Daily Archives: April 13, 2012

Old Fisherman’s Proverb.

Posted by raburcke on

Slightly adapted by Ralphie:

“When the sea is having her period, it’s best to take to the mountains!”

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Burcke’s Subjective Well-beingness Table.

Posted by raburcke on

Note A

Note A (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve been thinking about whales again. They do fascinate me and especially the way they sing and communicate with one another. These titanic mammals can not be but highly intelligent. What if their songs were composed of sequences of statements about their general health and well-being?

Let us assume for a second that the first sequence of every song is a statement about their physical well-being and specifically, if they are in pain at all. This message could be rendered as one chord, composed of three  musical notes.

The first note of the chord would give us, on a scale on one to four. a gradation of physical well-being ranging from (e.g.) the musical note “mi” which would stand for neutral, “fa” which would stand for moderate, “sol” which would stand for good and “la” which would stand for  excellent. All the other whales over all the world’s oceans would a) know the sequence and b) what any note on the scale stood for!

This state of well-being could have a positive or a negative effect or both and could also be graded. For example, I have a sore shoulder that troubles me somewhat during the night, but at the same time has given me the resolve to exercise more to work the kinks out of it. Which gives me the chord “do, fa, do”(see table further down). I have given a list of twelve categories that we are all concerned with.

To recap, you would get twelve chords(the most important information on your overall well-being), each chord comprised of three notes denoting a gradation of the state of one aspect of our well-being and a gradation both for the positive and/or negative effects that this brought with it).

In this way we coud give a musical(probably cacophonous) message to our family and friends, which would convey our overall state of well-beingness at a glance(or hearing). If somebody has a synthesizer or the appropriate software, they could program this, thus creating our very own whale songs. And the answers to the questions(categories) could be made to look rather spiffy, using led-like graphs(in appearance).

Humpback whales are well known for their songs...

Humpback whales are well-known for their songsCitation needed (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I made this table in Excel but it didn’t import well, sadly.

1 2 3 4 5 6
Category Fysical state: Fysical state: Fysical state: Mental state: Mental state: Mental state:
Pain? Activity-wise Rest-wise Stress? Activity-wise Rest-wise
Quotation Type:
Positive effect experienced More than full mi
Positive effect experienced full re
Positive effect experienced moderate do do
Positive effect experienced little or no si si
Level of well-being is excellent la
Level of well-being is good sol
Level of well-being is moderate fa fa
Level of well-being is neutral mi mi
Negative effect experienced little or no re
Negative effect experienced moderate do do
Negative effect experienced full si si
Negative effect experienced more than full la

7 8 9 10 11 12
Category Spiritually Sex-life Love-life Materially Work Relaxation/
satisfaction entertainment
Quotation  Type:
Positive effect experienced More than full mi
Positive effect experienced full re
Positive effect experienced moderate do
Positive effect experienced little or no si
Level of well-being is excellent la
Level of well-being is good sol
Level of well-being is moderate fa
Level of well-being is neutral mi
Negative effect experienced little or no re
Negative effect experienced moderate do
Negative effect experienced full si
Negative effect experienced more than full la

A Master’s Work: Deceivingly Simple

Posted by raburcke on

Hear, hear!

Mike_Reverb

I’ve always been fascinated by Bob Ross and The Joy of Painting. I suspect he sold his soul to the Devil for the ability to create masterpieces with little effort (and for his epic afro).

However, Bob Ross is an example of a master of his craft: he makes painting look easy but in fact it takes skill and practice to do what he does. He makes viewers believe that if they just take up a paintbrush and set up an easel, they too can graze the canvas with brushstrokes to create happy little clouds and snow covered mountains. But it must have taken him years to perfect his methods.

This seems to be a sure sign of a master; no matter how difficult the task, he/she makes it seem so simple. I’ve found that to be true of authors as well as actors and painters.

Good writing is…

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