What creates meaning? I think chosing to see and live stories creates meaning. Let me expound on this a bit with a couple of examples, which are specific to today, but should be easier to generalize from.
- Today I talked to some people (crazy!) to get an ID card. I just asked a bit about their work and stuff. I also talked to some people when I went rock climbing. Mostly chatted about how to do some hard climbs. I think talking to people is really great. These short random interactions, we pass someone when walking on the street or the worker at the store. They are great chances to see that person’s story, and also to be part of a story yourself.
- Cleaned up the house a bit. Spun a bit of a story out of it “clean up for Mom, she’s coming home soon”. Could have spun more of a story and decided it was a fun activity, laughed a little easier.
- Defining goals. But maybe also defining rewards? I think this is a place I could improve. I usually just say “default is X” and then do default until my brain crashes. But I think this is not maximally intentional.
- Journey before destination. What was my journey today? Tried some block-y power-of-2 things. Noticed a flaw in an earlier analysis, but noticed that it wasn’t totally broken just lost a log factor; note this second realization happened after probably an hour of just thinking that the result was very broken. Tried some more medium size items case. I really can’t tell if medium or small is the bottleneck. But I think its worth pushing on both. For medium size I’ve had large idea-churn. By which I mean my ideas were false and I should go back and carefully analyze to see if I have anything better than the straightforward extension of the similar size case. And I went to park and library. Had a cool idea while biking: rebuild a little bit every time, the amount of which being proportional to the object size. The power of one-half special case does seem to be really a good thing to look at, though I’m not sure what the resolution will be yet.
This was today. There were set-backs, trials, and personal failings. But I shall not yield.
“now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.” -CS. Lewis