Tag: Philosophy

Clown School Break Day 53: The Honking Subsides

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero clowns down. 

“I think you’re done with this theme. I think sometimes you have good things to say about games and clowns. But I think you’re too forced into a narrow hole.” –My partner, regarding my blog. 

It’s nice to have people tell you things you already suspected but hadn’t fully admitted to yourself. 

I’m not at clown school and haven’t been at clown school for 53 days. 

I’m not going to the next available clown course. 

My time and mind and attention are focused elsewhere. 

This is the state of the world of the JuJu. 

So what? 

I think I open up the subject matter of the blog. That sounds funny. 

Or, as my partner likes to say, “Julian plans and Julian laughs.” 

🤡

———-

For those of you curious, here was my daily blog before she made that comment: 

Is Jumanji a game? 

IN THE YES CATEGORY: 

  1. There are players 
  2. Players take turns
  3. On their turn, a player rolls dice and moves pieces
  4. Players act in pursuit of winning. 

IN THE NO CATEGORY: 

  1. It is NOT fun
  2. It is NOT separated from the rest of the world. (In fact, quite the opposite: elements come from the game to attack you in the world itself)
  3. The most crucial parts of the game are not clear from the rules 

Conclusion: 

  • Jumanji is a 1995 film starring Robin Williams. 

Clown School Break Day 51: Dumb, Dumb, Duh-dumb Dumb Dumb…  

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero, um, … um … um … 

I’ve been feeling dumber lately. Having trouble finding the right word. Finding myself thinking slower. What’s up with this?

Hypotheses: 

  1. Clowning makes one less intellectual
  2. The work that I’ve been doing has been effective, but not intellectually stimulating
  3. Something else

The first seems likely true. Does clowning make one less intellectual? Yes. Less intelligent? No. However, among the many types of intelligence, it does not contribute to improving one’s smartness. In fact, it teaches one to focus on pleasure and emotion to the detriment of smartness. Sacrifices must be made at the altar of pleasure! 

The second: also likely. I’ve recently been doing a lot of important and procedural, but not intellectual, work. (Among them: buying and renovating an apartment; writing articles that are squarely in my wheelhouse.)

The third: maybe it’s hormonal? The speed of my verbal fluency was stronger on œstrogen. ‘Twas notably stronger. And now, I have much more general go-go-go (whether that’s testosterone itself or simply my familiarity with the hormone, I’m not sure), but less verbal speed. I make fewer moves but each move is stronger.

Another option for the third: a life transition that requires adjustment. Selling my previous home. Buying a new one. Moving internationally. Building a relationship. All of these can wear you down. 

A final option for the third: lack of exercise. Since I broke my foot I have been a complete lazypants. The brain thrives on exercise. Perhaps it will return when the activity returns. This one seems very likely to be influential :!D

It’s an odd experience to feel myself being duller than I previously was. And the people around me aren’t noticing… or at least aren’t noticing enough to say anything.

Then again, would they notice? And if noticed, would they say? 👀

Clown School Break Day 50: Seeing Ahead

JulianLeave a comment

In which chair-sitting is frog-boiling. 

A coworker once taught our company how to sit in a chair. The problem: humans are very adaptable. So when we sit in a chair, we adjust our bodies to fit the physical circumstance. This is bad. We should instead adjust our circumstances to fit our bodies. (The desk doesn’t care if it’s adjusted to be higher or lower. Our bodies do prefer we don’t slump.) 

The rules of the game change your play. That sounds obvious, but its effects often go unrecognized. 

Take a simple rule – like the football rule that the clock stops when a player runs out of bounds – and imagine the changes to the entire game that could result. Obviously the end of the game is faster: more hurry-up plays, less pre-defined set-ups.

Now consider how different technology was when this rule of this game was established – at some point before 1909 (citation: pg 214 here). Was this rule intended to play out the way it is? No – no way – not really – it can’t be. But it shapes how today’s entire game is played. 

We often accept the slight changes in our environment, in the rules that govern our games. But adjusting our behavior to maximize our desired outcomes is not easy. Do you think second-order effects (Since A happened, B will happen) are hard to predict? Third-order effects (A, therefore B, therefore C) are even harder!

Eg: If we changed the clock-stop rule, would Quarterbacks make more in-the-moment decisions? Become more skilled at rapid decision-making? Would we select for quarterbacks who are more tacticians and less strategists? Would that change lead to the rest of the team being more strategic (to fill the gap) or less (because their leader is less strategic)? Is this even the right pathway to follow, or would quarterbacks actually become more strategic because they would plan their whole series of plays ahead of time for those low-on-time situations? Would timeouts become so incredibly valuable in the endgame that they’d never be used otherwise? How would that impact how strategic a quarterback needs to be?

It’s really, really hard to tell. Those who can see the second-order effect in a very complicated situation are often highly-prized experts.

A chess grandmaster can sometimes see 10+ moves ahead. On the other hand, one former chess world champion is commonly crediting as saying, “I see only one move ahead, but it is always the correct one.” 

Which would you rather do? And in what areas? 

–(Oh, and GO BEARS!!!)

Clown School Break Day 48: On Culture & Correctness

JulianLeave a comment

In which… “something, something, cultural relativism. But definitely only a weak version of it.” 

A while ago I wanted to play trivia at home with friends. I had stumbled upon a British trivia show that inspired this notion. We played together (i.e. watched the show while guessing along). The problem: we didn’t know the British popular culture.

I then went on a hunt for equivalent shows that we Americans might be able to enjoy. Ultimately, I arrived at… Jeopardy.

That’s right: I hunted around through around a dozen shows and ended up at the quintessential American trivia show.

Why?

Is the format familiar to me?

Is it coherent within my culture?

Does it have form that fits my expectations, simply because I was raised on it?

For a while now, I have been of the opinion that most human preferences are not real but learned. Your influential parent enjoys eating spicy food → you learn to enjoy spicy food. A leader of your country speaks with a lisp → people are still speaking with a lisp centuries later.

It really removes many beliefs about the meaning of “good”, doesn’t it?

Still, some things are clearly worse than others. 

I’m reminded of a friend who concluded (after much analysis) that “good” simply means safe and “bad” means dangerous. (Both in roundabout ways.) 

How do you branch out? How do you discover other good things? And when is it okay to go back to what you grew up with?

Tonight, my partner and I made enchilada casserole. She grew up eating it with green sauce and was hesitant to make it red. We ended up making two: one red, one green. It was a fun game to compare: the safety of the known alongside the adventure of the new. The verdict? Red won.

It’s fun to play games where even if you lose you win. 

I’ll take play for 300, please, Alex!

Clown School Break Day 47: On Heavy Masks

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero tires. 

Today I’m experiencing the wear of the mask. 

It’s been on for days. 

I’ve been socializing hard. On. Available. Pleasant. 

I’m tired of it.

(The foot-healing and low-on-salt doesn’t help.)

I had a call scheduled with someone hiring for a job I’m perfect for.

He scheduled it.

He forgot.

That causes sadness. 

–

I don’t want to socialize. 

Not because of who’s around me—

because I’m tired of doing. 

I’ve been trying too hard.

Today’s lesson might simply be: 

stop performing.

Now it’s time to conk. 

Clown School Break Day 46: Trivia ain’t Trivial 

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In which Our Hero leads a team to victory! 

My team won at trivia. Thirty percent of trivia is assembling the right team. Thirty percent of trivia is knowing the right answers. Thirty percent of trivia is accurately knowing your knowledge. And the last thirty percent is knowing how to give 120%. 

In the team-assembling category, my team excels at movies, science, games, literature, and mythology. We are weak at sports. This week, there was only one sports question rather than an entire sports section. That’s lucky.  

In knowing the right answers, we performed strong. We missed only 6 of the 22 questions. While that might sound like a lot (it’s almost a third!), our big advantage is in the next point… 

We know what we know. When one of my teammates says “I know this one”, we bet hard. Today’s trivia involves a point-wagering system: for each round of three questions, you assign one a small number of points, one a medium number, and one a large number. You submit your point wager when you submit the question, before you know what all the questions in the round are. So a team that gets only one third of the answers right can equal a team that gets two thirds of the answers right, so long as the first team assigns points correctly and the second does not. 

And then there’s knowing how to give 120%. When we know the answer is “Mississippi mud [something]” and my team is waffling between Mississippi mudslide and Mississippi mud pie, Your Humble Narrator (in his acting role as Team Captain) submits the answer as “Mississippi mud (pie)”. Ergo, when the answer is revealed to be Mississippi mud *cake*, Our Hero’s team receives the point. (Deservedly? That’s not mine to judge; I’m just here to get points.) This gamesmanship also manifested in Your Hero’s tracking of the points (so as to note that we were shorted 2 points in the theme round, and then get those reinstated). 

And I guess one final part: uniting people to a purpose. Trivia is not important. We’re fighting for a $30 giftcard when our table is spending twice that. This doesn’t matter. 

But it’s fun to try. 

Clown School Break Day 45: What is Fun? 

JulianLeave a comment

What is fun? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me no more. 

Yesterday night I played a bit of poker, then stopped. 

I wasn’t obviously playing poorly. 

I just wasn’t enjoying it. 

What is fun? 

Why is poker more fun when you’re winning? 

Part is the monetary aspect: it’s not enjoyable to lose money. And while the monetary aspect in this case is not large enough to be life-affecting, it’s still relevant to the pleasure. 

Poker is an intellectual exercise that I enjoy attempting to do well. It’s fun circumstance in which I strive to do something properly. That’s part of the joy that I get from sharing my hands with a professional poker playing friend: the interestingness of improving. 

It’s also a naturally exhilarating game. You can play well – perfectly, even – and still lose. 

Is fun just the distraction from suffering? That’s the etymology of at least one french word and one spanish word for fun. 

If so, are the times when I stop enjoying poker the times when it becomes too serious? When I’m taking it with too much heaviness? (Alternate hypotheses: my suffering outside of poker is too great for the distraction to work, or I’m not suffering enough outside of poker so the distraction doesn’t give me additional pleasure.) 

I think it’s closer to: I’m feeling fear. I don’t enjoy poker when I’m feeling a lot of fear. When the fear prevents me from playing well, I stop enjoying the poker. I clam up and that’s no good. 

Solutions: 

  1. Don’t play poker games where the stakes cause me to feel fear. 
  2. When you feel fear, notice it’s fear. Then put it in its place and make the right decision.

Amusingly enough, when I wrote that my today’s pokerplaying went from playing my B game to my A game. That’s nice! 😀 

Clown School Break Day 41: Grocery Store Juggling

JulianLeave a comment

In which our Hero keeps balls in the air. 

Grocery stores are for whimsy.

Listen:

At the grocery store to purchase oranges for non-alcoholic New Year’s mimosas, I tossed oranges toward my partner so she could catch them in the plastic bag. A simple game; a fun game; a game that hurts no one.

My partner caught the first one.

A store employee approached us.

My partner caught the second one.

The employee stood beside us, continuing to watch.

My partner missed the third one. (I shorted the toss.) She retrieved the orange and placed it in the bag.

“Could I ask you to do something?” the clerk said.

“Sure,” I replied, expecting him to tell us to stop. I had expected him to tell us to stop since the moment I saw him walking over.

“I had cataract surgery recently. Could you toss me one of those oranges? I want to see if I can catch it.”

“Sure,” I said. “Tell me when.”

“Now’s good.”

I tossed the orange. He caught it. His face released sunlight it had been holding back for years.

“I used to juggle three balls,” he said. “Not well, but I could keep ‘em in the air. Then cataracts got to me. It’s good to be back.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“I didn’t want to ask a friend to toss me something. That would be too intimate. So I figured I’d ask a stranger.”

“Glad I could help.”

My partner and I returned to our toss-and-catch with the oranges. We purchased six pounds of oranges and drove home.

Too often, we stop playing out of fear that someone will tell us to stop, when all they wanted was to play along.

Clown School Break Day 40: New Year’s Eve

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero ends one thing and starts another

I used to celebrate New Year’s. I still do, but I used to, too.

I used to celebrate with friends and video games and shenanigans and chicanery. But the host of that party died a few years ago. And I don’t live in that city anymore.

Now, I celebrate with non-alcoholic cocktails and card games with friends.

I jumped into the new year — off a couch at 11:59:59 and onto the floor at 12:00:00 — just like I did as a kid.

Ritual matters. Arbitrary ritual matters. It’s also arbitrary. It still matters.

Celebrating the end of one thing and the beginning of something new. Doing so at some approximately-reasonable interval. 

I often think about the idea that somewhere someone is having the best day of their life. That applies even more to years. Somewhere, many someones just concluded the best year of their life. And many other someones are entering the best year of theirs.

The same is also true of the worst years.

There’s no point to this musing, but it makes me feel more centered. More relaxed. Less grabbing or pushing.

It makes the days more enjoyable. And that’s perhaps the whole point. 

🤡

Clown School Break Day 39: Likeability

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero, like, likes likability?

I was speaking earlier today with a friend who is a very polarizing figure. I am also a polarizing figure, but much less than him. He is often right, but also often disliked. The sort of person who is correct about the mismanaging of funds in an organization, but when he raises this to general public awareness, ends up somehow getting kicked out of the organization. 

This friend also has described me as “a bit of a people-pleaser”. (Which is amusing because most people would not describe me that way.) 

Clowning is about being liked. Clowns are lowest common denominator performers. They find pleasure and share pleasure in a mass-market, pre-language, pre-thought way. 

Clowns are excellent at a specific veneer. Not a substance, but a manner. Pleasure, joy: these are good things. But they’re not everything. Clowns (and actors in general) are emotional salespeople. Models are to fashion as clowns are to pleasure as actors are to emotions. 

I respect clowns and actors (and I also respect salespeople). But being a clown or an actor is completely unrelated (and sometimes antithetical) to many other virtues. For example, clowns are anti-intellectual. Clever jokes – at least at this school – are undesired. 

Perhaps pleasure is just the first step. Acting/performing might begin with finding your pleasure and sharing your pleasure with the audience, but it’s not the end. The end includes having a message or somesuch. 

I think this particular school is teaching a valuable skill. I also think that the implementation of it in its purest form – through clowning or through acting – doesn’t appeal to me. I’d rather have valuable things to share, not just share them well.