2005 Personal Year-End Review
Submitted by lukeprog on Sat, 01/07/2006 - 07:05
Tags:
- My spiritual awakening
- The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
- Discovering contemporary classical music
- Discovering art-rock music
- Harmonielehre by John Adams
- Scaruffi.com
- String Quartet #3 by Philip Glass
- Working a job I enjoy
- A History of Rock Music, 1951-2000 by Piero Scaruffi
- New friends
- The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
- Discovering jazz music
Author Comments:
My favorite of what was new to me in 2005.
(Strangely, no films made the list. My current favorite movies were first seen before the 379 I saw in 2005.)
I was hoping other people would write lists like this. I think it's a very interesting way to know people.
Of course, this is an interesting list (I hadn't discovered till now). Yet, personally speaking, I found 2005 to be a frustrating year. So, in this case, I prefer to look towards the future. One of the few very positive aspects of 2005 was that all these negative experiences are newly-gained experiences through which I learnt something about life (which you do as long as you live).
"My spiritual awakening" --> As far as I can judge on this (through your contributions to listology that is), I think that too. You changed a lot, in a good way (IMO changes are always positive as they keep up our life). Your lists, articles and posts have become "deeper", I think. But hey, you are the only one who has the right to state on this, because who am I to judge about you or anyone else?
P.S.: The ultimate book that really provides a completely different look at life is Goethe's Faust. At least it changed my attitude towards the human beings around me and the world in general. So, whenever you feel the need to read something really groundbreaking, read this.
Thanks for the encouragement, 1922. I feel my posts on Listology poorly represent my spiritual awakening, but that's to be expected.
I'm intrigued by Faust, but I'm not fond of fiction right now.
It is strange; lots of people (close to me and far away) have found 2005 to be a very bad year, for extremely legitimate reasons, but it was the best year of my life so far.
I can understand that. Faust is quite a huge book, and by the way the most important work in German literature.
Also glad that 2005 was a good year for you. Hope 2006 gets even better! :)
I'm glad you enjoy your job. Are you finished with school? What kind of work are you doing?
I'm not surprised your 379 movies didn't yield any new favorites. I find it hard to form attachments to movies when I see so many in such a short time, as I've been doing lately.
I took 2.5 years off after high school (yup, big mistake. Didn't even work much), and just now returned to community college, where I'll finish an Associate's and take it to the University of Minnesota. I'm working part-time (which helps explain why I can like it) as a computer technician.
Maybe I'll find another favorite this year, as my pace decreases and my selection focuses.
Why do you watch so many movies?
That's such an obvious question, but without an obvious answer. Here are some of the many reasons:
Because I want to.
Because I can.
Because I love movies.
Because they are there.
Because the movies I'm watching are adventurous, challenging, emotionally and intellectually stimulating and rewarding.
Because I have nothing better to do.
It beats housework.
Because my parents forbade me to watch movies as a child.
Because movies enable me to remain involved in the culture but detached at the same time.
Movies are social and cultural capital.
Movies give me status in the community.
Because I'm bored.
Movies help me to kill time.
Watching movies is a way of attaining a short-term state of egolessness.
Because I need to escape from my ordinary life.
Watching movies is my hobby.
Movie lists provide me with well-defined, attainable goals.
Because the LOTR trilogy is over.
Because reading makes me fall asleep.
Because TV sucks.
Lol. I'm with you on everything but "nothing better to do" and "reading makes me fall asleep." But do you must have dreams that want fulfilling and don't require movie-watching, right? That's why I finally had to cut back on my consumption.
I'm kinda between dreams right now. I'm on a dream-hiatus.
If you watch carefully, you may notice occasional gaps of 2-3 days in which I watch zero movies. I get a lot done on those days :).
Pardon me while I pursue this, but you've said something very interesting; something I've never heard before. You're on dream-hiatus? Is this voluntary? How long do you plan to be on dream-hiatus? How does being on dream-hiatus feel? (I can't imagine going on dream-hiatus. How cold!)
Yes, it's voluntary.
It lasts as long as it needs to.
It feels like contentment.
Huh. Well thanks, you've sent my head a-spinning!
I have no idea if it is correct, but I think Scaruffi's look at Italy right now is fascinating.
I tried that link and it klinked. So I went and found it. Would Scaruffi be more fascinating if he was incorrect? I don't know whether or not he's right but I do have some reservations.
It would take some doing to convince me that Italy's unemployment rate is 43%. Perhaps that should be called a "non-employment rate" of 43%. Wouldn't the creation of a million new jobs, part-time or not, be a huge part of the workforce? I also thought that the EU didn't allow budget deficits let alone deficits that are one fifth of GDP.
I'm also curious as to how having a poor telecommunication infrastructure prevents emails. I mean, I understand that you've got to have a phone connection but emails are easier to transmit than voices and I don't know that Italians are having trouble talking to one another.
For someone who is worried about employment it seems weird to want a reduction in manufacturing which still accounts for 1 in 5 of the jobs in Italy. Scaruffi doesn't say what sacrifices Italians have pretended to make and I'm not sure what he's saying should be done now... but it certainly sounds grim.
But what I meant to say was that the NYTimes has a piece on Malcolm Gladwell. It's okay, it has some audio clips but it does connect Gladwell with someone whose work fascinates me...
"In many ways, his work is reminiscent of that of Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud and father of modern public relations, whose 1928 book, 'Propaganda,' made a positive case for manipulating public opinion through advertising as the operative arm of psychology."
Oh no, Scaruffi's political pages would be far more fascinating if he was correct. He needs to note his sources for data. But his usual rogue, big-picture perspective is as attractive to me in politics as it is with music.
Every figure I read says Italy's unemployment rate is under 9%, but then neither is the unemployment rate in Europe 30% or 22% in USA, so Scaruffi must be using a differently qualified statistic to mean "A staggering 43% of the working population is not working..." I've sent him an email asking about it.
I've read most of the books mentioned in the Gladwell article, but now I'm hunting down Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious. Thanks.
I wrote Scaruffi: "I enjoy your rogue, big-picture look at politics but I wish you would note your sources more thoroughly as I can rarely find the facts you note anywhere else. A simple and recent example is your statement that "A staggering 43% of the working population [in Italy] is not working (compared with 30% in Europe and 22% in the US)." What statistic are you referring to with "43% of the working population is not working"? Certainly not unemployment, which is currently less than 9% in Italy."
He replied:
Maybe true, maybe not. I don't know.
Well I think I found what he's talking about... it looks like he might've lifted that entire piece. I confess that I remain worried. Setting aside the issue of intellectual theft I still can't understand the internal inconsistencies that he and/or The Economist has in their argument(s). I'm also surprised that I can track down his sourcing faster than he can... and he wrote the stuff. Maybe he just didn't want to reveal exactly where he got the article/ideas.
Do you think he plagiarized that article?
Scaruffi should note his sources, but I don't think he's passing these facts and ideas off as entirely his own. He does attribute at least one fact in that article to the Economist. And I'd say less than a fifth of what Scaruffi wrote appears in that Economist article. So I wouldn't call it "plagiarism", but I do think he should note his sources for each number he uses.
Scaruffi didn't even try to track down his source. He always seems very busy when I talk to him, answering only half my questions, and briefly. That's extremely understandable considering the amount of material he processes and produces.
But he should still note his sources when he can.