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Thursday Recap

Nov 5, 2009
Personal

Much like exercise, I’m beginning to get to that point where if I don’t write every day I start to feel like something is missing.  Even a simple little blog post can scratch that itch.

So – what’s up in Anthony-land?  Anthonyville?  Anthonytropolis?  Not much, and yet everything.  I had a birthday yesterday – if you haven’t yet sent in your present, SHAME ON YOU :) , and it was very nice.  Parts of the day were extra special, and – I’ll leave it at that.  I also got 10 hours of sleep last night, which helped make the day nice on a couple different levels.  Oh my god, here I go again with the cryptic narrative.  I just can’t spill my guts out all over the page EVERY DAY or pretty soon you’d go back to reading Scoble or Pavlina or god knows who else, out of sheer disgust.

I had a good day.  I’ll stop there.  But let me repeat: it was good.  That’s unusual, and welcome.  I want to bottle it and apply it in short bursts throughout the week.

I’ve been working yesterday afternoon and this morning on a side project that involves digging through level after level of superfluous complexity that puts everything else I’ve ever seen to shame.  I saw a Coen Brothers film recently, a bad one, called “A Serious Man”, and one of the characters is developing a mathematical probability theory in a book he calls The Mentaculus.  The book is really just page after page of scribbled numbers in various patterns – lists, columns, whirls, vortices, spirals.  To look at it is to immediately wish one were taking hallucinogenic drugs, in hopes of discovering The Secret To The Universe.  Anyway, this code I’m looking at reminds me of The Mentaculus.  I’m imagining the guy who wrote it wears an Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and wears two pairs of glasses at a time, just in case. I only have the benefit of two dry cappuccinos to help me navigate the waters.  I’m slowly going insane.

I’m looking forward to working more tonight and this weekend.  Now that I’ve half-cracked the code, I can start to feel productive and hopefully get in that flow state.  I may take some time Saturday morning to go on a long bike ride, if it’s not too rainy.  I have a couple destinations in mind, and will have to make some plans before I go to bed on Friday.  Can I do 50 miles this weekend?  Why not?  I can do anything.

Everything else?  What’s the French word for shit?  Merde?  Yeah, that.  So I’m focusing on what’s good, what I can control, and what I can revel in, take delight in, and what I can do for others.  The secret to  happiness is not absence of merde; it’s accepting the notion that despite the merde, there are still areas of your life that are good; friendships that make you happy; circumstances that one can appreciate; needs of others that you can fill.

So I’m working on it.  Wish me luck. :)   Hope you’re having a great day!

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7 Comments
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7 Comments

  1. theresa  •  Jan 25, 2010 @3:39 pm

    I Google searched “mentaculus” and this was one of the results. SO, since I was looking for actual discussion about A Serious Man, I’m just go ahead and ask — why was it “bad”?

  2. anthonyrstevens  •  Jan 25, 2010 @5:54 pm

    Hi Theresa! I guess I’d boil it down to two things: one was that it created in me a very uncomfortable, excruciating tension that made me squirm, and two, it was sort of pointless – the plot was left unresolved, and at the end of the movie we really didn’t get the sense that the main character had in any way resolved or moved forward on his conflicts. He was just sort of stuck, moving along from situation to situation, but not self-directedly so.

  3. Jacques Strappe  •  Feb 17, 2010 @2:39 am

    I loved A Serious Man. I don’t think it pointless or the plot unresolved–the ending was ominous, and seemed a direct result of the main character compromising his integrity right when it looked like Hashem was giving him a fighting chance to solve his problems. I was reminded of two things while watching: the book of Job, and a quote from a very famous Jewish mathematician and physicist who said “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”

    As for the Mentaculus, well. The movie itself might look the same way to people who struggle to understand it. There’s also the parable of the goy’s teeth, which seemed to be a bunch of elements that didn’t go anywhere or tie together into anything. I suspect that’s what the movie looked like to you.

    But just look at the parking lot! ;p

  4. Logan  •  Mar 10, 2010 @1:32 pm

    The fact that you consider A Serious Man a bad film because nothing was resolved says WAY more about you than the merits of the film. Especially since the title of your blog is In Pursuit of a Life.. hilarious.

  5. anthonyrstevens  •  Mar 11, 2010 @6:41 am

    Logan: don’t be a hater. People can disagree about film without it being personal.

  6. Daniel  •  Mar 22, 2010 @3:45 pm

    Found your blog looking for Mentaculus (just wanted to check if I spelled it correctly), funny that you code C# too.
    As for the film, I love it so much and so I disagree with you. First time I watched it, seeing a bit of main character in myself I was really disappointed that nothing happened. However I enjoyed the picture a lot, as it was quite funny, sometimes cynical but true and even intimate at the same time.
    Now that I’ve watched the film for the second time, not self-identifying with the main character anymore, I admit I feel A Serious Man is going to become one of my all-time favorites. He says, ‘Every action has its consequences’ but what this film is about that maths sucks in real life and you can have a lot of consequences without doing any actions. Have you noticed that during the film he repeated a lot of times, ‘I haven’t done anything’? He hasn’t done anything wrong but he hasn’t done anything good either. ‘The Uncertainty Principle. It proves we can’t ever really know… what’s going on. So it shouldn’t bother you. Not being able to figure anything out. Although you will be responsible for this on the mid-term.’
    It’s only in the very end of the movie that he makes his first personal decision, accepting the money from that Korean student, so we can say there’s an improvement in the end. And, yes, the plot is left unresolved, and it invites you to think. I saw a nice blog entry posing some questions worth thinking about: http://www.filmwell.org/2009/11/05/a-serious-man-questions-for-further-study/

    Give it a second chance. It’s really a good movie.

  7. nx  •  May 22, 2010 @11:35 pm

    The Coen Brothers don’t really make bad films, they just make films that deviate from what movie-goers are programmed to accept. Based on what you’ve said about it, they did their job perfectly. And the film is still with you.

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