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This would be writing about writing. Or blogging about blogging. Or.. well you get the idea.

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A Good Old-Fashioned Internet Rabbit Hole

Prevailing wisdom suggests any chunks of time spent online will be steeped in outrage, anger and division. I recently spent a bit of time online and experienced none of the above. As an added bonus I learned quite a few apparently unrelated facts.

When is a condominium not a condominium? What is the email address for the Austrian Consul-General in BC? And what country governs Pheasant Island?

These are just some of the questions whose answers I learned on my recent random walk. And if you manage to read to the end of this post, you too will learn the answers to these questions and so much more…

It all started when I wanted to find out if there were any diplomatic offices in the building at 800 Pender. (But I’ll save that story for another day.) It turns out the BC Provincial Government keeps a comprehensive list of all consular offices in the province. Well done BC Government.

It turned out there are no consular offices at 800 Pender, but holy cow, the email addresses were all over the map. To be fair, about half of them were explicitly affiliated with the home country government. eg, El Salvador

Of the remainder, they seemed to fall into two categories. In the first category, the email seemed to be the personal email of the consul general, using one of the usual providers (eg. gmail, outlook, shaw.ca etc.) Well done Jamaica scoring a free sfu email address.

The third category is email addresses associated with website that is to some degree dedicated to the consul office. eg Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).

This got me wondering, what do I see if I go to bcbih.com? It’s a pretty snazzy website, with sections for Tourism, the CV of the Consul, investing in BiH, and investing in RS… Wait, what the heck is RS? Oh, the Republic of Srpska. Wait, what the heck is the Republic of Srpska, and who stole all their vowels?!

It turns out (according to Wikipedia) Republic of Srpska (RS) is an entity within BiH. It further turns out BiH contains 2 entities of roughly the same geographical area:

  • Republic of Srpska (primarily populated by ethnic Serbs)
  • Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (primarily populated by Bosniaks, and to a lesser extent Croats)

I was definitely not aware that BiH was divided geographically and ethnically in this way. If somebody told me Bosnia and Herzegovina was composed of two approximately same-sized entities, I’d have guessed one was Bosnia, the other Herzegovina. Wrong! Bosnia and Herzegovina is composed of Srpska and Bosnia Herzegovina. I had so many questions here, but I got distracted by Brčko. (pink in the map above)

It turns out Brčko is a condominium. Wait, what? According to Wikipedia, this flavour of condominium is defined as: a territory … in or over which multiple sovereign powers formally agree to share equal dominium … and exercise their rights jointly, without dividing it into “national” zones.

It’s like joint custody, but for countries instead of parents. Antarctica and Post-WWII Germany are two high profile examples of condominia. Wikipedia includes an impressive list of the current condominia. The one that caught my eye was Pheasant Island.

Pheasant Island is near the mouth of a river (Bidasoa) that defines the border of France and Spain. According to Wikipedia, Pheasant Island became a condominium when the Treaty of the Pyrenees was signed in 1659. According to the treaty the island lives with Spain from 1 February until 31 July. For the remainder of the year (1 August until 31 January) it lives with papa France.

In a world where things seem fairly firmly bolted down, geopolitically, I love the fact that there are quirky things like islands that switch from one country to another every six months.

Again, according to Wikipedia “there are no pheasants on Pheasant Island.” I wonder if there are any condos…

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The 4 Tendencies

This is a framework created by the author/researcher Gretchen Rubin that explores our relationships with commitments and expectations.

The four tendencies are:

  • Upholder
  • Obliger
  • Questioner
  • Rebel

So what are they mean? Things will become clearer with a summary of the tendencies.

Upholder

Upholders regularly meet both inner and outer expectations. For example, if you ask an upholder to do you a favour and they say they will, then they do. Also, if an upholder makes a new years resolution to give up carbs, they will mostly likely meet their goal.

Upholders do not like breaking the rules and tend to get defensive when blamed for something they don’t think is their fault.

Obliger

Obligers regularly meet outer expectations, but struggle to meet inner expectations. Similar to Upholders, they tend to keep the commitments they make to others, however expectations that don’t have external accountability are difficult for Obligers. A good hack for Obligers is to use external accountability to help meet an internal goals. For example if you want to exercise more, get a Fitbit and organize a group of friends to share how many steps you are getting each day.

Beware Obliger rebellion. This is what happens when and were the obliger finally snaps and says ‘to hell with these external obligations, I quit!’

Obliger is the most common tendency in the general population.

Questioner

Questioners meet internal and external obligations if they understand the reasoning behind the obligation. They tend not to succeed at arbitrary or inefficient tasks. Once you can answer their questions justifying why a particular course of action makes sense, they will be more likely to buy into it. Questioners are usually the people who will email you links to research/data to reinforce a topic you have recently discussed with them.

Ironically (this is anecdotal and from Gretchin’s observations) many questioners don’t like being questioned.

Rebels

Rebels struggle to meet both internal and external obligations. Telling them they have to do something won’t work. They can’t even get themselves to do things this way. Rebels are motivated by their sense of identity. So, for example when they see themselves as fit and health conscious they will exercise and eat healthily. However if you tell them they need to exercise at a specific time on a specific day, or bend their knees more, or not drink alcohol, you will be more likely to have them do the opposite.

Apparently Rebel is the least common tendency in the general population.

The purpose of the framework is not to judge the tendencies, but rather to understand your tendencies and the tendencies of the people around you. Instead of feeling bad when you or others don’t meet expectations, view it as an opportunity. It might be an opportunity to better understand your tendencies, or the tendencies of others.

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Breathe In. Breathe Out.

I’ve dabbled in meditation over the past few years. While I feel embarrassed to admit it, I enjoy meditating. I started by reading a book called Mindfulness by Mark Williams that I’m still using. Recently, I’ve also enjoying using an app called Balance.

I get the sense that meditation can be very complex topic, however the essence of it is to try to sit still and keep your brain quiet. I don’t think the goal is to actually have your brain be quiet (“woohoo, my brain is quiet, I just qualified for the meditation Olympics!”) I see the goal of meditation as the never ending process of noticing that your brain is not being quiet, and acknowledging your current thought, and go back to just noticing… your breath, or the tingling in your foot, or the gurgling in your stomach, or… (“oh, I need to buy apples today. I wonder if I can get the car in for an oil change this week.”) And so it goes…

I think most people’s brains are very persistent in this regard. They can offer up all kinds of tempting things for you to think about. The trick is to not get mad or frustrated, but instead, just recognize it all as thoughts, and go back to noticing your breath.

To that point, there are a number of techniques you help you focus on your breath. A common technique is to count your breaths. Some people suggest noticing where in your body you feel your breath. Others suggest labelling your breath with something like “Breath coming in”, “Breath going out.” I enjoy hopping around among these techniques.

Recently, while I was labelling my breath ‘in’ and ‘out’ I tried switching the labels, so as my lungs filled up, I was thinking ‘out’. As the air was being pushed out of my lungs, I was thinking ‘in.’

I started doing this, as a silly game. I’m not entirely sure the serious mindfulness crowd would approve of this, but I was enjoying it. I have reached a point where it feels natural to be thinking ‘in’ as I breathe out, and vice versa.

At one point while I was doing this reverse labelling, I started imagining (sorry, this even sounds flaky to me!) I could turn myself inside out. Instead of my consciousness occupying my body, it was instead occupying everything outside my body. From this perspective when air was leaving the universe and going into my body, it was as if the universe was breathing out. When air was being pushed out of my body, it was actually being received by the universe. In.

What started as a playful game in my monkey mind ended up showing me a different way to visualize my breath and my place in the universe.

It all reminds me of a great (and recent) xkcd comic.

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We’ll See About That…

I’m in the process of starting, learning how to make a word press website. This would be to scratch a few itches. First and most likely foremost, I want a place where I can keep links for apps that I’m making. A close second, I just want to understand what it means to build a WordPress website. I go through the world and assume everybody who codes knows how to make a WordPress website. That may not be true, but I certainly feel vulnerable and exposed not being WP illiterate.

I do feel like I’ve reached the point where I could at least have cocktail party discussion about the pieces and the architecture.

One thing I had not considered is blogging. Over the years, I have used blogs to capture family events. I have also dabbled with writing posts about technical issues. I have also used a keyboard to do diary type writing.

It turns out (who knew?) WordPress is first and foremost a platform to support blogging web sites. I’m pretty sure it’s possible to turn off blog support, but that feels like ordering a hamburger, and asking your server to not include a patty.

All that do say, how do I feel about blogging? My first thought is something along the lines of: SELF INDULGENT! (Images of Larry Mullen Jr. dance through my head)

But competing with that another quote:

The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.

Kurt Vonnegut

So for the time being, I’m going to imagine myself a blogger. A hacky, rambling blogger, to be sure, but a blogger none-the-less.