Change May Bring Discomfort But...

 ...It Is Guaranteed to show you something positive you didn't expect.

It is always wise to remember that no matter who you are and how observant you are there will be many times in the life where one becomes, quite accidentally, a little too comfortable.

That is, in the absence of an external force acting on the human being, we have a tendency to stop our own evolution by becoming a little too comfortable with whatever the current situation is. This stops most people from developing further. That is until something comes along and shakes them up a bit so that they continue on the road of life.

Everyone falls into this trap many times over a human being's admittedly short lifespan. When people become content for a long period of time they inevitably stop evolving. Which  is a shame, because that is the very time to undertake something new and shake up the tree. To be clear I don't mean you have to do this every day, but I do you mean that it should be frequent enough that you are keenly aware of the benefits. And what might the benefits be you ask?… Far too many to mention, and for each person the list is unique. I can tell you however that it keeps you engaged with the very process of life. Allowing you to notice things you might otherwise have not seen. I bet you as a matter of fact that when you see something new especially if it's unexpected, there is always something deep within that feels a little uncomfortable. That feeling of being "uncomfortable" is an extremely important sign because it means that you are looking at an opportunity to change. You may not like what you perceive as the change, and indeed there may be a fair bit of resistance to the new concepts you are confronted with, but I promise in the end you will gain more than you lose. Usually in ways that are imperceptible to other people. But you know what has occurred.

Click picture to view / download full
resolution printable copy.

This artwork is hereby placed in the
public domain and is based upon material
in the public domain. Patrick Clark

So please don't allow yourself to become overly comfortable or complacent. You should always try to shake each day up a little bit. Because the only meaningful constant in one's life is "change itself".

 So go out and do something you were not quite expecting today. Shake up the day!

Feel free to let me know in the comments if you had any Eureka moments 😉

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.

 

 

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

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.

 

The Spirit of Joy

Many people know I am an agnostic, and yet I very much enjoy the season of Christmas and New Year's. This is due to a simple fact, it is one of the few times in the North American calendar during the year where people are encouraged to feel "Joy" in their religious beliefs. It occurred to me, that it is equally valid to give oneself permission to feel joy for the sake of being happy in itself.Here's a spontaneous idea… Click the search button below to do a search on the word "joy" right now and see what comes up. We both could be surprised 😃. There is no trickery here, it's just a simple search on a single word. Indeed the results will probably change over time.

There are so many things going on in the world that are negative or complex. So regardless of how you want to frame it take the season of joy at face value. Put down the negativity for a while and allow yourself to smile and maybe even feel wonderful. Approach everything from a slightly younger perspective, being curious and playful. North American society has given you permission to do so during this time of year so take society up on that offer.

My apartment has twinkling lights and Christmas music playing. The day after Labor Day, I went out and did a impulse buy, an illuminated two thirds of a meter tall Christmas elf because it was something that I knew the child in me would go crazy for and indeed it did. I also purchased, a Santa's Workshop figurine pictured below (unfortunately the illuminated elf is very difficult to get a clear photograph of. If I ever manage to get one I will of course update this little article.) 

Santa's Christmas Village by Spode.
With battery-powered LED illumination.

Remember the magic and joy you felt anticipating a new toy at Christmas?… Looking at the present under the tree, and wondering which one of them might be the one. There is nothing stopping you from rekindling that glorious feeling today or at any time of the year but during the festive season one can really get into the spirit of things. I have spent the last two weeks drawing pictures and making Christmas screensavers for the computers and rooms in my facility, which happens to be an assisted living building. The funny thing I noticed right away was that when I did something in the spirit of the season, somebody else added their own declaration or ornament. It's contagious, and it's a positive contagion something that helps bring out the best in people. Have you ever made a paper snowflake out of a sheet of plain old stationary? It can be glorious fun! It does not matter if it looks great. The only thing that matters is if you enjoy it in such a way that it brightens your day.

If for whatever reason you can't be joyous right now then put it off until the opportunity presents itself. When I was about 14 years old I had to go into the hospital over the Christmas season and for much of that year. When I finally got out in July my parents held Christmas all over again. Yes we had Christmas in July! And it was spectacular. My young mind discovered that it's not "the when" that matters, it's giving yourself permission to indulge in play and a smile.

As I write this this short article, I keep getting inspired. What if you gave your self permission to at some point in the day to play? This could be very liberating… For it to work one would not worry about rules or a schedule. You would just play when ever the opportunity or idea occurred to you. What defines "play" would be entirely up the individual. Just thinking about it inspires me.

I must begin again to pay attention to how young people play. Not just learn what they are doing, but to discover what atmosphere and mental state they put themselves into. I am willing to bet that for most people as they grow up, they lose touch with some of the lessons learned in childhood. I vividly remember mom and dad telling us on weekends to go out and play, the exact wording was "Time for you to get out of the house." This wasn't said in a negative way. It was just the way our weekends went. Kids were self-sufficient to a larger extent back in the 70s and 60s… At least that is how I remember it. We would go out for a few hours and perhaps wonder back in for lunch, and that was conditional on the fact that we might be too involved in our playing to worry about something as mundane as eating 😀. I definitely remember feeling like the comic strip character Dennis the Menace.

Yes, by all means dear reader, set up some time play. For just a little while put down all other concerns. This will definitely encourage joy once again.

That's it for this very short post. Here's wishing you all the joy and happiness in the world, which you can dream up any time!

Take care Patrick

Creativity And the Unexpected

 

The unexpected is the catalyst for creativity.

I find it very strange, that I keep running into people who emphatically tell me they don't like change-they like routine. These aren't elderly people either, their ages run the gamut. If this article has one point, it is that I believe the unexpected is it very necessary component of a full life. 

The best creativity comes about when something unanticipated is thrown into the mix. Which can result in an "Aha!" moment. Indeed, I think the whole concept of the unexpected is underappreciated. Some people will avoid the uncertain situations at all cost. This is the wrong way to approach life. One needs to embrace the opportunity that potentially comes from the unexpected. From the discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm Röntgen to the creation of WD-40   Which actually stands for "Water Displacement formula 40" lubricant, the "unanticipated"has always played a role in the creative process. (For an in-depth article in the creation of WD-40, see this wonderful article "Who Invented WD-40?" on the "Today I Found Out" website.)

Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen looking into a fluoroscope (X-ray
screen) placed in front of a man's body and seeing
the ribs and the bones of the arm. 
Chromolithograph Date:1896/1900

Licence: NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Source: Wellcome Collection.

Wilhelm Roentgen's Realization of the practical application of x-rays wasn't the focus of his 1895 experiments. However, when he saw that they could permeate solid matter and cause a chemically treated paper to fluoresce, it was definitely an "Aha!" moment. His mind was open to unexpected ideas.

 Have you ever had an idea not work out, but that very failure inspires you in a new way to solve the problem?

An unexpected situation can have the benefit of shaking you off of a limited train of thought, that is by injecting something new into your experience . In computer science especially when generating random numbers, there is the concept of a "seed value" it is a random number you pick to start the program going and it can dramatically alter the results you get. This is not the part of the day I where you ask a question this is on a more fundamental level that affects how the program initially approaches the problem. This would be equivalent to giving it something unexpected. Therefore the results are completely different.

So whether it be random numbers or an unexpected situation the influence of the unpredictable cannot be understated. I would go farther and argue that it is necessary to keep an unpredictable component in your life just so that one does not suck. I once had a friend who was great for doing this,"being random", he would burst through my door at all times of the day or night with some of the craziest ideas or adventures. Everything normal would occasionally go right out the door and I had more adventures and meant more unique people than I would've ever imagined if this person had not been part of my life. Sadly, they passed away a long time ago, but I still remember the lessons learned. Which can be summarized as follows:

"Be thankful for the unexpected. This is where life grows."

Having said this however underscores just how important the "unexpected and surprising" is. Without them it can be difficult to go beyond your boundaries. One tends to stay with what they know and you can't just say "Okay The Unknown, surprised me was something new."Probably because you can't anticipate what is outside of your own experience. The random conditions have to combine in order to create the unanticipated. One might be able to engineer part of but there always must be a random component.

I have spent the last few days wandering the Internet and books in order to add some unique items to this article. Things that would really underscore the usefulness of the unexpected.

At the beginning of this article I mentioned WD-40. It is without a doubt one of the most well-known products for, lubricating, cleaning, and rust removal. With an endless list of uses. (See the WD-40 Blog.) The thing is though that is not why it was created. It was supposed to be a water repellent used on the Atlas rockets to reduce rust while they sat in their silos. It was a accidental discovery about the lubricating aspect and fortunately the developers realize this. Again the unexpected played a role. While I was reading up on the history I decided to ask my local AI software to draw me a picture. I told it to "Draw a can of WD-40 in the style of Atlas rocket." What it came up with was totally unexpected.

Output from an AI when asked to combine an
Atlas rocket with a can of WD-40.

Image created using Vector FX 1.0  software 
by Distinct AI.

 
A few weeks ago I bought myself a 360° camera. The device captures everything around you and converted into an MP4 video file.See the companion YouTube video for several examples of the 360 camera in use. There's also 15 second long example video on this post.

If you are unfamiliar with this type of camera here is a very short, 15 second video clip. It should be noted that the camera uses two lenses mounted on either side of the device and I am not moving the camera at all. The panning affect is done with software. It's a little crude I am still learning, but you will get the idea.

The 360 camera used in the clip and longer video.
Insta 360 X4

  

Here is the companion video to this article. There are a few much longer clips from the new 360 camera. What became immediately clear to me in reviewing the footage was how much is missed as one proceeds through their day. I was surprised by how much was going on that I was completely unaware of. This is the "unexpected" again and it gives my creativity a real boost.

The lesson to be learned here it is then, when you noticed your creativity beginning to dry up start in on something new. Whether that be learning a new skill or exploring some terrain. Also be prepared to go back and reevaluate your daily life, there are most likely many things that you just haven't noticed. Being in the moment can be great for focusing and and calming oneself down, but don't get in the habit of defaulting to a particular mode of living life. Experience in the world are very diverse. Indulge in the mysterious and unexpected opportunities they afford.

Take care and as always feel free to leave comments.

Patrick

When Nothing Matters… Find Something That Does.

Imagine, that you are in the life situation where all your basic needs are met. All of the following items are optional, work, buying groceries, medical care, a place to live and money to spend. From my point of view, 99% of the people on earth would be overjoyed to have such a situation. When you think about it it would be the solution to most of life's problems. You would be absolutely free to do what ever you wanted, and let your creativity fly!… 

But what if a person was born into this situation? I have met people recently who are in this exact situation, and to be clear these are bright people, but they seem lost. These are adults in the ranges of 27 to their early 30s, who at the slightest problem will blow it out of proportion and are unable to conceive of the way to begin to address the issue. They just don't know where to start. They have no faith in themselves and there is a tendency to panic immediately. With all the free time available to them instead of taking advantage of the multitude of opportunities out in the real world they have become reclusive and overthink everything. I find myself saying to people in this situation:. "Just start. Don't try to be perfect in your analysis of the issue. Just begin with what you think might work. If it doesn't, try a different approach."

Human beings I fervently believe, need legitimate challenges and problems. To be clear, this is not a negative. By overcoming and going through the process of understanding what works for oneself the person inevitably grows. For this to work however, one must have some procedure for dissecting and understanding parts of the issue. This comes usually early in life dealing with small problems and slowly over time tackling bigger ones. If it all occurs at the correct time the individual is not even aware they are learning the skills to cope with life's "curve balls". People who have to learn these lessons later in life tend to be very resistant because it does take effort and getting used to coming out of one's comfort zone. To some degree everyone has to learn to be somewhat comfortable with being uncomfortable. That is not adverse to challenge. While I was thinking about this the simple statement in the poster below occurred to me "To Benefit From Challenge, Is The Meaning of Life."...

 

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 the versions available on my Displate page 

... You may have discovered though that depending on the person, as they get older their resistance to breaking routines becomes entrenched. This is the situation I find these people in. To be honest it has driven me to my own distraction, as the same issues come up over, and over again. It really makes me appreciate what my parents and others in my early life did. They made sure I faced challenges. Most of them want planned, I think my parents just really resisted the urge to over protect me. I am not perfect and of course have many foibles but being fearful of challenge is not one of them. To be honest I actually like a good bit of difficulty now and then thrown at me. Nothing reminds you you are still alive and engage with the world and an unexpected issue you must resolve! 😀.

I am reminded of one of the early "Matrix" movies, in which everyone is living in a simulated life, here the protagonist Nero, asks (paraphrasing) "Wy did you make the simulation, so dystopian, why not make it pleasant?" The answer he receives is that without challenge people just give up. -If you haven't seen the movies by the way they are well worth the watch. I believe they are available on YouTube as a rental.

If you have difficulties in your life, try to reframe them, they may not all be problems, you may get some benefit from dealing with issues. People are always learning, but not always aware of what they are learning. Just understanding that can change your outlook. Reality is not perfect and that's probably a good thing because it always means there's an opportunity and a chance to grow.

For all the negativity that the words Problems, and Challenges receive we must all remember that without a problem, in the first place people would not be inspired to create a solution. It is frequently that very process which results in positive discoveries. Human race initially needed to find a way to generate heat to avoid freezing to death and that resulted in the understanding of fire and which way down the road led to the steam engine and the industrial revolution. So make sure something in your life matters and don't take anything for granted. Life goes in one direction and it cannot be rewound. 

If you find yourself in a situation where "Nothing Matters" and it is time to extend your boundaries and explore a little of your unknown. But to get out there and continue to sample whatever you find. Below is the companion video for this article.

This article was written in pieces over a lengthy amount of time so I apologize for it being a bit of a patchwork but I think the general idea still comes through. If there are any typos in the text I will address them shortly but I am bound and determined to get this post out today! 😄

I am so in several thankful to have the life I have had and continue to have.

Feel free to leave a comment and have a great day.

Patrick

Sorry, You Must Adapt to the Machine

This article has been written over a few weeks, and therefore has changed direction slightly from beginning to end. The core of the article still remains intact and he is very much about people losing the ability to be flexible and insightful in their thought and actions. Choosing instead in many cases to go for the quick fix even though it misses a lot of the detail and depth. It doesn't matter what the topic of discussion is about people just want the answer quickly.

Personally, I love understanding the details and find it rather sad that we are going through this, faster, shallower time. From my perspective it is working through the details to gain greater understanding where a person really grows. It is not enough to know the answer, to really benefit one must understand how the answer was arrived at. The current buzz phrase is "Artificial Intelligence" and I have seen article after article praising it in this application or that application. Let us be clear, even if A.I. has some spectacular uses, people must not forget how to understand and ultimately learn so that indeed you can benefit the most from the use of artificial intelligence. It is not just the answer that matters, it is the details that make up the answer.

Take for example the photo at the top of this article: at first glance it is an old rusting truck but there are many other details contained within the photo that tell the story. Depending on your interpretation of the image the story can be dramatically different but as you examine all of the items and aspects your understanding will grow. A side note to this photo is it was taken many years ago but my father. He had a habit of just taking a photo of something that caught his eye and I think this is one of those cases. I came across it in a collection of old slides about 20 years ago when I had the presence of mind to scan it. We can be fairly certain that the photograph was taken in Canada and that's about all I know. Still something about it caught my father's attention… We will never know what it was… Perhaps the time of day the colours and shadows in the image. In the next few days I will post to this article the full size original scan. For now though consider the thought that went into not only the photograph but the actual creation of the vehicles depicted. There was absolutely no AI back then involved. The truck itself looks like it's from the 1950s which would mean that only be designs would be and calculated and drawn up. Think of the mental process that the people had and employed to make it all come together. It is truly inspiring to know that throughout history the human race has been able to repeatedly achieve remarkable things. Yes we still have to adapt… That is a good thing. There will be a time however when we have a choice in regards to artificial intelligence, however at this time...
 

Like it or not, we are still in an age where we must adapt to the machine.

 People are loosing their ability to adapt to new situations and they are doing so willingly.

In the last five years I have noticed a real degeneration in people's expectations.

• They are self-centred and usually quite extreme regardless of context.
  
  
• There appears to be a real lack of the amount of time or effort involved.
  
  
• There is an assumption that technology or someone else's work will take care of any aspect of their idea they don't want to address
  .
• They believe that using AI means that everything will be done perfectly.

Boy do I have news for them. More than ever, people need to improve their adaptability and social IQ. We are not living in a small cloistered community anymore. Unlike previous generations, all the benefits and issues are going to require people to be flexible and more aware. With greater achievement always comes greater responsibilities and it's not the other way around.

Society is going to have to begin to look at it entirely new paradigms. As I write this the USA is going through some very, very turbulent and destructive events. This is largely due to old attitudes and ways of perceiving the world. In a way this is the late 1960s all over again except that the upheaval is being caused by a very small group of old guard individuals.

These individuals are unwilling to adapt and what I see is that many people are being swayed emotionally to at least some of their ways of thinking. This is dangerous. The world is not what it was 100 years ago or even 50 years ago. You cannot go back because what you recall is a "simpler time" never existed. Every step in human history was and will be complicated and require the individuals of the society to be involved. When you invoke the idea of a simpler time you are just cherry picking the pleasant parts of the past.

This trend toward being more inflexible and one's attitude also has other side effects. If we approach one's lifestyle with such an attitude we may not only ignore danger signs but impact the quality of one's life as well. I mention this in the video when someone I know insists on drinking 11 cancel the pop per day and regardless of the health consequences. True that is an extreme situation but it is an extreme example worth mentioning because settler behaviours are occurring in society. People adopt a perception about the world and stick to it blindly. This is not a good way of getting the benefits from life and is ultimately extremely self limiting.

Anything worth doing well, takes time and this is the other component that I see people shying away from. Don't look for the quick fix. It doesn't exist. You must be involved in whatever endeavour you undertake and if it is a large event in your life by the time you are through it you will have changed. Usually this is a positive change because to encompass a great idea means you must understand things to a greater detail than you did when you started your endeavour. But again this takes time and a great deal of effort.

Don't assume that technology will come to the rescue and do all the things you don't want to do. You want to do as much as you can because this is how you broaden your horizons. Doing anything less leaves you at a risk of not understanding a part of your endeavour. It would be like learning only the rudimentary parts of a language and not understanding the subtleties involved in the phrasing which might lead you to some very unexpected results.

"For best results, be prepared to adapt to the machine, and in this case the machine is life itself."

Stay involved everyone. Stay flexible in your outlook and critically consider all that you hear and read.

Take care Patrick

The Exploration Afforded by Learning

This is most definitely going to be an opinion piece, but I just have to articulate how much joy I get out of real understanding. Or even not understanding and learning in the process that I have to open up another way of looking at things. It is a real joy, and in a strange way I like it when it is most difficult.

It is not the challenge that drives me, it is knowing at the end of the day I will be a little different and I won't be able to say what that difference is until I get there. There is also a distinct feeling of building something. Not in the physical sense but in the sense of growth. The potential however for creating something real down the road based on the knowledge I have gained is most certainly there however. The barn door has just got a little more open 😀.

When I was younger the prevailing perception of getting older was that you slow down. Imagine my surprise then in the present day when I have discovered that things get faster and although sometimes I can't keep up I enjoyed the chase. Like "Wile E. Coyote" chasing after the Road Runner.

Obviously due to my current age, 65, I learned the skill of manually gaining knowledge a very long time ago. So it is more than challenging for me to understand the thinking and perceptions inherent in a "new model year brain". Do people today process reality in the same way and do they clean as much information as I think I do. Consider this there are adults out in the world right now who may have had not only the Internet available to them for their entire lives but to technology that goes along with it. So for example let's say they have always used a search engine for their research. Imagine if that wasn't available. The challenge of not only finding physical material but knowing where to look and how to piece things together, these activities might be completely new to them. I am intrigued as to how the problem would be approached by different people.

 

One of my memories when I was 12 or 13 was receiving for Christmas the hardcover version of "The Radio Amateur's HANDBOOK' which I absolutely adored and wore it out by the time I was 15.yes, I was an absolute nerd, quite content to spend hours with the book or work on a project. Guess what, I still am. Recently I found an original 1970s addition of the exact book online and in so attempted to spend $100 Canadian just for the sake of memorabilia. I fondly remember going through Ohm's law with my father while we discussed the latest chapter. I don't know whether I will get the book or not, but finding the exact copy online and available in good condition, sure makes it tempting.[Note: There were two completely different books published under the exact same name. The one I refer to is the one from the publisher Crowell, New York ]

The Radio Amateur's Handbook
by:A. Frederick Collins,
Robert Edward Hertzberg

WorldCat.org listing:
The radio amateur's handbook

Authors: A. Frederick Collins, Robert Edward Hertzberg
Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0690667736  

ISBN 13: 9780690667738

Year: 1970
Edition:12th rev. ed.
Publisher: Crowell, New York
Physical Description: vi, 374 pages illustrations 22 cm

Here's an idea: resolve for one day, or longer if you like, to find solutions to anything that comes up in your life without using the Internet. Even though the idea is simple do most people now days have the skill set to so the problem, by lack of a better phrase by doing it "the old-fashioned way of physical research"? This could be a lot of fun if taken in small steps. You could pose a question to a friend and go on an adventure to find the resolution. If you're going to play the game I would suggest keeping it simple at first, but not so simple in that it is boring. The question must be enticing enough to make you and your friend want to find the answer. Then you could pick another topic to solve. It could be a lot of fun and I would really be interested in knowing if it made any changes in your life or outlook.

The idea could be expanded upon for example: How would people in the 1960s find the answer. You could then set limits to use only the tools and technology that were available then. This could actually be very exciting. Debating teams used to be very popular in high schools and colleges. While this thought is not exactly on topic the idea of explaining your point of view is again an adventure in learning. Sometimes will explaining something you inadvertently learned something about yourself. Debating teams by the way are when a group of people ticket topic and have to group takes one point of view and the other usually takes the opposite. Then they begin to develop their rationales as to why their point of view is the better one. They debate this until one of the teams wins. Of course frequently when you do this you find out things you never considered. Which is one of the great payoffs to really learning something. It is usually not the end goal where most of the learning and experience a curse it is the trip toward the end goal that provides the benefits. Sometimes you might even completely change your mind on an idea.

Now days ideas tend to be polarized. Take a look at any set of videos on YouTube, pretty much on any issue. There won't be discussion between the various groups, there will be sensationalism and polarization of the topic. This is not a good way to learn about knowledge because it mixes far too much extreme emotion into the issues. To really consider the pros and cons of anything you must at least be willing to keep your emotions from overwhelming the issue and becoming more important than anything else. Many times I have set on this blog "Don't take anything personally." I would like to add to that statement "Frst consider what the issue is based on the information you have available to you" and then don't take anything personally." In this way you learn to think before you feel and that gives you the ability to make choices when the emotions do come into play.

 If you would like to download the original untouched full-size photo, just click on the following image. 

Original full-size photo of a close-up Hydrangea macrophylla bloom with shades of violet and white. Three flowers from a Crocosmia are poking right out of the Hydrangea macrophylla.

The protruding Crocosmia flowers are a brilliant orange. Set against a background of naturally occurring large green leaves. This photo is completely untouched and natural. I ran across these flowers by accident. Clicking on this image will download the full resolution photograph. It is the same image as the one at the top of the article minus that headline embedded in the graphic.

 

IMG_2189.jpg

Date	2012-07-25 6:11:50 pm
Model	Canon PowerShot SX120 IS
Width	3648
Height	2736
ISO Rating	100
Shutter Speed	1/50 sec
Aperture	f/4.3
Focal Length	60 mm
Exposure Bias	0 EV
Metering Mode	Multi-Segment

Consider the tremendous benefit over once lifetime understanding how to acquire knowledge (learning) as well as apply it in new and interesting ways. The development of that skill has brought us creative people throughout the centuries. People who think, and feel, and then apply what they understand to the world and society. What a gift! The human race can simply not forget how to learn new things through effort and challenge. Not only does the person grow in spirit and ability ultimately the greater society benefits. The very technology we use every day is a clear demonstration of this. Information is now simpler to access than ever before, but in order for it to be fully used we must develop the skills only achieved by true understanding and learning.

So make a commitment to regularly put down the easy way of doing things and revisit some of the learning traditions that have helped humanity evolve.
 

This has been a very short but hopefully inspiring and thoughtful article.
Take care and as always leave comments.

Patrick