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| (Yes. That's baby Pajke typing away on a Keyboard.) |
“My Dad doesn't get why I turned our kitchen into cubicles...” I say.
“I feel like most people don't get your ideas, Stasia.” Elizabeth informs me.
(This starts me going down memory lane, and I love it.)
I'm right back there in the kitchen.
I'm cooking, and she's talking:
"So... Katie watches all the free TV on the Internet before I get home from work."
"hmmmmm...." I say. "There's free TV on the Internet...? ... Why?."
"Yah. Cuz they know you're going to steal it. So they just give it to you. That way you hafta watch thier commercials." Elizabeth explains to me.
"mmmmm..." I say. (It makes sense, it's just that I gave up TV so long ago it's hard for me to understand why people still watch it.)
"So I get home, and I get 15 minutes into my show, but then it says we've reached our quota on that website for the day. So I go to the next website, but Katie used up all the minutes on that one too!!!"
"hmmmmm...." I say.
"Do you want some rice and vegetables?"
"No thank you." she replies.
I don't remember if there was ever a resolution to the TV-on-the-Internet-Inequality situation. I had a really insightful counselor in Guelph who I consulted with whenever I had an existential crisis about being a landlord. (this occurred frequently as a result of renting to Anarchists)...
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😀 oh, Anarchists... ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ |
Anyhow.
That counselor gave me the phrase "community means coming into unity"
(Which is intended to mean, that if people wish to co-habitate, there has to be some shared vision, a common raison d'etre.)
If I had to guess, The Internet TV situation probably got overshadowed when Elizabeth shifted her focus to learning French, and got really immersed in reading books en Francais, watching movies sans subtitles, and took a job from Craigslist translating a video game.
I love telling this story, because I get to tell about how of how excited she was when she had her first French dream. I was possibly more excited than her.
This fascinates me even more as I write this, because it demonstrates tipping points in neural networks.
I'd go so far as to hypothesize that a dream is the first indication of an idea "synching in"
Elizabeth is the person I turn to for inspiration & advice when I am struggling for a different approach. She gets me outside of myself, because she is motivated by things that are often so unlike those which appeal to me. She's got that radical honesty I crave. And her unabashed enthusiasm for pop culture is why I look to her every time I seek to understand what is going to be "trending" next.
I wrote her a private email when she asked me about going crazy, because of all the stuff I'm too polite to write about on the internet. One of the things I complained about was that I'm sick of the world being dumb, and needing me to stay dumb, so it can feel good about itself.
In her reply she said: You once told me the wise words of Paris Hilton, whom I still love the crap out of, "people are way more willing to talk to you if you're dumb. Sometimes it's easier to be dumb on purpose so you can connect with people." I always liked that because that's a thing that I used to do all the time. I would be dumb around boys so they would think I am pretty and then I would get so mad, Stasia, when they didn't know I was a smart girl."
Ugh. Yes. That annoying side effect of simplifying yourself so as not to cause a ruckus. *sigh* Every time I try that, something really awkward happens when I inevitably burst at the seams with the obnoxious force of all the ideas struggling to get out of my head at once...
And I, too, still love the crap out of Paris Hilton. She is a very smart woman.
Idea Sex:
“We are at a point in history where we have to stop pretending we are not brilliant beings. We, as women, need to become idea machines, pronto. The power that comes through it, is a responsibility we owe to the world. We have to own our talent and admit that we have something to bring the table. There’s no winning in playing small anymore.” - CLAUDIA AZULA ALTUCHER
I like Claudia's quote, and it obviously applies to men and non binary genders also. It applies to everyone. No more dumbing ourselves down for the sake of politeness. There world is filled with important issues, and every day is an opportunity to contribute something beyond ourselves.
Check out Jason Silva on the concept. Here's one of my favorites:
That juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated ideas was something we used to get going really strong in the Purple Sky House.
I love living with folks who think differently than me. Of course it's super intimidating at times. Inevitably there is some amount of drama and conflict . But I recently realized all of my best insights have come from trying on so many different lenses of perspective over the years, for the sake of, well, you know the proverb: walking a mile in the shoes of another.
I reflect on so many conversations from that time, and I do Idea smooshing with them. (I recently found out there's another person on this planet who uses the term idea smooshing: Emilie Wapnick!)
Me: "Why 1989?"
Katie: Because that's the year she was born.
Me: "Taylor Swift was born in 1989? You mean she's only my brother's age?"
Elizabeth: "I know eh? She's so young and so super successful!"
Katie: "Well she was writing hit songs when she was 14. What were you doing when you were 14? I don't remember what I was doing when I was 14, but.. it wasn't that."
What was I doing when I was 14...?
Oh yeah. I was obsessed the stock market. (And teenagery stuff of course: ripping around with my friends on our bicycles, climbing up onto the roofs of buildings, being a general nuisance) But I loved ROB magazine. I had a subscription to Canadian Business. I was enamored with the idea of becoming a high powered trading executive. Buying! Selling! Wearing fancy suits and driving fancy cars....
Sometimes I wonder what happened to that girl who was so enthralled with becoming an investment banker. Maybe I'll write that story someday. Today is not that day. You can probably approximate more or less how it all unraveled anyhow.
So in my teenagerdom I was gripped with why you'd get these data correlations. Why would seahorse populations rise and fall in unison with Suncor stocks?
Then one day a few months ago, I was doing a workout on my dock & I had an epiphany. It's simply emergent phenomena from white noise. There aren't any correlations, it's just that when you iterate anything to infinity (like Elizabeth does) it stops making any sense at all! but then suddenly it matches up really well with something else... It's still just boring old data, but suddenly it can be presented in a way that is hilariously funny:
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| heyyyyy what if there was a game layer on top of the world filled with inside jokes for smart people? ...what if it was so much fun that everyone wanted to play and suddenly they started using thier brains to make Planet Earth a better place while being jovial and having a really great time together...? |
mmmmmkay. Game Layer another day. The point of this all is that 3 heads are better than one.
Because, not only are you an Idea Broadcaster,
you are also a Signal Booster.
You and your friends are Idea Transmitters!!!
When you learn together your learning is enhanced!
When you share together your message is amplified!
Right about Meow, Nietzsche Cat would step in and remind you
that it is actually your civic duty
(you have an obligation to your society, your world)
to smarten up, & ensure that the *best* ideas (one might refer to these as the "Ubermensch")
are getting propagated.
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| That Nietzsche. She was one clever cat. |
Here's another Jason Silva if you are still lusting after some unique thoughts to tantalize your brain:
