Leaning to the right
For the last 20+ years, I've made my living as a computer programmer primarily utilizing the logical left side of my brain. Oddly enough, I spent the first few years of my adult life working as an artist specializing in black and white illustrations. Although, in truth, I find a lot of similarities between developing software and creating a picture. In both professions, I've achieved the best results by "broad brushing" in a general layout and then working in progressively more detailed iterations over the entire project.
Despite the similarities, I'm finding myself chafing at the atrophy of the creative right side of my brain due to two decades of forced submission. I suddenly have a desire to re-awaken my creativity and break down those self-induced limitations. This desire is part of my motivation for keeping this blog; even though this blog is not creative writing, it is a form of personal expression that will hopefully evolve from a forced discipline into an easy and natural act.
I've also picked up my sketchbook again. After two decades, my skills are naturally very rusty. By skills, I mean my ability to "see" what I'm drawing. I maintain that anyone who can write legibly has the technical competency to draw; in other words, they can manipulate a pencil to produce the line they want. After all, anyone can trace a picture right? Tracing lets you "see" your subject in a way that makes it easy for you to reproduce the image using your pencil manipulation skills. To draw from life, you merely need to learn to "see" objects in new ways.
This is the premise of the book Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain, a classic book on the subject of learning to draw. I've unearthed my 30 year old copy of the book and am working through the exercises in it. While I haven't felt the scale and rust falling away yet, I can definitely see some improvement already. 
So, I'm pushing out of my comfort zone into areas that I used to habitate but are new again. I have a dim memory of this landscape but am having to learn how to navigate it again. Look at the difference between an idle doodling of a fisherman at rest that I did 25 years ago versus my earnest efforts with some of the exercises from the aforementioned book.
It's like trying to ride a bike again after 30 years; you can still do it, but you sure are wobbly. It will be a while before I can do a wheelie again.
Indian Field Campmeeting
On Saturday, October 6th, I attended the 207th annual Indian Field Campmeeting. What a unique Southern cultural experience! Camp meetings are ostensibly religious revival meetings, but to my eyes, they've become as much about fellowship and food as their original intent.
The meeting ground is a large open area, probably 5 acres in size, that is surrounded by 100 "tents". These tents are really tin and wood barn-like structures with a cooking, dining, and sleeping areas. Each tent has its own outhouse outside the perimeter of the tents. The tents are private property and most have been passed down through generations of families. Of course, since this camp meeting has been active for over 200 years in the Deep South and is steeped in tradition, it is a segregated event and all of the families are white. Interestingly, there is a corresponding black camp meeting that occurs a week later at a nearby "campground".
Inside the circle of tents, in the middle of the open area, is a large open-air tabernacle. Worshipers are called to service with a large handmade horn. Since all of the buildings have bare earth floors, fresh straw is strewn over all the floors to keep down the dust.
Arguably the main attraction of the camp meeting is the food. Traditionally, each tent hires a black cook to prepare meals all week long. These women prepare huge and delicious meals of traditional Southern country dishes such as pork, fried chicken, collard greens, rutabagas, lima beans, black-eyed peas, etc. These meals are prepared over handmade, wood-fired stoves. Even though I was only there for two meals, I think I gained 5 pounds.
Nuclear Peace
I'm an avid watcher of the History Channel. On a recent show about the Manhattan Project, the claim was made that the
world's death rate from war dropped dramatically with the creation of nuclear weapons. Before then, the rate had been on a continuous (and even exponential in the 20th century) rise throughout history. But that with the advent of nuclear weapons the war death rate dropped dramatically and has stayed at a (relatively) low level ever since. The unstated conclusion being that the threat of nuclear weapons has imposed some type of restraint on humankind's propensity for war making.
How interesting! As someone who grew up during the nuclear age with the Cold War doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction preventing the US and Russia from engaging in major military conflict, I had never thought of the Bomb as a lifesaving device. Nuclear arsenals as a boon to mankind. What a concept! Our doom as our salvation.
Legend has it that J. Robert Oppenheimer, director of the Manhattan Project, guessed this effect and named the first atomic test Trinity after being moved by the poetry of John Donne.
If you're interested, a quick trip to Google revealed this paper by Alex Roland, a professor at Duke University, in which he discusses the relationship between technology and war. His paper provides some of the statistics supporting the death rate argument.
Time Waits for No Man
I entered the world on this date 45 years ago, and so I've been thinking a good bit about the nature of time lately. Time is an absolute tyrant in my life and it's my most limited resource. I can always make more money, but I can't make more time. That's why your time is the most important gift you can ever give and why needlessly consuming someone's time is the greatest theft. I jealously guard my time because as my life has matured, my responsibilities and time commitments have naturally grown correspondingly. So, I'm busier than ever yet I have less and less time. The faster I go, the faster time passes.
Albert Einstein thought a lot about time and stunned the world with his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905. The first postulate of his theory states that the speed of light is the same for all observers, regardless of their motion relative to the source of the light. The second postulate is that all observers moving at constant speed (not under acceleration) should observe the same physical laws. Apparently, Einstein was also a great inspiration to rock-and-roller Gene Simmons.
Imagine a spaceship traveling at half the speed of light. If the spaceship turns on its headlights, an observer on the spaceship will measure the speed of that light at 186,000 miles/second. Paradoxically, an observer on Earth will also measure the speed of the spaceship's light at 186,000 miles/second. Since velocity is expressed as distance divided by time (v=d/t), it stands to reason that if the velocity of light is the same for both observers then time and/or distance must vary. This is indeed the case; experiments have proven that both time and distance vary with speed. In fact, the faster you go, the slower time passes.
Ironic, isn't it?
Hello world!
This is the obligatory first post in which a new author introduces him(her)self to the world and declares their best intentions to discipline themselves to regular postings.
I won't be doing any of that.
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