It seems like nearly every internal conflict I have is rooted, at the heart, in the question of being ruled by my head or my heart. I suspect this is true for most people, that everyone struggles with the idea of whether they make their decisions based on logic or emotion.

I’m something of a junkie when it comes to personality tests. One I’ve taken a few times consists of a series of either-or questions designed to measure your preference for being introverted versus extroverted, for considering issue or taking action, and so on. I remember a few of the questions from this test distinctly. The first one said something like:

I am more likely to be swayed by:

a) A heartfelt appeal

b) Sound reasoning

I selected B—I’ve always considered myself more of a thinker than a feeler. But one of the other items read:

It is better to be

a) Just

b) Merciful

Again, I selected B. I didn’t think about it until later, but I realized when I considered it that there’s obviously an inconsistency there. Why is it that I’m swayed by sound reasoning but find mercy to be more important that justice? Clearly, mercy is motivated by emotion to the exclusion of logic. It is a passionate reaction, not a reasoned one.

This led me to the real question: How do I weigh reason and passion in my life? Which is really more important to me? Which SHOULD be more important to me? The quick answer to these questions is that it’s important to strike a balance between the two, that they cannot exist in a vacuum.

Not much of an answer, is it? The kind of thing you’d expect to see in Reader’s Digest or something, at best. Obviously, this isn’t a solution. We can do better.

Let’s start by figuring out what we mean by Reason and Passion in the first place. There are whole volumes dedicated to the subject, but we can condense them into two simple questions. When we address an issue using Reason, we’re really asking, “Does it work?” When we apply Passion, we’re asking, “Does it matter?” In order to meet our goals, we have to use reason. To decide what our goals are, we need passion.

As an example, consider a man getting ready to take a trip in a sailboat. There are a number of things he might be doing—checking the lines, consulting a chart, doing a happy jig because he’s going out on his boat for the first time all summer. Reason is what motivates him to check his gear and plot a course. Passion is what makes him get on the boat in the first place.

Without reason, we’ll get lost on our journey. We will end up off-course, hurt, and possibly destroyed. But without passion, we’ll never cast off the lines.

So the real question isn’t “Which is more important?” but rather, “Which one do I need to work on more?” Make no mistake; there is certainly one that comes easier to you. We all need to cultivate the area that’s our weakness.

And it can be cultivated. Many people argue that Reason can be taught, while Passion either exists or it doesn’t. These many people are wrong. Yes, Reason can be taught—to anyone, using any number of techniques. But Passion, too, can be taught, in a manner of speaking. What’s being taught here isn’t how to have Passion, because it is there in all of us. Rather, what some of us need to be taught is how to uncover that Passion in our hearts. Once we find that reason for leaving the docks, our skill for navigation can take over.

Once you figure out which area you are deficient in, what can be done to improve it? Let’s look at cultivating Reason first.

To pursue a path of Reason is to think critically, to analyze a situation and determine the most likely result. There are a number of possibilities for improving your skill in this area. Possible suggestions range from taking a formal Logic class if you’re in a situation where that’s a viable option, to picking up a few books from your local library. Consider something that focuses on the scientific method for a starting point. You won’t find a subject that outlines an ordered way of thinking than that.

Maybe you’re not the type to get a lot out of that kind of reading. If that’s the case, don’t be alarmed. Humans tend to remember only about 20% of what they read, anyway. One area you might explore is playing games. One thing that all games have in common is a sense for strategy. Chess may be the best example, but almost anything will do. Once you understand the rules of the game, it becomes based on cause and effect. IF I move the pawn here or throw down the Jack of spades or put an X in the middle square, THIS is likely to happen. Play with someone who’s willing to teach you, and most importantly, someone who’s better at the game than you are. Nothing makes you improve faster than being challenged.

What these games can do is put you in a frame of mind to consider things from a purely rational standpoint. You’ll find that you can start equating other situations to what happens in the game. If I take this new job, I’ll develop new skills, which may lead to additional opportunities in the future. If I wait until Sunday to do my grocery shopping, I’ll be rushed and less likely to shop for bargains. Eventually, you’ll find that you’re able to break down more and more complex situations into manageable pieces, and get where you want to go.

Now, what about the other side of the coin? What if it’s uncovering your passion that’s your weakness? Let me first say, I can relate. I’ve come to realize that this is the area of my self that needs the most work. I’ve spent a lot of time honing and practicing my reason, setting my course and checking my calculations, without spending equal time figuring out why I was going in that direction in the first place.

One thing to keep in mind: You cannot count on someone else to provide your passion for you. Imagine a friend or your partner telling you, “I don’t need to know how to read myself. You can do that for me.” You’d be stunned, and angry, and rightly so. It is not your role in life to do someone’s thinking for them. Yet this is exactly what you’re doing when you expect someone else to allow you to make their passions your own. For some reason, doing exactly this seems to be a popular idea, one that crops up in movies and stories from time to time, when one person says to the other, “My dream is to make your dreams come true.” It sounds wonderfully selfless, and romantic, and beautiful. It also doesn’t work. What you’re really doing is taking that person’s ideals, their dreams, the things that truly make them uniquely who they are, and taking them for yourself. You’re saying, “I can’t be bothered to find my own loves, my own motivations. I’ll just steal yours.” Just as you can’t do all the thinking for someone else, you cannot expect him or her to do your feeling for you. It’s exhausting and impossible and it is, truly, a violation.

I think discovering passion is in many ways a matter of forming new habits. Remember those questions about reason and passion? For me, the first step was to stop asking “Does it work?” and start asking, “Does it matter?” And to ask it often, about even the most trivial of things. I’d been in the habit of choosing what to do against a measuring stick that wasn’t my own. This habit cropped up in a lot of ways, from deciding where to go for dinner to whether to move to a new state or change jobs. Asking myself, “Does it matter?” was an awakening, because I discovered that to my surprise that many of the things I’d forced others to define did matter to me. I felt passionately about things I’d told myself didn’t matter.

It’s a matter of cultivating that passion, too. That means you have to try new things, and try them solely because they’re important to you. And when you’re trying those things, ask yourself again, “Does it matter?” If it doesn’t, stop doing it.

One of the hardest things for me has been to accept the idea that my passions have value outside what anyone else thinks about them. They may seem trivial to others, or they may seem noble and poetic. Either way, it doesn’t matter. The things that are important to you are valuable solely because of how they make you feel. I’ve challenged myself to get to the top rung of my Bite Me ladder where my passions are concerned (See the essay The Joys of the Bite Me Philosophy for an explanation of what the heck I’m talking about here). If they’re trivial even to the people I care about most, they’re valuable to me, and that’s the thing that matters.

One of the things I’ve discovered, or rediscovered, is how important it is for me to put my thoughts down on paper. Not because I expect they’ll resonate with everyone the way they do with me, but because the people in my life I’ve admired most are the ones who put their ideas out there for others to see. They’re unflinching in their conviction that their ideas have merit. I have always wanted to feel the same respect for myself as I do for those brave souls. So this poorly-designed website is something I’m passionate about, because the thoughts I post here are parts of myself that are valuable to me.

In the end, I think we’re all setting sail, looking for a place to go and a way to get there. It’s only by having our own instruments to navigate by and our own reasons for casting off that our journey can be a successful one. By uncovering both aspects of our inner sailor, we may find that each journey leads us to new discoveries, new adventures, and new paths to explore.

8 July 2001

A friend of mine once asked me why I’m an atheist. An odd question, especially since I’m agnostic, not atheist. Based on the blank look I got from him in response to this statement, it occurred to me that maybe agnosticism isn’t as well understood by the rest of the world as I’d assumed. So based on no demand whatsoever, here’s the short version of the Jason school of belief.

1. Why I am not a theist. First things first: why don’t I believe in god? The simple answer is that it’s not consistent with my sprawling, rambling, incomplete philosophy. Call it Frey’s Law number…oh, 4: I will not believe anything without having good reason to believe it. The rule goes for anything—political agendas, whether the designated hitter in baseball ought to be outlawed, or what religion, if any, to follow.

That’s an important point: believing in god doesn’t necessarily correspond to following a particular religion, or any religion at all. Theists believe that there is a god, or gods, responsible for the creation of the world around us. At the root, that’s the only thing that theists have in common. It’s only when you start closing in on the individual systems of belief that the differences become apparent, or important. Christians and Jews and Hindus and ancient Greeks all have one critical thing in common—they’re all theists.

So a decision to reject theism is both more and less than deciding to walk away from a particular religion. It’s looking at the issue at a much more basic level. Not a question of “Do I believe that the world was created in 6 days?” or “Is my soul really passing through a potentially infinite number of incarnations until I achieve enlightenment?” Rather, the question of theism asks, “Do I believe that a deity created the reality I live in?” The answer to this question is based on a number of variables depending on the background of the person asking it, but for me it comes down to a simple issue: I don’t have good reason to believe. My belief requires something objective at the root of it, and I haven’t seen anything to give me a positive reason to believe in any god, whether that god is perfectly benevolent, or petty, or jealous, or indifferent.

Naturally, belief in god is a highly personal question. My criteria includes some objective evidence, but that certainly isn’t the only valid criteria out there. Ask one theist why he or she believes in god, and they might point to a very specific experience that made them believe. A second believer’s explanation may describe a gradual awakening of belief. Ask a third, and it could be something else entirely. There are many people who believe that objective proof of the existence of a deity exists—The Watchmaker analogy is a classic argument to that effect, for instance. I’ve discussed a number of these claims with different people and have yet to find one that I find even marginally compelling unless you have the predisposition to believe in the first place. For me to change my decision to not believe in god, I would have to either find a truly compelling argument or change my criteria for that decision. Until either of these things happens, I will not be a theist.

2. Why I am not an atheist. Simple enough, then. If I don’t believe in god, I must be an atheist, right? Not so fast. The problem with atheism is the same problem you find with theism. That is, it makes a definitive claim about something it can’t deliver on. Atheism says that not only is there no good reason to believe in god, but also that there is a good reason to believe that there ISN’T a god. Where’s the evidence to support that claim? What explanation for the world around us is offered in exchange? There are a number of possibilities, but not one of them can point to anything like objective evidence. Certainly, there’s more than enough evidence to support the theory of evolution (more than enough to convince me of its validity, at least), but that doesn’t explain the existence of life in the first place. Likewise, the Big Bang theory (with or without the eventual Big Crunch addition a few billion years from now) may explain how our galaxy, solar system and planet all got here, but where did the stuff come from?

I haven’t heard an explanation that answers these questions. There’s just as much evidence to support the theory that I’ve dreamed up this whole universe myself and that everyone else is a figment of my imagination, or that you’re the dreamer and I’m a figment of YOUR imagination for that matter.

Atheism is appealing in many ways because it attempts to explain the world using the same criteria I have. But in the end, the explanations all fall short. So what does atheism get me that theism doesn’t? It leaves me asking the same question: “Yeah, but how did it start?” And until I hear an explanation that makes sense, I can’t be an atheist.

3. The old standby: “I dunno”. Great, so I don’t believe in god, and I don’t NOT believe in god. Where does that leave me? In doubt, that’s where it leaves me. And happily enough, that’s what agnosticism means. Contrary to somewhat popular belief, being agnostic doesn’t mean that you don’t care about the question of god. Or, rather, it doesn’t necessarily mean that. What it does mean is that you consider it an open question. It’s not always the most pleasant feeling, to have such doubt about an issue like that. In fact, some people feel so uncomfortable with that feeling of doubt that they jump into one of the camps, either theism or atheism, in an effort to relieve the discomfort. Occasionally that seems like a viable option, but it’s not one I choose to pursue. Remember Frey’s Law #4? Here’s the revised version: I will not believe anything without having good reason to believe it, even if it would be easier to do so. And despite the discomfort, I don’t really have a problem with doubt, especially if the alternative is believing something so I don’t have to trouble myself with thinking about it anymore. I’d much rather keep looking for an answer that works for me than throw my lot in with people I don’t truly agree with.

And that, not that anyone asked, is why I am an agnostic.

18 December 2001

Once I sat in a lecture room
And heard the renowned teachings
Of butterfly wings
And their effect on reality

The world ends not with a bang,
Assured the learned physicist
Nor with a whimper
Or any sound at all

For each time a butterfly’s wing goes back instead of forth,
Every drop of rain that gets caught in the crack of my window
Or slips down the pane,
The universe splits
Rows of each possibility into the stars
Into ordered infinity

The image of all our dreams being granted moved us
The scientist left the podium to great cheers
(For who can deny that he wants to have all doors open?)

After a long moment the philosopher rose
Smoothing his thin and rumpled hair
Pulled a slender briar pipe from his coat
And made his way to the front

A new and dangerous truth he described
Where my successes were not my own

Every choice of mine
And every drop of rain
Or butterfly’s wing
Would change everything

And what, he asked
Is the point of a world
Where every choice is made both ways?
Where no fault is mine, it is true
But also no virtue?

A restless silence descended
The stooped thinker shuffled back
To grudging admiration
But little love
(For who wants a world where our victories are inevitable, and do not reflect our merit?)

The artist sat in silence
As the restlessness in the room grew
He noticed the attention at last
And took a sip of water
Or perhaps it was wine
And stepped to the podium

He stood for a long moment, then reached to the floor
Brought out two canvases to display

Each showed an image of a forest,
The vibrant colors nearly painful in their intensity
And covering nearly half of each
The black and orange of a huge monarch butterfly
Caught in mid-flight

In the first, a driving storm
Sent rivulets down the bole of each oak
The second painting, tones muted
With the inky darkness of night
No moisture left to shroud the leaves

With the barest of smiles,
The artist shrugged and spoke but these words
"The butterfly is still beautiful."

–jhf

Its been a good 24 hours for remembering why I enjoy dealing with people.

Had my daughters first soccer practice last night. 9 girls and 6 of them I was meeting for the first time. They were all excited to be there. Even the ones who were obviously shy. It is really energizing to be around people (in this case kids) who want nothing more out of you than to be shown how to have fun. They all worked hard and were tired at then end. Seeing the enthusiasm of a 7 year old who is trying something for the very first time is an awesome thing. Helps remind us that trying new things doesn’t need to be scary. Just accept the fact that your not going to be perfect and then give it your best shot.

Then today I had a meeting with a Senior Manger at work. He is from a group that we work with indirectly and was coming to talk about his team and what kind of jobs there are within it. (My current group is being dissolved in June). His management philospohy is really exceptional. He sees it as his job to take care of his people and let them do what they were hired for. So many people manage from fear. They are worried that if they don’t keep track of every little detail then they will be punished. It is refreshing to find someone who always thinks in terms of how to win rather than how not to lose. His group has been reduced and reorganized several times in the last few years and he was deservedly proud of the fact that despite all of that, noone had to be fired and everyone was still in a job they enjoyed.

He said one thing which I have believed in for a long time "There is nothing more nobel than working yourself out of a job." As an employee it should be your job to find better, faster ways to do your work. If that means that you do so well that you are no longer needed to do the job then you have succeeded. Time to move on to the next challenge. I haven’t managed to eliminate my job yet but I cut the time required by more than half. Now I get to take on bigger and better projects. Projects that I get a crack at specifically because I showed some initiative and creativity in making my work run smoother.

It is always good to rememeber that life is not about avoiding failure. We are all going to fail sometime. Life is about embracing challenges.

Have you ever had a shirt you really loved—the kind of thing you were comfortable wearing out on a first date or just lounging around the house in on a random Sunday? Even if you’re old enough to know better, you feel almost invincible in that shirt, don’t you? And you’ll keep it around for a long time, because it always looks great and feels comfortable.

Of course, over time the shirt starts to get frayed, or maybe it shrinks in the wash (odd, my favorite shirt only seems to shrink around the middle…must be the detergent I’m using). It happens so slowly that it’s hard to notice, and in any event it’s impossible to see it shrinking or fading while you have it on, isn’t it? Eventually, if we don’t look at the shirt after it comes out of the dryer once in a while, we’ll find ourselves dressed shabbily indeed. Sometimes when others point out that the shirt looks a bit threadbare, we’ll get upset—after all, it’s probably jealousy rearing it’s ugly head, right? Besides, we’re entitled to wear whatever we want, thank you very much.

Well, yes, that’s true. But it might be a good idea to take a look at the thing from time to time, if you don’t want to find yourself half-naked at an inopportune moment.

The same is true of ideas and beliefs. We hold onto the ones that have served us well in the past, and that’s well and good, but only if we dust them off once in a while and make sure they still work. Our lives are constantly changing, and so are our relationships, and so are our needs, and so is the world. Why do we expect that the ideas that worked for us yesterday will be valuable tomorrow?

Before World War II, the French had an impregnable defensive structure called the Magniot Line. These exquisitely planned defenses were built to ensure France couldn’t be overrun by the Germans again, but the Magniot Line slowed the German Blitz not at all. Why? Because wartime doctrine had changed. Instead of the trench warfare that was the hallmark of World War I, the new war would be defined by movement, speed, and coordinated assaults. What the French did was prepare the perfect defense—for the last war.

How often do we do the same thing? We prepare ourselves with ideas and beliefs we’ve had for years, only to find to our surprise that they don’t work anymore.

What we must do is face those realities ourselves, actively seek out reasons why our ideas and beliefs might not work anymore. As your life changes, as the world changes, your beliefs and ideas must be revisited to reflect that new reality.

The ladder exercise in The Joys of the Bite Me Philosophy is a good starting point. If you’ve completed it, you have a good idea of which of your beliefs are most important to you. Now, ask yourself this: When did you last take a critical look at those cornerstone beliefs? Remember these are things you’re willing to lose a relationship over. Are they worth it? Do they still work?

What things do you take for granted? A political affiliation? A career path? A moral issue? A religion? These things go unquestioned by so many of us, and they’re exactly the sort of thing we should always be testing.

How can you examine these beliefs? Start by looking at them as though you were reading them, or perhaps hearing someone you have purely neutral feelings toward talk about them. What would your reaction be? Would you be drawn to the ideas in that setting? Continue beyond your initial reactions. Imagine your job is to critique these beliefs. How would you do it? Is your criticism more compelling than the idea itself? If so, it’s time to rethink things.

Like that favorite shirt, our ideas and beliefs occasionally need to be mended or even thrown out. Our challenge is to be the first person to notice that fact, not the last. Every time you find yourself thinking, “Well, it goes without saying…” you’ve just given yourself a clue that it’s time to give that shirt a good once-over and make sure it still fits.

12 August 2001

I always find it interesting walking into someone’s house for the first time. Especially if its someone I’ve know for awhile such as a coworker. A quick glance around someone’s home can provide more information about a person than hours of conversation.

Most of us are not in the fortunate position of being able to build a home. Even fewer of us can actually build our dream home. So what we are left with is often a compromise of what we want and what we can afford.

But its how people occupy their homes that fascinates me. How each of us chooses to fill up the space. How a couple or a family manages to balance everyone’s spirit in the same space.

We have all been in homes that made us uncomfortable even when the people who lived there did not. Sometimes you get the feeling that noone actually lives there. There is no dust, no scuff marks in the carpet, not a single glass out of place in the kitchen. The whole place seems like a demo house that a realtor shows before you agree to buy a plot in the subdivision. Or perhaps its the opposite case, the dirt on the floor is so thick you are looking for a tiller rather than a vacuum. Dishes piled high and laundry randomly forming its own communities in the corners.

In both of those cases, the residents of that home have created a space that suits their spirit. Perhaps the person is extremely focused and in pursuit of their particular obsession they have abandoned mundane domestic chores. Maybe they are meticulous in nature and cannot relax until everything is in its place. But in both cases the person is expressing their true selves in their physical space.

Cleanliness is only one thing to look at though. What kinds of things does someone place in prominent view? Are there books? Movies? An enormous CD collection? All of these things are a quick guide to people’s interests and passions and can tell you volumes about the person or people who live somewhere.

So what does it all mean? Can you assess someone simply by looking at their living room? Not quite, but it is a good place to start if you want to learn more about someone.

Tonight, when you are eating dinner or getting ready for bed. Look around. You may even learn something about your own priorities by listening to what your house is saying.

I just finished reading the 5th Harry Potter book this week (Yes, Iï¿œm 28. Yes, Iï¿œm a geek. No, this shouldnï¿œt surprise anyone.), and there were a couple of parts in particular that I really loved.

Not because it was a great book, mind youï¿œitï¿œs notï¿œbut style counts for a lot in my mind. So I got to thinking about this, and realized that Iï¿œm certainly not the only one who feels that way about books, or music, or movies. I think itï¿œd be fun to share some of these favorite lyrics, paragraphs, pages, and one-liners. Iï¿œll get us started with my favorite bit from Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson:

"Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monestary in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Columbian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.

Hiro used to feel that way, too, but then he ran into Raven. In a way, this is liberating. He no longer has to worry about trying to be the baddest motherfucker in the world. The position is taken. The crowning touch, the one thing that really puts true world-class badmotherfuckerdom totally out of reach, of course, is the hydrogen bomb. If it wasn’t for the hydrogen bomb, a man could still aspire. Maybe find Raven’s Achilles’ heel. Sneak up, get a drop, slip a mickey, pull a fast one. But Raven’s nuclear umbrella kind of puts the world title out of reach.

Which is okay. Sometimes it’s all right just to be a little bad. To know your limitations. Make do with what you’ve got."

I’ve taken exactly one course in Economics in my life, and that was in my first semester of college, over ten years ago. Somehow I managed to forget nearly everything from the class, but there’s one concept that really stuck with me, probably because it has something to do with a lot more than just economics.

The term is “opportunity cost”. Simply put, it states that when you’re looking at the cost of anything, you must consider more than the direct cost of resources the item will require. You must also take into account all of the other things you could have done with those resources. Let’s say you’re taking a day off work, and you decide to go out for an immense cafï¿œ mocha. The cost of the mocha including the tip you give the server is, say, $4.00. In one sense, all you’ve paid for the mocha is four bucks. Ah, but you also took the day off work. If you don’t get paid for that time, the opportunity cost of the mocha is much higher, because you’ve lost a day’s pay to have the free time you needed to spend your $4.00 for the beverage. If you called in sick that day and get paid for the time, there’s still an associated cost—using up one of your sick days, or vacation time. That doesn’t necessarily mean that going out for the mocha was a bad idea, but when you consider opportunity cost, you get a much better idea of what you’re spending on your purchases.

I see this notion as a universal concept, one that impacts everything in our lives. Consider: would carefully considering the opportunity cost of everything you buy change your spending habits, or at least make you more aware of them? It might not change your life, in that sense, but doesn’t the same idea apply elsewhere? Think of educational choices, for example. What is the true cost of choosing a course of study? There’s an investment of time and money, of course, but it’s equally true that deciding to study economics or philosophy or engineering or modern interpretive dance also means that you’re giving up the opportunity to study any other subject at that moment. This applies to our jobs, our relationships, our financial choices, and our experiences. The opportunity cost of doing any one thing at a particular moment is infinity, minus one.

Richard Bach has a line in his book Running From Safety that sums up the idea beautifully: “I have given my life to become the person I am at this moment. Was it worth it?” He might not use the words, but what he’s talking about is opportunity cost. That’s why the concept strikes me as universal, because asking this question, really considering it, can change the way you look at the world. Every choice becomes important, and the idea of making those choices lightly is frightening indeed.

Daunting concept, isn’t it? Realizing that with every action, we turn away from an infinite number of other paths is enough to make one consider freezing in place entirely, spending more and more time simply considering the alternatives. It’s tempting to turn to that contemplation to the exclusion of all else, to avoid the regrets that would come from realizing that poor choices were made. After all, when every choice literally carries the weight of the world, shouldn’t they be treated as such?

The danger in that line of thinking is that being frozen with that kind of caution can lead to complete inaction. And, of course, inaction carries with it its own opportunity cost. The statistical difference between infinity and infinity minus one is so tiny as to be meaningless. But it’s also the difference between nothing and something, between stagnation and growth, between a life wasted and one truly lived.

March 5, 2002

This is the first in a series of essays I’m blatantly stealing from my homepage, Playgrounds of the Mind. I hope to accomplish a few things by doing so: Increase content at Green Scissors, have a chance to edit the most blatant of the errors when I post them here, and of course to appear much more insightful and prolific than I really am.

Well, I finished it. The artist book is complete, along with the bazillion thoughts I had streaming through my mind concerning it. The look of the book was kept simple, each page containing a quote focusing on change while having a section cut from the page, piece by piece. Making it reminded me of the children’s book _The_Hungry_Caterpiller_ (sp?), though that book would kick my book’s ass in any competition.

The important thing is that it’s done. So I am led to the next train of thinking: "Am -I- done?" Now that I have assembled this tribute to my life changing, am I done with it? The change that happens in my life will Never stop, that I am prepared for, but perhaps my reactions to and perceptions of this change can start to become more fixed…? Examining one’s personal feelings concerning any life event can be incredibly exhausting and often dull. Now that I have completed my Life Changes artist book, perhaps I can also complete my reactions to these changes. Of course, choosing this could lead to a whole new set of options…

When my life changes, I could just dye my hair some new crazy color. I’ve done this in the past, and it may work out great.

Instead, perhaps every time a change happens, I can simply do a ritual SCREAM and throw things around the house. hmmmm…

I could run outside, yell "This SUCKS. AGAIN." three times, and spit.

Perhaps I could meditate while doing bizarre yoga poses and focus on becoming One With The Change.

Or hell, just drink a lot of beer and giggle.

I’m not sure which option looks the most appealing, but the fact that I could even have these options feels great. I will continue my search for an Intended Reactions To Life Changes, and would love any further suggestions if you have them!

I was visiting my cousin in California this weekend when I’d heard that Katherine Hepburn had died. Feelings around the house were mixed, ranging from “She was still alive?” to “What a horrible loss” to, in my case, “Hey, what a great idea for a game!”

According to most theologies, I’m on the express train to hell, though not for any interesting reasons. It seems to be that this whole ‘critical thinking’ thing puts me in trouble when it comes to the afterlife. Or maybe it’s the ‘complete smartass’ thing. Either way, I figure I might as well enjoy the events that will lead to my eternal torment, and to that end I recommend that we all play my new game: Who Should Die Next?

We all know, of course, that celebrities tend to die in threes. They’re put up on the screen at the Oscars in a moving tribute, complete with the mutterings of fellow actors saying, “Who the heck is that?” We cannot stop this strange phenomenon, all we can do is sit back, shed our tears, and most importantly, try to control it.

Now, I’m not advocating actually taking life or even wishing for the FIRST of the three people to die. That would be wrong, and might lead to jail time. But once the first celebrity (in this case, Katherine Hepburn) has kicked off, it’s in the hands of fate. Two more will pass on soon, and they might as well be the two of your choosing, right? This weekend my cousin, her fiancï¿œe and I had a spirited debate about who it should be. Trish held out for Pauly Shore, while Chad nominated all members of The Dixie Chicks (this was disallowed, as that would take us into the next triumvirate of dead celebrities. However, it could easily work into the next game, “Which Band Will Die In a Fiery Plane Crash?”). My recommendations of Celine Dion and Keanu Reeves were overruled, and in the end we could reach no compromise. So now I open the game to you, fine reader. Who should be added to our list of Next To Die?

But beware, time is of the essence. Today I heard that Buddy Hackett had died, and now we only have one left to go. Better get your nominations in quickly!