortly after which, we die.

The machine

As outlined above, there is a machine at work here.  A system of goods, services, and currency.  Companies exist to create the things we enjoy.  Other companies exist to provide those companies with the resources they need to create the things we enjoy, and even more companies exist to provide the services, logistics, and resources to all those companies, all so, you guessed it, we can have the things we enjoy.

So, we work at one of these companies, to make money, so that we can spend our money by giving back to the exact people who are paying us.

All this so that, when we are not at work, we have our television to watch, we have our video games to play, and our pre-packaged food to eat.  We have our care to drive, and electricity.  We have central air conditioning, and heat.  We have a comfy mattress to sleep on, and a toothbrush to keep our teeth nice and white.  We work so hard so that when we are not at work, our life is, what we think it should be.

If these companies did not exist, and no one created these luxuries we enjoy so much.  If the objects in our homes, and the video games we want do play did not exist, nor the tv shows or movies, nor the luxury car, or boats, nor the fishing rods and cameras, what would we want?

It is indeed a machine.  One enormous machine creating the very reasons we tire of work, creating the reasons we would rather stay home to enjoy these items we work so hard for.  And as such, in order to obtain these items, and maintain a standard of living, we go out each day, and contribute work into this machine.  We are the fuel for which the system burns to churn out the very objects we crave.  We resent the fact that we must spend so much of our life doing things we do not want to do, just so that when we get home, we can do the things we want to do.

What it boils down to…

As I am sure you already know, we must work.  We, the masses, must have a job to collect our dollars, to buy the things from the companies we work for.  All so that for about 4 hours a day, we can truly relax and enjoy our lives, all to go to sleep, wake up, and do it all over again.

The activities we enjoy the most get relinquished to being mere “hobbies”, and we spend but a fraction of our time actually doing the things we love.  But, such is life in this world.  In a system designed so that all of us humans are merely a means to an end.

Reproducing and raising families has become secondary to work.  People cannot afford to have children either due to time, or money constraints.  Some people choose to have children when they cannot afford to, and live a live of near poverty, others, decide to never have children because they are too selfish to share their income and wealth with someone else.  Then there are the minority of people who have kids, and can easily afford to raise those children properly…properly meaning, providing them with objects they want, providing them with a good education, and steering them in the direction their parents went in, to become another cog.

I know this seems like a gloomy outlook, but in my opinion, it is the truth.  Fact is, this is how it is, and how it must be.  I just wish I could find a job, a purpose, in life, which I actually enjoyed to some extent and did not dread waking up each day.  A job where I could create, a job where I was not subject to the whims and bias of other people, a job where I had the freedom to work as much or as little as I wanted to on any given day.

I guess I should launch a website and cover it with advertising.

Instant Gratification

Now lets try the opposite.  Imagine a world where people stay up so late watching TV and playing games that they barely make it to work on time.  Imagine a world where people will use any excuse they can get to take a day off of work.  Imagine a world where people do the bare minimum at work each day just so they don’t get fired.  Imagine a world where your co-workers throw you under the bus at any opportunity to make themselves look better.

Which of these two worlds sounds closest to the world you actually live in?  Hopefully neither, to be honest, but I suppose if you were forced to choose it would depend on which world you live in, the real world, or the world of an MMORPG.

I recently starting messing around in World of Warcraft again, except in a much more limited capacity.  I don’t play it that much and I do not forgo anything else in my life such that it provides me more time to play.  The odd thing is though, that I am now tagged in one of the top 5 best guilds in the entire world.  I won’t say the name here just so they don’t get upset about this post, but it probably wouldn’t be that hard to narrow down.

I got tagged in this guild because my girlfriend happens to know the leader and half of the officers from her home town.  Since joining I have taken the role of a sort of silent observer, and it has given me much insight into the inner workings of one of these so-called “uber-guilds”.

As it turns out, the players in this guild treat the guild like it is a job in the world described in the first scenario above.  It is a perfect communism, in a way.  Everyone works hard toward the betterment of the guild with very little sense of self.  Loot drops go to the person who would turn that item into the maximum guild benefit.  The players spend countless hours working toward making themselves and the guild better.  When a raid is scheduled, everyone logs on, early.  When a first kill is on the line, everyone stays late.  All for no pay.  All for virtual nothingness.

How do you convince a person, a real human being, in the real world, to spend such large amounts of time in a fake world, working toward fake goals?  How come these very same people are far and wide the greatest bunch of under-achievers the world has ever seen?  Could you imagine if the real world had such a robust system which combines the best aspects of a reward system with a sense of instant gratification?  What if you spent 6 hours this evening playing a guitar and became a “level 2″ guitarist, instantly becoming slightly, but noticeably better?  What if you stayed late at work today, and got a promotion tomorrow?  Would you?

Probably.

The problem is probably just that, gratification.  If I work late today will I see any benefit from it?  If I work extra hard every day, and my company ultimately does better because of my hard work, will I ever receive any recognition?  If I show up late to work, and never get in trouble for it, why should I show up on time?  If I take the day off to relax, and stand to lose nothing because of it, then why not just take the day off?

This is the real world.  The world where you spend your entire life, dying.  The world where everything good in your life takes vast amounts of time to achieve.  The world where nothing is a sure thing.  The world where no one cares about how hard you work, or how smart you are.

This is where the allure of gaming lies, for me, and probably everyone else playing them.  If I spend 6 hours playing WoW today, I might get a better item, I might gain a level, or I might simply win a few arena matches.  No matter what though, something, even if it is a very small thing, will occur which will make my character in the game slightly better then he was before I logged in that day.  If I went to bed each night a better person then I was when I woke up, I might be a lot more excited about waking up each day.  If a week of hard work and overtime gave me some sort of global recognition, I might be a lot more apt to work a lot harder.  In the game, if you work your ass off toward that world first kill, and you get that incredible item that only you have.  The entire population of the game (in the case of WoW, over 10 Million people) are in awe of your accomplishments.

If you aren’t on time for that raid, you might not get a spot ever again.  If you take the night off from raiding, you might miss out on getting that item you really want.  If you talk back to your guild leader, you might get kicked out.

How can one recognize the small incremental improvements in themselves on a day to day basis?  How could such a reward system become a part of the real world?  

People obviously work the best, and the hardest when not only rewarded, but when time spent instantly equals personal gain, even if that gain is virtual.  What if we could somehow recognize our own real life gains in the same way a game presents them.  What kind of world would we live in then?

It is obvious that almost all forms of technology that reach the consumer market are geared towards making our lives easier: the dishwasher, the television, the computer, for example.  All of these technologies came from a scientific discovery that made them possible, and the end result of all that research was for someone to not have to wash dishes by hand, or have an easier means of obtaining the news. It should be known however that many sciences and technology that we have so fondly become used to using every day in our home are direct derivatives of military sciences, sciences developed for the sole purpose of “defending” our land, from our own kind. It is only after they have been used, or attempted to be used, in the military realm, that some usefulness for the consumer was discovered.

The first true computer, the ENIAC, was built for one reason, to calculate launch trajectories of projectiles. This led the forefront of a revolution in science which in turn gave rise to home computing. It is still the military and the government which leads the driving force of computer technology. It could still be argued however, that no matter what the use, even military science is used strictly as a means of making someone’s life easier, and thus happier. Weather it is easier to calculate the distance to a target, or easier to do your taxes. It could also be argued that even though being able to blow up a city from half way around the world, makes us happy, it doesn’t make all humans happy. With inventions designed to wage war, I would feel safe saying that human happiness is not the goal.

Another military derived technology is the satellite. The idea of an earth orbiting object is what started the space race, and once it was achieved the first purpose of one of these objects was merely research, but then the idea of military spy satellites was born, then military defense/attack satellites. The space race, in the beginning, had no real purpose; it was simply a pissing contest with Russia. The benefits we have reaped from this research are insurmountable however. Today, we have navigational satellites, communications satellites, weather satellites, and many other types. These allow us to use cell phones, watch television, and know the weather a week early. All of these technologies are clearly devised at making our lives easier. While satellites have proven quite useful as a military technology, and most research on them is driven by the military, aside from more effective reconnaissance and targeting, it is my opinion that there are far more benefits to people all around the world then there are risks.

There are many sciences and technologies that have no roots in the military. Some of the more significant ones include the cotton gin, the plough, or the printing press. These not only made human life much easier, and happy, but they also paved the way for the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution gave way to countless inventions with little military use, but much domestic use. Even the musket gave the people on the frontier a means of survival, through hunting or defense. One of the most prime examples of a non-military rooted science is that of medicine and pharmaceuticals. This industry has lead to the development of more useful science and means for survival than any other since the dawn of time. Medicine is geared strictly toward human happiness. Anti-depressants, pain killers, cures, vaccines, treatments, all of these are created to either make us happy, or to help us stay alive longer.

I feel like I am letting my point wander a bit right now, but I also feel that in doing so I am forming a strong basis for my thesis. DuPont formed the saying “Better Living Through Chemistry”. DuPont is actually the perfect candidate to make my point very strong: The E.I. DuPont Company was formed in 1802 as a gunpowder mill on the Brandywine River in Wilmington Delaware.

DuPont later evolved into one of the world’s largest chemical companies, and in the 20th century led the polymer revolution by developing many highly successful materials such as nylon, Teflon and Kevlar. Today, DuPont is a multi-national chemical, paint, and health care company with 2002 revenues of $24.5 billion. This company encompasses everything. It has roots and current strong interest in military technology. It has been on the forefront of almost any significant development of the 20th century. However, many of its developments have made our lives much easier in the strictest sense. Nylon - has made it possible for us to go out in the rain without getting wet, and is much more comfortable to wear then rubber or plastic. Teflon - has made it possible for us to cook almost anything, and burn it to a crisp, and literally be able to wipe a pan clean with a sponge. Kevlar - one of the strongest pliable materials ever devised can make a lightweight, wearable vest, which even a bullet cannot penetrate. DuPont has made paints that change color in different types of light for us to use on our cars, or paints for the home that are stain proof, all of which make our lives incredibly easier, and thus make us all much happier. However, DuPont also has had its hand in chemical warfare development, nuclear weapons, and many dangerous, unpopular military technologies.

To go in the opposite direction briefly, I also believe that too much technology has put us in a mindset that all things should come easily, and things that were devised to make us happier are actually doing the opposite. Good examples include cell phones, or the internet. Cell phones obviously make our lives easier, and make us happier in many ways, but they are also a heavy burden. In classrooms, people are taking calls, we allow ourselves to become distracted at inopportune times, and we rely on the ability to use the phone rather then to have physical contact with other people. The internet has all but replaced books for most modern students. Barely anyone checks out a book from the library anymore, or does good old fashioned research. We have become lazy. Online chatting has replaced even talking on the phone for many people. We have isolated ourselves from human contact in many ways. While many people think they are happy because of these things, many eventually realize the drawbacks. Many technologies have given way for much of today’s youth to have no idea of the benefits of good old hard labor, or crafting something with your hands. Almost no one today has the goal to work in a factory, or on a construction site, jobs that are required to help build the world around us. To put it bluntly, reliance on science and technology has made us lazy. While we all seem to be happier, we are not, we just haven’t realized it yet.

In conclusion, I feel that, yes, all science is geared toward making our lives easier, and making us happier, one way or another. It is the main reason for doing anything. Anything we do today is in an effort to someday have an easier way of doing it. We even have easier ways to eat food. Even the military sciences are, when you boil it down, made to make life easier. Without the overall goal of an easier more effective way of doing, most science would not exist. There are only a handful of sciences that are purely in the pursuit of knowledge, and even those have bi-products which turn into happiness. Science is happiness, in the modern world; science is the only thing that makes us happy.

Pro - fes - sion - al :

1) adjective - following an occupation as a means of livelihood or for gain.

2) noun - a person who is expert at his or her work.

The problem with words like this, in the English language, is that they have two radically different definitions which people interchange so that it suits them.  Taking the first definition above, I would be able to call myself a professional web developer/designer, a professional backup and disaster recovery administrator, a professional mechanic, and a professional computer repair man.  I do not, however, declare myself an expert in any of those things.

Where does the line get drawn?  I feel so many people claim they are a professional at something because they have made a job out of it, yet, they use the word professional is such a context that it makes it sound as if they are an expert, for their own gain.  There are many people who take pictures for money at their friends garage band’s shows at the local bar, who claim to be professional photographers.  Many people who have been paid $200 to play at the same bar, who call themselves professional musicians, people who have put together a catchy hip-hop beat on their home pc who call themselves professional producers, and many people who won a few bucks at a local game tournament who call themselves professional gamers.  The only thing these people have in common is, they made a few dollars doing something, so they use the word professional to make it sound as if they are an expert at doing such a thing.

I think a distinction needs to be made, in a few ways.  First of all, being a professional does not automatically mean you an expert, or even good at, what it is you are a professional at.  It simply means you make money doing it.  Also, making money doing something, does not mean you exhibit any professionalism.

Food for thought:

Michael Phelps - Not a professional swimmer, clearly, the best swimmer in the world.

Not a professional.

Stephen Baldwin - Professional Actor, clearly, the worst actor in the world.

Professional.

All things not being created equal, professional does not always mean good, and does not always mean expert.  However, when someone claims to be a professional, they usually convey it sound as if they are.  This article was prompted by a friend of mine who showed me this survey, which asks people to declare what type of photographer they are.

If you read down the list, you will see a common trend.  Some of the better photographers who post a response modestly claim to either be an amateur, or worse.  While most of the teenagers, ranging from 13-17 years old, claim to be professional or semi-pro, because they take shots of their friends band, or try to sell their pictures online on some stock photo website.  Clearly, they just love the word “pro”.  In the world of photography, if you have some sort of crazy expensive Nikon digital SLR, you must obviously be pro.  Especially if you don’t even know how to use the majority of the features the camera has.

So, it seems the best definition for professional these days is: Something you make money doing, but aren’t necessarily good at. What about professionalism then?  Do professionals always exhibit professionalism, is the showing of professionalism only limited to people who claim to be professional?

To me, professionalism is very difficult to describe in words, but easy to exhibit through actions.  I feel that there are many people who exhibit the absolute best traits of professionalism and are not even professionals, and that the vast majority of professionals do not exhibit any professionalism whatsoever.  Professionalism is an attitude, it is a certain modesty and open-mindedness which allows you to take the suggestions and input of others, and use that to better do whatever it is you do.  It is the mindset which allows you to constantly strive to be better.

In today’s world, people are so obsessed with titles and powerful words they can use to make themselves appear to be something of importance.  Most self-proclaimed professionals are too obsessed with themselves and the idea that they are some sort of authority on a subject to have the professionalism to actually become better at what it is they do.

Actions speak louder than words, and describing yourself as a professional, but acting like an amateur, makes you an amateur in my eyes.

Professional Gamers

Much like becoming a rock star, a movie star, or a pro athlete, there is a very small percentage of people who can actually succeed in this profession, and a very large number of people who spend their lives trying, just to fail.  The current generation of kids idolizes professional gamers more than they idolize astronauts, baseball players, or any other form of previously held types of heroes.  This is all fine and good, but as I mentioned earlier, peoples priorities get out of whack.

There are many successful celebrities who never graduated from college, or even high school.  Many pro athletes who skipped college to go straight into the big leagues.  Many successful people of all walks of life who made it on no education.  What we really don’t know is, how many people dropped out of school to pursue a career in sports, acting, or music, but never made it.  Where are they now?  What do they do?

While you can’t knock people for trying, following their dreams, yadda, yadda.  You know, “you’ll never make it if you don’t try.”  All that sort of stuff applies here.  What I wonder is, how can people take such huge risks with no contingency plan.  Didn’t the thought “What if it never happens for me?” cross their minds?  Or do people delude themselves so much that they simply do not believe there is even a possibility that they won’t be hugely successful if they just try hard enough?  The contestants on American Idol come to mind.  Not the ones who make it, the ones who don’t.  They are some of the most delusional people I have ever seen and they have a whole suite of other people (family and friends) who reinforce their believe that they will be the next huge star.

Fast forward to now, the new big thing, professional gaming.  To touch on some of what I talked about above, there is now a whole generation of people, a whole sub-section of society who is obsessed with making money playing games.  Just like being a rock star, this is now entirely possible.  Problem is, the prioritization issue comes up again.  I recently found this article about a 16 year old kid whose parents withdrew him from high school so that he could pursue a career playing Guitar Hero professionally.

This is not a competitive environment, so the score hardly matters. But his attitude about it underscores some Peebles family truisms: Blake is so dedicated to gaming that his parents let him quit school so he can better concentrate on it.

They pay for home tutors instead. Mom and Dad do this, even though there are very few people in this country who make their living playing competitive video games.

Now I know for a fact that playing guitar hero professionally is actually a viable way to make money, now, as are many other games.  But that game won’t be around forever.  So lets just assume that Blake can actually be successful in this.  What happens when he gets older, loses his skill, or the game simply goes out of style?  With no education to back him up, and some obvious parenting issues, he is destined to failure.

Professional gaming is just like anything else.  It can be very lucrative if you are good, while you are good.  But the games change and evolve so quickly, that it can’t really last that long for anyone, can it?  You don’t get contracts, you don’t get a retirement plan.  You go to tournaments with a chance to win a ton of cash, if you win.  As long as you keep winning, the money flows, as soon as you stop winning, what then?  I doubt you’ll see Blakes face on the cover of wheaties any time soon.

Winning Big

While I could easily see myself watching a WoW raid or arena tournament, a street fighter tournament, or a guitar hero match on television, much like I would watch a football game, I am not so sure professional gamers will ever have the same type of celebrity status that real athletes do.  At least not for a couple of more decades.

I could name the top 10 guitar hero players in the world off the top of my head using their Scorehero username, but I have no idea about their real name or what they look like, much less do I care.

I think gaming should be fun, it should be an entertaining hobby, and if you find yourself exceeding good at a particular game, polish your skills, and go to a tournament.  Who knows, maybe you can make a couple bucks while you’re at it.  But please, at least graduate high school first.  The last thing this country needs is more reason to be labelled as one of the fattest, lasiest, stupiest countries on the earth.

Obvious Uniqueness

Conformity is much more than most people think it is.  It’s not just emo kids who all wear dark clothes.  It’s not just polo shirt wearing middle managers who go home to their comfortable house in their cookie cutter housing developments.  It’s not just how everyone on digg has the same political views.  No, it’s about not having the ability to formulate your own opinions, lacking the ability to think freely, and being too inhibited to express those thoughts and opinions.

Everyone likes to believe they are unique.  No one will ever tell you that they are a conformist, after all, conforming is always a bad thing, right?  Or is it?

Society is cruel.  It forces you to conform.  We must all obey the same laws, shop at the same stores, live in the same cookie cutter houses, and drive the same types of cars everyone else does.  We must work at a job, we must do what society allows us to do, to survive.  There are exceptions to this rule of course, many people have found unique ways to provide for their families, and unique ways to live, but for those of us who have already made choices in life which have left us feeling very much “the same”, as everyone else around us, what can we do?

I think the answer is simple:  Re-think what conformity actually is, and redefine it to yourself.  I myself, believe I am unique, of course.  Thing is, I live in a townhouse community, and I work at a 9 to 5 job in Information Technology.  I wear khakis to work every day, and I shop at Old Navy.  How much more “normal” could I be?

Being normal, or conforming, is not a bad thing.  If you want to be totally unique then cover your entire body with tattoos and run naked through a shopping mall.  If you want to be unique, paint your house bright pink.  Hell, you could drive to work in a bright lime green 1948 Oldsmobile.  I bet no one else in the parking lot has one of those.  Would you want that kind of attention though?

My point is, uniqueness is more of a state of mind.  Most people feel uniqueness is simply the ability to draw attention to yourself by looking or acting different.  When I watch the news, I accept the information being told to me, and formulate an opinion based on the facts I have.  When I choose who to vote for, I go with my gut.  When I design a website, I design what I like, not someone else.  I am opinionated.  I am outspoken.  I think, freely and I speak, freely.  This is the key to being truly unique.

So many people strive so hard to appear unique, when they aren’t.  If you are goth, emo, preppy, or a skater.  You look just like your friends.  If you are truly unique, on the outside, then you probably have some sort of birth defect, in which case the looks you are drawing from the people around you, aren’t the types of looks you want.  Pardon my insensitivity here, but it is the truth.  Have you ever taken someone out to eat sushi and had them say (looking they are about to puke):  “It tastes very…unique.”  Being unique, isn’t always good.

Uniqueness is inside all of us.  It is a matter of expressing it.  In day to day life, it is easiest and often best to just blend in and go unnoticed.  Wear jeans and a t-shirt, lay off the eye shadow.  When it comes time to truly express yourself, in the form of art, music, public speaking, web design, or whatever other subject it might be, be yourself.  These are your opportunities.  If you feel strongly about something, speak up about it.  When you have a class presentation to do, don’t just stand at the front of the room and read from a sheet of paper, use these opportunities to express who you are.  Sitting in the back row wearing all black, won’t help you later in life.

Be who you are, and let people know who that person is.  Take opportunities to constructively express yourself, don’t waste time and energy drawing attention to yourself when you don’t need to.

An example from my real life is, firstly, as I stated above: I am about as normal as they come.  On the outside.  I do not waste effort and energy in my life toward trying to look unique.  I wear what I want to wear, I drive what I want to drive, and I live in a house which is economical for me.

I am an IT professional, and a good analogy for me is - look at this server rack below.  They all look the same don’t they?  Nothing stands out about any of them in particular, just like me.

Hidden Uniqueness

What you don’t know about these servers, though, is that they all do something different.  Equally important.  Each one of them has a job, a function.  From the outside looking in, I look like your regular run of the mill IT guy.  If you ask around the office about me, most people will tell you something very different though.  I go against the grain.  I speak my mind.  I come up with ideas.  I embrace change, and I cause change.  This has helped me in my career greatly, and it is all thanks to my ability to think freely, and speak my mind.  My ability to be unique.

In high school, I made some of the most memorable class presentations of all time, but every other day of the week I was just that quiet normal kid that no one paid attention to.

Work toward drawing positive attention to yourself, highlight your abilities, your uniqueness.  Make it known to the world what it is that you are good at, what ideas you have which should be known about.  Make an impact.

Don’t waste time with the eye shadow anymore, please.

Prior to deciding that I wanted to write, I thought that blogs were one of the stupidest things ever.  Who wants to read some assholes opinion on things?  After getting bored enough one day, I decided that I wanted to write about some things, and I decided that a blog was the right avenue for it.  It was at this point that I began to read other blogs.  

It wasn’t so much that after having my own blog, my opinion had changed.  It was more that I wanted to see other peoples sites, their designs, the topics they wrote on.  I wanted to see what other successful bloggers were doing, and how they had become successful.  I wanted to comment on other blogs, to promote my own, and read other blogs, to get ideas for my own.

This, I think, might be the case for many bloggers, and blogs.  Bloggers read other peoples blogs, write about the topics they find on other peoples blogs, and comment on other peoples blogs.  I honestly do not know anyone, who does not have a blog of their own, who makes a habit or reading any particular blog on a regular basis.  For me, I know for sure that is the case.

Using an RSS reader for me was almost impossible before I started blogging.  There were simply no other blogs out there that interested me enough to make me want to subscribe.  Now, I subscribe to over 30 blogs, and read them on a very regular basis.  Prior to this, the only blogs I read were simply by consequence of something interesting on digg being a link to a blog post.

I think this is interesting, since the number of people who blog is always growing, thus, the reader base for existing blogs is always growing.  Is blogging some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy?

http://www.modelrockettier.com/posters/posters.php

Currently, I do not play any online games.  I suppose this fact alone has helped give me perspective on this matter.  Another thing which gives me perspective is the fact that many of my friends do still play these games, all different games, and I can see their opinions of each other, and each others games, very clearly and unbiased.

Rationalization 1, I play an MMO because…

If I didn’t, I would just be doing <insert other waste of time activity> instead.  This is the best way MMO players can make themselves feel better about it.  The truth is though, when is the last time you stayed up until 4 am watching re-runs of Seinfeld, or decided to not go out with your friends on a saturday night so you could read a book?  Chances are, you didn’t.  If you are a hardcore gamer though, you might have.  Maybe you blew off going out with some friends so you could attend that raid, or maybe you stayed up until 4am chatting and you were late for work the next day.  I know I did, on many occasions.

Every MMO player has their own excuse about why its okay to spend more hours per week playing a game, then they do at work.  In reality, is it bad to play an MMO?  No, I don’t think so, but I do think it can be bad, if you are able to rationalize your playtime to a point where it gets out of control.

Rationalization 2, Social aspects

Let’s face it, MMO’s are built around being social, and as such you make “friends” in the games.  The problem is, people come and go.  People join and quit.  The people you make friends with in the game are only your friends because of the game, with a few exceptions.  

If you play an MMO, and you are a part of a group who plays together, for years and years, and one day you suddenly quit, expect to be written off.  It is much the same for heroin addicts.  Surround yourself with those who make you feel better about your addiction, not worse.  Do not expect to keep any sort of meaningful contact with people who you meet inside an MMO, unless they also quit.  

The problem is that, most people are unwilling to form any sorts of real relationships with others inside the game, because we all know in the back of our minds that one of us will quit, eventually.  The servers will be turned off, eventually, and at that point, more often then not, the relationship ceases to exist.

When you invest time into a game, you feel like you are building something.  A reputation, a base of friends, camaraderie.  The truth of the matter is, the people in the game only care about you in so much as you are beneficial to them in the game, beyond this, there is nothing.  It is shallow.

I played World of Warcraft for almost 3 years.  I built and hosted (and still host) my guilds Website, I manage and deal with the billing for their Ventrilo server, but I no longer play the game.  Occasionally I will log in to say hello.  What I find is that, no one, not the players I spent so much time playing with, nor the players who have joined the guild since I quit, could give a shit less about me anymore.  It doesn’t bother me, but I find it interesting.

I suppose the heroin analogy applies again, if you quit heroin, would your old heroin addict buddies want to hang around you?  The answer is no.  As I have experienced a similar result in my real life (not related to heroin), where I quit participating in an “activity” all of my friends still wanted to participate in, and they no longer wanted my company, after I quit.

Why is this?  Rationalization would suggest that, people do not want to be made to feel that they are less good then someone else.  People do not like to feel like they are doing the wrong thing.  It is easiest for our emotional immune system to simply surround ourselves by people who agree with us, and approve of our behavior, then it is to surround ourselves with people who disapprove, and by consequence, make us feel like we are less good then they are.

Rationalization 3, All other MMOs suck, except mine

This is a great one.  Amongst the population of any MMO game you play, the entire population will agree to hate every other game that comes about.  Especially if a really good game is expected to come out and “kill” your game of choice.  Moreover, the people who decide to play the games you don’t play, are stupid, noob, assholes.

I believe this is a similar rationalization amongst gamers.  We want to believe we are playing the best game, which carries the most recognition.  We want to believe our time which is being spent so carefully, is being spent in the best possible way.  We don’t want to think that there is a better game out there, that we could be playing instead.  So it is best to just write all other games off, and ignore them.

The majority of people play WoW, and it has over 10 million players.  No other fantasy MMO out there can even touch that sort of player base, and as such, every player, who plays any other MMO which is not WoW, hates WoW.  Not only do they hate wow, but they hate the “noobs” who play WoW.

Rationalization in general

Aside from MMO games, people rationalize everything, in every aspect of their lives.  We may not even realize it.  Most people think a rationalization is something like, “I can do <this thing which I know I shouldn’t do> because <some stupid reason here>”, but it is not all that cut and dry. 

Rationalization impacts every aspect of who we are.  We choose our friends based on how much they agree with us.  When we buy an expensive item, we avoid the negative reviews of it in favor of the positive ones.  If we do poorly on an IQ test, we find reasons to prove the test was invalid.

It is part of our emotional immune system.  Much like our physical immune system, our brain tries to protect us from unhappiness, and it acts in much the same was as the physical does.  Our physical immune system kills bad things, but it knows enough to recognize not to kill our own cells.  An under-active immune system leads to disease, and an overactive one leads to auto-immune disorders.  The brain works in much the same way.  It allows us to feel the pain of events which we can learn from, and become stronger from, but prevents us from feeling unhappiness in our every day lives.  An under-active system leads to depression, where an overactive one leads to an attitude of eliteness: “I am right and everyone else is wrong”.  

I think its a pretty interesting concept, and the more you are aware of it, the more you notice it.

A child named Violence roams the streets.

• Princess Tiaamii (Jordan / Peter Andre)
• Audio Science (Shannyn Sossamon)
• Camera (Arthur Ashe)
• Fifi Trixibell (Bob Geldof and Paula Yates)
• Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily (Paula Yates and Michael Hutchence)
• Kal-El Coppola (Nicholas Cage - Kal-El is Supermans birth name)
• Lark Song (Mia Farrow)
• Moon Unit (Frank Zappa)
• Dweezil (Frank Zappa)
• Ahmet Emuukah Rodan (Frank Zappa)
• Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen (Frank Zappa)
• Sage Moonblood (Sylvester Stallone)

So apparently this trend amongst celebrities has begun to trickle down into average homes.  This is the reason for my writing this as I found a recent news report where New Zealand had made certain names illegal.  Some of the names which were made illegal are:

• Talula Does the Hula from Hawaii
• 4Real
• Fish and Chips
• Sex Fruit
• Yeah Detroit

It should be noted that these names were made illegal after they were used, which means that people actually tried to name their kids this shit.  What is even better is that some names are not illegal, and are apparently in use:

• Number 16 Bus Shelter
• Violence

I honestly wish my name was Violence.  I would love to name my kids something funny for the sake of humor. Hell I named my dog “Dirk”.  But they need to realize that the child needs to live a, hopefully, very long life with the name you have given them and that naming your child Sex Fruit is simply not cool. Should it be illegal though?  I tend to think not.

If some crazy ass parents want to name their kids stuff like that, let them.  I know the kids shouldn’t suffer but the courts didn’t have a say in my name so why should they have a say in anyone else’s.  If my legal name was Sex Fruit Eugene Chain, I would tell all my friends my name was Bob or Joe, and when I was old enough, I’d get it changed.  No need for the courts to intervene.  I’m not a law expert but doesn’t this violate free speech?  I understand they don’t have a Bill of Rights in New Zealand so they aren’t held to those rules, but I would hate to see anything like that ever happen in america.

I thought of some cool names for kids while writing this, and I only hope I am legally allowed to use them:

• Chest
• Miller Light
• Rothschild
• Enhance
• Picard

Feel free to name your kids any of the above, I won’t get mad.

It sounds like Central Collections has become a black hole.

Obviously this was intended to imply that their ticket collections system was comparable to a black hole where things which enter it, never escape.  I do not know much about the Dallas municipalities and their issues with ticket collections but when seeing this statement, no matter what the context, I do not see any semblance of racism.

Simulated Image of a Black Hole

However, commissioner John Wiley Price felt that this sort of language was unacceptable, and racist. (You can view the original video of the conversation here.)  This is all fine and good, I suppose he is entitled to his stance that a black hole is a racist construct.  However, after watching the follow-up interview, it is clear that he is either just being an asshole, or he is truly ultra-sensitive to race issues.  I will transcribe a portion of the interview below:

Fox:  Tell me again why you took offense to what Mr. Mayfield Said.

JWP:  Well, first of all I probably just took offense to Mr. Mayfield.  That’s number one.  Number Two, its back to the culture, you know.  The culture in terms of blackness is negative.  It doesn’t make a difference if, you know, it becomes a scientific phenomenon, you know because a scientist could have just as easily called it a white hole.  Why didn’t they?  You know, and in this society anything that is black is seen as negative.  So you name one comment “Oh, it’s in the black”, that’s one positive.  But you tell me one thing in this society when you say white and get a negative connotation.

So if its Angel Food Cake, it’s White, Devils Food Cake, it’s Black.

If you’re the black sheep of the family, then you gotta be bad.

You know, white could be ok.

Fox:  So should people be extra careful now, what they say?

JWP:  Well you know I think people should always be careful.  You know, I’m ok if I’m bartering with you, so.  But if I try to Jew you down, oh is that racist?  I thought it meant the same thing.

(continued on this video)

So lets analyze the racial connotations of some of the things he mentioned.

Black Hole vs. White Hole

A black hole is a phenomenon in space where gravity has become so intense focusing on a singularity that nothing, not even light, can escape it.  Black is a color, or the lack of color which can most easily be defined as describing absence of light.  If a black hole was called a white hole it would simply make no sense, at all. A “white hole” might be more likened to a sun, or something extraordinarily bright.  But of course, white people get good things like stars and suns, and black people only get black holes, these terrible destructive things.

Angel Food vs. Devils Food

Angels are something believed to exist in heaven.  Heaven is perceived as a very bright, cloudy, white place. Angel food cake is very light, airy, and white in texture.  It would not describe the cake well to call it devils food.  Devils are something believed to exist in hell.  Hell is a very dark, sinful place.  Devils food cake is a very rich, dark, and sinful food.  To me, these descriptions simply make sense.  In fact, I like devils food cake better, I doubt many people would tell you that dark devils food cake is terrible and that it was designed in order to further oppress black people.

Black Sheep of the Family

The term “Black Sheep” originated back in the 18th century.  In flocks of sheep there is always a chance that the babies will be born with black coats.  When you are raising sheep on a farm for profit, black wool is worth much less than white wool, and as such raising black sheep was undesirable.  This got taken out of context to describe a troublesome or undesirable human child.  There was never a racial implication to the expression.

Bartering vs. Jewing Down

To take Mr. Prices example of a similar expression to the above, but not related to the african-american race, he used Bartering with someone vs Jewing Down.  Since Jewing down would be usage of the perceived stereotype that Jews are cheap, I see using the term Jewing someone down as racist, without any doubt in my mind.  It does not fit with his other examples at all.  He was obviously stretching here.

What have we come to in society?  I realize that racism is still a huge problem in this world, and that there is a need to be aware of it.  I realize that some people are more sensitive to it then others.  Does this sort of extreme sensitivity really exist though?

I tend to think not.  I believe that he simply was unaware of the scientific construct of a black hole during the meeting and as a knee-jerk reaction took offense to it.  After he learned what it was, to save looking like a moron during the second interview, tried to maintain his stance and make off the cuff supporting examples which just make him look like more of a dick.

If there are more people like this guy out there, then I truly feel sorry for them.  They must not be able to go even a few minutes without becoming offended by something or someone and probably live an angry and miserable life.

I really don’t understand people who are so sensitive to these issues, just let it roll off your back, the less it bothers you, the less people will use it against you.

Creation of Man, Sistine Chapel

So to start, I suppose in order to discuss if there is a God, we need to define exactly what a God is, and discuss the implications of each definition.

Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. (John 4:8)

We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. (John 4:16)

Okay, well this seems really arbitrary, especially coming from the bible.  It is a very nice concept though.  If you believe that God is Love, and you assert that love exists then, God must exist.  This is not a terrible concept as, if taken out of the context of Christianity, it can set a nice utopian set of guidelines for us to all live by.  The problem lies in the inherent imperfections that lie within our very nature.  We do not love everyone, and if we do not love everyone then we do not love God.  Are humans even capable of Love in its truest sense?  Love being another impossible to define word, I am not sure we are.  Within everyone who loves someone else is there an utter lack of selfish desire and carnal instinct at play?

Next, lets take the most commonly perceived ideals of what God is.  I am going to totally ignore the above quotes from the bible because most people do not think of God as being love.  He is an all powerful being. An overlord who demands you live within a set of rules or be doomed to eternal damnation.  This pretty much takes care of the three major religions.  Christianity (Catholicism), Judaism, Islamic (Muslim).  These all believe in, and worship, the same almighty God (Abrahamic Religions).  They just disagree on who the voice of God, his prophet, is.

So to not discriminate on the small details about each of the three major religions, they all essentially worship God as an almighty being.  I think this is what most people think of when asked “Is there a God?” and if that was indeed the question, my answer would simply be No.

So how else can we define God?  I like how Richard Dawkins put it in his book The God Delusion.  Some good quotes from the book can be found here.  Basically he outlines 4 types of God:

One is a loving God – the Gentle Jesus of the hymns on Sunday; the second a personal God who answers our prayers and intervenes in our lives; the third an all-knowing, all-powerful God capable of great miracles; and finally the God of the deists – one who detonated the “hot big bang, retired, and was never heard from again.”
(Peter Bowden)

In all of these cases I must again admit that I do not believe in this type of God.  Being a man of science I tend to not believe in an all powerful designer or creator, period.  I can definitely admit that there are many wonders in our universe that cannot be explained, yet.  I also admit that many mysterious things happen in our world that are not easy to grasp.  I am a moral person, and I might even be slightly spiritual.  I believe in the Golden Rule, and I consider myself loving.  When I say spiritual however, I am more recognizing that there are ways of life one can follow to lead a better life, which are not affiliated to a religion and do not recognize the existence of one omnipotent God.

So is there any other way we can define God?

Maybe, in fact, you could probably get a thousand different answers from a thousand different people about what God is, and if he exists.

My personal view is that there is not one.  I am not basing this belief on lack of proof, or being some sort of emo self-loathing bastard.  I simply do not feel in my heart, or my mind, that a supreme being exists.  If someone offered me more insight as to why there is a God, or isn’t, I am open-minded enough to take all things into consideration.

As of today though, things like the big-bang sounds pretty good.  What was before the big-bang?  Nothing I guess.

To ask what is before time is to ask what is three miles north of the north pole. There is no north of the north pole, and there is no before the Big Bang. A prerequisite to being a creator is existing before something.
(Stephen Hawking) 

All animals can predict the hedonic consequences of events they’ve experienced before. But humans can predict the hedonic consequences of events they’ve never experienced by simulating those events in their minds. Scientists are beginning to understand how the brain simulates future events, how it uses those simulations to predict an event’s hedonic consequences, and why these predictions so often go awry.
(Prospection: Experiencing the Future)

What if I was to ask a slightly different question: How much would you enjoy a nice big slice of pizza, on friday night?  Those of you who are hungry, are about twice as likely to answer that you would, as those of you who just ate.  Why?  

Memory uses the filling-in trick, but imagination is the filling in trick, and if the present lightly colors our remembered pasts, it thoroughly infuses our imagined futures.
(thoughts on happiness) 

Your mind has a fascinating ability to imagine all sorts of things.  You can imagine a space ship traveling through time to a distant galaxy to fight aliens on a wayward moon.  You can visualize almost anything.  Yet, we cannot imagine that we might be hungry again later on today, and how it might feel to be hungry until we actually are.  We can imagine what a space ship might look like, and a distant galaxy, but surprisingly the pilot of the space ship looks, talks, and wears the same outfits that we wear.  

The Kitchen of the Future, 1957

This is your brain filling in the gaps for you.  When your brain imagines things, it uses what it knows to fill in the gaps.  The problem is, when your brain fills in gaps about things it does not know about the past or the future, it uses the present.  Much the same as when you imagine things visually your brain fills in the gaps of things which it does not know, with things it does.

Ask a depressed individual how much fun his 16th birthday was, you will probably get a less than enthusiastic response.  Ask the same individual how he will feel two years from today on his college graduation day, you will also get a less than enthusiastic response.  Your brain uses the present, in this case, your present mood, to infer the things about the past and future which it does not know.

The brain images by enlisting the aid of its sensory areas, we imagine an object by recalling memories of similar objects. Just as we preview objects, so we prefeel events. That is, we imagine future emotions on the basis of recalling and recreating similar emotions from our past. We can almost always tell whether a visual experience is the product of a real or an imagined object. But not so with emotional experience. We mix feeling (from current event in the world) with prefeelings (that originate in memory). A ‘reality first’ principle operates. So, if we are asked to imagine how hungry we will feel tomorrow, our answer depends on how full we feel right now. We cannot feel good about an imaginary future when we are busy feeling bad about an actual present. And, we can mistakenly assume that the future event is the cause of the unhappiness we feel in the present when we think about it.
(thoughts on happiness) 

This is called “Pre-feeling”.  I think pre-feeling is the cause of the very difficult downward spiral which is depression.  Can recognizing it be a key to escaping it?  If we hear the advice of our friends, such as, “Things will get better” or other cliches, but do not simply dismiss them and actually are able to catch our mind playing this trick on us can we pry ourselves out of the hole we find ourselves in?

What about comparing things in the present, past, and future? If we want to predict how something will make us feel in the future, we must consider the kind of comparison we well be making in the future and not the kind of comparison we happen to be making in the present. Presentism, the temptation to view the past and the future through the lens of the present, is nothing short of overwhelming.
(thoughts on happiness)  

I am not sure if it is possible to break this cycle.  As anyone who is depressed knows, you are aware you are depressed, you are aware you are probably feeling like crap over something small, which you have no control over.  You are aware of how you feel and you are aware that you aren’t doing anyone any good by feeling that way.  So would being aware that your dismal outlook on everything in your life, past and present, was being affected by this current state of mind allow you to change your outlook?

I doubt it.  So how does this knowledge do us any good?  You can have all the knowledge in the world about the how’s and why’s regarding your current mood, but if you cannot escape from it, then you are clearly not any better off.

Any thoughts on using the tools modern psychology has given us?  Does recognizing the way our brain works and understanding that what we see and how we feel might not actually be the truth allow us to modify our outlooks?

Many of the ideas from this post are taken from the book Stumbing on Happiness.  I have used this book for other posts and will continue to use it.  It has so many great ideas.  I highly suggest everyone read it.

“What is truth?” Pontius Pilate asked this question almost 2000 years ago. At the time, he had no inkling of the infamy which was to follow these words through the millennia. He asked the question as a jaded cynic—he had no interest in knowing the truth. In fact, his question is of a rhetorical nature, implying simply that there is no truth. And yet, in asking this question he hit the very crux of the human condition. Our view of truth is the Rosetta Stone for how we interpret life, relationships, ethics, vocation, and even design. It’s the foundation of our worldview. Without a firm grasp on the popular views of truth we encounter, we will find ourselves in situations where our speech is lost in translation. Remember, when we talk about truth here, we are talking about the whole ball of wax. We’re asking, What is reality? What is right and what is wrong? What really happened in history? What is real? The question extends out to every area of existence and has enormous implications for the future of our work in web design. In order to clear the haze, we’ll start by looking at some popular views of truth and then we’ll move on to the historical Christian view of truth and why it conforms to reality as no other view does.

Reading the above passage from the aforementioned article, I am baffled at how such a profound subject of philosophy can even be remotely compared the world of web design.  The author seems to be quite full of not only himself and his abilities, but also the importance of what he does.  So let us analyze the very same subject as he did, but from a slightly different angle.

What is truth?

First, let us reference the old trusty wikipedia, and see what it thinks about truth:

The meaning of the word truth extends from honesty, good faith, and sincerity in general, to agreement with fact or reality in particular.[1] The term has no single definition about which the majority of professional philosophers and scholars agree. Various theories of truth continue to be debated. There are differing claims on such questions as what constitutes truth; how to define and identify truth; the roles that revealed and acquired knowledge play; and whether truth is subjective, relative, objective, or absolute. This article introduces the various perspectives and claims, both today and throughout history.

Obviously, the meaning of truth is based on ones perception of reality, and it is entirely subjective, which in turn means, we cannot define it.  This can be illustrated by asking a simple question:

“True or False: The sky is blue”

Most people would of course say true, that is of course unless you are colorblind.  The fact that the sky is blue is a commonly accepted truth.  However, it is entirely subjective since color in itself is something which is difficult to define.  The color of something depends upon how a certain type of light reflects off of something which in turn is interpreted by the type of optic sensors the viewer is equipped with.  So, is the sky blue?  To me it is.  Which means to me, the answer true to the above question, is a truth, in from the perspective of my reality.

How do some other philosophers interpret truth?

Truth is the conformity of the intellect to the things. - Aristotle

Which implies that something is true when it agrees with the intellect of the observer.  My sky is blue.

the dichotomy between ‘absolute = perfect’ and ‘relative = imperfect’ has been superseded in all fields of scientific thought, where “it is generally recognized that there is no absolute truth but nevertheless that there are objectively valid laws and principles”.

In that respect, “a scientifically or rationally valid statement means that the power of reason is applied to all the available data of observation without any of them being suppressed or falsified for the sake of a desired result”. The history of science is “a history of inadequate and incomplete statements, and every new insight makes possible the recognition of the inadequacies of previous propositions and offers a springboard for creating a more adequate formulation.”
As a result “the history of thought is the history of an ever-increasing approximation to the truth. Scientific knowledge is not absolute but optimal; it contains the optimum of truth attainable in a given historical period.” Fromm furthermore notes that “different cultures have emphasized various aspects of the truth” and that increasing interaction between cultures allows for these aspects to reconcile and integrate, increasing further the approximation to the truth.

Erich Fromm

I can quote philosophers all day long and we will see many different viewpoints.  The overwhelming point is that nothing can really ever be true.  However, for the sake of sanity in the modern world methods have been developed on how to create commonly accepted rules on truths and fallacies.

What is art?

I have had this discussion at length on an old message forum I used to frequent, which is no longer in existence.  We basically drew the conclusion that art, like truth, is also impossible to define on a large scale.  As such we have drawn a common set of accepted things that are widely considered art, and things which are not.

Personally, I feel art is anything which can be considered creative.  While creative is also very difficult to define, I would limit the word creative to meaning something which came into existence by the hand of an intelligent life form.  While nature is beautiful, I do not consider a flower, art.  I do not consider a painting made by a chimpanzee, art.  Nature did not create the flower to be beautiful, it has a purpose.  The chimp did not have a vision or goal in his painting, he was merely given a paintbrush and mimicked the movements he had seen through observation in order to splatter paint onto a canvas.

When I take something which only exists in my mind and imagination and turn it into something tangiable, I have created art.  Art need not be appreciated or accepted as art in order for it to be.  This very article is a piece of artwork in my eyes.

Again, however, in modern society a commonly accepted definition has been formed around what is art, for simplicity of understanding or acceptance.  The best definition of what is considered art in the modern world which I can find is:

Art is form and content.

“Art is form and content” means: All art consists of these two things.

Form means (1) the elements of art, (2) the principles of design and (3) the actual, physical materials that the artist has used. Form, in this context, is concrete and fairly easily described - no matter which piece of art is under scrutiny.

(from about.com)

What is web design?

So given the two above abstracts, what is web design.  I believe web design is not truth, but it is art.  Every web page on the earth, be it a site totally dedicated to being artistic and creative, and being defined as its creator as such; or a site which was purpose built, like a skyscraper, to perform a specific function. The only difference is that the former is probably more widely considered art, while the latter is not.  The latter however, not being considered a beautiful piece of artwork to the common lover of Van Gogh, it may well be considered a brilliant piece of artwork by a very well versed programmer.  The very software I am using to write this blog uses the slogan “Code is Poetry”, if poetry is an art form, then it is obvious at least a few people on this earth consider programming an art form.

How do we compare them?

I think the simple answer is, we don’t.  Comparing art and/or web design to the subject of truth just seems counter-intuitive as I do not see the correlation.  Art, Design, Truth, they are all subjective, nearly un-defineable constructs.  For a designer to feel he or she is working toward the truth in some way via their work in design just seems pompous.

I particularly enjoyed the closing quote of the article which prompted me to write this:

The Irony of Pontius Pilate’s question about truth is that the truth was standing right in front of him—Christ. In this system of truth established by Christ, the future of design is hopeful. In fact, it’s the only system that provides any lasting hope for design. It allows for a set of real governing laws of design without diminishing the legitimacy or importance of diversity within design. It gives us a system that we can actually live out. Now, we the designers get to decide which path web design will follow in the coming generations. And I for one will continue to spread the good news of God’s revelation of truth and how it shapes design. If you want to read more about the Christian worldview and how it relates to web design, go to the Worldview Center page.

Christ?  Perhaps I am just too jaded on the subject of religion, but how does one thing have anything to do with the other?  The truth is Christ, and as such the future of design is hopeful?  What am I missing?

Here are my closing remarks, which I hope are quite better then his.  Truth is a subjective construct, something is true when you feel it is true.  Within the bounds of modern society, something is true when the majority thinks it is true, and as such we have formed commonly accepted definitions for such things.  Art, is the same.  Design, the same.  We cannot define them.  Can art be used to illustrate the truth, of course it can.  Can art be used to convey an idea the artist feels is true, of course it can.  The most important question is, though, can art exist in the absence of truth, and I also feel the answer to this question is yes.  Art relies not upon truth to exist.  Art has little to do with truth.  Art is created from within us, truths are observed from outside of us.