Life's Design

I've just come across a website by linking through a friend's blog, and it resonated with me. It's intended for young fresh architects, but I think it is equally applicable to life in general. I've included it in the list to the right. Check it out.

Ignorance was bliss. Now it's a pain in the ass.

I'm finding out that every day offers us an opportunity to find out how much we don't know. My wife and I have just been exposed to a situation that could turn out extremely well or extremely badly. Our landlords are going to be selling the house we are living in. Our choice is simple.

a) Move.
b) Buy the house.

Christine and I vastly prefer b). We hate renting, and have long wondered when we would get around to buying a house. Well, now it's time. And since we know so little about buying a house, we figured there'd be a lot of questions to ask. So the first thing we did was to compile a list of people we knew who were more knowledgable about real estate than we. That way, we could go down the list and ask them all our questions.

Of course, we hit a snag right off. As it turns out, we know so little about this subject, we don't even know what questions to ask.

This makes a phone conversation amusing:

"Hi, Dad? I need to know something about buying a house."
"Sure. What do you want to know?"
"Um...everything?"

So now I'm collecting terms I need to learn about. Mortgage brokers, interest rates, fixed-rates, FHA, HUD, county taxes, closing costs, and on, and on....and again, I can't even list all the stuff I need to learn about yet. I haven't learned what it is.

Some ancient sage said it. "The ignorant man does not know. The wise man knows what he does not know."

I think I'm somewhere in between.

Empathizing with Mahler

I’m a lousy finisher.

I don’t mean that I’m not good at putting a nice veneer on a mahogany tabletop (although I’m not). I mean that I’m a pro at starting projects but lousy at finishing them.

These projects can range from the stupidly simple, like changing a light bulb, to the wickedly impossible, like landing a job with NASA.

Some of the projects I’ve begun and not finished include:

--cleaning my room and keeping it clean
--building a model train set in the basement
--emptying the basement so I can build that train set
--holding a yard sale
--learning web design
--writing a novel
--reading the Bible straight through
--saving up to buy a house
--getting to the last level of Midnight Club on the PS2

Ok, so maybe that last isn’t so much of a project as a pastime, but you get the idea.

In fact, this weblog itself is a project that is doomed to be uncompleted. I mean, how can you say a journal is ever finished?

In further fact, it’s unlikely I’ll even get to the end of this entry. Or even to the end of this sente

Smoke if ya got 'em

I haven’t written in awhile. I’ve done this because, despite my stated goal, I haven’t had much to write about. But I saw a news article just now, and my emotions are up. Here’s the deal.

I’m generally a pretty sensitive person. When someone has a problem, I very often take it to heart. I like helping people, and I like seeing them be helped. But there is one group of people I have a lot of trouble empathizing with. I have a hard time understanding smokers who complain that they smoke.

I’m sure I’ll catch hell for this from someone, but I can’t help it. Close to half of the cigarette smokers I have met have essentially said to me, “Yes, I smoke, but I don’t like it. Gee, I wish I could quit.”

And my answer is, “No, you don’t.” If you wanted to quit, really wanted to, then you would. If you really cared that it was bad for you, you wouldn’t start in the first place. And once you’ve stopped, you’d keep temptation away from yourself to avoid starting up again.

It gets even worse. Now there’s a pill to help smokers quit. (Mind you, it’s only short-term so far.) This is in addition to those patches that advertise their ability to insert addictive chemicals directly into your bloodstream, rather than have you go to the trouble of smoking them. (Can’t they make a patch for crack users? Call it Cocanoid^TM. “Do away with all those clumsy tubes, syringes, and razor blades. Get your high with style. Talk to your doctor about Cocanoid^TM”)

So let me sum up. People choose, of their own free will, to take a drug that they know will create health problems for themselves and those around them and shorten their life spans. Then they can take a drug that will help them to stop taking the first drug. But it may be that, after all that, they’ll start taking the nicotine again anyway. I just don’t get it.

And before you start, let me say, no, I’ve never really been addicted to anything. I’ve never smoked, I only drink occasionally, I don’t do drugs. Some smart-ass out there will probably say “But you’re addicted to breathing and eating!” (I know this because, as I kid, I used to be that smart-ass.) Eating and breathing are not addictions. They are necessary for life. Smoking is not.

And here’s what really pisses me off. Phillip-Morris, to use an example (though I am sure they are not alone), makes a point of advertising how helpful their website is to help people stop smoking. If you go there, you can read about the ingredients of cigarettes, how they are bad for children, pregnant women, old people, young people, middle-aged people, addicts, and those who are just starting. They will tell you that smoking causes emphysema, heart disease, and lung cancer. They will tell about the negative effects of secondhand smoke. They will give advice to those who are addicted and want to quit. They will urge teens not to pick up the practice.

But, of course, they still want you to buy their product.

Hey, I have a brilliant idea! Let’s try this. If Phillip-Morris truly is concerned about the effects of cigarettes, if they want people to be able to quit, if they don’t want teenagers starting, if secondhand smoke bothers their conscience, why don’t they stop selling cigarettes?

Or is that too obvious?