Pros and Cons of Life in the Slow Lane

Pro

Sleeping and Dreaming: Now that I don't have to go to bed at a set bed time, I can actually get the amount of sleep that my body needs, rather than the amount prescribed by an alarm clock. Also, I've started to have extremely vivid dreams that I actually remember when I awake. That's something that hasn't happened since - well, since I don't know when.

Con

Nagging Feeling of Laziness: I can't help but feel that I'm nowhere near as productive as I was before, and that this is somehow a Very Bad Thing. I think this feeling will go away with time. At least, I hope it will. Moving from Overburdened and Stressed to Guilty and Lazy isn't exactly a step in the right direction.

Pro

Work is What I Make It: One of my major goals for this down time is to be able to start writing again. Technically speaking, that means that writing this blog post is a productive activity. Sweet.

Con

Money? What Money? : The second Wednesday of the month just came and went, and there was no direct deposit to my bank account. For someone who's still accustomed to throwing money at his problems, that hurts.

Pro

Pennies Saved... : With more time to think carefully about my purchases, I'm finding new ways to save money without feeling as though I'm making sacrifices. Case in point: I'm planning to sell Mercules (a 1999 Mercedes-Benz ML430) and purchase either a Volvo Amazon or Volvo P1800E. If I can find a suitable Volvo Amazon, I'd save the equivalent of $4000 a year in depreciation, gas and insurance - or more than a month's take-home pay at my previous job.

Con

Video Games: I rented Guitar Hero III for the Wii earlier this week, and played it so much that I actually managed to strain my left eye. It's now back at the rental shop, where it can't hurt me any more.

Pro

Cats: We have two. They are hilarious. Whiskey is trying hunt insects on the other side of our windows, while Socks is curled up - and snoring - on the top of a tower that he hasn't actually fit on since he was about 6 months old.

Con

... I think that's about it for cons.

Pro

The whole reason I'm here: Being able to choose, day to day, what it is I want to work on; having complete freedom to pursue my interests, accountable only to those whom support my charitable work. This is my chance to find the golden mean - to be productive at something I love and still have time for family, friends and fun. It's a gamble, but worth giving up a paycheque for a while.

Procrastination

Here's a great article on procrasination on Slate. I'm not as bad as I used to be, but I'm still a rather rampant procrastinator. Some of the suggestions in the article sound pretty good, but I find that sometimes I just need to get my lazy ass out of the chair and do what needs to be done.

Question for the audience: Do you procrastinate? If so, what is it that finally shakes you out of your web-surfing, Zood-playing stupor?

Change of Pace

Last post I talked about how I'd managed to dig myself into a pretty big hole, work-wise. I had been spending pretty much all of my waking hours dealing with work in one form or another, and was about ready to burn out. It was pretty clear that I needed a change.

I'd been thinking about what kind of change I needed for some time. In the end, I decided to take a risk and leave my day job to focus on my charitable work and writing to see if I can make either a paying proposition, while making my work-life balance a little more reasonable. May 2nd was my last day.

Now that I have free time again, I'm starting to realize just how much trouble I was in before. I literally have no idea of how to relax. I woke up today with the ability to do absolutely anything I wanted and I ended up spending the entire morning surfing the web and playing XBox. Oh, and I spent more time working.

I'm just not used to living my life consciously like this - being busy is a lovely anesthetic that numbs you against reality. You don't have to ask yourself any of the hard questions because there's always something immediate that requires your attention. Well, that anesthetic is starting to wear off. If I spend the morning eating cheeze puffs and watching Dr. Phil, I have absolutely no one to blame but myself.

But enough whinging. I'm sure that things will settle out, once I've had a bit more time to adjust of my (non) routine. I can find a nearby cafe where I can work on my writing, trade Mercules for a fun yet sensible classic car, spend more time at the cottage and do all the things that I haven't been able to because of work.

It'll be great. And I'll get to that right after I lead the Master Chief to victory against the Covenant.

To Do or Not to Do

I've taken on far more than I should have over the past few months. Between my job, second job and volunteer job, I'd estimate that I work between 60 to 70 hours a week. This isn't something to take a perverse pride in - this is just perverse, and I have no one to blame for it but myself.

I'm not very good at "being" these days. I feel the constant need to set tasks for myself and then knock them down, one by one. Even right now, when I'm trying to be reflective, I'm persistently checking my e-mail and thinking about all the things I should be doing. I'm not sure what would happen if I tried to have a mug of tea and watch the world go by. My head would probably explode.

What's worse, I'm becoming dull. The daily events of my life used to provide a steady stream of anecdotes. I'd recount, for example, the time I helped Costa Rican hookers evacuate their worldly belongings as a fire swept through their tin shanties.*

Now, most of my stories revolve around e-mails, conferences and proposals. I can see people get more and more drowsy as I speak, and yet it's like I'm powerless to stop it. I have to force myself to not speak to people while they're driving, or else I'd cause the world's most boring accident.

I don't believe in New Years' resolutions, as I think they're an excuse for having 363 resolution-free days. So, I'm going to make an Easter Resolution. Here it is - I resolve to bring my work week to under 50 hours and make my life anecdote-friendly once again.

Anyway, here's a question for anyone who still reads this: Have you found that your life became more dull as you entered the working world and fell into a routine? If so, what have you done to keep it interesting? And if not, how'd you manage that?

* This happened.

Update

The holidays have now begun in earnest. I took Friday off work, then flew back home to Calgary on Saturday. I've since purchased the remainder of my presents, thereby completing my Christmas shopping. Otherwise, the past few days have been a blur of family, baking and multiple mini-Christmii. It's been fun. I have a niece and a nephew, and it's been fun to be "Uncle Wy" again.

Today should be fairly calm. Fingers crossed, my grandmother will be flying into town this afternoon, but we'll likely have a low-key evening in preparation for what promises to be a busy day tomorrow. Following that, I'll be meeting up with some long-time friends over pints (or the several mini-pints that make up a wheel o' beer), and generally trying to sleep in as much as possible.

Ah, the sleeping. That's a bit hit-and-miss at the moment, being that I seem to be stuck on Eastern time. I was up at about 5:15 am yesterday, and 5:45 am this morning. Given that I've been going to bed at around 9:00 pm, that's not too bad - at least eight hours sleep - but what I probably need to do is catch a nap so that I can start going to bed at a more reasonable hour.

Beyond family and friends, the part of the holidays I like the best is being able to have a bit of time alone with my thoughts to reflect over all that's happened this past year. I typically keep a pretty busy schedule, so it's nice to have time that I can dedicate to this sort of thing, and this year I'm off for a 12 day stretch, which is the single largest break I've taken since I started to work full time. Long walks, journalling and reading books may not be very exciting, but at least I'm excited.

As far as the actual Christmas holiday is concerned, I'm thinking that next year I may declare a unilateral cease-fire on the whole "gifts" part of the holiday. Oh, I still intend to do nice things for people, but these nice things will be an reflection of the depths of my consideration rather than my wallet. Oh, except for nieces and nephews, of course - I'll still spoil them rotten.

I found shopping to be stressful this year. Moreover, most of the people I saw while shopping also seemed really stressed. I think the main reason for that is that most of the people I know are entering a phase in their lives when, if they want something badly enough, they'll just go out and get it for themselves. I know that I certainly have far more stuff than I actually need, or can find appropriate use for. I don't mean to sound ungrateful for the gifts I'll receive this holiday, but I really am equally impressed by the thought that goes into an inexpensive present as that which goes into an expensive one.

We'll see if this sentiment lasts until next year, but I hope that it does.

On Climate Change

With the international community meeting in Bali to discuss the successor to the Kyoto Protocol, I thought I'd mark the occasion by sharing my own thoughts on climate change. Of course, I have no reason to consider myself an expert, considering that I've only recently begun to take global warming seriously and continue to drive a SUV. To those who say that makes me unqualified to hold an opinion - may he without sin cast the first stone (Read: Unless you're living in a cave, subsisting on celery and clothing yourself in pine boughs, you are also part of the problem).

In any case - and please correct me if I'm wrong - the general gist of the Kyoto Protocol was that nations, particularly developed countries, agreed to cut their rate of carbon production to before 1990 levels. For Kyoto's successor, the major issue seems to be the extent to which developing countries should also shoulder the burden.

Developed countries argue that, for example, China is close to / has surpassed (another point that's up for debate) the United States as the leading emitter of carbon, and thus should be shouldering a large portion of the burden. Developing countries note that their rate of carbon emission per capita is much lower than that of developed countries and that the developed countries have been creating carbon for centuries, not decades, and are therefore largely responsible for the current problem.

My feeling on the matter is that any product that results in a significant emission of carbon (such as gasoline, coal-generated electricity, plane tickets, automobile, etc.) should be subject to a carbon tax. The rate of tax (per CO2 gram) should look a little something like this:

[(Nation's GDP per capita / World Average GDP per Capital) x Agreed Cost for CO2 gram = Tax]

This way, developing countries would still have to pay in, but in a way that's proportional to the wealth of their citizens. Multiply that by several billion citizens, and you still end up with a significant amount of money. Because developed countries will pay more, it'll still work out to roughly the same amount of money as if the tax was applied equally to all emitters.

So, what would we do with all of this money? Well, we would establish short, medium and long-term funds that would help encourage the use of clean technology.

Short-term funding could be used to subsidize the use of existing technologies, such as wind farms and solar cells. Medium-term funding could be used to improve emerging technologies, such as fuel cell cars and hydrogen infrastructure. Long term funding could be put towards researching fusion power - which, incidentally, could potentially power the earth for thousands of years, carbon free.

How does this differ from Kyoto or the proposed successor? Well, no one gets a free ride - there's no threshold (eg. 1990 levels) underneath which you get to skip through without paying. Also, instead of "buying credits", you actually buy something that's worthwile - hard technology that can actually solve the problems we face, rather than forcing everyone to move to the celery caves (and no, hybrid cars are just not good enough - especially considering that vehicles are only responsible for 14% of all carbon emissions).

But will our policy makers accept this idea? I fear not. More likely, any proposal that calls for both sacrifice and vision will be shouted down amidst the blame game. I'm not sure where that leaves us, but if you need to find me, I'll be googling the rates on high-altitude real estate.

A Fairly Typical Rant About Work and Money

Today is the first day since October 9th that I haven't been working or, in the case of three of the days, working a day and a half. I'm helping put together a course for the Army, which means that there are more demands on my time than usual.

I still love the work, but there are definitely times when I wish I had a 36 hour day. Or, failing that, that I could start sleeping whenever I have an extra 5 minutes to spare. I mastered that particular art when I was away on leadership training, but it seems that one of the prerequisites is having only slept 4 hours during the previous week. I'm tired, but not that tired.

The condo is really coming along well. We're still missing a fair bit of our furniture, but I suspect it won't be long before we'll be able to book a house warming party. The kittens seem to have adjusted, though they were none too pleased when we took them for their annual check-up. In a surprise move, the vet made no mention of brain trauma - I guess they're just like this normally.

I intend to make today a proper, lazy day. That means that the only way I will be changing out of my fleece pajama pants is if we decide to play tennis. The only thing that I will be getting caught up on will be my XBox games, or possibly some Robert Heinlein dystopian fiction. I will be drinking coffee on the balcony up until 12:01 pm, at which point I will switch to Boddingtons. I will finally have a listen to the Cake CD that I've been unable to play in Mercules. And I will be in bed by 9:30 pm, so that I can get up bright and early and walk to work the next day.

Speaking of time off, I wonder when it'll be that we'll actually realize that, in our modern day and age, working 40 hours a week is just a little bit silly. I mean, think about it - were you to have an extra day off each week, and were all the shops and office to be open at that time, think of all the money you'd be able to save by being able to comparison shop, haggle, repair, or simple do yourself.

I'd be willing to bet that, in many cases, you'd end up ahead of where you were before, even with 20% less cash in your pocket. I certainly tend to throw money at problems to make them go away, even if it is done in a carefully researched, semi-frugal kind of way. And think of all the benefits - the part of your income that you're giving up is the part that's most heavily taxed, and the extra hours you're giving up are your least productive. There'll be 20% more work to be done, which means that there'll be more jobs to go around.

Of course, it'd never do. Everyone needs the latest laser-powered super iPod (now with sparkles!), and lives from paycheque to paycheque in order to pay for it all. But that's not the worst of it. The real problem is that we know that, by only working 80% of the time, we'd be committing career suicide.

Who knows where we'd end up if we showed anything less than cutthroat ambition this early in life? We'd probably be cleaning out the ashtrays in airport limos. Or living in France. I'm not sure which is worse.

Update!

Now that the dust has settled slightly, I figured I'd fill you in on what's happened in the past... uh... 3 months.

- My good friend Sean came down to visit me in Ottawa for Canada Day long weekend. We spent a lot of time hanging out at "The Works", the notorious Ottawa burger restaurant. Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to play the ponies at Carleton Raceway. Next time, though. Sean is now plying his trade as a geo-physicist on an ocean-going vessel. I told him that if he starts seeing anonymous henchmen in blue jumpsuits, then he should try to swim for it.

- Jenn, Rudi, Sofia and Noah came for a visit, and darned if my niece and nephew aren't growing up quick. We went to the Perth Road Village Fish Fry, but left before the fist fights started, which apparently happens by the end of the night. The fish, however, was all shades of awesome. Sofi got to spend some time with "Uncle Wy", though not as much as we'd hoped - but I'll be going back to Calgary for Christmas, and should have a week to engage in further uncley activities.

- A bunch of us spent Labour Day weekend out at the cottage, and were fortunate enough to have some pretty fantastic weather. Jess and Peter have bought their own place out there, and we were on hand to help my sister break in her new porch. I'd estimate each person ate, on average, 3 pounds of meat over the course of the weekend - but at least we had some Cuban cigars the size of our forearms to aide in digestion.

- Andrea and I bought a condo - yes, just like that, faster than most people would buy a car, or even a new pair of shoes. It was the first place we saw, and we knew it was the place for us pretty much right away. We still went through the formality of seeing a few other places, but end up putting in an offer less than a week after we started looking. The deal closed in the first week of September, and we're now in the process of moving in.

I hate moving, but it does give me a good excuse to get rid of some of the junk that's accumulated over the past few years - I'm donating a full suitcase to charity, and will likely have more to drop off once all's said and done. So, that's right - a childless couple living in a loft condo close to their respective workplaces. All I need is an eliptical trainer and annoying laugh, and my ascension into Yuppiedom is all but assured.

- Andrea, myself, Brian and Joanna went for a vacation at an off-season ski resort in Utah last week. It still feels odd telling people that I went for a vacation at an off-season ski resort, as it sounds like the kind of place you'd tell people you visited when what you really did was join a cult. Really, though, it was a lot of fun. We spent a lot of time hiking, sightseeing, swimming, riding mechanical bulls, and otherwise being active, and spent the rest of the vacation eating, drinking and lounging by the pool.

One highlight was chartering a rafting company to take us about 6 miles up a river that we then floated down on tubes, whilst I smoked a fine Costa Rican cigar. The second highlight was the Alpine Sled, a flimsy plastic contraption that hurtled down a concrete track at about 80 km/h. I never managed to quite figure out how to break, and smoked the pylon at the end of the track twice, and barrelled into the safety pads once. Good times.

That's it for now. Andrea and I still have a lot of moving to do, but we should be done by the end of the weekend. Then, we just have to wait for the extra furniture to arrive, and we'll be all set. Visitors are welcome, but I hope you don't mind sleeping on the inflatable bed. Don't worry, we're reasonably certain that our kittens lack the means of detonating it with their claws at 3:48 am.

Tonight We're Going to Party Like it's 1867

I know I haven't posted in a long time, and this isn't going to be a very long post. I just wanted to see if anyone else was going to be up in Ottawa for Canada Day. My buddy Sean's coming down for the week, and we're going to have a few friends over on Saturday for drinks. There are no plans for Sunday yet, but it will likely involve some combination of BBQ, beer, fireworks, and pan-galactic gargle blasters*.

* If you haven't been to Zaphod's, you really should go. If you can drink four pan-galactic gargle blasters in a single night, you will officially be my hero.

Blogging Again

It's been a little over a week since my laptop's keyboard had an unfortunate run-in with a glass of port, which has since kept me from blogging. Thankfully, I was able to purchase a wireless keyboard and mouse that seems to have solved the problem, but it doesn't change the fact that it's time to purchase a new computer.

This will be the first time that I've purchased a computer since 1999. I'm currently on my third Compaq, which is the most recent in a line of Compaqs that had a tendency to fail catastrophically in a way that was conducive to receiving a new computer under warranty. I'm not sure what warranty coverage, if any, this Compaq still has, but I'm willing to bet that it doesn't apply to accidental port spills.

While I may have found the least expensive way to secure full health benefits*, Andrea has the best line in on low-cost computers. In a few short days, a new (to me) ThinkPad will arrive.

Here are some of the impressive features that the new computer will feature, relative to the Compaq:

- Computer will not briefly freeze approximately every 7 seconds.

- The music produced by playing compact discs will exceed the noise produced by the CD spinning in the drive.

- The computer's fan will no longer wheeze to life at random intervals and shudder hard enough to vibrate an entire bookshelf.

- The battery will last longer than 0.001 seconds.

- Computer's screen will not lock in place, forcing me to choose between never ever closing the screen again and shattering the screen's hinges.

- Internet will no longer stop working when computer comes out of hibernation, when wireless peripheral becomes too hot to touch, or when attempts are made to access the Internet.

Exciting!

* As far as I've been able to determine, the least expensive way to secure full health care is to take a 1/2 credit correspondence course from a university, and then opt into the student health plan. You get a full year worth of prescription, health and dental coverage for $600, and that includes the cost of the course. Score.

On Happiness

I just read a really good article about the link between material wealth and happiness.

The crux of the argument is that it's changes to our life situation that we respond to with either happinesor sadness, rather than the life situation itself. Based on my foray into the psychology of rational choice and decision making, there are a number of situations where that's actually the case. For the math geeks, it's the "delta" that causes the reaction.

This makes a certain amount of sense sense, particularly from the material side of the equation. After all, it's not like we're a thousand times as happy as people who live in under-developed nations, despite having over a thousand times as much wealth. Nor are the wealthiest people in Canada 100 (or 1000) times as happy than their poorer counterparts.

However, I don't buy the argument that it's only the change that matters. We also rate our happiness based on our relative achievements (or assets), as compared to those around us. That is to say that someone with $100 to spend when everyone else has $5 is more apt to be happy than someone with $200 who's surrounded by people spending $500.

This may serve to highlight the dark underbelly of the Internet and globalization. Whereas once you could be the best storytellers (or singer, or musician) in your town and make a decent living, now that role is increasingly reserved for a few talented storytellers (or etc.) whose work can be exported around the globe with ease.

In short, all the "small ponds" that the relatively "big fish" used to enjoy inhabiting are now flooding together. For a business-based example, think about all the corner stores that Walmart's put under over the years.

In many ways, our emotions are like compass needles that tell us where we should be going. The compass points towards food when we're hungry and towards bed when we're sleepy. If the needle always pointed towards happy, then we'd pretty much be stuck in the same place, doing the same thing.

From an evolutionary standpoint, we'd probably not still be around. After having outfitted our caves with a few pelts and some mutton, we would've just stayed there forever. That's fine in the short term, but tends to be problematic when the cave floods and the snows arrive. Hence, we have that urge to move ever forwards in our quest towards a better life.

One of the most interesting facts about the human brain is that our mental fuctions are highly localized. That is to say that if you were to lose 10% of your brain, you would not become 10% dumber. Instead, you would lose whatever abilities that 10% was previously responsible for. So, you might lose the ability to control your aggressive emotions or make new memories or tie your shoes or put together simple shapes to make complex objections or any one of thousands of other potential consequences.

All that is to say that our brain is broken down into many semi-separate parts, which all have a specific job to do. This includes the sections related to happiness and sadness. So, in the pursuit of happiness, one should avoid putting all of your eggs in one basket.

Whereas we soon grow complacent with the hardwoodedness of our floors or the number of horses under our hoods that high-powered jobs made possible, we should perhaps ask ourselves if our extra hours wouldn't be better spent improving our relationships with friends and family, reading good books, helping those in need, pursuing unique hobbies that will fulfill our sense of creativity and achievement, and so forth.

In essense, I'm proposing a theory of multiple happinesses (that's so not a word) to stand alongside the theory of multiple intelligences. I'm not even sure what all of these different happinesses are, but I would wager that each have a different half-life, different triggers, and degrade if different ways. So, while the change ("delta") may affect material happiness, I'm willing to wager it doesn't affect social happiness in the same way.

If I had to wager a guess, I'd say that they fell into the following groups:

- Basic needs happiness: "Happy to be warm and full."
- Social happiness: "Happy to have family and friends."
- Romantic happiness: "Happy to be in love."
- Competitive happiness: "Happy to be number one."
- Creative happiness: "Happy to be creating something new."
- Material happiness: "Happy to have nice things."
- Altruistic happiness: "Happy to make a difference in others' lives."

I could see some arguments for certain mergers (ie. overlap between material and basic needs, social and romance), but overall I think this covers all the bases. Bottom line, your overall happiness depends upon addressing each different type of happiness, and cannot be addressed by focussing on a single form of fulfilment.

I'm interested in what people think about this. Please, post a comment if you're so inclined.

Update

I had grandiose plans of writing an elaborate post this evening. Unfortunately, time seems to have slipped away from me. So, I'll keep this brief.

Some of you may have noticed that I've removed the link to my most recent project. I'm not going to go into it here, but suffice it say that I have my reasons for doing so, but the project is still alive and well. So, if you checked it out in the past, I hope you'll do so again in the future.

I'm heading down to Kingston for the Golden Words 40th anniversary this weekend. If anyone else is going down for that, we're making brunch plans for Sunday, and you're welcome to join us. Just let me know sooner rather than later, as the reservation is already fairly large, and I don't want to add another 5 people without giving them at least a few days notice. Otherwise, I'll see you at Clark on Saturday. I'll be the guy double-fisting Chocolate Banana Monkeys.

That's it for now. I'm going to get a drink of water and watch some more Robot Chicken before bed.

Monkeys Fight for Control of Park Sign

I've joined the multitudes on YouTube. Here's a video from our trip to Costa Rica in 2006. It involves monkeys fighting with each other. And if there's two things we all love to watch, it's monkeys and fighting.

Life Maintenance

Andrea and I went out to the cottage this weekend for the first time in a while. It was good to get out there, but it seems as though there's never enough hours in the day. We didn't get out there until late Friday night, and left for skiing early Sunday morning. Skiing was a blast, but the cottage time ended way too soon.

We're looking at booking some vacation time soon. I think we're going to put our globe-trotting on hold for a bit, and do something close(r) to home. At the moment, we're looking at Florida, with equal amounts of time to be spent at Disney World and the pool. I can live with that.

Tonight has been spent trying to get caught up on the basic life maintenance I tend to ignore unless absolutely necessary. That is to say, mail, recycling, various insurance claims, laundry, budgeting, etc., etc. Really, I'd rather be sleeping. It doesn't help that my cheeks are warm from sunburn and windburn, and both kittens are stone cold asleep, draped across pieces of furniture as though their batteries suddenly ran dead.

Fortunately, I did most of the work on the project shortly after dinner. Health care lessons started earlier this weekend, and are soon to be followed by lessons in business management, computing and English. Establishing the women's internet facility did a lot to help our credibility, but there's still a ways to go before we're properly accepted as a genuine charity.

I've been finding it difficult to find material that's blogworthy recently. I don't blog about work, so that's out. Most of my family stuff is either too personal or uninteresting. There's a lot going on with the project, but it's already got its own blog, and that's enough. Short of publishing tasting notes on various scotches, I'm at a bit of a loss. But hey, here's my post for the next few days, so that buys me a bit more time.

With that, it's time to put the clothes in the dryer.