Node Glue

Kyle McFarlin, a Gyronix trainer, posted yesterday about how technology attempts to define us, and urges us to think about what we would do with our time if it all disappeared.

Ironically, I think I’m constantly trying to get the technology to help me do the very things that I would do if there was no technology, only more of it. Sometimes that works, other times it doesn’t.

But Kyle’s thought certainly resonates with me. There are days when it feels like the technology is taking over and I’m being assimilated into the Borg.

As I’ve wrestled with Perfectionism, and reflected upon how best practices like GTD have the potential of either cursing or blessing me, I’ve contemplated the words “Good Enough.” Can I just do something Good Enough without demanding Perfection?

And then it occurred to me that there’s something inherently wrong with mitigating Perfection with Good Enough. The trouble is that the two ideas are cut from the same cloth. So it does me little good to cover one with the other.

Good Enough is a euphemism for “it could be better,” or “it isn’t all that bad,” or “it could be worse,” or “it’s the best that could be done under the circumstances.” In all cases, the focus is not on the Good but on what’s Enough. And it leaves Good lacking, and asking, “what is Enough?”

I’ve realized lately that I have a hard time calling something good. “Good” to me means “three out of five stars,” with a particularly painful awareness of the two empty ones. (What is Enough?)
And then I remembered this:

And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw that the light was good, and God divided the light from the darkness (Genesis 1:3-4).

When God creates, he calls things good that are not even yet complete. He was already using that word to describe His work after the first day of Creation, even before it was ready to host mankind. I rarely feel free to use that word, even after pouring myself out obsessively in pursuit of perfection.

God rested after six days of doing good. I never rest no matter what I do.

At best, I may say, “that’s good…BUT!” (But what?)
When God says, “it’s good,” He means “this is beneficial–this is delightful to me.” There’s no, “delightful…BUT”. It’s just good.

I tend to fixate on the two empty stars, and not only call the emptiness bad, but shameful. As if incompleteness were shameful. And that therefore something that is incomplete cannot, by definition, be good. Add to that the observation that nothing is ever complete, and you’ve completed a vicious cycle of mental bondage that shames, and robs me of the simple satisfaction of a Good Thing.

Transverality is cool. I love these sort of connections between nature, mind, and philosophy.

Favorite quote from the article, actually a parenthesis…

contrary to popular belief, birds often sing without the goal of attracting a mate or establishing a territory

Put that in your Darwinian pipe and smoke it!

Glanced across this article on the nature of concepts this morning. I don’t have much to say on it, except to say, “whoa! People are thinking about this stuff!” I’ve often wondered about the relationship between concepts, “problematization”, and integrating experiences.

If nothing else, gaining a new term, problematization, from this article helps me think about my own thinking more clearly. And when pressed, I expect it will help me explain my thinking to someone else more clearly. So that’s worth reading the article all by itself.