Saturday, September 1, 2007

Flow

Just finished "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" by Mihaly Csikezentmihalyi. A fairly dense read but a very good book. The author's argument is basically that in order to improve our experience of life we should pursue flow experiences - those experiences that lead people to claim they're "in the zone" and during which time people seem to lose all sense of time, themselves, and achieve a unity with their environment.

Some examples of activities that for some lead to flow are chess, rock climbing, team sports, and the various forms peoples' creativity can take. First of all I definitely feel that Mihaly's model is accurate and resonates as intuitively true with most people. These activities that provide flow for each person are what constitutes true enjoyment, as opposed to the non-challenging pleasures of eating cheesecake or

Overall I give the book thumbs up, although it does get a bit too ambitious later on by attempting to apply the flow concept to social life, work and life as a whole later on. While it is true work can provide flow I think it's a it of a stretch to apply that to one's social life (and may have an adverse effect upon it by giving one ulterior motives when socializing - similar to NLP for example) and it is, in my opinion, overreaching to apply the flow concept to life as a whole. Mihaly's point is that one could come up with a big, complex enough challenge/goal (one of the key components of a flow experience) from which all of one's actions, behaviours and thoughts would then logically follow from to unify life into a comprehensive flow experience. Apart from those who have devoted their lives wholeheartedly to a religious or ideological ideal I think instances of this are very rare, and while it certainly would be an admirable thing to strive for I think you'd probably end up spending most of your life trying to find this comprehensive goal as opposed to living your life according to it.

For me I think if there is a meta-flow aspect to life it would be in trying to find individual flow experiences that you enjoy more than any other, which involves a lot of trial and error. And trying to find a career that can provide you with as much flow as possible, which is quite a monumental undertaking in and of itself.

Friday, July 27, 2007

South American Travelling Prostitutes

While in South America last year I came across a phenomenon which I thought was pretty interesting. That would be the "traveling South American prostitute", who were travelers like myself but had chosen, out of necessity, to fund their travels by different means. My first encounter with one of these women was in Quito, Ecuador. I checked into a hostel and went into my room to get settled and organized. I was sharing the room with one other person, a Colombian woman. We started chatting as I tried to take any opportunity I could to practice my Spanish and she told me she was "working while traveling". Interesting I thought, as I didn't meet many locals who backpacked like the gringos did. After a bit more investigation she told me she worked at a puta bar, and then generously invited me to go drink at her bar that evening. Although I had to pass I found the concept intriguing.
She wasn't the last traveling South American prostitute I would meet over the course of my travels. At first I thought it was a bit strange but the more I thought about it the more I came to respect these people. They loved traveling, just as I did. Only they weren't in a position to work hard for 6 months or whatever and then go backpack around the world, for them to save enough money to travel would probably take years. So instead they found another, if somewhat extreme, way of traveling and seeing the world. Although I'm not sure that selling your body is a positive thing I admired the sacrifices they were willing to make in order to explore and discover the world on which we all live.

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Squatting in the 21st century

A recent article about a squatter being forciby evicted in Calgary (the link is in my shared items, at the top right of this page) has gotten me thinking again about squatting and it's role in human history. For most people (at myself included, until very recently) in the 21st century those who squat are looked upon as anarchists, individuals living on the edge of society and undesirable in some way. They are summarily kicked out and their makeshift constructions torn down, as was the case in Calgary. Despite the fact that this person clearly did not have enough money to pay for rent and chose to deal with that fact in a creative manner instead of becoming a burden on society did not prevent the powers in charge from forcing him to either 1) apply for welfare or 2) end up in a homeless shelter.

It's interesting how squatting is so quickly shut down in the 1st world and to me is one of the biggest differences between us and the 3rd world, where squatting is still going very strong. The fact of the matter is all modern cities in the 1st world were initially built up by squatters and it is only very recently that it has become such a taboo activity in the developed world. How exactly this came to be I'm not sure, but after spending some time in the squatter community/favela of Rocinha in Brazil I was amazed at how resourceful and creative people can be when given the opportunity. Squatting is a part of our heritage and and provides a viable alternative to those unable to purchase a home but unwilling to use up some of the much needed resources of the social welfare system.

I think one solution would be to create special "squatter zones" in the first world, perhaps on the outskirts of major cities (an area like Langley in the Greater Vancouver area) and make squatting permitted but regulated at the same time. Things will never return to the way they were in the centuries past for those who wish to build their own homes but this is the best thing to a happy medium that would have a somewhat realistic chance of occurring. There could even be time limits to the housing (although part of the raison d'etre of squatting is that it gives marginalized people not only the opportunity to have a home but also to gradually improve that home) or a buy-back scheme from the city.

In any case I think people and governments in the 1st world need to start thinking and viewing squatting and squatters much differently, it's a part of our history that, like the squatters themselves, has become marginalized. For a good read on the subject check out Robert Neuwirth's "Shadow Cities", a cool book that really changed how I think about this issue.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Google + Somalia = ?

Wow...my first ever blog post (well, not really, I did have a blog several years ago but that's long gone now). Why make a blog you ask? Well several reasons actually, the first being that I wanted a place to bring together are the disparate services I'm currently using and as most of those are by Google I thought blogger would be a good fit. The other reason is that I need a soapbox to rant and rave at anonymous strangers on the internet and so without further ado it was time to jump on the blog bandwagon.

Right now two things are fascinating me: 1) Google products and 2) Somalia. As I've been lagging behind in terms of my computer literacy over the past several years I decided to get caught up to speed (I also have about 4 hours a day to kill at work during which I do nothing so the timing couldn't have been better) and checked out everything - twitter, delicious, lastfm, facebook and of course the various Google apps out there. For the most part I don't think I was missing too much however after exploring them a bit I've been really impressed by the disparate Google products out and about. Currently I'm using Google Calendar, the Google Reader and now of course Blogger. All of them are incredibly useful and I hope I can get a few of my friends on board as well. There does seem to be some privacy issues developing with Google but it seems as though they are working to rectify that.

The other topic that I find strangely fascinating these days is the former country of Somalia. Basically the place has had no real central government for over a decade now (think back to the days of "Black Hawk Down") and the capital Mogadishu is an active warzone. This is a part of the planet I have absolutely no experience, knowledge or even stereotypes about and maybe this is why I find it compelling - it's the unknown, or my personal "undiscovered country". The fact that world seems to have done absolutely nothing to help the people who had the misfortune to be born there is disturbing, as is the fact that warlords are filling the gap left by the former government. It's almost something out of Mad Max or any post-apocalyptic tale, urban warlords controlling pockets of the city through their toyota druck driving subordinates. I'd love to go and see things first hand, if it wasn't a) and active warzone and b) apparently the worst place on earth for minorities (I'm sure my white ass would stick out just a tad).

I'm not sure how things will ever get better in Somalia, perhaps a fresh approach is needed. With that in mind I propose that Google take over the interim government and give it a go. The United States and United Nations have failed miserably so far and if corporations really are quasi-governments now then let's see what one of the better and more cutting edge ones can do. I'm sure the staff there would have some pretty unique and interesting ideas on how to reign in those feudal warlords and impose some kind of order and stability. It's just a thought...