Duck...Duck...Goose!

Law #10: Only once you've claimed your space does anyone more space show up.

I think we've all been here at some point in time.  You're in a large parking lot packed to the brim and you're looking for a spot.  You have to cruise through the entire lot for a good 15 minutes before you find ANY space.  You're not to happy with were the spot is but since there aren't any more you happily take it.  Then it happens.  As you're walking to your destination you spot an empty spot...then another...then another.  Where were all these spots when you were looking?

Wanna have some more fun?  Go back to your car and try to get that spot you just saw.  It'll probably be gone.  Oh well, back to where...oh, now that spot's gone too.

I think that's kind of a metaphor for life.  We spend a long time looking for a place to fit in and not finding it.  When we find a place that feels comfortable, opportunities start springing up.  But these opportunities demand you give up your currently held comfortable spot.  So what do you do?  Do you drop your comfort zone and check out this new spot or do you stay put?

You weren't looking for advice in the post were you?  Because I don't have any.  I'm just making an observation. Either stick with your spot or try the other.

Lincoln Was An Optimist

Law #9:  Pleasing everyone is an impossibility.

Personally, I hate the word "impossible".  I prefer "improbable".  Sorry, but impossible applies here.  You see, in order for everyone to be pleased consensus must be reached.  However, there are people who are simply incapable of moving with consensus.  Those who do are either ostracized or ignored in modern society.  People only start to pay attention to them when they reach a consensus comparable to the previously established one.  Add the fact that consensus is relative to location and this law's accuracy increases exponentially.

So where does that leave us?  Well just because we can't please everyone doesn't mean we can't please a lot of people.  And really, who cares about pleasing EVERYONE (except for politicians but they do a fair amount of fibbing for their living)?  How about pleasing YOURSELF and the people you care about the most?  There are people who are going to gripe and complain no matter what you do so you should really just live for you.

By the way, here's Abraham Lincoln's complete quote:

You can please some of the people some of the time all of the people some of the time some of the people all of the time but you can never please all of the people all of the time.

***Disclaimer*** If it pleases you to break the laws of modern society I hope you'll be pleased with your jail cell.  Just sayin'.

Awkwaaaaard...

Law #8:  There's never really going to be a good time to post anything on social media.

Available here...so they don't sue me for borrowing their pic.

There's a tragedy right now in America.  27 people, mostly children, were shot and killed at a Connecticut Elementary School.  Rightfully there is a lot of sadness, grief and anger over what has happened.  Just check your social media wall and see for yourself. 

Now this is a despicable crime and personally I think we should reconsidering bringing back the guillotine just for this guy but that's not what this post is really about.  It's about all the other folks who use social media and are posting right now and have no idea this all just happened.  They're going to look back at what they were posting at this very moment totally unaware of what tragedy has transpired and they're gonna feel like total douches for posting what they posted.

There just isn't ever going to be an appropriate time for posting the stuff you normally post on social media.  Heck, I'm not even sure what I'm posting now is appropriate.  When you're posting how much fun you're having fun doing something, someone else on your list is going to be posting that a relative just died.  When you're posting how much agony you're in because you burned your hand on the stove someone else on your list is going to posting just how good the food is at that new teppanyaki place.

Your time is always going to suck...and that's ok.  People didn't add you to their social media list for you to be appropriate all the time and cheer them up and be that one sunshiny bright spot on the web for them.  They did it because they want to stay in touch with you and what's going on in your life.

Right now, it's ok to mourn.  But if you look back on what you were posting not knowing what was going on you shouldn't feel bad about that.  Don't apologize either.  You were just being you and that's all we ever asked for.

How About Fantasyland?

Law #7: You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.

This entry's title refers to the 1986 comedy Back To School.  Rather than try to explain it here's the actual scene.


Granted, Rodney Dangerfield is the "hero" in this story but in this clip he's just dead wrong.  Though Dangerfield's character is a successful businessman, he's here injecting his own methods and procedures into what has been established as standard factual business teaching material.  Yes, it's still funny but that leads me to the point of this entry.

I'm a scientist.  I started out in the marine sciences and later expanded to computer science.  Biology, chemistry, zoology, etc.  If there was an -ology after it there's a good chance I studied it at some point or another.  In science we rely on facts.  You see, we can't EVER assume things.  Mostly at the time it was because if we did we'd probably get a failing grade on our report.  The bigger picture though was that if our results could not reproduced we don't get to call it a fact.  It's like we just made it up.

So why the rant?  Because lately (and by lately I mean pretty much my entire life) science has found itself under fire simply for stating facts that prove to be inconvenient for certain people.  By certain people I mean politicians. Despite my political affiliation I've said time and again that anytime politicians make an effort to regulate science they are bound to just screw it up.  I'll let author Michael Crichton, who himself was a scientist, explain why:

“I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.”

Here's my issue.  Too often I see facts twisted, bent, obliterated and even ignored just to push an certain agenda.  The people pushing this agenda feel that if they can get consensus on their side then the facts are irrelevant.  Then once they've achieved that consensus, they act as if the consensus is fact.  It's not.  Period.

Oh, and Rodney does eventually learn the material.

Don't Sweat The Small Stuff

Law #6: You spend way too much time asserting your importance in the natural order of things.

Humans, I dare say, must be the most arrogant beings in the universe.  As a testament to that, me just saying that proves it.  We get so caught up in minor issues that we end up sweating really small stuff and blowing them up into monuments.  We are dust motes, living on a dust more, in a solar system dust mote, in a galaxy dust mote...so on and so forth.  There is a universe larger and grander than any of us could ever imagine but we mount huge protests against clothes for dogs.

I'm reminded of an episode of Weird Science when Wyatt was stressing over asking a girl out when he got sage advice from a fictional Albert Einstein.

The universe is a vast, expanding furnace of matter and energy.  Relative to this you are infinitely small and insignificant.  Your actions: ultimately meaningless.  The universe is still going to expand.  Nothing you do will change that.  You are still going to die.

We tend to think that planets burst into flames and black holes engulf whole solar systems based on our actions when ultimately the universe doesn't really care what we do on our little dust mote.  This quote gave Wyatt the courage to ask that girl out because he realized that even if she said no the world doesn't end.  His world doesn't end.  And time is too short to even dwell on failure.

Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better

Law #5: There will always be someone who is more than you.

That's Neil deGrasse Tyson.  He is infinitely a greater geek than I.  I have no problem with that.  I just think he's awesome.  Follow him on Twitter, he's hilarious.  But I digress.  Point I'm making here is that no matter what you think of yourself there is always someone out there who is more of it.  There's always someone richer.  Always someone prettier/more handsome.  Always someone with a more busted life than yours.  Always someone living a better life than yours.  Yes, more goes both ways.  Get the point?  So small piece of advice.  If you want to be the best at something, do it for yourself; not to be better than someone else.

P.S.  It's ok to brag to yourself that you're the best there is at what you do...but really, just keep that to yourself. :)

Excuse Me

Law #4:  It doesn't matter where you stand.  You'll always be in someone's way.

Little known fact: People have great difficulty moving in curves.  If you don't believe me watch how traffic evens out once people get to the straight stretch on the waterfront heading west (sorry for the local reference).  Point is the minute you put something in someone's straight path they have to reprocess their entire thought patterns just to go AROUND that something...or at last that's what it seems like to me.  Strangely enough this doesn't apply to sitting.  It's like going around someone who's sitting down is more natural than going around someone who's standing up.