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Aug. 20th, 2005 10:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tylikFrom ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rocket_jockey
The concept: list ten things that give you joy. Then tag five people to post a list in their journals.
1. Figuring out new things. (I was going to say "learning" but the more active my role in the process, that happier I am.)
2. Good conversation. The kind where you really connect with someone.
3. Those realms wherein mathematical elegance intersects with organic messiness. I've always liked those areas where the rubber hits the road, and these tend to be the right rubber, with the right road. When things work, it's incredibly satisfying.
4. Being able to push my body. Martial arts is probably my favorite mix of aesthetics, skill and practicality in this regard, but everything from the endorphin rush to the focus to the bragging rights is good by me.
5. Being outdoors. It's all about scale. I like the knowing and understanding and paying attention parts, and the small things, pineapple weed between cracks in the sidewalk, cup fungi on a broken twig, pollen... and on down the scale into the microscopic and molecular, except those don't tend to be outside pursuits for me, and then up the scale, shrubs and crows and mycelial patches that fruit year after year, deer and trees and mountains... and weather, and all of that space, with the relatively small but actually quite massive interesting bits scattered about... But going back to the "outdoors" parts, the breadth of scale I can related to directly, say pollen and mites on the one hand to mountains and weather on the other, is just marvelous. And puts me nicely in perspective. Indoors stuff is meant to be human scale, which is comfortable, but limiting.
6. Labour. (I was going to say "work" but that really overlaps too much with other things.) There are some many things to do, and things that need to be done, that are not new or challenging, but are satisfying, and provide a certain conceptual shape and structure to one's life. And are a good way of maintaining contact with the physical world.
7. Creating things. I'm willing to put up with a lot of frustration and tedium if at the end of the day (er... year, whatever) it means that I've made something that didn't exist before, or learned something for myself that I didn't previously know, or even better that no one knew, at least in quite that way. (At some level the two are the same -- creating and knowing is all about the patterns things are in. So there's considerable overlap with 1.)
8. Obstacles. I'm not saying I like all obstacles all the time, or that I enjoy being frustrated, exactly (though I do, sometimes) but I really do get a lot of joy out of some obstacles. People, in particular -- people who are useful obstacles, who argue with me intelligently, in particular, or people who just think about things in such different ways that I have to turn my brain inside out to understand their worldview. Other obstacles too, whether they are procedural problems or things to climb over, or what have you -- without obstacles, it's very hard for me to measure, or have a context in which to understand the things that I do. I've been there, I don't like it.
9. Pulling out the stops. Sometimes because I'm free to pull out the stops. Sometimes pulling out the stops when it's not safe, and maybe it's not a good idea... different kinds of pleasures.
10. Rest.
Hm... five people. Well, first off, just to be clear, I regard this as entirely voluntary. That having been said...
adularia, byrdie, lilituc, qaexl, xiphias, care to play?
rocket_jockeyThe concept: list ten things that give you joy. Then tag five people to post a list in their journals.
1. Figuring out new things. (I was going to say "learning" but the more active my role in the process, that happier I am.)
2. Good conversation. The kind where you really connect with someone.
3. Those realms wherein mathematical elegance intersects with organic messiness. I've always liked those areas where the rubber hits the road, and these tend to be the right rubber, with the right road. When things work, it's incredibly satisfying.
4. Being able to push my body. Martial arts is probably my favorite mix of aesthetics, skill and practicality in this regard, but everything from the endorphin rush to the focus to the bragging rights is good by me.
5. Being outdoors. It's all about scale. I like the knowing and understanding and paying attention parts, and the small things, pineapple weed between cracks in the sidewalk, cup fungi on a broken twig, pollen... and on down the scale into the microscopic and molecular, except those don't tend to be outside pursuits for me, and then up the scale, shrubs and crows and mycelial patches that fruit year after year, deer and trees and mountains... and weather, and all of that space, with the relatively small but actually quite massive interesting bits scattered about... But going back to the "outdoors" parts, the breadth of scale I can related to directly, say pollen and mites on the one hand to mountains and weather on the other, is just marvelous. And puts me nicely in perspective. Indoors stuff is meant to be human scale, which is comfortable, but limiting.
6. Labour. (I was going to say "work" but that really overlaps too much with other things.) There are some many things to do, and things that need to be done, that are not new or challenging, but are satisfying, and provide a certain conceptual shape and structure to one's life. And are a good way of maintaining contact with the physical world.
7. Creating things. I'm willing to put up with a lot of frustration and tedium if at the end of the day (er... year, whatever) it means that I've made something that didn't exist before, or learned something for myself that I didn't previously know, or even better that no one knew, at least in quite that way. (At some level the two are the same -- creating and knowing is all about the patterns things are in. So there's considerable overlap with 1.)
8. Obstacles. I'm not saying I like all obstacles all the time, or that I enjoy being frustrated, exactly (though I do, sometimes) but I really do get a lot of joy out of some obstacles. People, in particular -- people who are useful obstacles, who argue with me intelligently, in particular, or people who just think about things in such different ways that I have to turn my brain inside out to understand their worldview. Other obstacles too, whether they are procedural problems or things to climb over, or what have you -- without obstacles, it's very hard for me to measure, or have a context in which to understand the things that I do. I've been there, I don't like it.
9. Pulling out the stops. Sometimes because I'm free to pull out the stops. Sometimes pulling out the stops when it's not safe, and maybe it's not a good idea... different kinds of pleasures.
10. Rest.
Hm... five people. Well, first off, just to be clear, I regard this as entirely voluntary. That having been said...
adularia, byrdie, lilituc, qaexl, xiphias, care to play?
