2014.06.14 01:00 - The Kind of People Who

The Guardian for this meeting was No Self. The comments are by No Self.

Wol Euler: good morning, lila
Lila Darkmatter: Morning, Wol
Wol Euler: spent the night watching tv again, did we?
Wol Euler grins.
Lila Darkmatter: nope :) woke with anxiety about my daughter moving
Wol Euler: oh
Wol Euler: well, good about the tv but bad about the anxiety
Lila Darkmatter: it was either sign into SL or wake the house cleaning :)
Wol Euler nods.
Lila Darkmatter: How are you doing?
Wol Euler: hmmmm
Wol Euler: struggling on, I guess
Wol Euler: the weather has broken, it's cool and cloudy today which is a relief
Lila Darkmatter: cool and cloudy sounds perfect for aimless wandering
Wol Euler: i will do some of that, and some aimed brisk walking too
Lila Darkmatter: :)
Wol Euler: downtown for big shopping later on
Lila Darkmatter: a good plan

Lila Darkmatter: I've been trying to remember the sally-like quality of going forth into the world open to whatever happens
Wol Euler smiles.
Lila Darkmatter: crowds, or lonely spaces
Wol Euler: hence aimless
Wol Euler: yes, I need to do some more of that too
Wol Euler: I realized the other day that I haven't been down to the river in a few years, and why:
Wol Euler: work on the new train station ravaged the park that one walks through on the way there
Wol Euler: and I found that too distressing last time
Lila Darkmatter nods... can understand that...
Wol Euler: I should just face up to that and go back, if I can get past the first five hundred metres or so, it will be okay
Lila Darkmatter: ongoing improvements, or will they be finished eventually?
Wol Euler: it will take years, and then decades before the replanted trees are as big as what was lost
Lila Darkmatter nods...
Wol Euler: tehy are turning a dead-end station into a travel-through-station by putting it underground and rotating it 90 degrees
Wol Euler: enormous costs, social and environmental as well as financial
Lila Darkmatter: giving more explorable places?
Wol Euler: all of which we the citizens are bearing
Lila Darkmatter: ah, I see
Lila Darkmatter: so not so easy to look at it in a friendly way
Wol Euler: because it is of course unfair for businesses to bear the costs associated with increasing their profits
Lila Darkmatter: of course!
Lila Darkmatter: after all, they are improving things for us?
Wol Euler: of cours!

--BELL--

Wol Euler: anyway, I don't wish to bitch about this and it is hard to talk about without needing to bitch
Wol Euler: it#s a fait accompli, our pockets were picked and our trees felled, and nothing will bring either of those back
Wol Euler: so we might as well move on
Lila Darkmatter: I'm realizing right now, that an unpleasant parking lot separates the place I'm living in, from a rather nice park, and that that parking lot does feel like an obstacle to strolling along
Wol Euler nods.
Lila Darkmatter: it would be good to get over that :), maybe seeing that I feel that way is a start. And for you too?
Wol Euler: mmhmm
Wol Euler smiles.
Lila Darkmatter: hard not to compare, when you remember something far more pleasant
Wol Euler: "this too will pass" is a help
Lila Darkmatter smiles
Lila Darkmatter: passageways

Lila Darkmatter: Did you see that they uncovered "the road to Machu Pichu" ?
Wol Euler: oh, no. do tell
Lila Darkmatter: I just saw the headline, and somehow it sparks the imagination...
Lila Darkmatter: there is even a tunnel
Wol Euler: that was the plateau city in the high Andes, yes? 12000 feet up or something ridiculous like that
Lila Darkmatter: not sure about elevation, but yes
Lila Darkmatter: fascinating site, though I've never felt drawn to visit Peru before
Wol Euler: 12k sounds unrealistic, now that I think about it
Wol Euler nods.
Lila Darkmatter: here is a snippet about the road:
Lila Darkmatter: The road is covered with vegetation, but some parts have been cleared of weeds and scrub by the park's researchers so that containing walls 3 meters (9 3/4 feet) high can be observed. The head of the archaeological park, Fernando Astete, said that one of the most important finds is a tunnel 5 meters (16 feet) long at a height of 2,700 meters (8,850 feet) in the Andes. Astete added that the tunnel is one of the best examples of Inca engineering since it was built when the main road collapsed, and because of that, the Incas broke through the rock and opened the tunnel, which remains functional more than 500 years after its construction.
Lila Darkmatter: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/ent...-machu-picchu/

Lila Darkmatter: 500 years somehow seems young in this context :)
Wol Euler: yes, I am surprised
Wol Euler: I thought it was far older
Lila Darkmatter: me too
Lila Darkmatter: gosh we're a sliver on time
Wol Euler: yep
Lila Darkmatter: or maybe not even a hair

Lila Darkmatter: :) so what are you shopping for?
Wol Euler: food, towels, pyjamas
Wol Euler: I also need a new fridge and vacuum cleaner but not enough money for those
Lila Darkmatter: vacuum cleaners are one of those things there rarely seems enough money for
Lila Darkmatter: not exciting :)
Wol Euler: dirt is easier to live with than rotting food
Lila Darkmatter: right
Wol Euler: and I have some reading for the weekend, a birthday present book from boss and family
Lila Darkmatter: Ohhh?

Wol Euler: "the art of being happy" by Schopenhauer
Wol Euler: "willingly do what one can, and willingly endure what one must" is the subtitle
Lila Darkmatter: I like that idea... happiness as art
Wol Euler smiles.
Wol Euler: it is manageable
Wol Euler: not in the way that a car can be steered or a light switched on, but in that there are preconditions and favourable circumstances
Wol Euler: and negative ones to avoid
Wol Euler: so art (in the sense of doing) seems a good metaphor
Lila Darkmatter: :) happiness arises
Wol Euler nods.

Wol Euler: happiness is a byproduct of being engaged in useful work, I think
Wol Euler: not only that, but it definitely arises for me under those circumstances
Lila Darkmatter: so you feel most alive when engaged creatively? or is it more than 'creative'?
Wol Euler: it's more about engagement than creativity as such

--BELL--

Wol Euler: it can happen when wrestling with a spreadsheet
Wol Euler: I remember seeing a graph about this
Wol Euler: vertical axis was the challenge of the task, from trivially simple at the bottom to fiendishly difficult at the top
Wol Euler: horizontal axis was the level of skill one needed to bring to the task, from "eyes closed and one hand behind the back" at teh left to einstein-meets-(olympic athlete of your choice) at the right
Lila Darkmatter: hahah
Wol Euler: when the challenge is low and the required skills are low, boredom results
Wol Euler: and so on
Wol Euler: happiness results where the challenge and the skills are in balance
Wol Euler: and that can happen right at the very bottom too, in the way of simple physical games
Wol Euler: the graph had a name (its originator) which I cannot recall
Wol Euler: I'll put it i the comments if I figure it out
Lila Darkmatter: My eyebrows were furrowed for a moment, with a "too linear, too linear" flag waving, until you mention "balance" - that makes a great deal of sense
Wol Euler: it's a simplification, of course :)
Lila Darkmatter: :)
Wol Euler: if you have high skill but the task doesn't require them you get bored
Wol Euler: if you don't have the skills for the task, you get frustrated
Wol Euler: that rising line is where happiness and satisfaction can occur
Lila Darkmatter: I find mundane tasks really liberating sometimes... as though they say "here, let me hold your busy mind for a moment, so you can aimlessly wander" :)
Wol Euler: absolutely!
Wol Euler: bottom left :)
Wol Euler: can be a place of joy
Lila Darkmatter smiles
Wol Euler: mindfully washing dishes fits right there
Lila Darkmatter: yes
Wol Euler: or weeding the garden on a not-too-hot day
Lila Darkmatter: yes! although hard for me to access a current example of having done that one :)
Wol Euler: hehehheh, me too
Wol Euler: haven't weeded a garden since my grandmother died, actually
Lila Darkmatter: how long ago?
Wol Euler: oh, mid-eighties
Wol Euler: wow
Wol Euler: damn
Wol Euler: thirty years
Lila Darkmatter: apartment life
Wol Euler nods.

Lila Darkmatter: I didn't weed much at the house, only when planting new flowers, or when first moving in, undoing and redoing
Wol Euler listens.
Lila Darkmatter: no further thought about that... just thinking sometimes we're nostalgic for the idea of something maybe
Wol Euler: definitely :)
Wol Euler: perhaps wishing we were the kind of people who did those things
Lila Darkmatter: yes :)
Lila Darkmatter: but we're the kind of people who do other kinds of things
Wol Euler: "aspirational shopping"
Wol Euler: true
Lila Darkmatter giggles
Lila Darkmatter: do you have a balcony?
Wol Euler: buying two hundred dollar running shoes instead of going out and running
Wol Euler: yes, I do
Wol Euler: I should clean that up and make use of it this weekend
Wol Euler: now that the heat is off
Lila Darkmatter: what a nice project that would be
Wol Euler smiles.
Lila Darkmatter: I need to find out what types of flowers I can grow on the balcony

Wol Euler: describe the balcony, in as many words as necessary
Lila Darkmatter: thought about herbs but there are so many birds and squirrels...probably eat them
Lila Darkmatter: it is a second floor balcony right under a large umbrella tree
Lila Darkmatter: nothing special, small, but enough for a little bistro set
Lila Darkmatter: and perhaps a few planting boxes
Lila Darkmatter: the tree would help whatever I planted
Wol Euler nods.
Lila Darkmatter: no scorching
Lila Darkmatter: you?

Wol Euler: also second floor, but htat means third to you :) because ground level is not a floor, that is zero
Lila Darkmatter: ah :)
Wol Euler: smallish, one and a half tatami mats in each direction
Wol Euler: facing east and north, into a schoolyard
Wol Euler: which is good because it's green and broad
Lila Darkmatter: oh, restful

--BELL--

Wol Euler: many people's balconies face across a courtyard into somebody else's balcony
Wol Euler: quite pleasant actually, there's often a gentle breeze there
Wol Euler: either from rising heat or blowing between the buildings
Lila Darkmatter: small luxuries
Wol Euler: it#s on the back side, attached to my kitchen
Lila Darkmatter: ooh, that sounds nice
Lila Darkmatter: I'm thankful for the umbrella tree,, without which I would face into another apartment building
Lila Darkmatter: but years ago when I lived in a townhouse on a lake, I loved washing dishes at night while watching the lady across the lake, blurrily do the same
Wol Euler smiles.
Lila Darkmatter: we never met, but we spent nearly every night together
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: I get a nice feeling from your description
Wol Euler: there's something of the mystical small-town of one's childhood in that
Lila Darkmatter: it was nice :) nothing political about it, hah... just simple, spacious
Wol Euler nods.
Lila Darkmatter: some of the people I admire most seem to pay attention to pleasure in laser focused ways, aesthetic masters
Lila Darkmatter: hard to realize the sublime when you're in it
Lila Darkmatter: (she dreamily rambles on...)
Lila Darkmatter: this sofa has effects
Wol Euler: hehehehehehh
Wol Euler: but true, and true
Lila Darkmatter: :)

Lila Darkmatter: so we are gardening this weekend too then?
Lila Darkmatter laughs
Wol Euler: the Protestant Work Ethic teaches us to distrust pleasure
Wol Euler: perhaps :)
Lila Darkmatter: that's right
Lila Darkmatter: idle hands
Lila Darkmatter: are the devil's workshop
Lila Darkmatter: :P
Wol Euler: mmhmm

Wol Euler: heh, another insomniac. Good morning, adams
Lila Darkmatter: Good morning Adams :)
Adams Rubble: Hello Wol and Lila
Lila Darkmatter: I'm nearly sleeping again, so I'll say bye for now, but it is nice to see you both
Wol Euler smiles.
Wol Euler: sweet dreams, lila
Lila Darkmatter wrestles herself from sofa
Adams Rubble: good night Lila
Lila Darkmatter: Night, and have a lovely day
Wol Euler: happy gardening!
Lila Darkmatter: safe and pleasureable passages
Lila Darkmatter: hah,you too
Lila Darkmatter: bfn
Wol Euler: <3
Adams Rubble: bye

Wol Euler: you're up early today
Adams Rubble: yes, thinking about things I shouldn;t be thinking about
Wol Euler: oh dear
Adams Rubble: that's life :)
Wol Euler: heheheh
Adams Rubble: thought I'd come say hello
Wol Euler smiles.
Wol Euler: thank you, always a pleasure to see you
Adams Rubble: thank you. you too
Wol Euler: Lila and I were talking about gardening and balconies and letting oneself enjoy simple pleasures
Adams Rubble: :)
Adams Rubble: good advice early in the morning :)
Wol Euler grins.
Wol Euler: I may do some of that today, now that the heat of the last week has broken
Adams Rubble: The weather gets very weird these days
Wol Euler nods.
Adams Rubble: glad to hear your heat wave has broken

--BELL--

Adams Rubble hopes she is not keeping Wol
Wol Euler: not at all
Wol Euler: I have nothing to do today except everything :)
Adams Rubble: :)
Adams Rubble 's mind is groggy
Wol Euler smiles.
Adams Rubble: It is nice that you have kept these sessions open
Wol Euler: thank you
Wol Euler: they have value to me
Adams Rubble: It has been a long time since we first met here
Wol Euler smiles.
Wol Euler: many moons, indeed
Wol Euler: much has changed, for good and for worse
Adams Rubble: yes
Adams Rubble: so many people have come and gone
Wol Euler nods.

Adams Rubble: Hello Xirana :)
Wol Euler: good morning xirana
Adams Rubble seems to be on European time
Wol Euler grins.
Xirana Oximoxi: yes :)
Xirana Oximoxi: new decotration to sit?..I mean the sofa :)
Xirana Oximoxi: decoration
Xirana Oximoxi: :)
Wol Euler: San was playing last night
Xirana Oximoxi: ahh ok :)
Xirana Oximoxi: I will have to go:) some friends arrving:) I wish you a great wekend!!
Wol Euler: you too! take care
Adams Rubble: nice to see you Xirana
Xirana Oximoxi: see you soon!
Adams Rubble: bye
Adams Rubble: that was quick :)
Wol Euler: heheheh
Wol Euler: flying visit

Wol Euler: what time is this for you?
Adams Rubble: 5:09
Wol Euler: the sun must be coming up
Adams Rubble: It took 12 minutes for my computer to relent and allow me to get here
Adams Rubble: not sure about the sun
Adams Rubble: probably
Wol Euler: oh?
Adams Rubble: it likes to do its own thing when I turn it on
Adams Rubble: teach me patience
Wol Euler laughs.
Wol Euler: they say it is a virtue ...
Adams Rubble: The tax program wanted to update even though taxes were due in April
Adams Rubble: then it told me there were no updates or news :)
Adams Rubble: someday I will send them an email with a piece of my mind
Wol Euler: but at least it knows. It's happy now.
Adams Rubble: yes, it has been naggging me for a few days
Wol Euler: ideally that wuld be done behind your back and would not bother you unless it DID find something
Adams Rubble: yes ideally :)
Adams Rubble: ideally it would know taxes were due in April :)
Adams Rubble: and I did mine in February
Adams Rubble did not mean to come to complain
Wol Euler: awwww :)
Wol Euler: understood
Adams Rubble: did the 99 days project finish?

--BELL--

Wol Euler: for now, yes
Wol Euler: there will be more of them
Adams Rubble: :)
Wol Euler: it was only a 33 Days really, until the Sl retreat
Adams Rubble: I was a little confused about that
Wol Euler: so was I actually
Wol Euler: to be honest
Adams Rubble: a 1/3 99 days :)
Wol Euler nods.
Adams Rubble: it is another way to explore
Wol Euler: challenging preconceptions in new ways
Adams Rubble: How many sessions do you do now?
Adams Rubble: a week
Wol Euler: three
Wol Euler: of my onw
Adams Rubble: wow
Wol Euler: and I attend two or three others
Adams Rubble: wow
Adams Rubble: after all these years :)
Wol Euler smiles.
Wol Euler: there are people who like variety, who avoid doing the same thing twice; and there are those who enjoy repeating known pleasurable experiences
Wol Euler: I'm of the latter sort
Adams Rubble: :)
Wol Euler: there's a wine bar/cafe in Venice near the Accademia bridge that I've been going to since 1980
Wol Euler: and so on
Adams Rubble: :)
Adams Rubble: Familiarity is good
Wol Euler nods.

Wol Euler: I wonder whether that goes back to an early division in our (species) history, the hunters versus the gatherers
Wol Euler: gatherers need to know where the good berries are, to go back to them
Wol Euler: hunters are always on the move so they don't bother to note static features
Adams Rubble: hunters need to know where the game hangs out and the game returns to places too
Adams Rubble: so maybe not such a dofference :)
Wol Euler: also true :)
Adams Rubble: and the gatherers need to move with the food supply until they became agriculturists
Wol Euler: true
Adams Rubble notices some tense problems with that statement
Wol Euler: I was thinking about agriculture, not gathering per se
Adams Rubble: yes, they sure had a routine :)

Adams Rubble: it always is helpful to look at what we are doing and why, isn't it
Wol Euler nods.
Adams Rubble remembers the point of the nine seconds
Wol Euler: heheheh
Wol Euler: I wish I had known as a high-school student about sociology. Getting paid to "look at what we are doing and why" sounds like the best job ever
Adams Rubble: hehe
Adams Rubble: I don;t think they get much

--BELL--

Wol Euler: neither do I, so that point is moot.
Wol Euler grins.
Adams Rubble: hehe
Adams Rubble: or :(
Wol Euler: yeah
Adams Rubble: well I'd better try to get a bit more sleep so I am not grouchy all day
Adams Rubble: It was nice seeing you this morning
Wol Euler nods.
Adams Rubble: have a very nice day and enjoy the more moderate day
Wol Euler: sweet dreams, adams, I hope you can get back to sleep
Wol Euler: thank you :)
Adams Rubble: bye :)
Wol Euler: regards to the spousal unit!
Adams Rubble: thanks :)