Instantaneous

A few years ago, I wrote about what breaks you (rather, me), and the fragility and vulnerability of feeling that you (again, I) could be broken. The song I referenced in that blog post is the same song I'm listening to right now, and the same song that I've talked about plenty of times here. One of the beautiful aspects of music is that it can evoke such emotion, or perhaps a particular mindset. Sometimes this phenomenon works in the other direction, where a certain thought or phrase brings to mind a song that perpetuates the cycle. This time around, it's the latter.

The acute awareness of the finality of death.

In said previous blog post, I talked about feeling close to death, perhaps via car crash or falling from a building. It is one thing to know that we are all going to die eventually - I believe that is is another to have, well, an acute awareness of the finality of death.

And sure, call me cute in using those exact words when something more simpler may very well suffice, but that adds to the awareness for me, to have such a clear-cut description of what this is all leading to. Maybe I'll want to change it to the acute awareness of the finality of life, because it seems to be just as true as the finality of death - that is, at least for now. No saying what is going to happen to us at the end of this life, which is exactly my point. I've said it plenty of times before - this is all we get. You can believe there's more, you can believe this is meaningless, but whatever you fall asleep at night telling yourself, you just don't know. There's only right now. There is only the acute awareness of the finality of the instantaneous.

For when I'm much older and look back on what I learned in life

Something I've discussed in the past is the idea that people fall into one of two groups - those who gravitate towards the familiar, and those who gravitate towards the unfamiliar. Three examples of this: whether you choose to re-read a book to learn more about it, or to read a book for the first time; if you're placed in a city that you partially know your way around, if you walk to a place you've already visited, or never been to before; and what you choose to follow on StumbleUpon. No, seriously - I'm much more likely to follow music, psychology, and sports than I am to follow business, history, and politics.

There is some point in the timeline of learning about a person that makes everything that person does fall into the schema we have for them. For example, if you know someone who is a joker and doesn't take anything seriously, if they start trolling a group text, you won't be surprised, since you have a set of parameters in which this person is likely to operate. Once you pass that point, there's no going back. This also ties into my theory that people don't change, and instead who they are just becomes more clear the more data you have on them.

A third and final principle - certain people will be your go-to for certain things. There's a person you go to to talk about sports, there's a person you go to when you think of a song that they'd like (which ties into the previous paragraph), there's a person you go to when you need to vent, etc. It doesn't seem to be a surprise that the more things one person is your go-to for, the closer you are with that person.

That's all I have for right now. Thanks for keeping tabs on the blog after a two-month, unintentional hiatus. It's been a good-busy time, although that doesn't excuse me from blogging. Hopefully you'll see post #463 soon.

Open source

Something fascinating about the arts - art itself, literature, music, hell, even Twitter - everything is a blank slate. Every painting starts off empty. Every book and poem is devoid of words. Every song initially consists of only staves. Every tweet begins at zero characters. The fact that we have all of this potential in these works is incredible.

Follow along as I do a little bit of Twitter math. Consider a 40-character tweet. One that's about as long as this sentence. (That sentence was 42 characters, to be exact.) In those 40 characters, you can use any letter of the alphabet (let's assume lowercase only), any digit 0 to 9, a space, and any of a comma, semicolon, period, question mark, and exclamation point. Use the hashtag, too. By my count that's 26+10+1+5+1 = 43 different characters you can use across 40 places in which to use them. Want to know how many combinations of those 43 characters you can use in 40 places?

Two billion. With 54 more zeroes at the end.

That's how many different 40-character tweets there are. If you want to use all 140 characters, then you have a 4, with 228 zeroes after it. Have fun trying to type out the perfect tweet now.

Everything has started off with a clean slate. All of my blog posts have started off with a blank screen with no words prewritten on the screen. All 461 one of them. That's neat to think about.

John 8:32

"And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

What is the truth?

Sure, that's a fairly loaded question to open a blog post with, but think about it for a minute. Tell me what the truth is. Who do you trust? What do you trust them with?

I haven't given this serious thought for more than 15 minutes, but my early reaction is that truth is on a similar vein as being smart or intelligent, which I've talked about before, where we don't have a hard, operational definition of it. It's more of a malleable concept, and in which case, may not really mean anything at all.

I'm also considering trust/truth as an emotional concept, very similar to that of home. Where if you have trust in a person, or perhaps God, that this connection pulls a certain heart string and you feel it when you have it. Maybe trust is pressing your forehead against another and talking about life and death. Maybe it's a hand on your back as yours are occupied by your face, full of tears and sorrow.

I'll take the brief emotional surge as evidence that the last two sentences may lead me on the right path. Maybe trust is knowing someone well enough where one sentence can set them on the right path, where one song can ease their worries.

This might not be the last time I blog about this idea. I hope it's not, because it is fascinating to me at the moment. In the mean time, here is a song that may get you thinking about truth.

10 thoughts on Super Bowl 49

1. What an incredible game. If you're watching that Super Bowl with no vested interest in either team, you have to hope that some loophole allows the game to go much longer than 60 minutes or any number of overtimes. And it was a game that had that feel to it, right up until Malcolm Butler's interception. The game was one yard away from being one of those "team with the ball last wins" games, where there is back-and-forth action until the final whistle.

2. Tom Brady and Bill Belichick have been considered for quite some time now to be the best quarterback/head coach combination in football history. It's time that each got their own individual greatest-of-all-time recognition, too. Four Super Bowl wins across 15 years, two other appearances that required miracles to result in a Patriots loss, and a neat and clean bookend to the greatest football franchise in the millennial generation's lifetime.

3. There will never be any better support against the "let them score and save ourselves as much time as possible" argument than we got last night. It may have been the right call in Super Bowl XLVI, with the Giants needing only a field goal to win the game. But in last night's victory, Bill Belichick and Matt Patricia trusted the New England defense, and the payout was infinite.

4. The reason any of this "let them score" discussion even came about was because Seattle drove 79 yards in the final two minutes. But perhaps one of the most under-talked-about aspects of those final two minutes were the two timeouts Seattle was forced to take. The Seahawks' first charged timeout came after an incompletion on first down, in order to avoid a delay of game penalty. Timeout number two came again with the clock stopped, after what could have been the defining play of the Super Bowl (at the time). If Seattle has two timeouts instead of one, it may change their play call on second down.

5. That being said, welcome to the Defend Pete Carroll segment. Because the Seahawks only have one timeout, they must pass at least once, since they did not have enough time to run the ball. Let's go inside the huddle between Carroll and the Seattle offensive coordinator. Here they are, one yard from taking the lead, and here is the Patriots corner they want to attack:

• A rookie
• Former University of West Alabama Tiger
• Zero career NFL interceptions

You're telling me that they don't feel good about that play call? Sure, hand it to Marshawn Lynch on second down. If he doesn't score, Seattle has to burn its final timeout. On third down, if they run again, they don't have enough time to run a third time on fourth down. Now, maybe Lynch scores on second down, but maybe he could have scored on first down, too. Maybe he fumbles and the Patriots recover at the goal line. Take hindsight out of the equation and the decision to pass the ball made sense.

Not bad at all.

6. Bill Belichick is now 21-8 in the postseason as the head coach of the New England Patriots. All eight of those losses were to teams they faced that regular season. The corollary to that is that Belichick has never lost to a playoff team that he was seeing for the first time that year. In 29 games. That's not bad.

7. All of this being said, this Super Bowl win was Tom Brady's. This was the cementing piece of the G.O.A.T. conversation, the pièce de résistance that we had been aching for for 10 years. Patriots fans needed this win for Brady. This championship may be on the same level as Ray Bourque's Stanley Cup victory with the Colorado Avalanche in 2001, where we longed so badly for one player to get his championship. Except that Brady already had three, and it wasn't about him getting a championship, it was about him being the greatest quarterback of all time.

8. Any jokes about under-inflated footballs or locker room boys have been flipped to coming from Patriots fans, instead of being directed at them. This was vintage Patriots eff-you, we-know-we're-up-against-the-world mode on the biggest stage in football. No other team plays with a chip on their collective shoulder quite like the Patriots do, and especially not at such high a level.

9. This was a game of many emotions. After taking Seattle's best punches to start the second half (a field goal and touchdown to go up by 10 points), here is how the Seahawks' final four drives panned out:

• Punt
• Punt
• Punt
• Interception

With each defensive stop by New England, you felt more and more life. It was truly a team victory, and was a microcosm of the Patriots' season. Every player was instrumental in the win, and with that, there's only one thing left to do.

10. On to the parade. Cue the duck boats.

For me

Let's pretend that you're not reading this post. (Keep reading though. Just pretend.) Pretend that no one is reading this post, that no one will ever read this post or any post I ever write here. What happens if no one reads my blog? This is question I posed to myself one night. It's interesting, because this essentially functions as a diary, which I have no intentions of keeping. I have my ways of keeping track of events in my life, and besides, I've always been interested more in what the implications of events are instead of remembering what actually happened. Because if you can understand the effect, you will remember the cause.

It's actually not outlandish to say that no one reads my blog. Since I deleted Facebook, I have had four blog posts with a total of 26 page views. My penultimate post in 2014 has 36 page views, as a comparison. Maybe it was a mistake by my marketing team to delete Facebook, but I fully support their decision (as I am the marketing team). So what if I don't have as many Twitter followers as I had Facebook friends? So what if I can't figure out how to post links on Instagram?

I am fully aware that I have an entire blog post dedicated to you, the reader. I did leave a disclaimer at the end that there are a few other reasons why I blog beyond the fact that you are reading. You'll see one of those reasons at the top of this post.

Go ahead, stop reading. See if that stops me from writing.

No one cares about the man in the box

People will do remarkable things for fame. A statement which holds true if you hold in it either a positive or negative regard. This is a relatively unprompted post, but touches on a belief I have had for a while. There is a lot of evil in this world, and often when you hear of an act of terror falling upon people who lose their lives, the originator of the terror takes their own life. I do not know why these people do what they do, although it has always and will always fascinate me. As much notoriety as they may receive, as many news stories break of their actions, those who take their own life do not remain to see the consequences of their actions. It reminds me of a concept explored in The Prestige, a concept you can read briefly at the top of this post. I'll leave you to connect the dots - I just wanted to share this with anyone who may come across it.

Question master

I had been perusing the Internet to find a batch of questions to think about and answer (something I've done before here), but decided to turn the tables and pose questions of my own, devoid of answers. These are questions I try to frequently ask myself, and may be worth asking of yourself to gain insight into the inner workings of your mind. I said over three years ago that interactions with people are the driving force behind the revealing of our true character, and I believe that holds just as true through interactions with ourselves.

Think about a goal you have. Going to the gym every day this week. Getting a full eight hours of sleep. Spending ten minutes on the phone with someone you haven't spoken to in a while. As important as it is to have goals, it is equally important to ask ourselves how bad we want it. What are you willing to sacrifice to improve yourself? Are you willing to turn down another 45 minutes on Netflix in favor of a full night's sleep? Is going out with your friends worth skipping leg day? How bad do you want it?

When I'm playing with statistics and data, a large chunk of brain power is devoted to understanding the concept of what I am trying to analyze. What statistics I need, where I'm going to get them from, how to make them look neat and pretty...when we communicate with others across whatever medium suits us, what are the implications of what we speak about? It's not enough to ask if you should bunt with a runner on first and none out...if in fact you should, what does that mean for the game of baseball? (Editor's Note: You shouldn't bunt. Ever.) What are the implications of your work?

There are people out there who take this approach to the extreme, and are constantly asking themselves this one question. How is this important to my life? For those who search for life's meaning or purpose, who might never receive a conclusion, the canonical advice is to turn the question into something more achievable. Do you really want to be sitting around all day Saturday, slothing your life away? The more insight we have into our own lives, and the more foresight we have in whether or not something will be a crucial part of our life, the more in tune we will be with ourselves. Gauging importance of anything and everything you do is an excellent way to accomplish that.

So there you have it. Three questions. Nothing too spectacular, if nothing but a conversation starter with yourself. How bad do you want it? What does it mean? How important will this be? Ask yourself those questions, and come up with your own answers.

Full-body scan

Lay down. Put your hands at your sides, and curl up underneath your covers if you want. Your choice. No lights, though. Put some instrumental music on. I have a suggestion, but you probably saw that coming. Listen to what you want, so long as it will distract the outside world from you, but will not distract you from your inner thoughts. Be passive towards your inner thoughts. Let them arise. Acknowledge them. Let them pass on.

Concentrate at the very top of your head. The North Pole of You. Imagine a singular point that slowly descends down and around your skull, reaching the ends of your hair. Feel a swirling energy that circles your head until it starts to fill your neck, coming from the top down. Let it expand over your shoulders, around to your back, and down your arms. Feel it reach the tips of your fingers. Feel it running down your chest, your midsection, your hips.

Stay focused on that energy. Follow it down your legs, continuing to fill you from the top down. Feel it on the bones of your shin, on your calves, as it reaches your ankles. Let it wrap around your heel, underneath your foot. Feel the energy come to a point at the ends of your toes. Feel the energy, still and total. Feel the heaviness of being still and total, and the lightness of being still and total.

Breathe in. Lift up a finger, a hand. Breathe out. Turn your head to one side, lift up another hand. Place it on your waist. Breathe in, breathe out. Move your legs, releasing the energy. Return to life as you knew it nine minutes ago.

Ghost Stories: Coldplay's sixth album

Coldplay's sixth album, Ghost Stories, is awesome. Here's why.

1. Always In My Head. The general mood of this album seems to fit with the cover art, a deep blue with a sense of being full. At least, that's what I take from it. The first song you hear perfectly represents that feeling, some sort of gliding along. This entire album is perfect for driving home from somewhere at night, and with this song in particular, there isn't that loud climax typically associated with Coldplay songs. It is a steady pulse of soundscapes and guitar riffs, meshed wonderfully with Chris Martin's fantastic voice.

2. Magic. This was the first song I had heard off the album, and when it came on the radio I figured it to be one of another of Coldplay's pop-sounding sounds. It was a nice surprise to be wrong on this one, because again, there's no breakout climax. The more I hear this song, the more it sounds like it belongs on X&Y, which is notably another dark-blue cover.

3. Ink. I haven't looked up the lyrics to many of these songs, but the first time I heard this one, I figured the song title was something like "So Much That It Hurts." Maybe there's a metaphor I'm not seeing yet with tattoos and ink, but this is a nice little song thrown into the album. Not a huge fan of it, but not a song that I'll skip because of it.

4. True Love. This song has an AWESOME chord progression, and spectacular harmonies with the vocals. A-plus composition on this one. This is another great example of how this song sounds like some of Coldplay's older stuff (more on this in a few songs). If Parachutes and X&Y had a musical child, I'm pretty sure it would be this album. Which is fine by me.

5. Midnight. By far my favorite song on the album. The opening pulse is terrific, the vocal effects are incredible, and the song does an absolutely perfect job of tying together the lyrics and tone of the music. In the darkness, before the dawn...leave a light, a light on. Very silver-lining-esque. And the music video taking place in the forest also makes complete sense with how soundscape-y the pulse is. Just a fantastic song.

6. Another's Arms. I haven't listened to this one as much, but I do greatly enjoy the verses. Seems like a cool song to take a video of the city lights as you drive down a main street or something. Either that or maybe this would go well on The Weather Channel while they're showing the weekend forecast. I'll leave it up to you.

7. Oceans. See - child of Parachutes and X&Y. This is one of the most peaceful songs I've ever heard. Totally love the drum pad sounding like drops of water into the ocean, totally love Chris Martin's voice trailing lightly along, and the small differences in chords are incredible. Sounds like a melancholy-but-in-the-reminiscent-and-happy way to remember someone you lost. Beautiful song.

8. A Sky Full of Stars. Alright, so there is one song on the album that is upbeat, pop-sounding, and has a climax. It's this one. It's totally cool though because Coldplay has a lot of fun with it, and I can only image the dance parties that go on at live shows. The music video is also so Coldplay, it hurts. Enjoy.

9. O.  Not really sure what to make of this song, because it's another that I haven't listened a ton to. It's a sweet and smooth ending to an incredible album, and I think that the video below is a great representation of the kind of ending it has to the album. I believe this song is also referred to as "Fly On," or perhaps "O (Fly On)," which makes sense. In any event, another good song.

And that's Ghost Stories. It might be the best album of the six that Coldplay has put out thus far, which is a bold claim for a band of such high acclaim. But one of the six albums has to be the best, so why not this one? What do you think?