electric relaxation

Last night’s Finals game was epic. Perhaps I’m maturing in my appreciation of the sport; there wasn’t a single play truly worthy of a highlight reel, and yet it was one of the most gut-wrenchingly dramatic sporting events I’ve ever watched.

Dwyane Wade has me excited about basketball again. Though Jordan would have canned a few more of those late jumpers, and probably nailed the layup and 1, Wade certainly seemed to match his poise under pressure.

The New York Times published some choice quotes from college commencement speeches, and while I was leafing through them, the edict from David McCullough, professor of History at Bates College, stood out: “however little television you watch, watch less“. In times past, I couldn’t have agreed more. Last night, I could not have agreed less.

So I’m in Pittsburgh for the rest of the weekend. I decided at the last minute to buy a ticket out here to see my sister. I’m particularly proud of the fact that when I say “last minute”, it really holds water: I bought the ticket at 12:15 PM for a 2:25 PM flight out of Oakland.

Vim (Vi IMproved), version 7, released. The tabs feature is a huge no brainer win. Haven’t tried intellisense yet; I’m guessing it will be more trouble than it’s worth, but who knows. I managed to find packages for Ubuntu Dapper.

If I were a better writer, I could probably turn this into some sort of koan, or at least a haiku. But I’m not, and what’s more, I’m lazy. So this will have to do.

I was recently embroiled in an argument with a close friend regarding which of us was older, in a non-physical sense; the age of one’s soul, I suppose, is what we were trying to get at. Though it was particularly ironic in this case, our arguments nearly always share a common trait, possessing what one might consider to be certain childish qualities. At any rate, I think I startled us both when I broke tradition by stumbling upon a decidedly mature, very concise, and dramatically conclusive, way to settle the debate in my favor, by positing the following:

What makes you grow old is believing in something fiercely and with all your heart, and then realizing that you were completely wrong all along.

The reader should note that I propose this merely as one potentially useful definition of age, and I don’t intend to imply that there is an inherent value in growing old by this definition (quite the opposite, in fact).

There are a few aphorisms that neatly fall out if you accept this basic tenet. For example:

1. Those who never give up their core beliefs remain young at heart.
2. Those who hold no strong beliefs will never grow up.