Too Picky

Perhaps you have a friend you think is 'too picky' when it comes to who they'll date. You may be thinking of that person right now, but quit pointing fingers at them. Back to me.

While you may rightly label this person 'too picky,' you're putting them in a tight spot, without a commendable option. Consider the following:

1. They stay where they are: This is a problem because 'too' applied to any adjective means 'too much.' "There's too much pickiness about the way you go about selecting women, Tom," is what we mean when we tell him he's 'too picky.' What we mean is that his standards are unrealistic, impossible, and unfair to any gal he meets and that, in good moral standing, he should change them.

Very well, let's say he does. Now he's in option #2.

2. He decides to be 'not as picky.' Well, immediately you see the dilemma. Now it seems that our boy Tom might be described as 'not picky' - almost that he is looking for just anyone.

"Female?"
Check.

"Single?"
Check.

"Wants to be with me?"
Check.

"Approved."

Tom's description of how he ended up with Miss Right Now becomes most unflattering, "Well, you see, most of my boys at the five 'n dime pointed out that my standards were way too high. I took note, decided to stop being 'too picky' and, wouldn't you know it, here I am a man who's spoken for."

The real problem, as you probably see, is the label 'too picky.' It's too vague. Perhaps Tom has ended up with an angel and he was just being too picky about hair color or favorite sports teams. He wasn't 'too picky' about everything, just some things and we think his standards on those things to be too high - maybe he could reconsider them.

So, when we hear that someone is 'too picky' about who they will date, perhaps the right question to ask next is, "Too picky about what?"

On Letter Writing

C. S. Lewis was definitely a man of letters. His 3 volume collection of letters is over 3000 pages (while not exhaustive or too generous on white space). The introduction, by Walter Hooper, had two interesting notes on letter writing I'll share.


One: The auditory rhythm is important:

"When Lewis dictated letters to me, he always had me read them aloud afterwards. He told me that in writing letters, as well as books, he always 'whispered the words aloud.' Pausing to dip the pin in an inkwell provided exactly the rhythm needed. 'It's as important to please the ear,' he said, 'as it is the eye.'"

While he didn't always please the eye (in terms of legibility), it's hard to deny that he's readable. In fact, I just reread the previous sentence and found it read better with an edit. Point, Lewis.

Two: Having something to say sure is nice:

"Jack wrote to him [his brother Warnie] in March 1921, 'Perhaps one of the reasons why letters are so hard to write and so much harder to read is that people confine themselves to news - in other words think nothing worthing writing except that which would not be worth saying.'"

It seems like there are two types of things one can discuss: news and ideas. Perhaps the better letters have both.



Now, write me a letter.

I Won't Do this All the Time

But I want to share with you a few amazing things I've found out about in the last few weeks. What can I say, Justin just has good ideas with his posts (see two posts below).

If we're friends on Facebook, you may have seen me post this:


And here are some musicians which are worth your time:
1. James Vincent McMorrow: If you like Iron + Wine and Bon Iver, listen.

2. The Head and The Heart: If you like Mumford & Sons, click away!

3. Buried Beds: If you like the style of M&S and the whim of Avett Brothers.

Enjoy.

Perhaps My Eyes Were Too Big

A coworker of mine is incredibly diligent (a quality we really appreciate at work). Two years back, she showed me her goals for the upcoming year. It included some easy obstacles and some challenging, but none were too outlandish. She even wrote down that she planned to graduate with her master's degree - something that was pretty much in the bag at that point. "It's still a goal of mine for 2010, so I'm writing it down."

I'd often started years with resolutions which didn't last very long, but there was something appealing in her list and I gave it another go. To my surprise, I finished some significant goals and felt the list helping. Unsurprisingly, I didn't finish them all (the list can only do so much). As 2011 rolled around, I decided to write down some new ones.

I won't tell you all of them right here, but here's where my eyes were perhaps a little too big: I want to end 2011 having finished every CSLewis book I own. I counted all of the pages I have to read to get this done and, though I'll keep the number to myself, it's in the thousands and is closer to 10K than 1K.

I'm telling you this for a specific reason: I'm about to do a ton of blogging about CSLewis. A ton. Well, maybe a ton. There's something about Lewis in particular that makes me want to write and I thought about generating an entirely new blog about it. Instead, I'm just giving you a heads up. So, heads - it's coming.

Probably.

3 More Reasons to Love Google

My friend, Justin, has one of the best blogs I read (check it out). He's got great stuff on there about technology, politics, cultural conflicts, and just cool stuff he finds along his days. One of my favorite types of posts that he does is "The Top 5 Things That Have Recently Blown My Mind." In the spirit and in honor of Justin and those posts, here are a few more reasons to love Google.

(When I went on his blog to make sure I got his "Top 5 Things" title correct, I saw that he'd already beaten me to the punch on #2. Typical.)

1. Google Flu Trends:
Google found that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity. Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity

2. Google Art Project:
Explore museums from around the world, discover and view hundreds of artworks at incredible zoom levels, and even create and share your own collection of masterpieces.

3. Google Power Meter:
Using energy information provided by utility smart meters and energy monitoring devices, Google PowerMeter enables you to view your home's energy consumption from anywhere online.

Bonus: Google has an entire philanthropic arm www.google.org which is worth checking out. They gave over $145M to non-profits and academic institutions in 2010.