How to move forward simplified.

“Man has never been able to move forward without leaving something behind” Quote from the movie Interstellar

“Man has never been able to move forward without leaving fear behind” – AngryAdmin

A drunken man who falls out of a cart, though he may suffer, does not die. His bones are the same as other people’s; but he meets the accident in a different way. (no fear) His spirit is in a condtion of security. He is not conscious of riding in the cart; neither is he conscious of falling of of it. Ideas of life, death, fear etc. cannot penetrate his breast; and so he does not suffer from contact with objective exsistences. And if such security is to be got from wine, how much more is to be got from Spontaneity?
-The Way of Zen -Alan Watts.

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Mind over matter?

So, back in October I had what I would consider an accident.

Visualize the following coffee making situation:

You are standing with your kettle in hand, The whistle had just blown its lovely tune, indicating the water is ready to be poured into your cup.

You grab your cup and start pouring, the stream of water lands on your hand as the kettle pours abit further than you had anticipated. You instantly think: “Oh man, pain!” Then you utter the words: “Hmm, thats wierd” as absolutely nothing happened apart from you getting a wet hand and some water splashing on the floor.

End of scenario. That was wierd indeed.

It gets wierder though. After contemplating why nothing happened that night, I thought to myself, why not just dip a finger in really warm oil? We had just concluded chicken frying, and in the bottom of the pan was a 5mm thick layer of oil. I dip my finger in the oil, only to find it not particularly warm. Oh well I think to myself and move the pan and start pouring water in it in order to clean it. The water starts boilung underneath the oil. A very hefty reaction actually occours which was kinda shocking. From the perspective of normal physics. This would indicate that the oil/pan is around or above 100C as the water is heavier than the oil, sinks under the oil, and boils underneath it.

I think to myself, this is really really odd and start the coffee machine. I let it make hot water instead of coffee. When done I take the pot and pour the water over my hand and again, nothing..

After this episode, sometimes early January, I decided I was not so afraid of burning my hands anymore as, uhm, it did not seem to be all that likely.

What prevents you from testing if the oil you are making “comfit de poulet” in is warm enough? It should be around 80C

In goes the finger… the verdict, 45C finger measurement. No problem, not hot, no nothing.
As it could be fun to verify the correctness of the measurement we find a thermometer. It reads 75C which was surprising.

Ok, in goes finger again at 80C just to see what would happen. “Comfit de finger” does afterall not sound particularly bad all things considered.

The result:

I am a little bit stumped about the results of these absolutely crazy experiments. Can anyone give me a logical explanation for why I have not suffered skin burns or blisters?

Mind over matter? Now that would be awesome 🙂

When everything goes wrong, continue – don’t stop!

I decided I wanted to go out Friday evening. Some servers had been playing nicely, the projects I am involved in are moving along, momentum has been added and thus they won’t be stopped. Thus it was time to kick back, relax and disconnect from reality. What better and self destructive way to do that then with alcohol?

Here is the breakdown:

16:00 Order 2x 2TB Harddrives at the local hardware pusher.
16:15 Drink beer with friend at bar, get tipsy.
20:00 Go home with the intention to shave and shower.
21:00 Start drinking Baileys and coffee.
23:00 Go to the bathroom.

The following events occured in unreal time in the Bathroom, living room and the kitchen.

Esentially what happened was, I undressed myself as I dislike small hairs in my clothing. I MUST shower after having hair clipped or I can feel every little piece of hair on my skin, very anoying and I will walk like a robot. Just like when wearing a sweater made of some wooly stuff that itches like nothing you’ve ever experienced!

I start cutting the hair and I am probably 60% done, I use a trimmer both for hair and beard. I am like 80% done with hair and 40% done with beard. Then the phone rings.

I rush out of the bathroom, slightly amused that I let myself interrupt in my important and urgent task of hair clipping, grab the phone and start talking to the person in the phone. Slightly drunk conversation, very amusing aswell.

After 10 minuttes on the phone, I return to the bathroom to resume trimming hair. But wait, where is the trimmer? It had vanished! We all know that nothing can vanish. Things change location or transform into different matter or energy, apparantly, this trimmer was violating the laws of physics. It had truly vanished. I spent 45 minuttes searching for the thing before giving up and concluding: “oh well, I will go out like this tonight!”

I was inches away from becoming anoyed of the situation. I took charge of the anoyance and pushed it away, I took a shower, got dressed and went out looking like a (insert offensive word here) . In fact just look at the pictures below. Beware, these are my absolutely first selfies ever!

Many would argue it is impossible to go out like such. It is, if you are scared of what other people think about your haircut. If you don’t feed your inner wolf of fear it will starve and vanish. In business you can end up in situations where something “cannot be done” Do it anyway, the only reason something cannot be done is if you are scared of doing it. That makes it a YOU problem. They are easy to fix, just change them!

I ended up going to three bars, noone mentioning anything about the wicked haircut. Actually it was one of those “another awesome night out” with absolutely no let downs 🙂 Massive amounts of dancing and hillarious conversations. Much fun, much pleasure!

I am not entirely sure it is a good idea to show up like this to a business meeting, that would have to be tried out. I am sure there would be some wicked looks from the other side of the table 😉

The breakdown:

“The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself.” – Mark Caine

*Today I found the trimmer after another hour of searching, it had unvanished and placed itself wrapped in a tovel in the dirty clothing bin.