Pros and Cons are the staple of high school essays, business world, and public opinion. Figuring out the pros and cons of an issue is a basic strategy for understanding the issue. However, there is a lot of non-sense in the application of pros and cons that people do NOT talk about or even notice.

1. High school
In high school, we all had to write essays that made arguments in favor of a view point. Showering in the evening or morning? Choose your side and argue for it.

The truth of the matter is that while those essays occasionally score a good point, people rarely are swayed by an overwhelming list of arguments. People may read them as a list, yet it doesn’t touch their beliefs. The teacher will probably read a dozen essays and have the same opinion as in the beginning.

What matters to people is usually a specific aspect. In that specific aspect is a specific experience or idea. The first step is to find your way towards that center. People will throw all kinds of arguments at you that sound right, intellectually, or populist. They will throw all kinds of propaganda that they snapped up at you. They may not even really belief in it. It may solely be fodder to support their point. If you can make it past all of that to what really matters to an individual person, that’s where you can start having a conversation. And, that conversation won’t happen by throwing your own propaganda at it. It happens by understanding that core and finding a new solution for that need or fear or idea. Sometimes, it is a misunderstanding. Sometimes, it is a good experience. Some times, those cores are very far removed topic wise from the big discussion.

2. Making personal and life decision
The most ridiculous application of pros and cons is to apply them to personal decisions and life decisions. A certain vacation spot can have a whole bunch of competing attributes with another choice. However, you aren’t going to find the best vacation spot by deliberately considering the pros and cons of going to Hawaii. You need to find something that you are passionate about. Perhaps, the spot that you are passionate about has much more cons then pros, yet if something inside you tickles you about it, then those cons don’t matter. I am talking about getting dirty, spending a lot of money, missing out on things. Who cares if you are having a blast? And, if you are having a blast doesn’t come from a tourism office finding a few more pros.

3. Making business decisions
At work, it is a big vogue to consider options, because we are sophisticated business people. Even the most self evident thing like going to the bathroom requires options. Along with the options come lists of pros and cons.

The real trouble is that making pros and cons here distorts the situation massively. Do you pick the solution with the most pros? Those pros could be rather meaningless and one con could be a price tag of a million dollars.

Business decisions and technology decisions are often hard to understand. If you compare two approaches to a project, there are many variables. Many project managers are way of with the project estimates after project planning. So, in a early meeting talking for five minutes, it is really hard to convey the scope and implications of a project. There are distortions in the word. A jargon word for a technical task may sound really complicated. However, it may be as simple as changing one text file, if you know which.

What is much more important with business decisions is to assess, which is the solution that fits the problem appropriately. Pros and cons don’t give you the answer to that. Pros and cons are distorting, because people try to make equal amounts of pros and cons for each solution, no matter how different the solutions are.

4. Technology decisions
Making pros and cons for technology decisions is easy and very fashionable. However, they often are meaningless. People love to attach abstract adjectives to the options. However, what does it really mean that a technical solution is more object oriented or more reusable. Don’t get me wrong, both are good things. However, it is often so subjective, what it may mean.

To make an example, MVC – Model View Controller is an acronym that gets thrown a lot. Almost every web framework claims that it is more MVC then the others. Logically, not everyone can be better then everyone else. Different people have different interpretations of what it means. Actually, MVC is not so much a necessary attribute of a good user interface. It is simply a decade long observation that user interfaces code tends to fall into those categories. Basically, every framework comes up with its own layers, like code behind page etc.

What really matters with making technology decisions is experience. There have been cases, where I resisted a technology, because all the arguments were weak or not relevant. However, after I started using them, I found that they actually worked very well. Spring comes to mind. I still don’t get the point behind a lot of the propaganda behind it. However, everything lays out really well in the code. Maven is another example. It took me a long time to understand it. I still think that the propaganda is a bunch of stilted buzzwords. However, when I did finally figure it out and try, I noticed that it makes life a lot easier.

A key part about learning technology is to use it and if possible take it apart or build your own imitation. To really get it, you have to have used the main competitors for a certain decision. After you have tried a lot of technologies, you can see similarities and don’t have to try things that are close things you have tried. That’s why it is so important to let people try technologies, even if they are not in the best interest of the company or project. Many arguments can’t be settled over a bear or a conference room fight. You have to let people try the technology and try it yourself. Based on the experience, there will be understanding. Or, at least a mutual respect that it is a religious debate like vi against emacs.

I had this wonderful dream this morning.

It started with me being at home. At home was a little different. On the other side of the court yard lived a female co-worker. She was doing work at home out in the court yard. I offered to help her, yet she was distant. So, I went to my shed. Yep, in the dream, I had a shed next to my apartment. It was a one room shed with a bed, stereo equipment and some stuff. I rumbled around in it, until I realized that I had to go to the office for a meeting.

I dragged a rolling chair behind me over the side walk, because we had to bring our own chairs to the meeting and the office was only five minutes away. When I arrived, all the co-workers were in the hallway ready for the meeting. I realized that the meeting was at an off site location. Everyone was car pooling. Putting a chair into the car didn’t fit. So, what was I going to do with my chair?

I was going to leave it at the office. So, I opened a door to talk to the customer service of the building. There was a counter with guys in suits behind it. As soon as it was my turn, I was in a rush to follow my colleagues, yet the guy started talking to me stern about leaving the chair outside. He wouldn’t talk with me as long as the chair was in the same room. I tried to explain to him that it was my chair. I didn’t want to leave the chair by itself, because someone could take it. Another guy came to aside that rep. However, they ended up chatting with each other. As they eased up, I could finally try to ask my question. Yet, I had to break through their chatting first. Eventually, they told me that I should simply find a spot in the lobby to hide it. I tried to bring up that there must have been some security thread with chairs that they were so up in arms about it. They didn’t respond.

By the time that I had put the chair in a corner, all the colleagues had left. I realized that I didn’t know the address for the meeting location. The sight of the location was well known to me, because we had been there before. I simply never paid attention where we were going. I figured that I’d simply stay there and some straggler would happen to bump into me.

To my surprise, that high school buddy, who have visited me earlier in the year showed up. He said that he would give me a ride for sure. I followed him visualizing a car. Yet, at the sidewalk was a motorbike! He was looking through a pile of helmets at a nearby building entrance to get me a helmet. The motor bike was special.

The motorbike was basically a thick square carpet lying on the ground. In the middle front of the carpet was the steering handle and throttle. Under the carper was a flat metal/rubber chain that would pull us over the pavement, similar to a snow mobile, only that we were literally sitting an inch above the floor on a carpet. Behind us, I heard a young woman’s voice. Two people had trouble with their ATV. I offered to help, yet I didn’t even understand their problem. I thought it was a starting problem, yet they said that their exhaust wasn’t right.

The high school buddy came back and started the motorbike standing as he took off, he sat down. With my stiff knees and all, I had real trouble sitting down on a moving carpet motorbike. He complained that I was pulling the bike off balance. I apologized and finally my butt hit the carpet. Next, I realized that it was winter and I needed winter clothing. As I brought the issue up, I realized that I was wearing a coat.

Just as I started to enjoy riding a motor bike carpet, he drove through the opened doors of the mid section of a bus. We sat their on our carpet. In front of us, someone wanted to charge us for the bus ride. People in the bus recognized him as a regular. The seating in the bus was different. Rather than rows of benches, there were benches along the wall of the bus, so that everyone was facing in. It was a casino bus that randomly drove through the night of Los Angeles. People could gamble for hours and get off, whenever they were done. Some people simply drove the bus for the social affair and would hang on for hours to have company. A woman to our right made a loud comment to my high school buddy. She told him that next time that he would come and would have time, she would have sex with him. He didn’t say anything. He gave her a look back. I was impressed. The high school buddy was so quiet, not quiet in a shy way, but quiet in a leader way, where he was focused and didn’t bother to tell people everything. It was like he had found his groove this time on his USA visit. I brought up, why he hadn’t mentioned that he was back in LA. He didn’t answer the question.

He was using the bus to get part of the way, because apparently, the carpet bike wasn’t that strong and taking a real vehicle would be part of the journey to the meeting location. As I started looking around in the dark bus and observing people, I noticed that there was a gay couple, who started giving each other blow jobs. Then, there was a heterosexual couple that started fucking. Wow, this was quite some bus. It was a real experience. Even I lived in LA, I hadn’t found this world. I was impressed with my high school buddy. Toes of two naked feed by a cute black haired woman touched my thigh. I kind of responded warmly by accepting the touch, yet the feed pulled back sharply to show that she didn’t want to touch me. I was a bit disappointed, yet tried in another way to make contact and talked to her. She was receptive to chitchat. My high school buddy signaled me that it was time to leave. I hastily dared to ask her for a kiss. Yet, as I went close, I simply kissed her instead of asking. She returned the peck. I was so happy.

Outside, it was deep black night with cones of orange light from the street lamps. A freeway ran into depression close by with a big green entrance sign. I tried to figure out, which freeway it was to orient myself. The bus was idling here, hanging out. We passed the bus driver, who had white tissues hanging out of his nose. I assumed that he was doing a lot of blow. I guess, the lifestyle does take its victims of these night excursions.

I followed my high school buddy up a driveway, where a few of his new buddies had congregated. He told me to get into the back of a large old American car. I got in. The care backed out of the driveway. He was somewhere else and would follow. I realized that with all these indirection, we’d never make it to the meeting on time. I worried about my job and then pointed out to him that he probably never planned on getting me to the meeting location. He confirmed drily and pre-occupied with the next leg of our travel. I talked to the guy next to me on the back seat as we dove down streets on the way to a night club. He was terse, yet he implied that we were going to a special night club. We weren’t going to a public night club, where people stand around holding their liquor. We were going to a real underground scene, where people really party. Wow, I was so blown away from this world that my high school buddy had discovered for himself. I felt like I had been to LA for ten years and apparently never discovered the exciting and fun side of it. I was in for a fun ride. Unfortunately, I woke up. Yet, the dream gave me a lot of nice fuzzy feelings.

I don’t feel like talking most of the time. I do want to connect with people. I feel attracted to some, especially perky nipples and thong lines running down a black dress.

I observe myself. In yoga class, my breath comes in. I feel my breath moving my spine a little bit. It is really guiding my shoulders to a more relaxed position. I notice that there is a difference between erecting my spine on purpose to stand up taller and letting the breath guide me. For one my mind has an image of what it should be and the movement is choppy, held, and tense. For the other, my movement may not move towards my goal directly. My hips melt a little bit more off. Yet, oh, something shifts in my upper back. A little tension releases somewhere. The breath guides me into new directions as I am standing, directions of sensation and opening.

Remember a warm summer day, a bicycle ride, a most t-shirt. At that time, drinking water makes the water taste so sweet as if someone had put sugar in it. That’s how the breath becomes. Each breath in and out shifts parts of my body and is like drinking sweet juice. As the movements join the breath, every limp and muscle is sending me happy endorphins as the muscles work and are stretched.

At the end of class I look around at the people. There are many average people of different ages. There are some young cuties mixed in between. It seemed like a great place to meet people, who have something similar. Yet, the thought of uttering a word, leaving the world of peace and entering the world of saying something, worrying about boring the other person, being rejected, or ending up in a diatribe. One man sounds a bit sad and stammering as he is struggling with an injury that he has. Another woman is near frustration sharing, how she is ready to give up yoga. My inner world is too beautiful and pleasureful to leave it to enter a short conversation with all kinds of little tension pieces swinging in the air.

A colleague remarked about another colleague over lunch yesterday, that the latter sometimes comes by his desk and simply talks, because he is bored. Some people seem to have an inert need to talk that connects them to other people. During meditations and retreats, I have never had any problem obeying golden silence, while other people are struggling. It is like they have a need to utter something. It doesn’t even have to have a point, meaning or anything. I find that a waste of energy, not necessary on an intellectual level, more on a why bother to talk level.

When I talk, I have an idea or purpose that I want to share. It is important to me that the other person responds to it. If the other person is unlikely to understand it or have interest, I don’t feel like wasting my energy on pushing something on the person or wasting my effort. Why do I journal? It helps me to get clarity and unwind all the chatter out of my mind. Talking to people tends to only dim things, because they are not getting it or have their own ideas. Talking to people tends to only create more chatter, because they create new things and dynamics.

I had a wonderful day waking up. Rather then my head droning from all the anxiety and stuff going on, I woke up. I felt like I was in an empty apartment. I felt like there was nothing to do. I was so happy about that. To be free to be able to take in the emptiness. Most of my life, I am so riles up and overwhelmed that I can stare at an empty wall and it doesn’t seem empty.

The exception is vibing. There are times, where one is so connected to another person. Every smile, every word, every idea melts, connects, inspires, eroticisez. That is really rare. It doesn't happen by trying. It doesn't happen with anyone. It is a few special people caught at the right time and with the right approach. It is like most conversation is paddling in a big ocean with a lot of nothing and a few waves breaking. However, if you are in the right spot, in the right direction, at the right speed, at the right time, you catch a wave, you take off, you have so many options. That's what vibing is like in comparison to the rest of the social exchanges.

The other day, I looked into neural networks as they relate to artificial intelligence. I still am stumped by the math. Yet, I got a very simple neural network to work. Given a point on a plane, it was supposed to figure out, if the point were above or below a line cutting across the plane.

A neural network basically consists of a network of nodes. A node has an input. The input is a number. If the input is higher then a certain threshold, it will fire. If it is beneath a certain threshold, it won’t fire.

Think of a simple game. You asked a computer to know, what your favorite number is. You feed the computer a bunch of random numbers and ask, if that is your magic number. The computer is supposed to respond with yes or no. Let’s say, there are two nodes. One has a threshold that the number has to be higher then. The other has an inverse threshold of how much lower the number has to be. Each time, the computer fails, you provide feedback, if the number was too high or too low. The computer adjusts the thresholds accordingly. After a while, the computer will have figured out your favorite number.

This one was pretty straight forward to implement. However, consider the Netflix challenge. The Netflix challenge is to train a system with movie ratings that users have submitted. Based on that data, predict, how users will like other movies.

A natural approach would be to assume that every movie has some hidden attributes, like funny, action packed etc. To be more precise, there are many ways to be funny: dry humor, physical humor etc. Each movie has varying degrees of these properties. Every person has similarly attributes, like funny guy, post office gal etc. Based on those attributes, we may find a correlation to what he or she thinks about movies with certain attributes.

The first layer of nodes would represent the movies and people. The second layer would represent the attributes. The third layer would take the input from second layer nodes and output into a layer that would create a rating. Obviously, we’d have to be smart about wiring. A dorky guy may like action movies and comedies, but may not like action comedies etc.

This is not about solving the Netflix challenge. The interesting point is that in such a complicated system, we have to come up with a way to train those thresholds. Let’s say that if user A rates movie B three stars and the system get wrong. How should we adjust the node thresholds? Should we lower the action threshold, increase the comedy threshold? One way would be to simply take the whole data set and randomly try different thresholds until every known movie rating would have predicted correctly. This may take more computing power then is available.

The key point to take away is that it is really hard to find out, how to train a neural system. On a feeling level, it feels like my brain is re-wiring itself every night a little bit. During the day, neurons fire. Once a few circuits have fired, it is like they become fatigued, like they remembered what they did that day and want to be re-wired. It is like they don’t want to work that day anymore, and my brain uses other circuits.

The mind is funny thing. Somewhere, I know that I am one person. Yet, the conscious part of me has very little control. My leg itches. If I were in control, I could decide to make it stop itching. Culture often believes in the split between mind and body. The mind tells the arm to move and the arm moves. Yet, there is a lot more then being a machine. The arm will move with different strength depending on the mood and state. Theoretically, we could all lift cars, if all the muscle fibers fired at the same time. We can’t control our bodies that much.

Even our minds have large areas that are subconscious. As I observe myself more, I notice that the part that I do have actual control over is very small. For example, earlier the day, I had to decide, what to do next. In my mind popped the idea of going to the gym, because my body feels yucky. At the same time, the idea came to watch another TV show and kick back, because it is comfortable. Now, out of the endless possibilities that I could have done, some part of me beyond my control decided to present those two choices to me. I didn’t consciously produce, the options.

Further, I didn’t really choose to go to the gym. Inside of my head was a big momentum that I needed to do something and I needed exercise to fix my body from this plaguing thirst. I didn’t really decide this logic. It was given to me from some unknown part of my brain.

The only real choice that I had was to go along or panic. I notice that I can’t choose my moods. My moods are thrust upon me. What I can do is to decide, if what is happening is good or bad. I can decide, if I should panic about something or not.

In a way, there are all of these different parts of me. There is this subconscious part of my brain that computes a lot of things and comes up with suggestions. There is a logical part of me. There are many parts. What my conscious mind can do, is to give one of those aspects more weight then the other.

It is in a way like being a Native American chief. Two of your sons come in front of you with different plans. You can choose between the two. Yet, you can’t really come up with your own idea. They’ll just walk away and live that idea to yourself. If one of them is a lot stronger, your vote for the weaker one may get crushed by the spirit of everything. If they are equally strong, you can feel like you are the decider.

Remember, back to high school, when you were learning a new language. You had to learn a lot of vocabulary. You could repeat the vocabulary over and over. Yet, you didn’t really have control over the part of your brain that would memorize it. Have you ever seen a person decide that they wanted to memorize something and it stuck? That’s why people come up with all kinds of tricks to memorize names. However, you could start stressing about remembering it or pushing yourself hard to do so. That is the amount of control that you really have.

Everything else, like the idea of what all of this means is painted by a subconscious part of your brain. Could I write another sentence then this one? Well a subconscious part of me could make me redo it. My conscious part could only start stressing by saying that there is something wrong or more effort is needed.

I am not sure, if I am doing a good job of explaining this. In a way to rule your inner kingdom well, it is not so much about making grand decisions and insights. Those all come from unconscious parts. It is about letting the different parts inside of yourself operate smoothly and graciously. It is when impulses come to smoothly decide between them. In a way, it is to let things unfold and learn to recognize the different voices in your head that have the right decision for the right moment.

Leading people is similar in a way. When I was younger, I always believed the leader should have the best plan. There are many best plans that could improve the country. However, there is the people factor. You have to let people get together gracefully, even if it isn’t the best idea, you can’t stop the momentums that develop. It is like having a small business. Sure, as the owner, you set a direction. However, all the employees will start making up the culture. And, the earlier you learn that how reality of people and opportunity have aligned dictates, where you have to lead, the better. E.g., if everyone, who works for you gets up way early, well get with the program. Making everyone came later will only cost a lot of energy.

I have learned from dancing that leading/controlling another body is not very different from controlling my own arms. I think of a step for the follower. She steps there. It is the same mind/limb connection. And, again as a leader, I can influence her mood, yet can’t change it. My steps will largely come out of my subconscious. All my consciousness can really control is if I feel good about things or if I need to be careful for whatever reason.

Another aspect of being human is interesting. We all have to look at our capabilities, interests, and models of success. In between those things, we make decisions on how to best reach them. I saw a couple walking down the street with great hair. Somewhere, I got the impression that they decided, they weren’t going to make it far with ambition in this world in academy or business. So, let’s settle for living stylish lives. Another woman was wearing a leopard print skirt with tights. Somewhere, she had decided that was the best thing for her to negotiate the world. The whole human race are walking computers trying to make the best decision between their capabilities, environments, and ideas of success.

Life requires a lot being in our own way, how we feel and think. And, to uphold that against the question and judgment of other people. There are way to be cool that are exemplified by culture and easily accepted. If you want to believe that you are cool, get an expensive car. Nobody will question you. For me, to be cool to myself this afternoon was to sing in the car next to the PCH. Yet, it is not a standard known way to culture. So, I can overcome that by being very sure of myself. And, people could see me thing and adjust their thoughts to it. However, doing so, requires some standing up. And, I really so wanted to be cozied, which is the opposite of standing up.

It is funny, my singing was making noise. Yet, I felt like I could be bothering people. When people stood close to the car and left, I always wondered, if I drove them away. Yet, a biker on a Harley driving down PCH may be so much louder. Yet, people don’t look weird at it. It’s a biker with a Harley. They are loud.

Have you ever noticed that people rarely complain to neighbors about loud TVs? It is almost as loud TVs are more accepted. However, playing loud music falls right into the stereotype of oh that young guy is being a bother.

Social pressure and will power are both resources that are in limited supply inside of us. We can get better over time. And, we can really destroy ourselves by overstretching it.

The puzzle won’t solve for days
Dangling from the puzzle as if it were a rope
And the only way to get off was to solve it.

Then no welcome committee and cheering to get off the rope
Only the next rope will slither around my neck like a boa.

I have run on empty for miles already
I cannot stop, because I am running on thin air over a trap door
If I stop, I will fall

I keep running on empty.
It is impossible.
So, my soul has to feed the engine.

There she stands with the beach towel over the warm
The sun glasses stuck in her hair
The picnic basket in her hand

I am nothing but a rusty old run car.
The engine salvaged long ago
The seat upholstery long ago eaten up by microbes
I really want to, but all I am is a rusty old car body.