What does your ideal day look like? #bloganuary

What’s extravagant is an incredible night’s rest, perhaps nine hours to re-energize.

Morning coffee is excellent, typically several cups. Taking a look at my YouTube menu in the morning helps shape my inner world. Watching videos, whether for entertainment, information, music, or an intersection of all these stops (!), is a great way to handle the early hours of the day.

I wouldn’t be satisfied without making time for TV entertainment. I enjoy single episodes like people would watch in the golden age of TV, before home videos and streaming video took over. I like, for example, an episode of Riverdale on the Netflix service, or another series that happens to have my fancy. While I don’t live on Netflix, I often make Netflix a go-to for streaming entertainment.

The BBC soap Eastenders has had a long, rich history going back to 1985, so I like to watch it if I want traditional television. My eighth birthday was that year, a time in life when family and friends are especially important. Since I’m now an adult and more prepared (than an eight-year-old), I appreciate following the stories in Eastenders. My rule of thumb, though, is only one episode per day.

Photo by Kristin Hardwick on StockSnap

Many days I like to put an hour into Twitter to get a fun peek at people’s hot takes and trending news. I even automate tweets, when topics I am interested in exploring come to light in the hands of capable writers. I occasionally edit the Facebook page for my dad’s cemetery business, which we run together. Sometimes I am specifically required.

https://www.facebook.com/LouthUnited/

I check a few TikToks, likely of the more original variety, often at least twenty of them. They are usually only a few seconds long.

Perhaps best of all, I chill with my girl. Having that bond is important, I think. Even if I devote a lot of time to technical pursuits, a human element can be supremely important.

Thanks for asking, bloganuary!

What advice would you give to your teenage self? #bloganuary

For January, I am blogging with the WordPress Bloganuary prompts in mind. These are writing prompts, one a day, for the entire month of January 2022, which I am pleased to respond to.

If I could have a word with my teenage self, if this were, say, the year 1990, like the advice my godfather Rick gave to me, I would counsel myself to get as much schooling as possible. My godparents taught me quite a bit in 1991 and 1992. My godfather was in the process of adding writer credits to his career as a professor, and I had access to quite a lot of information about the coming “information superhighway,” the Internet. I think I was lucky that I had any comprehension of what was on its way, Big Tech.

Compared to everything else in life, money, relationships, leisure, travel, I would have implored myself to stay in academics and to gain as much knowledge as possible, with the guidelines of sanctioned academia.

Photo by Aphiwat Chuangchoem on StockSnap

In high school, I took in a lot of learning, including insight into how computers were becoming a powerful tool.

I keep an eye on the keyword “participatory media.” If I were better qualified academically to make better judgements about the world as I potentially understand it, I would be more astute when examining social constraints. Participatory media, if I do understand that, refers in part to social, and to creators on social. The world as Big Tech unfolded has been exciting.

MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube–all these services were blessings compared to the uncertainties about the free world before Big Tech began to realize its ambitions.

I would also tell myself to dress a bit better–enough of the dated pullovers and denim!

Happy New Year! All the best.

Why Our World Would End If The Great Resignation Proves Short-sighted

Natasha Romanoff

[Captain America puts on a parachute to go follow after Thor, Loki and Iron Man]

Natasha Romanoff: I’d sit this one out, Cap.

Steve Rogers: I don’t see how I can.

Natasha Romanoff: These guys come from legend. They’re basically gods.

Steve Rogers: There’s only one God, ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that.

[Captain America leaps out of the Quinjet]

Starting in 2009, the 25 blockbuster films of the Marvel Comics universe possess an ideology of great distress in a fantastic landscape, only manageable by superheroes with unique, and unmatched, combat abilities.

Marvel Comics adaptations had enjoyed success before, like the X-Men and the Spiderman films, but the stories of the Avengers very much dominated the cinema for several years. From Iron Man in 2009 (earning a box office of 585.8 million US) to Endgame (earning a staggering 2.798 billion US) in 2019, audiences who desired that escape in the cinema largely deal with a contemporary viewpoint.

The Great Resignation means the refusal that many formerly employed people have now toward their jobs. Two days ago FastCompany.com said that a new report by Microsoft tracked down 41% of the worldwide labour force who are thinking about leaving their present manager, inside the following year. What’s more, a survey from Monster tracked down 95% of labourers who are considering a change.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90679444/this-is-whats-really-behind-the-great-resignation

While numerous grown-ups, by which I mean Generation Z-age and the Millennials, are set up to carry on, theirs is a life disrupted. Canadian or American, European or Asian or African, instruction and work and family and land were typical goals set by people until Covid spread. That was the world in which we did our best, before 2020; now, individuals have new liabilities and limitations.

Interpersonal contact can make us sick. Nobody is wrong for wanting something different. Everything we believe about our wellbeing has been challenged by the onset of the pandemic.

In the province of Ontario, Canada, CTV’s cable news network was reporting yesterday that the delta variant of Covid is flattening in terms of its curve, its impact on people, but everywhere people have been required to acknowledge the reality that every human being has potentially only a fleeting lifespan in which to create desired conditions, in case we hadn’t been aware. It is an opportunity that will be an aggregate change in our psychological understanding of ourselves. Anticipating what this will resemble is a significant undertaking for both you and me.

Forbes said recently that the Great Resignation has been documentable since 2009, just presently unfurling, with a lot of gained speed. With opportunities to work from home, many workers have found that, very much, they prefer working from home, over being tasked, in traditional work settings.

Motivation, like inspiring speeches, or books about productivity, usually explores what people can do to get more out of their time, rather than being saddled in the extreme with work. There is now a new expedition of ideas. Personally, I think it is conceivable that what we are attempting to ensure is progress that will see the most awesome cutting-edge living become unreachable.

This is the crux of the Great Resignation.

Successful self-management author Tim Ferriss explores in his 2007 book, “The Four-Hour Work Week,” the virtues of doing as you please. BBC’s The I.T. Crowd (its first series in 2006) occasionally ridicules low-level groups furnished with personal computers. Whereas “The Four-Hour Work Week” explores Tim Ferriss’ strategies to get rich while young, The I.T. Crowd is an all-out comedy spoofing middle-class occupations and the role of being a smart computer-minded alpha nerd.

British Sitcom

Putting a radius on success, in light of what’s already been achieved, is these days transitional. People have become apt to realize life’s fragility, despite the personal power achieved by technology. The climate for this, the individual’s climate, has a constant of significant change.

I have myself by and by experienced disarray about the conditions of my life. I never wedded, nor purchased a house or a vehicle, or a cell phone. I wished to live more basically than having those obligations upon me.

When I was twenty-one, I was destitute. When I couldn’t support that sort of energy, to keep going with a life like that, I willed the least expensive method of living I could make do with. I made moves to that end years prior, expecting mental lucidity.

Two decades later, I’ve been writing this blog for several years. I figure people will hustle despite those who proffer admonitions that it’s foolhardy; I figure we will end up stranded outside of the design that has as starting points characteristics also found in the Industrial Age.

There is a new strategy that a solution is to walk away from traditional roles in their lives. If we are left holding a hot potato rising up out of what life resembled before 2020, we aren’t living in the same kind of world we had before the pandemic struck. A new but disorderly society slowly begins to buckle under the pressure we’ve created for ourselves.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on StockSnap

If we want a world to live in with the same structure we enjoyed before this pandemic, the gamble we must make is to find a way to survive without the luxury of the constants of work and pay we had before the dam broke.

I circle Internet content on Twitter. If you want, you can follow me by my handle @findingenvirons

I additionally work for my father, who makes his business the activity of a little graveyard. You’re welcome to visit our Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/LouthUnited/

Plus, you’re welcome to leave a like on this post, to follow, and to leave comments. Email me this way: abackfish465@gmail.com

Bex’ Struggle Last October on EastEnders

On TV, the soap #EastEnders has brought, to the screen, life in Albert Square, in London, since 1985.

Other than on BBC iPlayer, #EastEnders airs here in my region of the world late-nights on the weekend, months behind its latest broadcast in England.

There are confrontations and there are obstacles.  If nothing else, it’s a bit of fun.

Watching EastEnders in October 2019, not long before the thirty-fifth anniversary of the show, I can remember a little how it was watching the thirtieth anniversary, five years ago, when the soap revealed that the Beale girl, Ian’s daughter, had been murdered, a mystery.

What interested me in particular now, to the extent I am saying something about it here, is the going away party for Bex to celebrate her acceptance to Oxford.  Bex, before she relented, was a Gothic girl, ranking in the subculture of the disenchanted.  I think Bex had interests in high school theatre, and in playing the guitar, as when she did at the Vic.

https://heatworld.com/entertainment/tv-movies/eastenders-teenage-suicide-bex-fowler/

She is pretty while presenting emotionally adrift.  EastEnders characterizes Bex as an intellectual, artsy teen, moody and pointedly smarter than her peers, conflicted.

She performs songs in an earlier episode, taking the stage in the Vic, when she is beginning to take on the role of a neighbourhood talent, a bright artistic girl struggling, given her ability to make waves.  What I’m moved to write about is the character’s decision, the night of her party before she goes away to school, her friends and family celebrating her acceptance to Oxford, to pen a suicide note, and to overdose on pills, tears in her eyes, by herself in her bedroom.

Often EastEnders diverges from its responsibilities as a soap, presenting sometimes troubling storylines, while entertaining.

The suggestion that a brilliant, youthful, and gifted character, with circumstance thumping for herself, would settle on the extraordinary choice to end her own life, made me think.  Youth suicide is extremely sad, and it perplexes me that Bex would make that decision, bringing hurt on herself, and on everyone who knows and loves her.  The song that soundtracks the tragedy for Bex is the Gary Jules version of the Tears for Fears song Mad World, music adding to a sense of despair and confusion that Bex is experiencing.

“The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had,” the song presents lyrically, as Bex drifts into near-death sleep.  Time-lapse photography shows the lights going out in the Vic, and the encompassing night sky giving way to a cloudy morning, when Bex may be lying there dead in her bedroom.

Elsewhere in the TV landscape, that tapestry of storytelling that is compelling, the song Mad World has received another place of honour in a TV soundtrack, in another show, in another nation.  Maybe strangely, but provocatively, Season 2 of the CW’s Riverdale has likewise presented Mad World.

https://www.insider.com/riverdale-veronica-archie-varchie-relationship-timeline-2019-1#archie-goes-to-the-semi-formal-dance-with-betty-and-veronica-2

By Episode 8 of Season 2, the Riverdale character Jughead has risen in the ranks of bikers, the Serpents. Archie and Veronica are presenting Mad World to their friends and family until the tension between them hits a breaking point, and they leave without finishing the song.

The group, a significant number of who are Serpents, are disappointed.  Betty thinks fast and takes the stage, picking up where Archie and Veronica stopped.  Betty quickly takes Mad World to a different level, assuming the role of dancer and drawing the Serpents in.

Jughead watches with shock, and maybe with interest. With his yearnings to use the Serpents, it isn’t unusual that Betty would in like manner expect another job.  Both EastEnders and Riverdale hit big audience numbers, and anyone who sees TV could note a similarity between the two Mad World scenes.

For Bex, it is about an early closure, and for Betty, it is tied in with seeing Jughead order the Serpents.  Bex’s mistake in EastEnders reflects a character who feels alone, despairing so much that she decides to take her life.

Perhaps it could even be derived that she knows about Riverdale from TV.  EastEnders is set amid reality.  The EastEnders characters watch “real world” TV and hear real-world music in the Vic.

Bex, simply, doesn’t deserve death.  She is a beautiful, intelligent, talented young woman, for who opportunity is knocking.

https://stocksnap.io/author/kristinhardwick

I like both shows, but there is a kind of question of how appropriate Bex’s act of self-destruction is.

The Mad World scene in Riverdale could, I see, be haunting, if it is relatable.  In EastEnders, the pendulum has swung away from the physical, to become a forebear of doom.  Both shows have a sense of appreciation for popular music, when songs present loud and clear.

The haunting going on in these TV episodes has to be executed within the context of plot devices, or else it isn’t effective.  It needs to make ideas click for an audience, or it falls short.  I think both shows want to present specific circumstances to get viewers feeling haunted.

“I find it kind of funny; I find it kind of sad…” Curious that the song lends itself to drama.  You’re welcome to comment and/or follow.  Thanks for visiting.

My Most Graceful and Honest Intentions with the findingenvirons Blog

A TikTokker followed me, this weekend, with the offer of a shoutout if I were to follow her account, and to tag three friends and to share her video to get an upswing started https://vm.tiktok.com/JN4odUw/

“Are blogs still popular in 2020?”

“Yes, blogging in 2020 is still popular and is serving even more purpose than ever before.  …68% of marketers now see blogging as a useful marketing tool.”

https://techjury.net/blog/blogging-statistics/

Just so we’re on the same page.  🙂  It’s a decent rivalry.

It is now summer.  Even though the winter doesn’t usually get too severe here in Southern Ontario, we have summer which feels pretty scorching, and that is surreal.  That aspect is well-intensified by strange circumstances.  Writing this, in July 2020, I am beginning year no. 9 of writing my blog.

time and tide wait for no man

Photo by donterase from StockSnap

A blog, as you know, is long-form writing.  It’s the opposite of microblogging, like how blogging is on Twitter.  A Personal Plan on WordPress, an option on the blogging platform, lets you design a blog by choosing from among a variety of special themes, that shape how your blog looks.

On WordPress, as mine is, a regular domain doesn’t look bad, but a more ambitious blogger might start with a Personal Plan if you want a more professional-looking blog.  In fact, in WordPress, the Block Editor is the design page that helps you put together blocks of paragraphs, to make writing a post easy.

I use a lot of white space, to keep my blog readable, and to keep it feeling like typewriter text transported to a computer screen, which is what early word processing programs were like.  If you know about adventure games in the nineteen-seventies and -eighties, like, for example, the game company Infocom’s game Zork, or a different, earlier, hit game called Adventure, you know they consist of a paragraph of descriptive text followed by a blinking parser, at which you would enter a two-word command to play.  I have that period of gaming as a primary concern, one wellspring of motivation.

My intention presently is to reach several dozen people or so with each post, possibly a hundred visitors per post, which is the typical reach I have at present.  I appreciate that the odd post I’ve composed gets a couple of guests, to boot.  With WordPress, the stats dashboard gives you an idea of how many visitors have turned up for your blog posts, and what they are saying their country of origin is.

I have had this blog for eight years.  That’s the level of expertise I have with it, Level Nine, you might put it.

In the first edition of the former game company TSR’s classic game Dungeons & Dragons, Level Nine was known as Name Level.  That is the famous tabletop game.  It features in the plot of the Netflix hit Stranger Things.

Photo by Freestocks.org from StockSnap

Name Level means that your Dungeons & Dragons character has made a name for himself, as in “Merlin” becoming “Merlin the Wizard,” to take from Arthurian mythology an example.  In Arthurian mythology, Merlin is the wizard who helps King Arthur rule at Camelot.  Like Merlin and King Arthur, here on WordPress, I am leet.

Likewise, with different parts of life, you have goals with your blog, and blogging makes unobtrusive notoriety for yourself (as it is the Name Level guidelines in Dungeons & Dragons sway interaction.)

On occasion, I draw extra thoughts from patterns I see via web-based media, stages like Twitter and YouTube, and TikTok.  On WordPress, I get to blog as much as I make time for it, which is a luxury I know many aspiring writers would enjoy themselves if they had it.  With that sort of extravagance, I am happy with the opportunity to continue without too many time limitations.  I am not too hard on myself.

My intentions, also, are to keep posting in a way that other people might relate to.  When WordPress offered a fourteen-day prologue to composing verse, quite a long while back, I composed through that fourteen-day arrangement.  Actually, at the time, I was kind of pleased with a few of the ideas I came up with, as I think my approach is a touch singular.

I in some cases loan support to other little bloggers.  I have seen that quite a few bloggers do that.  Those are probably the kind of people that I am trying to reach.

Another source of inspiration, outside WordPress, is the real world Nashville Tennessee writer Jeff Goins, an inspiring voice in blogging circles.  I think Jeff Goins worked in marketing when he decided he wanted to begin writing.  In fact, for his first book, he presented the title You Are A Writer.  

The Art of Work is a book that explores all kinds of inspired case studies, of people who bring a special touch to the work they do.  It became a bestseller. I think Goins wrote that unless your heart is in your work, it isn’t right.

As well, my father’s sister’s husband, Rick, and his wife Sue, both residing in Nashville, have written some books.  They are my godparents.

To the reader, if you have ever read my blog and are returning, by all means, thank you.  Such a great hobby.  You’re welcome to comment or to follow.

Have a wonderful day and a terrific summer.  I wish you well!

I’m on Twitter, https://twitter.com/findingenvirons …but you won’t find that verified.

For Critical Thinking and an Equivalent, Creativity

Starting, for April, I participated in many of the new Discover challenges that WordPress organized, to help bloggers write posts during the crisis.  Each morning, 6 AM in most cases in my time zone, a new word with additional suggestions became available for WordPress bloggers.

Each word theme was accompanied by suggestions about what to post.  I found the exercises helped me feel better about blogging because some things I enjoy discussing became the subject of new posts at the same time other bloggers addressed the same themes.  With each post, I had several visitors, and if you are among those and returning, please accept my thanks.

Now, today is May the 4th, Star Wars Day.  Star Wars The Clone Wars concludes its season 7 run today, a season devoted to the Seige of Mandalore.  I think the entire animated series lives on Disney+.

Today is also the day that all nine films of the Skywalker Saga are available with a Disney+ subscription.  “This will be a day long-remembered,” to quote Peter Cushing in Star Wars Episode IV.

Star Wars Celebration last spring in Chicago meant a week of hours and hours of daily streaming on YouTube.  I said something about it:  https://findingenvirons1.blog/2019/04/19/star-wars-celebration-on-youtube-whered-you-go-chicago/

I have a new strategy, I am starting by trying a serious-in-tone critical thinking post.  I was already writing the odd observation about techniques that might contribute to someone’s existing take on the science of being a blogger, tempered with humour, I suppose.  I reckoned that I was enjoying myself, that’s mostly what counted.

Photo by Lukáš Rychvalský from StockSnap

A definition of a hobby is this:

hob·by

n. pl. hob·bies

An activity or interest pursued outside one’s regular occupation and engaged in primarily for pleasure.

The pleasure of blogging comes from the interaction on the world wide web with people who also blog.  I believe that social interaction is important at any age.  Why is social interaction important for psychological health, I asked Yahoo!.

“Social engagement is associated with a stronger immune system, especially for older adults,” Yahoo! answered.  “This means that you are better able to fight off colds, the flu, and even some types of cancer.  You will enjoy better mental health.

“Interacting with others boosts feelings of well-being and decreases feelings of depression.”

There are so many avenues that if you have access to the web, there are so many ways to reach people, and fulfill that desire, I know you know this.  It is always about more than the dollar, as it should be.  I’m not out to make a buck at all, I’m just experimenting with being an optimist.  

Recently I found a website page that takes a gander at the satisfaction that goes with the joy of a decent diversion.  Human resources psychologist Jessica Beltran addresses it in The Value of Hobbies  https://blogs.psychcentral.com/thrive/2014/05/the-value-of-hobbies/  “We are at our best when we are relaxed and in tune with ourselves.”

Photo by Snufkin from StockSnap

While we are capitalists, the playing field becomes more narrow if you consider that you can address people with the confidence of having many of the skills that they have.  There is any number of stations in the lives we lead, but lots of motivation speakers give the advice to get started with your creations, however possible.  “Do hobbies help with their careers?” I asked Yahoo!.

“While it may seem counterintuitive to make time for something outside of work to get ahead at work, career coaches have confirmed that having a hobby can help make you better at your job. Having a hobby helps you learn how to handle work-life stress and think creatively,” answered the search engine.

“What skills are needed to be a critical thinker?” I went on to ask.

In response Yahoo! informed me of several qualities, ten in fact, that you need to be a capable critical thinker:

1 Accuracy.

2 Adept.

3 Analytical.

4 Creativity.

5 Critical thinking.

6 Detail-oriented.

7 Efficiency.

8 Industriousness.

9 Innovative.

10 Logical thinking.

I have additional input.

Accuracy, for starters, I learned about in high school science.  Accuracy in that environment is measurably collecting data.  To determine accuracy, you might perform the same process several times, with only minor variants, to learn if your method is accurate.

It’s important.  Troubleshooting a computer station, for example, requires accuracy.

You need to determine what changes have gone on before and after a problem has happened at your terminal.  There is a joke about hapless computer users calling the Windows system crash the Blue Screen of Death, dire-sounding, but which means that you are losing your unsaved work, a bummer.  By the way, I enjoyed computer science in high school a lot more than I enjoyed chemistry and physics.

If what you were doing meant nine out of ten times you got a system crash, and then one out of ten times it worked out, hypothetically speaking, you could, if the measurements were accurate, you’re determining that those nine times of system crashes mean that you can’t proceed in that manner.  If five out of ten times, your computer works, and five times it doesn’t, you don’t have an accurate idea of what of your commands are leading to the system crash.  The results aren’t too useful in that case.

You need to check variables that contribute to your procedure’s success or failure and come up with a more accurate idea of what’s going to work.  Once you establish the variables that work out okay, by trial and error, you can figure out which instruction is awakening the Blue Screen of Death.

The second term in Yahoo!’s list is the word adept.  Adept means are adroit.  Critically, you have to be adept at forming interpretations.

Those I think of as the external–the external is the object or scenario you’re critically thinking about.  You need to know what you’re examining, to form a critical judgement.  I have two ways for you to do this, and you can read about them a little further in.

Like for me, to decide whether, say, a popular film is “good,” in the sense that the motion picture proves that everybody involved did a good job, you have to understand enough about what makes a good film to be adept at reviewing it.  It would help if you’d contributed to the completion of a motion picture, to be properly critical, but it probably suffices to understand the structure of a film, the symbolism in the film visually, and previous attempts to make similar films.

The next term, the word analytical, this is a word like adept, but analytical is more about looking at a critiqued thing that calculates whether you should take it seriously or not.  You know what the thing is and what it’s for, but being analytical towards it means judging it in a way that you can comprehend additional specifics about it, forming your external.  What does it mean? is an analytical question that you might have about your object or scenario.

You would be analytical concluding that your problem works at all levels.

Photo by donterase from StockSnap

Next is creativity, a lovely word, for I feel I am creative, as would many bloggers regard themselves.  Creativity is reworking an established idea and making it yours.  It goes on constantly.

Like, back to film, when a successful film franchise follows up with a sequel, or a reboot, that’s an instance of creativity that is often quite impressive.  As with, say, the 1978 horror film Halloween, directed by John Carpenter, when two years later in 1980 the sequel Halloween II came out, again starring famed actress Jamie Lee Curtis, the film continued the story of the first movie by showing a lot more of what happened later that Halloween night, when the mad masked murderer had returned, (ghastly!).  However, John Carpenter was no longer directing the film.

Do you like horror films?

Halloween II has the same characters and the same locale and a continuation of the plot of the first film, all interesting for fans of the first movie, just with the point that somebody else is now directing.  That’s the creative part, in this example.

Next, Yahoo! repeats the phrase critical thinking.  I mean that Yahoo! includes critical thinking among the terms for critical thinking, which begs the question, Yahoo!.  I interpreted that as meaning that critical thinking refers here to the overall level of ability the interpreter brings to the noun being thought through critically.  It is having the skill to return to thinking critically, in a manner that applies other additional criteria.

In this case, we’re using the handy number ten.  The words, I derive, make an agenda for surveying an item or a situation.  It is redundant to include the phrase “critical thinking” in a list that explains critical thinking, pointing to a rabbit hole, a burrow that goes on and on when it opens.

You have to be firm with yourself what decisions you will make in the process of critical thinking or you will never conclude.  I have a little more to say about that in the conclusion.

Close up white cup of Coffee, latte on the wooden table

Detail-oriented refers to the organizer’s ability to put together a mental assessment of the details that have gone into the subject being thought about critically.  A job interview often includes a question along these lines, as in, “If you were taking this job, would you consider yourself a detail-oriented person?”  It means getting everything right.

Efficiency is the ability to get things done promptly.  You don’t lose time by making redundant decisions; everything works.  If you value efficiency, you want your scenario or your object to function smoothly, a swift external.

It means saving time.  A lot of people who need to complete many tasks highly value efficiency.

Industriousness refers to having the initiative to take bold steps.  Being industrious is good in that a person shows, say, leadership.  If what you are critical of is a tool for industriousness, it lends itself to a nature that assists people who have a success rate at reaching goals.

Innovative means thinking outside of the box.  Someone innovative has solutions that circumvent traditional stop signs that cause headaches.  Being innovative is positive.  You should recognize when innovation is happening and that it can have positive results.

Photo by Matthew Henry from StockSnap

Logical thinking is great for being “right.”  I first read a little about logical thinking in a high school English class.  I was daunted at the time because I’d never known that logical thinking existed like that, and I doubted I could learn enough about it to become competent, bizarrely, I suppose.

I was a diffident youth.  I wish I’d got that information earlier in life.  My teacher, Ms. M., outlined twelve specific styles of logical thinking and in fact, I wonder if I as yet have that same document.

I should have read it again and again.  At times I’ve been proud that I’m not completely obligated to be logical, but I don’t disregard logic.  I value things like the structure of an external, and that, for example, requires logic.

Logical thinking when it comes to being critical of a specific external is very useful, for if you can make a logical argument about the nature of your object or situation, you’re external, you are on your way to answering a riddle about it.  It is a regret I have that I didn’t take the introduction to logical thinking I got in high school more gravely and go to work at understanding it.

The ten criteria words stop at the letter L.  This is all about setting your sights on critically interpreting an external and taking it apart in a way that you can better understand what it means.  The terms are building blocks for evaluating your external.

There are some points where the process isn’t going to be scientific.  Starting with accurate, you need to look at more than one external and compare them to see how accurate your method is.  This word accurate is exciting because you can find parallels that aren’t necessarily immediately self-evident.

You are being analytical because you are trying to make a process occur that is accurate.  Those two a-letter words work together to open a method of diagramming your external to better understand what it is.

The next word, adept, is applicable because you need to run your process with adept skill.  What I’m doing here is being creative with Yahoo!’s list of critical thinking terms.  I’m making the argument that they are useful.

The search engine believes it.  So, too, should you.  Together the terms have an impact that you can draw upon for inspiration.

It does bother my sensibilities that critical thinking could itself be a term for critical thinking, but as there is a connection between all three a-letter words, so too I noticed a connection between the two c-letter words.  Critical thinking and creativity are two different sides of the same coin.

I’ve had to stir my reserve of critical thinking to identify what that means, but it is so.  Creativity is letting reason fly in the wind, whereas critical thinking is unearthing the truth about your external that wouldn’t be evident if you didn’t possess some definitions that assist in critical thinking.

For d, we have detail-oriented, taking your analysis and better developing it.

For e, we have efficiency, reducing creativity in favour of a strategy that is more pure critical thinking and not as open-minded as the word creative would imply.

Next, we have i-letter words, industrious and innovative, words that strengthen the process of analyzing the external by accelerating the process.  Those words apply to the analyst as much as they apply to the object or scenario being looked at.  Being industrious is keeping at it and being innovative is keeping open-minded.

Both these reflect the analyst as much or more than the external being explored.  Logical thinking is a phrase that means much the same as analysis.  If you took these ten terms, you could assemble them this way:   You have the creativity and you have critical thinking (the c-words).

If you want creativity to rule the process of investigating the external, what you have is industriousness and innovation for the matter at hand.

To proceed down the avenue of critical thinking that is more logical and detail-oriented, you can reduce your creative input and begin letting a process unfold without the benefit of a creative assignment.  In either case, you need to be adept at thinking, and further, to return to the a-letter words, you are being more purely analytical and accurate if you pursue critical thinking without the requirement of innovation ruling your process.  So, your basic process either follows one c-path or the other c-path, critical thinking or creativity and then to round out outreaching your external you have the accuracy, the analytics, the detail-oriented questions, the efficiency and the logical thinking; and down the other c-path, you have industriousness and innovation.

These are subcategories from the ten we started with.

Photographer:
Tim Gouw

The terms favour an analysis-heavy approach to critical thinking, meaning there are more components of more purely critical thinking than terms that include creativity.  Where that leaves us is what I started with, the word hobby.  A creative design is better for a hobby; analysis is better suited for more profound comprehension.

All the same, creativity can be as hard to comprehend as analysis.  If you reach an external by analysis, it is beginning to fall outside the field of the hobbyist and more closely approach the realm of the expert.

A more complicated external lends itself to critical thinking; a simpler external is suitable for creativity.  This isn’t always true, but that’s a guideline that you could start with if you are deciding whether you want to approach an external with a lens of more complicated and comprehensive critical thinking or with a simpler but also effective creative paintbrush, so to speak.

That’s the rabbit hole, that if you don’t have a handle on your creativity, flights of fancy can take you far afield of a suitable stopping place.  That’s why creativity isn’t a super useful strategy for analyzing an external that’s become complex.  That’s when your critical thinking approach needs to take over.

I’ve enjoyed writing about this, my first post since the April Discover challenges ended.  Do you like the idea that a simpler object might benefit from creative analysis and a more complicated object require a more detailed critical analysis?  You’re welcome to follow and/or to comment.

Read more about me here:  about.me/patrickcoholan

Happy Star Wars Day

Photographer:
Thomas Kelley

WordPress Discover: Elixir

The month of April 2020, the WordPress Discover challenges have reopened. This week the Discover challenges are being handled by Krista Stevens. Her idea for today’s Discover post is the word, “Elixir.”

Elixir is a curious word, a word that means, as I understand it, potion. I suppose I have simple tastes, but my favourite elixir is tried-and-true Maxwell House coffee. When I was an adolescent, my godfather explained to me the significance of the Maxwell House slogan, “Good to the last drop.”

I don’t want to give away the story that accompanies the famed slogan, but if you know it, you understand why it can make someone brand-loyal, essentially, for life.

Later, in high school, I had a part-time job selling concession wares, and my duties included brewing coffee and cleaning the coffee maker when closing down. I surely did that routine a hundred times.

It was the early-morning shifts that got me to take the plunge and to begin drinking the odd cup of coffee. I associated it with being an elixir for grown-ups.

Placing the milk

It was like second-nature for me to the extent that, in the years I did spend working fulltime, many a lunch break was spent in line at the coffee shop waiting to get my cup of brew. I had a couple of wonderful espressos and casual discussion about that, and truth told, I was never extremely cognizant at the time, and those days passed by before I perceived what had passed.

I wasn’t really happy working full-time. I was so distracted by what I perceived as “lack” that I feel looking back I missed some of the happiness that I was experiencing, only to notice sometime later in life, when I realized there were times of fulfillment that I wasn’t growing during, amid my preoccupation.

I wasn’t the only one who experienced such a thing. I can remember talking about it discreetly from time to time.

It may have been evident from my demeanour, or perhaps that is a common subject that people bring up when they are bonding. I am not sure to this day.

I can remember people reflecting similar. If I knew more about what was happening at that time, I might have fared better at the time I was grappling with concerns of that nature.

The difference between then and now is that, while I do a lot more of what I want to do for myself now in life, rather than back then when I was doing a lot more to fit in, at this time in my life I understand that I can be happy with a cup of coffee with milk in it, and not want a lot more than what a cup of coffee like that is.

I am more grateful for what I have that is simple but welcome. I am not sure I would be as grateful if I had never made sacrifices to earn what I wanted. I gained a clearer understanding of what I needed to be happier.

Waiting for that drop to splash

I imagine that is a normal part of the years going by, but I bet it doesn’t work like that for everyone. It was only with luck that I gained that realization, I infer. Again, I am not sure if that is true or not, or it is merely how I choose to interpret the life I’ve wound up leading, but I tend to think that being lucky contributed a great deal to things turning out as positive as they have.

I wouldn’t make the same decisions a second time, but I am grateful that I didn’t fare much worse in life, as far to these days as I have lived, with the understanding I do have that I got here, you might put it, on my own two feet.

11 Freaky Reasons Teen Tv Shows Could Get You Fired

  1. Did you know you had to leave that at home when you took the job? I’m afraid you might have to. That being said, let us proceed.
  2. The problem-solving skills of a teen sleuth would benefit the team, but trying to emulate those same skills, in the office, will get you a reboot.
  3. The radiant physical beauty of teen heroes and heroines often softens the hearts of even the fiercest opponents, while your limited charms, in the office, will bring up excuses.
  4. The ability to resolve a dilemma in three-quarters of an hour, TV time, is completely impossible to replicate in the office. Three-quarters of an hour is the time it takes to install an operating system update that covers special keys, for languages of other continents, or an app checker that asks if it does check apps and the updated catalogue of word processor fonts.
  5. TV reprobates who are secretively pulled in by bravery and beguile, that have envisioned frightful closures for interfering adolescent heroes, and have gone the mile to complete such business, don’t measure up to how your supervisor is five to seven minutes late every morning for a ten-minute opportunity involving those last wisps of transmission that still don’t light the psyche.
  6. Spending your dollars for the drive, trying to forget genuine youngsters applauding, your data bill at home in the back of the kitchen drawer– leaves you mentally stranded until you are miles away, each day you show up for the privileges of cubicle life.
  7. Instagramming shock, in light of a most recent debacle of separation gossip, places you in the washroom crying, holding a paper towel to your face while attempting to quit hyperventilating.
  8. Remembering hands to your cheeks, in the wake of being checked for hang-ups, has you on the ground, showing you further inadequately made a decision that demonstrates those no-longer-so-charming goons truly came from that side of the tracks.
  9. Getting back on your feet, your jacket is torn, which while for you is quite embarrassing, to turn up back at the office in such a state, the more chivalrous task of lending a friend an intact garment, translates poorly between what’s on TV, and what your understanding is of the psychological underpinning of those same gents, who just turned your boxer briefs into a flowerbed.
  10. You’ll be back for that most recent five minutes of compromise throughout the show after work’s accomplished for the afternoon, a valiant effort to promise your supervisor that you won’t be in the vacant office much longer from when the last youngsters got terminated in the few hours on the clock that you expect to fill without one final fix of physical magnificence, and the sort of ability that simply the best and the most splendid have in general, which also excludes ensuring the addresses in the BCC: bar of the unforeseen doesn’t end up a large portion of an inch higher in CC:– Unlike real life, which stops the last minute of the same day that began the same time following your coffee, the TV episodes promise a forty-minute resolution, not the selfsame resolution that must be repeated dozens or hundreds of times over as part of reality.
  11. They said that could never happen in the course of teenage heroism, celebrated with such a passionate kiss that you can do yourself, of course, as soon as you find another job.
Photographer:
Kristin Hardwick

I hope the jury isn’t out on this one. It’s a little bit of fun. You know who your friends are.

Feel free to like the post, comment on it, and/or follow the blog. Adieu.

Photographer:
Ermin Celikovic

Why Looking Backward at 2019 is Worse than a Bad Valentine

I wrote this three months ago, the beginning of the winter that changed lives around the world. I realize that despite my intention to offer kind wishes, nobody got what they wanted when the last month became unprecedented in history.

I didn’t factor into the equation how long we would be at the same task. Speaking in terms of temperature forecasts, some days were more tolerable than others.

Today the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario ordered all non-essential businesses closed. They had already begun reacting to the new restrictions. When I raised the point with my dad the last couple of times we spoke together, he said that a cemetery is considered an essential service.

Photographer:
Elliott Chau

My dad has a business and we have an agreement that I will do some work for the cemetery which the business operates. The agreement is becoming strained, of course, because of the recession.

My mom asked me quietly why I seem disinterested. I wasn’t sure how to emphasize sympathy was the issue, given that the present events around the world are tragic and discouraging.

I decided to update this because that was kind of one winter I might be happy to put behind me. Seeing a copy of TROS was nice, though.

A week or so after a lovely Christmas rest and a pleasant New Year’s Day, we finished last year rather indignantly when a brushfire spread to one of our trees, a fire which we had to extinguish.

    My mother turned seventy years old in December.  She has been enormous for me, obviously, beyond what I can succinctly talk. She said she was pleased when she saw for herself this post.

    I remember when Mom was asking me as Christmas approached what Christmas TV programming I might get to see, and she reminded me that a lot of the network TV shows are having their mid-season hiatus.  It’s sort of in their absence, especially, that the network shows feel relevant and add heaps of joy to the calendar year.

   I don’t have the foggiest idea whether you have a sentiment for January, or if nothing else be alongside associates with who you can explore the winter month of January.  I know from the weight of popular interest in romance, and relationships, that there is something intrinsically human and good about the romance of winter.

Seeing the tree that had been alight

    While I’m a Canadian, I live in the southern ranges, where lake impact temperatures are generally sensible, while keeping you inside a greater amount of the time than you may somehow prefer to spend. Some people have that flair to form a unit that stops a problem, and sometimes, even if it is as routine as waiting for the cast of, for example, The Bachelor, to reconvene.

    I risk appearing to be dismal if I reflect what getting in some Bachelor may accomplish for me.

    It could prove, by the fact that I help at a cemetery, that being morose lives for me in a heart of darkness, but tempering that with an appetite for uplifting and curious experiences, you have in me, not a pack animal nor a reptile, but, I feel, an effusive human being, making a sound perceptible in its absence.

No Perceptible Difference By Its Presence or Absence – Aristotle

You don’t have a clue what you have until it’s gone, maybe, but I don’t know now that our certainties for the future have been upset what to expect entirely, nor, I take it, does anybody. Remember that prayer often provides relief.

Why You Shouldn’t Watch Halloween Horror in Bed (Notwithstanding @DarkCorners3)

Today is the day that Canadians go to the ballot box. The results will become clear this evening, but the CBC cable news channel is having a great day as the sun stretches over the land.

I am not as interested in that as I am in enjoying these days before Halloween.

About last week, The Stupendous Wave said that Lucasfilm would air a trailer for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker during Monday Night Football, but there was no such trailer. It was a rumor.

Geeks + Gamers discussed what happened with the spurious announcement, pointing out that Esquire picked up the story. Geeks + Gamers in truth remain skeptics of the possibility that the Skywalker Saga will get a satisfying resolution. They were none too happy with Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

CNET reported yesterday that the final trailer for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer is airing tonight on ESPN. There have been three official trailers.

The first shows Kylo Ren descending upon Rey, from the sky. It is certainly a bit of fun.

More recently, we got the eerie D23 trailer to enjoy. Many of the moments in that one are edited together from earlier Star Wars movies.

Dimensions: 5657 x 3771
Photographer: Alex Wong

As this month is October, certain film fans need to enjoy a horror film every night of the month, not an uncommon practice. Horror film devotees often have a custom of announcing a choice of horror film for each night of October.

It impresses me that these fans don`t begin dreaming of awful matters. I think I would begin to have nightmares, visually ingesting that much horror. All the same, I have been able to glean insights into what major horror film fans consider worthy.

Dimensions: 5184 x 3456
Photographer: Alexandr Baranets

There is a weekly horror film tweet by @DarkCorners3 who is known for the web-series Dark Corners Reviews. The gentleman has made many videos highlighting horror films. His channel is a library of both obscurities and classics.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7789792.Robin_Bailes

Earlier this month I made a reply to one of those weekly review tweets, that was not only brilliantly retweeted by @DarkCorners3 himself, but also by Hammer Horror Films (@FilmsHammer). So I looked again at Dark Corners Reviews.

I listened to his discussions of Peter Cushing, in the role of Dr. Frankenstein, in the 1960s and 70s, and F. W. Murnau, who directed the vampire film Nosferatu, in the 1920s. @DarkCorners3 has clear intelligence for such matters, elaborating on many details of those films that I wasn’t aware of.

I tried to again think of something to match the tone of the reviews of @DarkCorners3. The movie Thor occurred to me, the dark fantasy. Actress Natalie Portman is in the cast as scientist Jane Foster, as is actor Chris Hemsworth as Thor the Avenger.

“So is this how you normally look?“ Jane asks.

“More or less,“ counters Thor.

“It’s a good look!“ exclaims Jane.

Naturally, there was a sequel to Thor two years later, Thor: The Dark World.

Thor is a film that may spare you nightmares, so it could be perfect viewing this month, getting comfy under the sheets, for not feeling like you are dodging the custom of watching something too, too scary.

Thor isn’t a Hammer film, of course, but don`t be deterred, if you are fond of stories of defenders of Earth. Actress Natalie Portman fascinates. The film is also popular enough that there is a good chance you`ve seen it, but by going back to again enjoy the 2011 Marvel adaptation, you could do worse.

You`re welcome to like this, to follow, and/or to comment.