Image

The puzzle of image remains unsolved for me.

For years I have revelled in my individuality and displayed it openly.

As a scientist being strange was irrelevant. It was the skill for the work that everyone cared about and looked for.

But in big business there is this idea of a 'professional image'. People judge you based off appearances. How do you dress? How do you speak? Do you act in a way which they consider normal and 'proper'?

These attributes have no causative correlation with ability to do the job. And so judging me on them is not fair. It is, in fact, WRONG.

But I cannot control other people. I can only control me.

And I already decided to sacrifice image to get this job. I lost the blue hair, and I donned a suit so that a 'normal' firm would accept me as one of their own. And recently my boss had a chat to me about my "personal Internet brand".

I may need to start removing linkages between MoazaicIris and my real name. I don't want to... it goes against my beliefs about self expression. And I already set up a personal internet brand I'm rather proud of... I quite liked being the dark lord of CosSoc.

But it would be hypocritical of me to get all high and mighty about my Internet presence after I altered my real-world appearance for this job already. I may have to play the game.

Balance is the key. I must find ways to express myself that doesn't impinge on my career, or else my big business career may not be quite as long term as I planned. Many CosPlayers have separate identities for their hobby and I always laughed... but I need money, I need my career to progress, and since I can't control the opinions of others that means I must present myself as the kind of person they think is competent.

Be embodied

As a child, I felt disembodied.

My entire existence revolved around the power of my mind, and my fat and unhealthy body was merely a poorly designed avatar with which I interacted with the world.

But your body is important. Even if your existence revolves around the mind, you still need your body. It nourishes your intellect and protects it from harm.

So look after your body, and learn how to use it. Connect up neurons to all of the nerves that control movement, and learn how to coordinate them in complex patterns. And connect all of them - don't rely on your primary hand, someday you may need both at once or even just injure your primary hand. When you learn something on one side, immediately swap and learn it on the other.

Learn to pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time, and you'll get things done in half the time it takes others.

That skill was useful to me as a scientist (aliquoting liquids into fiddly little eppendorf tubes) and as a waiter (washing two glasses at once).

Learn to run and climb and fight, because you never know when that precious intellect of yours might be in danger.

And never, EVER let yourself believe that you can't have a healthy body because you are intelligent, geeky or academically minded.

TV has lied to you. The inverse correlation between physical strength and intelligence is not causative, and only a fool would doom himself to ill health in order to comply with a stereotype.

The right to be angry

Sometimes someone gets angry. Lets call them person A.

And then often someone close to the issue tells them they have "no right to be angry".  Lets call this one B.


I find this to be a confounding and non-constructive response. Often person B will get angry at person A for having gotten angry in the first place. And then it becomes a cycle... suddenly person A is angry at person B for having gotten angry at person A for having been angry, because person A has every right to be angry.

Whether you followed that or not the point is, that telling someone they don't have the right to be angry is never helpful.

Anger is very rarely a rational response in any situation; but if they are angry, then they are also hurt.

And if someone you love is hurt, then you need to help them; not exacerbate the problem by stripping them of rights.

By all means discuss with them the lack of merit in their anger. Plenty of wise men (Jesus, Confuscious, Budha, etc.) have already done to death the idea that anger is not healthy. But ignoring it is not healthy either. Anger, once present, must be dealt with and processed.

So talk to your friend about the source of their anger, and try and help them to grow past it... but never tell them they don't have the right to experience anger, because it will only make them angry.

First Post

Every now and then in life I have a thought... I come to some kind of a realisation as a result of a plethora of experiences... and then it irks me that I have no where to write these things down.

It seems like these thoughts should be in a big leatherbound tome... but since it would be impractical to carry such a thing around with me I thought a blog might work better.

I'm somewhat hesitant to have this linked to my gmail account like this... since sometimes my wisdoms come from recent experiences with people close to me and they might not want their lives critiqued upon the internet. In fact I've lost friends over that kind of thing in the past.

But be that as it may, I'm giving this a go. And so begins my catalogue of lessons to live by. Wisdoms that I feel could enrich us all.