Moving video and pictures from a Android phone to a USB stick and back

One of the scenarios I hear from people frequently is regarding their phones storage filling up. The phone call or discussion goes something like this:

They are getting messages from the phone that they can no longer take any photos because there is no storage space left… Usually at this point there is also a message suggesting that they pay for more online storage as well.

These two messages totally confuse the issue for most people who are not technically savvy. If they buy more online storage, the problem on the phone seems to go away for only short amount of time and then there is another message asking them to upgrade.

So my purpose in this article and accompanying video is to attempt to untangle this mess of running out of room on the phone for photos.

First off let's make clear what online storage is and why the phone is using it. When you take a photograph with your phone it is stored in two places. 

1. Inside your phone as you would expect, and this does take up physical storage space. 
   
   
2. The phone also sends a copy of the photograph to online storage. So you have a backup of the photograph. 

Great, except unless you're paying extra the amount of photos which can be stored online is rather limited. So you start getting messages about running low on storage pretty quickly after sitting up your new phone.

This behaviour of automatically backing up photographs is pretty much the default configuration for phones now days. Some phones however are configured a little bit differently and they will not display this message about running low on storage until both the online storage and the phones physical built in storage are full. If this is the situation a phone is in then it's a real mess because usually the phone cannot do software updates since there is no room to actually put the update.

So what do you do?

Answer: Transfer your photos from the phone's physical memory to another device, usually a USB memory stick or an external hard drive, for safekeeping. This does mean that you won't be able to look at all your photos on your phone, but because you now have the photos stored somewhere else you can use other devices to look at them. And if you really want to you can transfer them back to the phone at any time.

The video goes into greater detail of the transfer process but here in brief are the steps, just so you get some idea of what is going on and how to do it. These steps are specific for the Android Operating system for phones. With iPhones the procedure is considerably different. If I can get my hands on a current iPhone I will make a video and article for those as well.

Before proceeding… Phones and anything related to the Internet changes frequently. It is quite possible that the procedures outlined below no longer match your phone. These instructions are specifically geared toward android-based operating system phones and tablets. Use them at your own risk. When in doubt Do Not guess. Take your device to a professional who can provide specific guidance.

1. Buy a USB memory stick with a Type "C" plug as shown in the picture below. The USB stick will connect to your phone using the same connection as the one used for charging. If the phone does not have this style of USB connector take the phone to the store when you are purchasing the USB stick and see if you can get a compatible USB stick or an adapter. (In the video I recommend a USB stick with at least 32 gigabytes (GB) of storage. But after thinking about it if you can get 64 GB that would be preferable. Pictures and videos can be quite large now days.)
   
   

   

   A suitable USB stick with a "Type C" connection on the end.
   This represents 90% of all new cell phones. 
   
   

2. Plug the USB stick into the phone. If you get a message indicating that the stick must be "formatted", click "yes" to proceed. This will only occur the first time you use the stick and may not occur at all.
   
    Be aware though that this formatting process will erase anything previously put on the USB stick. So when in doubt always use a empty stick. 
   
   However once the initial format is complete the next time you use the same stick the phone will not go through this process and you can add more photos to a partially filled stick.
   
   

Then Something Marvellously Positive Happened...

Sometimes, just sometimes, something happens that catches you off guard and make your day. As though the world was saying to you "Hey, here's a surprise, if you're quick enough to notice it." and in this situation it was a friend of mine would recently become a grandfather telling me about the child's name. It wasn't the name that caught my eye, it was the expression on his face. Absolute and complete joy!

I swear the guy lost 20 years in a split second and it was astounding to see this just instantaneously happen. To know that this was a regular at the end around the world millions of times a day doesn't matter. Nothing could discount this experience. I don't even know if he realized intellectually just how much joy he was feeling, and I guess it doesn't matter.

So the next time someone tells you or expresses an opinion that nothing good ever happens in the modern world or that everything is negative I want you to think about this short little post and video. It reminds us all that good things are constantly happening. We must however be open to listening for them. They are there, taking a multitude of forms, some short some long.
 

Hypothetical site, not real.

Can you imagine if there was an online service similar to Facebook but focused on posting positive or inspirational stories and events. That would be pretty cool. There probably is, somewhere on the vast Internet and if not, which is something I find highly unlikely, we must find out why. Maybe it's just the simple fact that we are conditioned on an evolutionary level to look for negative things first. It is better to suspect that there might be something hiding in the bush, then not be aware of it in the first place. Regardless however, such a service putting a positive angle on events would be a welcome and needed commodity. ("Commodity" is not the word I would use, but it is the word that came to mind as I write this text.)

In the video below, it is easy to see how pleasantly I was blown away by my friends expression as he told me about his new relative. I wish I had been able to get a photograph of his face. I am really not understating it when I say that he became 20 years younger. These really are the things we need to retrain our modern brains to pay attention to. That is to look for positive experiences, rather than the default negative.

 In the past I know that various people and companies have tried to start "Good News Networks" and that it is always been an uphill battle. I think the idea would be much easier to address if one would start small. That is pay attention to the small things that occur in life, then progressed slowly, up the ladder until you can start something like a positive stories network, or organization with the same goals in mind. The modern person has been conditioned, not to look for the uplifting things and therefore we have many negative behaviours to deal with and resolve before we can tackle the big projects. However as any of my readers know, I am an optimist and I keep seeing the beauty and life intermingled with a little bit of magic.

Feel free to start a competition with your friends to see who can come up with the most positive experience of the week. It may sound a little corny, but you never know, such a simple start may ultimately lead to a big idea.

So there you have it, my retelling of a short little experience which happened to me. It might be in short but it sure wasn't insignificant for either the grandfather or myself. Things are always happening in the world and it is not always one-sided.

Have a great day Patrick

** NOTE: The picture "Welcome to Good News" is from the service Ideogram AI.  As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public.  However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.

The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.

 

How has the quality of "News" being reported changed over the years?

I think everyone will agree, in 2026, the average person now has access to information regarding what is going on in the world much more readily than in times past. Indeed, people now have what they might consider to be too many sources of information.

How has this affected our perception of the world? Personally to me, I think the individual is now put in the unenviable position of being the "Chief Editor" of the articles and information that come across their virtual desk. I remember when I was very young news would come from a few well-respected sources, Walter Cronkite, comes to mind as well as, in Canada CBC news. Which I still listen to today. It seems to me that the coverage of the events in the media has also drastically changed. I love detailed articles be they visual in nature or in print or newscast. Have you noticed that often when an event is being reported the most important details about the story which would help you put it into proper context are missing in the report?--I have. You can't always put this lack of information down to withholding information because it might affect some aspect of the story. The media needs to get back to much deeper coverage in order to educate the listener.

What constitutes as news has also dramatically changed, I think what is going on is because we have now switched from a information content based driven media system, to a newsroom system that must put out regular snippets, the quality of the information has gone way down. Indeed what now qualifies as newsworthy is sometimes completely underwhelming.

However there is still plenty of excellent reporting and dialogue going on in the media at large. It must be sought out however and supported. As far as the person receiving the news goes they must also not expect everything to be quickly understood. Some topics take research and that means effort on the part of the audience which of course takes time. This has an excellent side effect in that it helps keep a community well informed and engaged with each other. This is something I think we need to get back to.

I am currently considering several bigger and more in depth articles for the blog as opposed to the short little snippets. The longer more in depth articles however take time and usually involve an accompanying video. For now, however I just want you to consider ways to deepen your understanding of what is going on in the world by seeking out information and news resources that go beyond the three minute podcast.

Have a great day everyone and stay tuned.
Patrick

** NOTE: The picture displayed at the top of this article is from the service Ideogram AI.  As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public.  However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.

The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.

Where Will Your Magic Moment Be Today?

 

Somewhere, in the next 24 hours you will experience something positive. 

It will be amongst a flurry of other activity. The challenge will be to notice it.

We are also busy with activities and obligations, while at the same time, being not so subtly, attuned to the negative things that we frequently don't notice small moments of enlightening pleasant events. Now evolutionarily the human species is more attuned to the negative things. After all if you were in the wild you would want to be aware of that line hiding in the bush. Trouble is that advertisers and other influencers have learned to manipulate this trait and the things have gotten out of hand. We are absolutely bombarded with the darker side of life so much so that it takes some effort to see the more positive things out there. I promise you however they are there. Small little dots of pleasantness or calmness scattered about.

Make it a goal today to notice these little moments of uplifting insight. They may be very short, but don't discount them. Indeed, add them up and see what the average amount of daily positive insights there are. To this over a week and I'll bet you will be surprised.

One of the things that everyone has to deal with now days which is unique to our generation and those coming after us, is information is coming at us and an incredible rate. Everything is delivered to us almost instantaneously now. We don't even have to type in a query on a keyboard anymore, you can just ask the question directly and for the most part you get an answer. I find that amazing personally on one level, because I see the potential of this technology, however I wonder on average how this technology is used every day. It is used to uplift, or is it used to depress? Give me a moment, I am going to run off and ask "Gemini" this question right now. The question I posed and the answer will be posted immediately below this text.

The question: "Are there any statistics on whether questions posed to Artificially Intelligent services like yourself or chatGPT are of a negative nature versus a positive query?"

Google Gemini produced quite a response, a mini report on the subject. 

As always take everything produced by an AI system with scepticism. I have not verified any of the information contained in the report. Use at your own risk.

Having said that, it does appear to ring true to me. One thing I take from this output is questions to such systems I won't be as "flowery" in my queries.

 Google Gemini's response begins now:

The question of whether users are "nice" or "mean" to AI is a significant area of study for researchers. While there is no single, real-time "dashboard" for all AI queries, several large-scale studies and dataset analyses provide a clear picture of user behavior.

 

Generally, the data suggests that most interactions are neutral and task-oriented, but a small, vocal minority of users engages in highly emotional or "negative" querying.

1. The Majority: Neutral and Utility-Driven

Most users treat AI as a tool rather than a social companion. Analysis of public datasets like ShareGPT and WildChat (which contains over 1 million real-world interaction logs) reveals that the vast majority of prompts are:

●     Informational: Fact-checking or asking for explanations.

●     Productive: Writing code, emails, or summaries.

●     Creative: Generating stories or brainstorming.

A 2025 study by OpenAI on "affective use" found that while users do occasionally personify AI, the majority of users engage in relatively neutral ways. The emotional or negative queries typically come from a "tail set" of power users who use the AI for more personal or experimental reasons.

2. The "Politeness" Statistics

Interestingly, there is a distinct divide in how people frame their prompts. Some users include "please" and "thank you," while others use blunt commands.

●     The Accuracy Paradox: A recent study from Pennsylvania State University (2025) titled "Mind Your Tone" found that rude or blunt prompts actually resulted in higher accuracy (84.8%) compared to "very polite" prompts (80.8%).

●     Why? Researchers suggest that polite language often adds "linguistic noise" or "redundancy" that can distract the model from the core instruction. Direct, imperative commands (e.g., "Solve this.") provide a cleaner signal to the AI.

3. Negative vs. Positive sentiment

When researchers perform sentiment analysis on user prompts, they typically find the following distribution:

Sentiment Type	Characteristics	Estimated Prevalence
Neutral	Fact-based, coding, "how-to" instructions.	70% – 85%
Positive/Polite	Including "please," "thank you," or "good job."	10% – 15%
Negative/Hostile	Aggressive commands, testing "jailbreaks," or venting.	5% – 10%

4. Sentiment Mirroring

A phenomenon called sentiment propagation is often observed in AI interactions. If you are negative or aggressive, the AI may inadvertently mirror that tone (though safety filters now "soften" extreme emotions).

 

●     Positive Prompts: Tend to increase the "verbosity" (length) of the response.

●     Negative Prompts: Often lead to a decline in factual accuracy (up to 8.4%in some tests) because the model may shift toward more speculative or defensive language.

Summary of Trends

●     The "Venting" Factor: A small percentage of users use AI specifically to vent frustrations they wouldn't say to a human.

●     The "Test" Factor: Many negative queries are not "mean" in intent but are "adversarial"—users trying to trick the AI into saying something offensive to see where the boundaries are.

●     The "Directness" Shift: As users become more "AI-literate," the use of social pleasantries like "please" is decreasing in favor of efficient, direct prompting.

 End of Google Gemini's response.

 

Now let's get back to the topic at hand and that is being aware of the positive events that occur every day in your life and mine. Remember to when you're speaking with people to give them the benefit of the doubt and not to check everything so personally. If need be step out of your comfort zone for a moment and look at at the bigger picture. Even if your Magic moment isn't immediately apparent stepping back from an event often gives you some insights which can allow you time to mold your emotions and indeed see the magic which may be just around the corner.

As you can tell, this is how I tend to approach every day. Knowing that somewhere in the next 24 hours there will be something unexpectedly pleasant. Maybe very brief in duration, but it will be there.

Have a great day and don't forget to keep looking. Maybe make a journal of the events you are now noticing which you might otherwise have ignored. You may be very surprised. Let me know in the comments.
.
Patrick

A Midwinter Season Of Procrastination

 Time to talk about this notable topic, "Procrastination". I said, in a very short February 2023 post, that "It had reared its ugly head". I can tell from the shortness of the article and the minimal amount of effort I put into the graphic that I must've been really out of sorts in this regard. Probably stalling on many fronts.

Here it is 2026 and the situation is back again, not as bad, but still annoying as hell. It's a good thing I wrote the original post because it does have some good points. For once I'm going to listen to myself. One of the things I'm going to recognize is that I have been keeping this blog going pretty regularly and it is doing quite well averaging around 7000 to almost 8000 visitors a month.

SIDE NOTE: Not bad for a blog that has issues with google's "smart phone spider", which is how they scan  everything today on the Internet. For those of you in the audience that art totally "geeky", a "spider"is simply a program that scans the Internet for new content. It does this by pretending to be a device, in this case a smart phone. When it gets to the site, the blogger server attempts to send it a smart phone compatible webpage and the process by which it does this by makes the Google spider think something fishy is going on so it doesn't like to add page to the Google index. Because of the way blogger is set up there is not much I can do about it. Fortunately, enough of my articles make it through however.

And now back to the topic at hand, procrastination. Where was I… As you can tell this is a very informal post as I just try to work through getting ready to get things done today. Rather than try to do everything my goal today is to focus on only one thing, if possible, because sometimes reality comes along and goes, "Nope. I'm going to fill up your plate."

One more side note. Unlike other websites, I never take anything off this site and so it has become a bit of a historical crucible with articles going way back to 2012.. So if you post a comment, it is here forever and apparently Blogger.com service on which this site depends it's doing quite well. So disciple be around for a long time I think. So while I'm working through my little boat of procrastination please feel free to use a new feature I added if you're using a laptop or tablet you will see at the top of every post a "Read a Random Post" button, feel free to use it is much as you like.

Anyway, I'm getting on with the rest of my day. Take care and their other items (articles) in the queue. So stay tuned for more.

Patrick

** NOTE: The picture displayed at the top of this article is from the service Ideogram AI.  As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public.  However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.

The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.

The shift to AI in content creation

 

Image created by  Ideogram AI 

AI has been a boom in content creation, there can be no doubt about that. The graphic at the top of this article was created in about five minutes using a service called Ideogram AI .  But just how far will this trend go. 

The field of AI is still very young and evolving rapidly. No one knows where it will go or whether it will hit a brick wall. My plan is to use it here and there but not over rely on it.  So the question becomes where will AI settle into the scheme of things.I very much enjoy creating graphics and video by hand. There is just something in the process that I find very fulfilling.

This is a very casual article and at this very moment it is more a thought sold the following text is likely to of old over the next few days. One of the things holding AI back is each huge power consumption. That simply is a problem that must be overcome. But it is easier said than done. The other thing is the fact that I have heard that when processing a request from a user, each work in their question is given to a separate CPU. It is no wonder there is so much power being utilized. Quantum computing may help for certain aspects but from one of heard this may be a very small specialized subset of queries and/or problems.

Perhaps a good starting point for this discussion is how do you use AI currently in your content creation. Myself it is currently with graphics and occasionally gaining insight into technical questions which are usually related to servers or the web. These types of questions tend to be those that are hard to use a traditional search phrase for because of their complexity. Chat GPT or Gemini in these cases give me insights start from and occasionally almost accidentally contained within their responses is the answer.

It is amusing to think how quickly I've gone from an attitude of "I feel guilty when I use AI, because it is cheating." to "Gee, this can be very handy when used properly." However one thing is for sure, some AI's are definitely better at certain aspects. I use mainly Chat GPT and Gemini and to pay for a subscription to Ideogram AI . The one thing I don't do however with AI is completely trust the answers. Much is been said about "AI hallucinations", and after taking a introductory course on brilliant.org I understand why these mechanisms sometimes fail in their answers. I worked with someone recently who on the other hand by the sounds of it completely trusts AI in their daily activities. They were rather shocked to find out that I don't. They use the phrase that caught me off guard in our discussions as well. "Oh, you did it that way… That was before you could use AI." They acted like everything before the creation of AI was somehow almost prehistory. Although AI has been worked on for many years and has gone through many starts and stops, it hasn't been around no functional state for too long

As I recall in the 70s there were great predictions that AI would be everywhere. As the euro went on a however and the 80s approached, many researchers thought it was an unobtainable goal. There were minor breakthroughs here and there but interest in artificial intelligence almost evaporated. Then of course as everyone knows not put too many years ago chat GPT exploded onto the scene. And now we find ourselves in a similar situation to the 1970s. Great prognostications on all sides of the debate.

In my mind however the question still remains, "To what degree will AI be used in content creation?" And of course this question can be expanded to other fields. Hopefully there will always be a human component in the equation. Humanity must not get to a point where we don't understand how the solutions are being achieved at. It's a little frightening to think that in some aspects we already don't know how things work. It is indeed critical that we strive to have a fundamental understanding because that also means that we can direct the ultimate goal of whatever the endeavour is.

Who knows there may be a Renaissance of the AI prehistory techniques. Much like there's been a revival in the use and enjoyment of vinyl records. Which is something I never saw coming. I really thought that vinyl records were going to stay as part of history. I really hated when I would get a brand-new record home only to find in a few weeks that there would be an inevitable "snap, crackle, pop" sound because some dust, despite all my best efforts, had invaded the grooves.

Anyway let me know what you think, and please watch this article as it is very likely to leave multiple over time.
Take care,
Patrick

** NOTE: The picture displayed at the top of this article is from the service Ideogram AI.  As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public.  However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.

The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.

 

Time before us

When it really hits home that there are a finite number of days to live, it is not only profound, it begs the question: "Was life worth it?".

I'll get to my answer in a moment, but boy do you start reevaluating everything in your life and surroundings from my totally different perspective. Considering things like:

• Should long multiyear projects be undertaken?
  
  
• Is it really worth buying that large big-ticket item?
  
  
• Since the end of life is now more than an abstract concept, each day becomes "a limited time event". How to spend that time wisely?

The list goes on from there, and the closer one examines it, the clearer it becomes that life is a pretty unusual state to be in. Or perhaps, to put it another way, the very act of considering the above questions, and being conscious about doing so is incredibly inspiring. There-I have just given you my answer to the question "What It's like Worth It?"-"Hell, Yes!" - The good and bad.

Perplexing, only I think the bad was just as important as the good parts of life. When considering the negative experience as a whole after the fact. By definition, you are not going to get anything positive out of the negative experience while you're in the middle of it, unless you literally stepped out of the experience for a moment to consider it from another viewpoint. It is all about taking stock of life; the whole experience. Not being a passive passenger but as engaged with life as much as you can be. That is my take away if I was asked to sum up my reading of existence and it would be a 10 😊😊.

I think it is very important, especially as we are now dealing with more and more technology that is impersonal and literally reformatting the social norm that everyone periodically take stock of their life and if you don't find it is worth it so far make changes to make it a worthwhile experience. These need not be huge changes. Often it starts with a slight mind set adjustment. Take a look at what your preceding to be true automatically. Is it negative or is it positive?. There are quite a few articles on this blog about this topic, I'll  link to a few here.

Funny how this article started out being about the limited number of days before us, meaning of course, "me" and is transformed itself into a short article on how to appreciate life. At least my approach to getting more from life and it is really pretty simple:

• Pay attention.
  
  
• Don't do things automatically.
  
  
• Change your routines regularly and then occasionally change that. Become irregular for a little while.
  
  
• If you are uncomfortable with the idea of "change" consider why that seems to be the case. Often it is based on a misconception about the change itself.

Okay that's it for this brief Saturday article. Have a good day and of course let me know what you think.
Patrick 

What Are the Origins of Enthusiasm?

 

Some people become enthusiastic regularly. While others just never reach thier "Ignition Point".

 

I have noticed this to be the case in my surroundings, but I think it's true of the wider world as well. Once again, it boils down to a few simple differences in general outlook and expectations of life.

Enthusiastic people are:

1. Curious. They want to know why something works a certain way. They desire a deeper understanding and are enthusiastic about the undertaking of learning.
   
   
2.  "Change" is one of their favourite words as well as an action. They innately understand that the world and their life changes frequently. Usually in subtle ways, but sometimes in overwhelming ways. The key is that they welcome and accept this fact.
   
   
3. It is innately understood that the personality and perhaps the very person will change throughout their lifetime. Remaining static and holding onto the old ways is not one of their goals. This point is one of the most important aspects of their character. It is understood that nothing is permanent. Everything about life is in flux.

Unenthusiastic people don't share the above-mentioned points.

There is a false belief that they will remain the same, throughout life. That their character as it is today, will always be. Furthermore they actively will avoid change. Sometimes they will put quite a bit of effort into staying static.

They prefer staying "Comfortable", within known boundaries. This means that they eventually will become very frustrated because things naturally change around them. Yet they will profess a desire to experience or acquire new things. This is a contradiction, you can't avail yourself the benefits of new things unless you come out of your boundaries.

The result of these two behaviors , "staying the same" and remaining "comfortable" means that they don't grow and will retreat into past memories while limiting the negatives they perceive in the modern world. I think this condition has been brought about by the simple fact that in today's world there is nothing that really forces the human being to go outside of their comfort zone. There is no need to hunt, or seek shelter. 100 years ago this was definitely not the case, a person had to avail themselves of opportunities if they wanted to survive.

So, the message is clear. If you are sincerely seeking enthusiasm in your life. You must embrace change and acknowledge that the person you believe you are today will not be the person up tomorrow. You may not the comfortable with change but in order to grow it is a necessary fact which must be undertaken. Do this and the enthusiasm for things in your life will begin to appear.

Have a great day everyone and of course take care.
Patrick

** NOTE: The picture displayed at the top of this article is from the service Ideogram AI.  As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public.  However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.

The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.

Differently Interacting with the Physical World

What I find most fascinating is how different people interact physically with the world. The subconscious decisions about where things are placed it's actually quite a study. I see these small automatic choices being made because I view my environment from the perspective of someone in a wheelchair.

Even trained staff who are more physically where than the average person fall into these automatic decisions; a cup get placed on a table within their comfortable physical range, which may or may not be useful to me. Of course I correct them when necessary, but I do find it fascinating and often watch the physical choices they make throughout their work day in regards to the placement of things. This is only scratching the surface though, it really gets one thinking about how people interact with their physical space around them and one may infer from such observations a fair bit about the person.

Original photo

Click photo download original untouched image
Hereby placed in the public domain by photographer Patrick Clark.
Photo taken on: 2015-08-07 2:50:25 pm
Camera model: Canon PowerShot SX120 IS

 

 I don't remember too much about this particular photo except it was a nice August day and I was wondering around Vancouver British Columbia. Something about the simplicity of the simplicity of the image just appealed to me. Feel free to download the full untouched photograph by clicking on the above image. 

 

Some people are deep thinkers who naturally taken a lot of information about their environment. You can see the wheels turning in their mind as they figure out how to best solve the problem. Whether that be comparing items when shopping or simply the placement of a cup on a table. They tend to be very creative in some of their solutions. It is marvellous to discuss with them almost any aspect of life. Of course occasionally these deep thinkers can overthink the situation aswell. They end up going for the most complicated answer only to realize that something simpler was the best solution to begin with.

Some people are efficiency experts. They tend to move through their environment a little more quickly and the placement of items may not be optimal for everyone or indeed themselves. But it is what is most effective for the moment to achieve the task at hand. As a rule I find they like to move in an orderly manner from one task to another, "A to B and then on to C". Once a pattern is established they tend to stick with it, even if it is not producing the optimal outcome. They don't readily tend to think as deeply unless something surprises them. They prefer a routine which allows them to achieve their daily tasks in a predictable manner. This does not mean they are not aware of their surroundings, they prefer however to get things done and then move on to the next task. This makes a lot of sense, in our busy multitasking world.

The last group tends to boggle my mind and I end up wondering how they make it through life. These people are pleasant but deal with things, for lack of a better phrase, "at arm's length". For every task they want a step-by-step breakdown of how to accomplish it. They do this not in order to understand the situation but rather to avoid thinking about it. They tend to be very regimented in any given situation and are seemingly oblivious to nuances. Once again these are very nice people but you will never have an in-depth conversation. They just don't work on that level. One gets the feeling that they would prefer to have a step-by-step manual for life. People like this fascinate me because their approach to life is so different than mine, bordering on alien.

When scientists gets to the stage where can actually decode messages in the human brain sufficiently to construct the individual minds reality I think we are in for a big surprise. I don't think human minds process reality as uniformly as we are given to believe. That is I think the human experience is very different between people. I hope I live to see this because it will force a reevaluation of not only social norms but deeper considerations. Hopefully this will have the effect of expanding understanding and inclusion.

From the basics of how we individually interact with the physical world and our own environments, to deep considerations of society and the world as a whole. I didn't expect this short little article to go down such a rabbit whole. If you've never considered such questions spend the next week or so observing how different friends and people interact with their environment. Or just consider how you personally interact with it.

For me this way of looking at things and how people work with their world allows me to custom fit my reactions to each individual person and when I can I try to step into their shoes and consider the world from their perspective. It sure makes one appreciate the diversity of life and experience.

Have a great day! 
Patrick

This seems a fitting question to answer for the first article of 2026 👀

 One of the questions I hear often regarding this blog is, "Where do you get the ideas to write about on your website [blog]?"

This seems a fitting question to answer for the first article of 2026.

The inspiration for ideas comes from the fact that I keep not only my mind open, but I'm also very aware of my environment as a whole. One's environment is always changing, people come and go, and if you look closely can pay attention new things are always happening. One has to take an active role in this process though. You cannot just wait for it to come to you. Be ready to embrace change of all kinds. In brief that is how I come up with new articles. I may be talking to someone, or hear something, or just a flash of insight. I never really know where and how the motivation for a post on this website will appear.

Let me stress that you have to be active in being open to new ideas and mixing things up a bit. By that I mean not being too comfortable with your current environment. If you find yourself being bored and that is a really good indication that you have to shake up your situation. You cannot wait for an event to come to you. Chase an idea and get used to doing this on a regular basis. The idea may or may not pan out but it is the process that is most important. The process of being aware of your surroundings and keeping yourself open to experiences will result in ideas and insights becoming part of your daily life.

So, to summarize:

1.  Actively seek change.
2. You must put energy and effort into the undertaking. It will not come to you without effort.
3. Get comfortable with the idea of short-term discomfort. This is required when exploring a new frontier as in an idea or activity.

 I created this poster to remind myself that "Change and Challenge" are opportunities. You can download a printable copy or order a full poster:. 

 

Click the picture to download a printable
version on your computer.

 

Please feel free to download and print out the image if it inspires you. If you would like a unique hard copy version of this printed on steel as a poster it can now be purchased at "Displate" in several sizes. Full disclosure, I do receive a percentage of every sale.   

Click here to view all  posters available on my Displate page  

 

Things are changing... As they always do. 

We live in an unusual period of history, in that unlike previous generations, for the most part we don't have to put in any energy to find a basic answer to our everyday questions. All that needs to be done is ask the local virtual assistant and the answer is provided. On one hand this is fantastic, everyone has access to a knowledge bank of information, and even though it may not be totally accurate it gives us the ability to investigate further. The initial work of figuring out how to attack a problem has been done.

Unfortunately this has a downside in that the skills we need for introspection and understanding of ourselves have rapidly declined and these are the very skills necessary when discovering new ideas to explore. Because it is in the exploration that you discover not only how to find an answer, you discover something about yourself along the way.

I often wonder if I'd be born in the 1990s as opposed to 1959 whether I would have my own investigative skills developed. For all of my teenager years research of all kinds was done manually. One had to go to a source of knowledge, be at the library, or an authoritative organization and bring all the pieces together to make a hypothesis. I am very grateful to have been born it at this transition period in that I can avail myself of both systems. 

How do you come up with your own inspiration? Is it a different approach than mine? Let me know in the comments.

May we all have an excellent 2026!

Of course more articles are on the way.
Sincerely Patrick Clark

 

** NOTE: The picture displayed at the top of this article is from the service Ideogram AI.  As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public.  However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.

The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.