Laughter is like composing Haiku or taking pictures. When you think of a scene in front of you in order to write a poem or think about how to compose a shot, you are deeply engaged with where you are at. You are seeing things beyond the surface, finding relationships, comparing, contrasting, creating meaning. Laughter is like that between people.
Gardening has the same effect for deepening my awareness with the seasons. I never paid close attention to the weather before. Hot cold etc sure, but when you worry about growing things you start paying a lot more intimate attention to frost wind sun seasons how things root and grow. Composting similarily links eating to growing to how things work together. Understanding is so relational. Those relations need to be established for wisdom to evolve
- Todd Hoff
from iPhone
Another magical lens is a mathematician looking for symmetry in the world. Once you start looking for symmetry it's everywhere and deeply connects form across all things.
- Todd Hoff
I talked with a woman today who collects sea glass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...) by the sea. I was captivated as she explained how searching for glinty bits of glass in the surf transformed her and her families experience of the beach. She loves walking the beach looking for glass and collecting it. Her friend makes art work out of it, but she just puts it in a jar she bought...
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- Todd Hoff
A man I talked with told me how he like making up stories of the people he sees. He would look closely at a person I try to see if they were sad, happy, angry, impatient, blank, or whatever and then make up a story of why they might be feeling that way. It requires a lot of emotional intelligence and imagination to carry this out.
- Todd Hoff
Numeracy. By that I mean seeing things as described by numbers. It's a very different way of seeing the world. My first exposure to this way of relating to the world were stories about John von Neumann. It's certainly not how I see the world or anyone I knew at the time. The story I remember most is him looking at bicycle wheel and characterizing by numbers. He immediately signed...
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- Todd Hoff
Competition. This one is from Adam Savage. He sees deadlines and competition as a way to engage at a deeper level with his work. It's the pressure that creates a flow where he's solving problems and paying the most attention to what he's doing.
- Todd Hoff
Entrepreneur. There's a type of person that sees every situation as a new business that could be created. Viewing the world this way can be exciting. It makes you inquisitive, sensitive to relationships, and fundamentally optimistic. The downside is the potential to see everything as a means instead of end.
- Todd Hoff
Wine Tasting. It's especially fun in a group to go to a winery, look at the vines, hear the wine makers story, and try and find different flavors in the wine that backup what you've just experienced. A wine club deepens the experience a bit more. Buying futures, tasting the wine in the barrel and different points, then on release, then each year after deepens the experience even more. Food tasting in general would be similar I think.
- Todd Hoff
Wish lists. Lisa Bettany on Leo's show was rhapsodising about the process of picking her ultimate camera rig. It obviously gave her a lot of pleasure to think about all the different options, roll that about in her mind, imagine what it would be like, and come up with a final list. We something similar on the Internet with question like What is your favorite X? These are often surprisingly spirited and introspective discussions. Maybe related to window shopping.
- Todd Hoff
Trip joke. This is from a sailor who says on every trip to sea there develops a trip joke. It gets hammered into the deck and gets funnier as the days pass by. The funny thing, beside the joke, is the joke doesn't make any sense to the people who weren't there. It can't be explained. You had to be there in the experience. I think shared experiences are like that. People share something that can't be explained yet it is as real as rain.
- Todd Hoff
Naming. This from A Very Small Farm by William Winchester. In his book he is very precise with names. He doesn't just say there was a hawk sitting on a tree. He tells you exactly what kind of hawk, some characteristics of those hawks, and the quality of his interaction with them. He tells you precisely what kind of chicken, cow, or plant he is talking about. This seems to really deepen...
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- Todd Hoff
Breeding. Also from A Very Small Farm but also from people I know who breed dogs. In Williams case it delighted in producing new breeds of seeds that improved on what went before and fit is little ecosystem better. Dog breeders are often crazy intense about producing certain qualities and their dogs and spend infinite amounts of time evaluating breeding lines, looking at dogs,...
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- Todd Hoff
Picking seeds in winter for next summer's garden. People deeply enjoy this. Planning, browsing through catalogues, imagining how the plants will grow, what they'll look like, how they will taste.
- Todd Hoff
"When you watch your kid doing something you taught him, that's just not a feeling you get from purchasing a new iPad. When you sit in structure you built or use a product you built you'll know the feeling. It's hard to explain but in the end, it's worth it."
- Todd Hoff
Historical context & history. Knowing the history of something makes it mean more than it ever has before. It gives it layers of meaning and nuance that go way beyond a simple definition. Understanding the history of a word like brazen, for example, makes it so much more interesting. I image a definition of god as a being for whom all histories are known, so everything has ultimate meaning.
- Todd Hoff
Deep dive. I was listening to these guys who are really into chillies. They grow all sorts of varieties. They had opinions on all sorts of obscure aspects of chili lore. Thy delighted in talking about how to grow them, get the seeds, cook them, dry them, preserve them, how long different kinds took took to germinate, how some tasted better dried and smoked. And on and on. It was obvious about how knowing everything about chillies gave them a great deal of pleasure.
- Todd Hoff
Teasing. Playful teasing between willing participants carves out a special even sacred space, walled off from the mundane world.
- Todd Hoff
Parody. In an interview with one of the homer simpsons writers he said they were always looking around for things to parody on the show. I imagine that must give you an interesting relationship with everything around you!
- Todd Hoff
writing - "well, it was fun, though I think it would have been less fun if I hadn't been writing about it." -- richard todd
- Todd Hoff
Walk slowly around your neighborhood and back alleys looking for where food grows in public spaces. Most people walk quickly where they need to go totally ignoring the area around their own home. This is the intriguing idea of edible maps discussed in London’s Potential for Urban Agriculture – Interview with Mikey Tomkins - http://thesociocapitalist.com/2537.... More at http://www.mikeytomkins.co.uk/
- Todd Hoff
Esoterica. There are esoteric views for almost everything, gnosticism, kabbalah, hermeticism, alchemy, where people try to find the deeper meaning behind the surface in a way that is deeply personal. Moses just didn't get the 10 commandments, for example, he also received esoteric knowledge that is passed down orally for those who are prepared and worthy to receive it. Is this true? Who...
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- Todd Hoff
vacation. Being on vacation changes even your perception of things you see everyday.
- Todd Hoff
magic. When are trying to find the trick behind a magic trick you are viewing a scene in a completely different way than normal life. Ironically it's this attentional focus that allows us to be tricked.
- Todd Hoff
Naming things. Recognizing plant names. I suck at this. But the guys at rootsimple.com talked about walking around the neighborhood and everything is just a sea of green. Once you start learning the names of things then you start seeing familiar things all around you and it deepens your relationship. Maybe you've walked with people who know the name of everything and enjoy looking at leaves and figuring out what kind of tree or plant it is. Same with bird watching. And human watching while shopping.
- Todd Hoff
Shared experience. Experience something with other people dramatically changes what you are experiencing.
- Todd Hoff
gamification. Adding an extra layer of points, leveling up, challenges, groups tasks, etc to everything we do has the potential to charge and enrich otherwise mundane life. Or it can trivialize it even further.
- Todd Hoff
Attraction. "Crush: a heighten awareness of were he at the gym. 'ma idiot. Everytime he walks by, I smile like an idiot." http://friendfeed.com/vivianv...
- Todd Hoff
Acquisition. Viewing something with an eye towards purchasing it is a totally different experience from a casual interaction. All those little details that didn't matter before are now near deal breakers and indignities.
- Todd Hoff
Form. A poetry form like the villanelle, sonnet, haiku is restrictive, but by making you search for the right sound and and the right meaning to complete the form, a special vibrant place of possibilities is create that would not exist without the requirement of form.
- Todd Hoff
Oculus. An oculus defines a sacred space between this world and the world of spirit. It's a portal between the worlds. When you see one your mind is transported to other worlds outside the typical.
- Todd Hoff
Secrets. People who share a secret have an extra layer of meaning in the air. Everything is tinged with extra drama unavailable to those not participating in the secret
- Todd Hoff
For later: sex, festival, dream, sabotage, spying, altered states, competition, play
- Todd Hoff
Memory. I forget why. Oh, because everything becomes faceted with memory. Everyone can look at exactly the same scene and have a completely different experience because each person has a different set of memories. We don't live in the same world at all when you consider the power of memory. Memory is a tyrant, a box, a task master, a prison, a heaven, a torturer, a courtesan.
- Todd Hoff
Hemingway on Memory: "There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other." (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news...)
- Todd Hoff
sympathy. Yeats wrote about how the shared experience of sympathy bound together he and his lady love. Shared experiences and sentiments roughen usually hard, glassy, repulsive surfaces so that a spiritual glue can be applied, making unlike things as one.
- Todd Hoff
Style. Style creates a sort of sacred space where they stylish person separates themselves out from the unstylish. Tattoos, military garb, athletic uniforms, branded tshirts, religious garb, musical style, dance style, all serve the purpose of separation and enchantment.
- Todd Hoff
Game player type: explorer, socializer, killer, achiever. Each player type creates a different type of game space. Most people in the world the world are not out to achieve anything. They would like to earn achievements, but don’t care much to achieve.
- Todd Hoff
Echoes. Related to memories and trip jokes. But echoes are the piling up waves offset in time. So it's like rhyme in a poem, the poet setting up the rhyme for you to experience later. Repetition in music and stories. Old pictures. Snatches of memories of what has been seen, heard, experienced. All those in an echo are in a different place.
- Todd Hoff
Aftershock. A combination of memory and echo. When an after shock occurs, both actual and metaphorical, there's a space of simultaneity created where the fear of the past event rushes back to the present and infects the future. Each aftershock thereafter participates in the effect of all the previous aftershocks so all the pain a dread piles up like a compression wave. A truly powerful effect.
- Todd Hoff
Provenance. This one is inspired by Paul Bloom and How Pleasure Works. He talks a lot about essentialism. If the Mona Lisa were duplicated exactly we would still like the original better. Our lucky penny is identical to any other penny but any other penny won't do. A sweater touched by JFK is more valuable than a sweater owned by JFK but that was dry cleaned. My carrot that I grow...
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- Todd Hoff
Manipulation. From the Huntress...Paul McClure walked me through how the pro's get the emotion in their shots. They take five or six bracketed frames at different exposures of the same shot and then overlap them in a photoshop type program.
- Todd Hoff
Competition. Listening to athletes talk about that experience of being in the moment of a fierce competition struck me immediately as a powerful separate space completely separate from everyday experience.
- Todd Hoff
Filters. You know when on TV they light up a building with infrared and all of sudden you can see these little glowing lights that are people? In the forest a heavy dew is like that for spider webs. Spider webs are nearly invisible. Look at a patch of forest and there's nothing. Then have a heavy morning dew, it lights up that patch of forest and spider webs are everywhere....
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- Todd Hoff
Time Capsules. We've made a couple time capsules on our property. They only contain pictures of the house and the area, but I can imagine someone discovering them one day, opening, and reliving a bit of our past, just as I'm imagining a bit of their future.
- Todd Hoff
"the OWS anthem ~ I am not just a Consumer. I am a Citizen. I will no longer be labeled Left or Right, Liberal or Conservative, Demopublican or Republocrat. I will no longer follow Puppets labeled Left or Right, Liberal or Conservative, Demopublican or Republocrat. I am the People. And I am coming for the Puppet masters. I am part of the 99 Percent. And I demand the following: 1. End Fed Reserve secrecy and monetary manipulation 2. Reverse Citizens United. 3. Repeal PATRIOT Act. 4. Expose 9/11 Truth. 5. End Profit Wars. 6. Refund Taxpayer Trillions. 7. Imprison the Kleptocrats. 8. Single Term Limits."
- chaz2b
from Bookmarklet
RT @beccatronic: "Anti-intellectualism is nurtured by the false notion that democracy means 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge'"-Asimov (edited)
This is clearly not my cat. If this was my cat he's have one arm shoved down into the printer trying to tear up all the internal whirling bits with his bare claws.
- Soup in a TARDIS
Too Funny! Reminds me of the San Mateo Cat Shelter where one of the cats loves to sleep on top of the laster printer where the paper comes out...
- Greg Lato
1600+ to beat the FFundercats live chat thread. I think with this real time now on all threads we're going to see some truly epic comment numbers.
- Simon Wicks
Ivan, no the picture speaks for itself. ;-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Petr, I have no idea what you mean, but thank you. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
@Kol .. :] that, partially, might have been the purpose.... I don't know it exactly either. :] .. was I reflecting on a cat under the fax, and that it is hard to fax that way ... /?:] ... "underfaxing at its worst" ..
- pb:
there ya have me ! :] .... see, to be honest with you, i saw this pic couple days ago, but i let it go, without posting it ..... what does that make me? :]
- pb:
even a flat cat... faxes just can't handle the hair. You'd have to shave the cat first, else the hair will burn and stick to the drum... a mess! (I am extrapolating from transparencies, mind, i don't have access to a cat to test)
- Iphigenie
Hehe, Joelle. This is now tied for the 'likes' top stop. One more then, hehe. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Hehe, Greg. Blimey! Erm, is that not far from 500 likes now? ;-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Bloody marvelous, Kol. Wish I could like it again... too cute (and help u to 500 likes).
- Roberto Bonini
I couldn't believe it when I logged on from the morning over posting it and saw it was at something 200 likes! You all have a strange fetish with cats and fax machines, hehe. ;-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Am I the only one who saw this and their first thought was - My goodness did someone break that cats neck? It still freaks me out a little
- SteVe C
Steve, it does look a little out of place, but cats are pretty bendy. ;-)
- Kol Tregaskes
They fax much better if you flatten them first. What?
- The original Kevin
So we can put this post to rest now. :-) 505 likes final count, wow! :-D Good night all!
- Kol Tregaskes
did 3 people really un-like this? now at 506. wtf (edit: uh, oh, yeah, me and 2 + 506 others makes 509. dammit, jim, i'm an artist, not a mathematician)
- ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ
One of the best funny cat pictures I've seen! :-)
- John Collis
Kristian, it appears to be. Hehe, John.
- Kol Tregaskes
ای بابا این پیشول بی خیال نمی شود، بابا پاشو برو دنبال یه بازی دیگه ، از هفته پیش تا حالا تو فکس ولو شدی حوصله ات سر نرفته، پاشو اقلا بپر رو کیبوردی چیزی
- Maryaminaa
It's really only social convention which regards it as inappropriate, same with Xeroxing it, like one does with their b__tocks. Wait are we still talking about cats cats here or...
- The Real sofarsoShawn
OMGosh 700+ likes now!! LOL. Thank you all 702 of you. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes