About Grace December 9, 2016
Posted by Peter Varhol in Uncategorized.add a comment
I’m writing this because someone should. My dear friend Gerie, we ran in a pair of races this past spring. In the first, at Oak Island, she ran the half marathon, in a very decent 1:56 and change. I had already run the 5K, and amazingly placed in my age group (old, very old). The organizers were placing printouts of times (gun time for awards, and chip times otherwise) on a bulletin board, and her eyesight didn’t permit her to read hers. I crowded into the bulletin board, saw her name, and held up three fingers.
She placed third in her age group, her first placement in a half marathon. There was another woman next to her, who saw her own name, and warmly congratulated Gerie. It turned out that this woman was, by chip time, a half second faster than Gerie in the same age group, but because they went by gun time, Gerie placed just ahead of her by the same margin. Grace, indeed.
The next morning, we ran the charity 5K at Fort Fisher. At the very end, Gerie fell at a speed bump, and ended up bleeding profusely in the women’s WC. There was no first aid for the race, but a woman came up to her and said, “I sent my daughter out to our car for our first aid kit. We’ll take care of you.” And they did. There was no “Do you need help?” or any equivocation. It just happened.
Grace, indeed.
In early September, at the Virginia Beach half marathon, Gerie finished, and we were walking away from the course, when she suddenly froze with a horrified look on her face. A second later, before I even knew there was a problem, a young man (of color, but I shouldn’t have to specify that) ran up and said, “Let me help you down.” She sat, with a serious leg cramp, and he continued, “Here’s what you need to do.” Two police officers stopped to help. A woman stepped up and said, “You’re dehydrated. Take my Gatorade.”
In an era where we believe we are self-sufficient, where we need help from no one, where we let our competitive juices take over our emotions, there remain many people like this. A part of that is the running community in general, but it is also very much a part of human nature.
So today, let me ask you this: Who have you helped today?
I Want to See Things I Disagree With December 8, 2016
Posted by Peter Varhol in Technology and Culture, Uncategorized.Tags: conversation, random
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This article on Quartz is disheartening on many levels. What first got my attention is its point that the new Amazon grocery store is specifically designed to avoid interactions with random people.
And then it goes on to talk about how the Facebook algorithms tailor our news based on how we define ourselves. (It most definitely doesn’t define mine; I refuse to join Facebook). It gives us only what it thinks we want to read.
It is a thesis similar to Sherry Turkle’s Reclaiming Conversation. We avoid conversation with friends, family, and random people during the day because they are unpredictable. At a deeper level, they may force us to consider other ideas, which is also disruptive to our daily lives.
It turns out that we don’t particularly like other ideas, that don’t conform to our current belief network. We want reinforcement of what we already believe, because it is easier for us. We don’t want the friction of having to think about ideas opposed to our existing belief networks. We call that friction, and we are attempting to minimize or even eliminate friction in our lives.
Dammit, I want friction in my life. I want to put a few bucks in the pot next to the bell-ringing Salvation Army Santa, and tell him he does good work, and hear what he says. I want to make a random remark to a random person, just to hear the response. And dammit, I don’t want to be told what I want to read, and I resent an algorithm that tries to tell me otherwise. Why doesn’t anyone else?
My belief network has changed substantially as an adult. If yours hasn’t, then you have a real problem.
And I am not a particularly social person. In my late middle age (at least), I remain uncomfortable in group situations where I don’t know anyone. But this is what it means to be a human being, in a human society. We should be uncomfortable, because we grow as a result.
Kudos for Mike Murphy for writing this.
And. I realize that I am getting more strident in my late middle age. I don’t know that I am right, in all or in part. But I am willing to lay it out there, and listen to people who might prove me wrong. And that seems to be more than just about any of us are willing to do right now.
Cutting Edge Computing 