Although I love being entertained by the idea of time travel, from my understanding and Einstein's theory of relativity, time travel is not possible.
However, I do believe that we at the brink of extending our lifetimes and immortality will be a possibility in the future if we accept our evolution into a life form enhanced with technology.
But for me, today, January 1st, 2018, time is a finite resource and at the age of 53, time is something I think about quite often. One of my biggest annoyances is a waste of time, either induced by my own action / inaction or when other actors waste my time.
I'm not necessarily saying that I'm focused on improving effectiveness or optimizing daily tasks and regular processes, but rather reducing obvious time wasters and making the most of what time I do have.
- trying to find something to watch on television or Netflix
- researching purchases of products and services that I don't have an immediate need for
- making myself busy when work is slow
- trying to decide on meals
- watching sports on TV
- attending business calls that have little relevance to my job
- watching CNN
Moving on to the bigger picture, what should I do with the time I do have? As previously posted, I have a lot of different interests and can see my awake time divided into learning, doing, creating and entertainment. I try to maintain a balance, but what does it all amount to? I hope my decisions enrich my life, I've always liked that word enrich - a simple, warm, but crisp two syllable word.
en·rich - inˈriCH,enˈriCH/ (verb)
1. improve or enhance the quality or value of.
"her exposure to museums enriched her life in France"
synonyms: enhance, improve, better, add to, augment;
en·rich - inˈriCH,enˈriCH/ (verb)
1. improve or enhance the quality or value of.
"her exposure to museums enriched her life in France"
synonyms: enhance, improve, better, add to, augment;
But enriching my life on its own is selfish and misses out on other wishes I have in my life - enriching the lives of others. Work and family life is the obvious canvas for this aspect of my life, but I'd like to think I can have a bigger impact on the lives of others. Although I do give quite generously to charity, I'm guilty of not directly getting involved with helping less fortunate people. I hope to find something in the future and I'm open to ideas others may have here.
I also think there is another opportunity to enrich the lives of others and if I may be so bold, leave something behind when I die.
I also think there is another opportunity to enrich the lives of others and if I may be so bold, leave something behind when I die.
I've been reading Youval Norah Harai's Sapiens recently and loving his perspectives and how humankind got us to here. But it's his newer book Homo Deus (recommended by a good friend a few months ago) that I read first and has impacted me the most (although I haven't finished Sapiens yet). If there's not really the concept of a spoiler for works of non-fiction, let me touch on one hypothesis that has stuck with me than I'm using to justify my motivations to share.
Re: Dataism. "If life is the movement of information, and if we think that life is good, it follows that we should extend, deepen and spread the flow of information in the universe". Harari goes onto talking about the modern world of "Record, Upload, Share" as a good thing and I've chosen to add this "simple" thing into my personal beliefs. So that's why I share and I share quite a lot. I'm not saying I'm tossing privacy out the window and I'm pretty uncomfortable with full disclosure which is so nicely featured in the book and movie entitled The Circle). Related in many ways, my job and career is all about educating customers on cyber security and effective ways of protecting personal information. I can help customers enable big data analytics without disclosing private information of individuals. Most of us feel we're just a small part in a massive machine. Well, that's right, but the system cannot function without contributions from many people.
Coming back from that unplanned (and admittedly incomplete) two paragraph tangent, the point I'm trying to make is that I think it's a good use of my time to publicly share my findings. Notice I'm not necessarily saying I'm sharing my life, but the stuff that I find that I think will be helpful or worthwhile for other people, I believe it's my job to pass it on. As some of you know I share movie reviews, photography and new music discoveries, and here on this blog I occasionally share deeper thoughts about my life that I hope others can perhaps relate to. So, I'm going to continue to do this.
There are still so many distractions, but I hope that 2018 is the time I get a clearer picture of my small and large contributions and I can say I'm making the best use of my time and enriching my short journey aboard this blue orb.
Although this post was inspired by a new year, apart from a few book and movie mentions, it doesn't include all the wonderful things that happened in 2017. For that, you'd get a very good idea my looking at my photos on Flickr or perhaps my posts on Twitter.
Re: Dataism. "If life is the movement of information, and if we think that life is good, it follows that we should extend, deepen and spread the flow of information in the universe". Harari goes onto talking about the modern world of "Record, Upload, Share" as a good thing and I've chosen to add this "simple" thing into my personal beliefs. So that's why I share and I share quite a lot. I'm not saying I'm tossing privacy out the window and I'm pretty uncomfortable with full disclosure which is so nicely featured in the book and movie entitled The Circle). Related in many ways, my job and career is all about educating customers on cyber security and effective ways of protecting personal information. I can help customers enable big data analytics without disclosing private information of individuals. Most of us feel we're just a small part in a massive machine. Well, that's right, but the system cannot function without contributions from many people.
Coming back from that unplanned (and admittedly incomplete) two paragraph tangent, the point I'm trying to make is that I think it's a good use of my time to publicly share my findings. Notice I'm not necessarily saying I'm sharing my life, but the stuff that I find that I think will be helpful or worthwhile for other people, I believe it's my job to pass it on. As some of you know I share movie reviews, photography and new music discoveries, and here on this blog I occasionally share deeper thoughts about my life that I hope others can perhaps relate to. So, I'm going to continue to do this.
There are still so many distractions, but I hope that 2018 is the time I get a clearer picture of my small and large contributions and I can say I'm making the best use of my time and enriching my short journey aboard this blue orb.
Although this post was inspired by a new year, apart from a few book and movie mentions, it doesn't include all the wonderful things that happened in 2017. For that, you'd get a very good idea my looking at my photos on Flickr or perhaps my posts on Twitter.
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