So. I would like to pose a question, if I may. What would all of you be doing if you had the freedom to choose anything? I don't mean just in the short term but more in terms of vocation or life's work. I am just curious to know what kinds of things people want.
I think that I would most like to be a freelance journalist and a writer. I have this romantic notion that I could travel the world... see new places, meet interesting people and have it all be grist for the creative mill. I think often of Neal Stephenson and the hacker tourist piece he did for Wired magazine some time back (December 1996). That sort of thing has an almost mystical lure for me. At other times I think I might like to go to seminary and attempt to become a Unitarian minister. Go figure.
In some ways this train of thought represents what I feel, at least at the moment, would be the ultimate realization of my self. Both of these dreams would require me to address and adjust some of the traits that are, for better or worse, very fundamental to my personality. For instance, pursuing the hacker tourist dream would require me to get over my incredible fear of getting out of my nice comfortable rut AND I would have to abandon my tendency to seek immediate gratification. The latter goal would necessitate my return to higher education in a huge way... something I dread in part due to fear of failing again and in part due to the sheer challenge it presents.
I wonder if it is a trait of humanity at large to desire the things that would require the most of them. In some ways a resounding yes seems obvious... the things we don't have because we haven't taken the necessary steps to achieve them are likely to be the things we want most by the mere fact of their abscence. On the other hand it may be that I am attempting to map one of my one traits on the world at large. That's why I am presenting all of you with the question. Does this apply to you?
I'm going to be cheesy for a bit so feel free to skip this paragraph. As I have mentioned previously, one of my favorite ideas is what I think of as the beautiful dichotomy. In my mind this idea of having to improve one's self to pursue a dream represents another of these dichotomies. It is interesting to me how many of the issues in my life I can see in this way. I've always said if I get a tattoo it will be the yin and yang... </cheese>
I've been doing some thinking about user interface today and decided to look in to the current state of hand writing recognition. It has proven to be very frustrating. I can find tons of information but nothing that really gives me any kind of a feel for the state of the art. Do any of you have any information on this topic? Also are there any newton users out there (past or present)? Let me know.
The biggest reason I am interested in this is I often think of things over the course of the day that I wish to retain but won't unless I write them down. The problem, though, with writing them down is I often lose the piece of paper. I can think of a number of solutions for that problem off hand but it made me wish for a computer with handwriting recognition. The palm's little alphabet seems needlessly awkward...
Over the course of a day I think of a lot of things I would like to do or see done or projects that would be interesting to undertake. The reality, for me at least, is that I already have enough of these piled up that I will never get anywhere on most of them. At one point, some time ago, Darren had mentioned that he has the same problem and that he was thinking about putting them up on a webpage. I think I might do the same. If nothing else it could spark some interesting discussions. We shall see.
Ugh. I think I'm going to add Ispell support to the scripts I use to update the headspace. I've been rereading and I make a hideous number of spelling mistakes.