The Column
Motto: I don’t know why she swallowed the fly
I’m literally not talking about the widely-recognized abuse of words like “literally”. This is less of a Buzzfeed Listical and more of a series of topics about which I have been contemplating (in the near past) that can be presented under a common theme.
“Healthy” - without disease; promoting well-being
That’s the best definition I know. That is, notionally, what “healthy” is supposed to mean. Sometimes it gets used that way. I think, though, that a majority of cases in which I come across the word it means “please buy my product - don’t fee guilty!” or “please buy in to my way of thinking about this”. To me, healthy is having the physical and emotional capability to do the things you want to do, to accomplish things that are important to you - that which makes you fulfilled, and continue that capacity in the face of reasonable obstructions introduced by the world and the realities of everyday life. My definition of health underscores the importance of listening in the skillset of medical, therapeutic, and coaching professions. Now that I’ve written all this, I realize I’m just borrowing an idea from the “Toxic Rick” episode of Rick and Morty.
“Addiction” - performing an action to avoid the negative effects of not doing so.
The common connotation of “Addiction” is tin the realm of substance abuse. “Addiction” evokes an mage of chronic desperation to achieve a fix to the detriment of everything else in life. It seems to me that this is a perfectly valid definition in and of itself, but a strict interpretation of the definition would make the term applicable to a wide array of less desperate situations and circumstances. AN easy jump to make is to rewarming your morning coffee in a microwave after you failed to enjoy it while it was still warm and fresh. Nuked coffee blows. It’s a well-known fact. It’s not enjoyable, it’s just tolerable; but you drink it anyway, even though you don’t really actively want to, because you don’t want to deal with the lack of your usual supply of caffeine. I think it further extends into the realm of falling back into some default behavior patterns long after they stopped providing fulfillment. There should be a word for more mild forms of addiction. I’m addicted to “Every Day Carry” culture, in this mild sense. In order to truly satiate the desire I’d need to spend a lot of money - so instead I partake of staving behaviors. I just read about various bags and watch review videos. I mildly enjoy the process, by it brings me no lasting fulfillment. That should have it’s own word. It’s not addiction. It’s non-positive-propensity (work in progress).
“Intelligence” - …smarts?
Honestly I’m not capable of coming up with a coherent and concise definition of “Intelligence” that isn’t just a synonym. I’m not intelligent enough to be a dictionary - only enough to be a thesaurus. It’s a common cliche to break the general term “Intelligence” into the more granular “book smarts” and “street smarts”. While I generally agree this is a good direction to go, I hardly think splitting intelligence into two categories goes far enough to paint a full picture of an individual’s level of intelligence. “Book smarts” breaks down further down into education, capability to understand complex systems or fields, and ability to absorb information through text/lecture. “Street smarts” breaks down further into experience, common sense, wit, and ability to absorb information through observation and by doing. The common threads of intelligence that don’t fall neatly into exactly one of those two broad categories would include, aptitude, recall, ability to identify patterns, ability to identify trends, ability to make cross-cutting ties, critical thinking/reasoning, logic, bandwidth, ability to maintain focus/concentration, the ability to self-assess, imagination, capability of using tools/resources, ability to empathize, communication skills, and artistic ability. That list is not exhaustive nor are each of those concepts mutually orthogonal to all the others. They aren’t separate dimensions. One aspect of intelligence I value highly (despite omitting it from my list) is the ability to problem solve, coupled with a natural desire to perform root cause analysis. Truthfully I could write for a LONG time about each of these concepts - but that’s not a smart use of time.
PHOTO TO GO OUT ON - I DREW A THING:
Top 5: Reasons Digital Drawing is Better than Regular Drawing
5. Access to any color
4. A perfect eraser
3. Infinite paper, infinite pens
2. Layers
1. An undo button
Quote:
“Aww. I hope she’s alive and successful.”
- Leigh -