Smess and CMD is a complete believer in the Eneneagram: a personality system that describes nine distinct and fundamentally different patterns of thinking feeling, and acting. Which one am I? Of course I'm #8 with #2 and 5 wings, and AG is #9 with #3 and 6 wings. Pretty damned accurate assessment of myself I'd say - the paradoxes within the wings are eerily right on. Take the test: http://www.authenticenneagram.com/what_is_the_enneagram.html
1 - The Perfectionist: believes you must be good and right to be worthy. Consequently, Perfectionists are conscientious, responsible, improvement-oriented, and self-controlled, but also can be critical, resentful, and self-judging
2 - The Giver: believes you must give fully to others to be loved. Consequently, Givers are caring, helpful, supportive, and relationship-oriented, but also can be prideful, overly intrusive, and demanding.
3 - The Performer: believes you must accomplish and succeed to be loved. Consequently, Performers are industrious, fast-paced, goal focused, and efficiency- oriented, but also can be inattentive to feelings, impatient, and image-driven.
4 - The Romantic: believes you must obtain the longed for ideal relationship or situation to be loved. Consequently, Romantics are idealistic, deeply feeling, empathetic, authentic to self, but also dramatic, moody, and sometimes self-absorbed.
5 - The Observer: believes you must protect yourself from a world that demands too much and gives too little to assure life. Consequently, Observers are self-sufficiency seeking, non-demanding, analytic/thoughtful, and unobtrusive, but also can be withholding, detached, and overly private.
6 - The Loyal Skeptic: believes you must gain protection and security in a hazardous world you just can’t trust. Consequently, Loyal Skeptics are themselves trustworthy, inquisitive, good friends, and questioning, but also can be overly doubtful, accusatory, and fearful.
7 - The Epicure: believes you must keep life up and open to assure a good life. Consequently, Epicures are optimistic, upbeat, possibility- and pleasure-seeking, and adventurous, but also can be pain-avoidant, uncommitted, and self-serving.
8 - The Protector: believes you must be strong and powerful to assure protection and regard in a tough world. Consequently, Protectors are justice-seeking, direct, strong, and action-oriented, but also overly impactful, excessive, and sometimes impulsive.
9 - The Mediator: believes that to be loved and valued you must blend in and go along to get along. Consequently, Mediators are self-forgetting, harmony-seeking, comfortable, and steady, but also conflict avoidant and sometimes stubborn.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Miboni Land
When I first created this blog, I wanted it to be a place where I could feel safe, write what I wanted, capture the world through my eyes - hence Miboni-Land was created. But when I started writing, the fears of being judged or providing too much personal information that would haunt me later prevailed. So I wrote about safe subjects: books, my dogs, movie reviews. They are all significant parts of my life, but it wasn't the true intent of this blog. I wanted a place to express myself, to discuss things that are important to me... but like everyone else, I'm afraid of what my friends might think about them, that perhaps I'm silly believing in magic and other dimensions.
And as I continued reading friends blogs, I realized that some wrote only about their daily activities, almost a diary of sorts without the emotional significance attached to them. Others wrote only about information, things they learned, software events and that sort of stuff. And I have a couple of friends traveling abroad and writing about their adventures, fears and the actual inner thoughts as events unfolded before them. I enjoy them all, but tune more often to the latter. I feel as if I'm there with them, experiencing the mountains of Thailand, or the dunes of Egypt. And as I re-read my blogs, I realize that I want this blog to be more than just a daily account of my readings and my reviews of books. Yes, these books influence my thinking, and my puppies give me joy - but I feel most alive when I'm in my world or viewing my life through the magical colored glasses I create. There's nothing wrong with living in a fairytale.
And as I continued reading friends blogs, I realized that some wrote only about their daily activities, almost a diary of sorts without the emotional significance attached to them. Others wrote only about information, things they learned, software events and that sort of stuff. And I have a couple of friends traveling abroad and writing about their adventures, fears and the actual inner thoughts as events unfolded before them. I enjoy them all, but tune more often to the latter. I feel as if I'm there with them, experiencing the mountains of Thailand, or the dunes of Egypt. And as I re-read my blogs, I realize that I want this blog to be more than just a daily account of my readings and my reviews of books. Yes, these books influence my thinking, and my puppies give me joy - but I feel most alive when I'm in my world or viewing my life through the magical colored glasses I create. There's nothing wrong with living in a fairytale.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
BLINK "the power of thinking without thinking"
Recently I've been fortunate enough to stumble upon some books that are not only incredible reading, but have also validated my thoughts on reasoning and how I like to think (Freakonomics). Malcolm Gladwell expressed one thought nicely in Blink.
How and why do we go about making quick judgments, and are those judgments reliable? Some people call it gut, rapid coginition, or intuition, I've explained it as taking a situation, paring down the issues that make a difference to me and resolving that situation. Once I've pondered the meat of that issue, I simply file that tidbit to be used in a similar situation. Of course, there are variables that always change in each situation, but if the variables are not part of the meat of those issues, I continue to react/or make decisions through what I call a shortcut. Of course, Gladwell has a much more eloquent and scientific explanation/approach: he calls it thin slicing.
According to Gladwell, thin-slicing refers to the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behavior based on very narrow slices of experiences quickly. He explains further that when we leap to a decision or have a hunch, our unconscious is sifting through the situation and information, we throw out irrelevant information and focus on what really matters. He says that our unconscious is so good at it that thin-slicing often delivers a better answer than a more deliberate and exhaustive ways of thinking. Of course there are dangers to thin-slicing, such as not understanding our own biases and prejudices that can affect our decisions. The examples and experiments he provides to illustrate his ideas are fun and intersting as well, such as speed-dating and the Aeron chair. Thin slicing paraphrases my philosophy beautifully.
Fun reading.
How and why do we go about making quick judgments, and are those judgments reliable? Some people call it gut, rapid coginition, or intuition, I've explained it as taking a situation, paring down the issues that make a difference to me and resolving that situation. Once I've pondered the meat of that issue, I simply file that tidbit to be used in a similar situation. Of course, there are variables that always change in each situation, but if the variables are not part of the meat of those issues, I continue to react/or make decisions through what I call a shortcut. Of course, Gladwell has a much more eloquent and scientific explanation/approach: he calls it thin slicing.
According to Gladwell, thin-slicing refers to the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behavior based on very narrow slices of experiences quickly. He explains further that when we leap to a decision or have a hunch, our unconscious is sifting through the situation and information, we throw out irrelevant information and focus on what really matters. He says that our unconscious is so good at it that thin-slicing often delivers a better answer than a more deliberate and exhaustive ways of thinking. Of course there are dangers to thin-slicing, such as not understanding our own biases and prejudices that can affect our decisions. The examples and experiments he provides to illustrate his ideas are fun and intersting as well, such as speed-dating and the Aeron chair. Thin slicing paraphrases my philosophy beautifully.
Fun reading.
Sour Apples
I'm in a sour ass bad mood today and haven't wanted to fully inspect the reasons. I have some good ideas, but I think they are all triggers for something more that's happening. Maybe a long hot shower, some puppy kisses and some good old fashioned shopping might help. Or I could try just letting it all go and figuring it out another day.
Watching Sienna and Lila play in the sun releases a lot of pent up anger. I used to be an angry person, and I used to blame it on my boyfriends... But I've come to the realization, that I was just an angry person...heehee. Somedays I feel a shadow fall over me without any direct reasons that would explain why. I would indulge such feelings, and later realized that indulging them only led to more anger, so then I would fight them, only to realize that they return later darker than before. So now, I try to let these feelings run their course, and hopefully without causing too much havoc for those I care about... so I sulk in dark corners and in silence... and eventually I'm back out of the shadows and happy again.
I used to think these bursts of dark feelings were unnatural, but then I realized that there are people living in shadows most of their lives, and they have to fight to get some happiness, that's what they live for. I'm lucky, I live mostly in peace, and only deal with these feelings once in a long while. Is it chemical? If it is, do we have the ability to change that? My gut tells me that even if it is chemical, our bodies can compensate and bring balance... but easy for me to say.
Enough - I'm going out to play with Sienna and Lila.
Watching Sienna and Lila play in the sun releases a lot of pent up anger. I used to be an angry person, and I used to blame it on my boyfriends... But I've come to the realization, that I was just an angry person...heehee. Somedays I feel a shadow fall over me without any direct reasons that would explain why. I would indulge such feelings, and later realized that indulging them only led to more anger, so then I would fight them, only to realize that they return later darker than before. So now, I try to let these feelings run their course, and hopefully without causing too much havoc for those I care about... so I sulk in dark corners and in silence... and eventually I'm back out of the shadows and happy again.
I used to think these bursts of dark feelings were unnatural, but then I realized that there are people living in shadows most of their lives, and they have to fight to get some happiness, that's what they live for. I'm lucky, I live mostly in peace, and only deal with these feelings once in a long while. Is it chemical? If it is, do we have the ability to change that? My gut tells me that even if it is chemical, our bodies can compensate and bring balance... but easy for me to say.
Enough - I'm going out to play with Sienna and Lila.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Movie Reviews
I. Batman Begins:
Love, love, loved it! The best Batman movie, and possibly even the best superhero movie. It was dark andrealistic. I'm very much a fan of fantasy, but my biggest beef with most of them is not whether a storyline is plausible, but whether the director and actors made the characters and the story realistic within that supernatural realm. Consistency and attention to details are just as important as the script and character development. The development of Bateman's fighting skills through ninja training not only brought a sense of reality to Batman's fighting skills and prowess, but it also weaved in a magic quality throughout the movie. Bateman also developed Batman's character. You can literally see him changing with events that affected him. And I loved it that Batman isn't this great goody two shoes, he's a dark and angry man who learns how to channel fear and anger for the good of others. That's more realistic of a legend /superhero than a superhero who doesn't battle difficult choices on a daily basis. And finally, the best reason to watch this movie in theaters are the visual effects. There are beautiful, dark but artfully well done scenes of swirling bats and tibetan mountains....Two thumbs up and a big kick in the pants to watch this movie in theaters.
II. War of the Worlds
The last time I really enjoyed a Tom Cruise movie had to have been the one with the little kid who knows the weight of a human head. Cruise isn't a terrible actor, but he's not really an actor to me. He's become Tom Cruise playing the part of a character in these movies, and I've seen most of his tricks. He always tries to play intense roles, it would be nice to see him play a character that uses subtlety.
Regardless, this movie wasn't bad per se, but it wasn't anywhere close to good either. I agree with most of the critics, it felt like a rushed movie and I'm surprised that Spielberg allowed this movie to slip. First of all it's a typical feel good movie, and like I said earlier, the storyline can be fantastic, if the characters and the details support that fantasy. Unfortunately it doesn't. It's unbelievable how much devastation the movie shows, but Cruise and his family always get away at the last minute with barely a scratch. And they are always ahead, one step, of the aliens. Spielberg's attemps to explain how the aliens came to earth millions of years ago through people Cruise and his family just happen to stumble across during their flight is contrived and completely unbelievable. So the aliens come down and take the world by surprise and attack, through such hysteria as we've seen with September 11th, I can't imagine that everyone would put two and two together make a sound determination that the aliens planted pods here millions of years ago, and then they came down in the lightening storm. Everyone repeated this story word for word. Unbelievable. Finally, the characters were all flat and I felt little empathy with any of them. I didn't like Cruise, I wasn't sure how to feel about his rebellious yet let's do good and fight the aliens teenage son, and I certainly was annoyed by Dakota who played his screaming 10 year old girl who knew too much for her age. This is a definite rental!
Love, love, loved it! The best Batman movie, and possibly even the best superhero movie. It was dark andrealistic. I'm very much a fan of fantasy, but my biggest beef with most of them is not whether a storyline is plausible, but whether the director and actors made the characters and the story realistic within that supernatural realm. Consistency and attention to details are just as important as the script and character development. The development of Bateman's fighting skills through ninja training not only brought a sense of reality to Batman's fighting skills and prowess, but it also weaved in a magic quality throughout the movie. Bateman also developed Batman's character. You can literally see him changing with events that affected him. And I loved it that Batman isn't this great goody two shoes, he's a dark and angry man who learns how to channel fear and anger for the good of others. That's more realistic of a legend /superhero than a superhero who doesn't battle difficult choices on a daily basis. And finally, the best reason to watch this movie in theaters are the visual effects. There are beautiful, dark but artfully well done scenes of swirling bats and tibetan mountains....Two thumbs up and a big kick in the pants to watch this movie in theaters.
II. War of the Worlds
The last time I really enjoyed a Tom Cruise movie had to have been the one with the little kid who knows the weight of a human head. Cruise isn't a terrible actor, but he's not really an actor to me. He's become Tom Cruise playing the part of a character in these movies, and I've seen most of his tricks. He always tries to play intense roles, it would be nice to see him play a character that uses subtlety.
Regardless, this movie wasn't bad per se, but it wasn't anywhere close to good either. I agree with most of the critics, it felt like a rushed movie and I'm surprised that Spielberg allowed this movie to slip. First of all it's a typical feel good movie, and like I said earlier, the storyline can be fantastic, if the characters and the details support that fantasy. Unfortunately it doesn't. It's unbelievable how much devastation the movie shows, but Cruise and his family always get away at the last minute with barely a scratch. And they are always ahead, one step, of the aliens. Spielberg's attemps to explain how the aliens came to earth millions of years ago through people Cruise and his family just happen to stumble across during their flight is contrived and completely unbelievable. So the aliens come down and take the world by surprise and attack, through such hysteria as we've seen with September 11th, I can't imagine that everyone would put two and two together make a sound determination that the aliens planted pods here millions of years ago, and then they came down in the lightening storm. Everyone repeated this story word for word. Unbelievable. Finally, the characters were all flat and I felt little empathy with any of them. I didn't like Cruise, I wasn't sure how to feel about his rebellious yet let's do good and fight the aliens teenage son, and I certainly was annoyed by Dakota who played his screaming 10 year old girl who knew too much for her age. This is a definite rental!
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