Anna Koop

I just finished listening to the Authentic Happiness audiobook (tonnes of good stuff in it) and one of the points Seligman makes is about working on your strengths rather than your weaknesses. In general I think this is obvious—we’re in a fairly advanced stage of specialization and are able to work closely with people who have strengths and skills we don’t. Why not have everyone do what they’re best at? Alone on a desert island I might need to be entirely self-sufficient, but that’s neither likely nor relevant to now.

This struck me today because discipline, self-control, and determination do not come naturally to me. But enthusiasm, curiosity, and love of learning are as natural as breathing. I’ve sometimes thought I need to work mainly on the discipline, just force myself to sit my butt in the chair and start writing. But there’s another approach that has the same outcome. When, instead of saying “just make yourself do it,” I say “hmm, I wonder how the prolog guys see this issue” or “what is the best way of explaining that point?” I find myself drawn to the task at hand anyway. No discipline required. I *want* to sit down and write. All it takes is changing the mental script.

It’s like knitting: picking or throwing, ssk or slip one, knit one, pass slipped stitch over—same result in the end. So do what’s easiest for you. There is occasionally a reason to push outside your comfort zone, but if you want to get it done, why not do it the way that comes most naturally?

( xkcd.com .

You just can’t do that to me. )

), I say!

An article from the New Scientist about sheep being used to study Huntingtons disease. Sheep doing subtle(r than expected) discriminative learning. Relational concepts (colour of food bucket indicated by colour of cone).

Zoologger: The sharpest mind in the farmyard –environment – 09 February 2011 – New Scientist.

Disagree with the whole ranking of intelligence thing. Intelligence is not one dimension with a dot for every species. It’s a complicated spiky vague shape. No strict ordering of better and worse.

But I love identifying tasks that can and can’t be done by different species. Why these differences? All these species are surviving just fine. What makes one approach more useful than another? It jostles our assumptions about what takes smarts and what is easy.

So overall win for the article.

Fabulous talk on how we can turn the human resources of virtuoso gamers onto building a better world.

Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world | Video on TED.com.

I have to say I love ideas that let people work their skills to good purpose. It takes energy and creativity to come up with ways this can happen, but it can be done. This was a cool talk from the “go IT” perspective as well as for living the good life.

Cleaning up my inbox I ran into this link which continues the theme of being-a-writer-comes-down-to-writing. This is specifically for getting a book traditionally published, but I think it counts for academia as well.

Making Light: How To Get Published.

He starts with “To be a writer, you must write.” which is the message that is finally getting through to me after years of abusing this one. He goes on with: “Write straight through to THE END.” Heh. I think that’s particularly good advice for me, given how I’ve let perfectionism drag out the first draft of my proposal.

Next comes the multi-stage break, revise, beta-read with the intriguing “Start writing your next book. The same day. Or the very next day at the latest.” I’m thinking that is very applicable. Once I get my proposal done, I want to keep in the habit of writing every day. And I certainly have other projects I want to take on.

More nifty advice. Making Light is a most excellent blog.

Copy of 100_2544

Originally uploaded by joanisrael

I ran into this via Polymer Clay Daily. Incredibly vibrant and detailed work. I love the swirls in the trunk of this one. Looking through I’m most blown away by how she uses techniques that I’ve seen on chunky jewelry or folksy figurines to create depth and texture.

We’ve gone and done it now. A few stitch markers and cards up  right now, more to come as we work out the kinks.

I’m going to be moving knitting posts over to the ArtFire blog, just to have some content there. Which makes this personal and research I guess, mostly. Maybe. We’ll see. This is not an exact science.

BorealDesigns Artisan Studio ArtFire Buy & Sell Handmade.

It might be a simpler shift than I thought. Rather than “Do the thing you love”, it’s “Do the thingS you love.” There. Done. Clearly not demanding you sacrifice all on the altar of following your dreams.

One of the things that kept me from blogging for a very long time was the fear of being open. I am still trying to keep the cautionary tales in mind: future employers, rabid stalkers, concerned relatives all might someday read these posts. (Sometimes it’s hard to keep this in mind knowing that almost no one sees these posts (hi, Leah!), but nothing every dies on the internet, so what I say here is public even if it’s drifting in the murky backwaters behind the sandbar under some fallen logs).

But I think I want to be the kind of person who is reasonably transparent. If you want to know what I think about certain things, why not? If you don’t like it, well. At least you know where I stand. If you can’t stand to work with someone who believes X—let’s get that out of the way now, shall we? Because I’m not capable of arbitrarily changing my beliefs and it’s poison to pretend.

If a future employer is going to be annoyed that I have hobbies other than what they’re paying me for and that I spend time on blogging which I could spend on Something Else—well, then. Either I have a record that speaks for itself or I don’t. Avoiding things I enjoy and that help me get better at things I love for fear of a hypothetical cranky future employer with an attitude problem and a morality that I am fundamentally opposed to? Maybe not such a good idea.

The random targeting of outspoken bloggers, particularly members of marginalized groups, still gives me pause. I have some very strong opinions, some guaranteed flame-war bait. I haven’t quite decided what to do about those. I think they’ll out eventually, but those posts will likely require drawn-out editing and careful thought. I want to be able to stand by them, even when I change my mind.

Obviously I’m posting now, and eventually I’ll be forwarding my official department page here. I might rearrange things so that the research posts come up by default, but these others ones are still going to be there. Here I am. What you bother to read is up to you.

Not that I’m encouraging family members to join Ravelry, mind. One step at a time. But if you’re on there and want to know what this knitter has to say in a less public place, feel free to PM me.

I’m working on believing that “because I want to” is fully adequate justification. It turns out that this is more conducive to being a kind and productive person than relying on “because I should.” Convenient, that.

If I (or those around me) ever think it’s getting out of hand, I’ll *then* work on reigning it in with some do-no-harm or Golden Rule modifier. But since part of what I want is to be light in dark places (besides being warm and fed and happy myself), it’s best left unmodified.