Inertia

Before I begin I have a question. It seems that traffic has seen an upswing here and I'm not sure why. However, the real puzzle is where it's coming from! Here is a list of countries: Sweden, Malaysia, Spain, Singapore, Italy, Netherlands, Qatar, Lithuania, Singapore, France, Portugal, and more!

At first I was thinking someone might be using Tor or something, but does that really generate IP addresses around the globe? Most of these visits are 0 seconds. However, if anyone reading this is international (not you M or O), I would love if you left a comment explaining how you ended up here. Thanks!

Now for the main post.

In my job I try to understand how things work. I then compare the idea of how something works to the reality of how it's currently being executed. You would be quite surprised how large the gap between perception and reality can be.

The two most important questions I attempt to answer are "how" and "why" things work the way they work. As expected, people can almost always tell me how something works (when they can't it make my life miserable), but quite often the why can't be answered. Ideally a process operates the way it operates because it's the best method to achieve an established goal. The goal could be related to efficiency, safety, compliance, etc. Alas, when a company gets to a certain size, the rationale for business decisions is often unknown. At some point a decision was made, but over the years the reason for that decision was forgotten. Inertia has taken over.

We all remember from physics that inertia is the tendency of an object in motion to remain in motion, or an object at rest to remain at rest, unless acted upon by an outside force. In our daily lives we tend to think about this in relation to speeding cars or falling objects. However, the inertia impacting our daily habits is a far more influential force.

I've been "acted upon" by an outside force that has thrown me off my game. The devastation in Haiti has really depressed me. The overwhelming and senseless loss of life in insane. Honestly, I don't usual get that worked up over tragedy (9/11, Katrina, Indo Tsunami, none have hit me like this). Maybe it's related to the fact that this is the first tragedy without a god for me. Being a naturalist has been fine in theory, but witnessing the absolute devastation and indifference of the universe towards human suffering is jarring. Still, it can validly be argued a lot of the devastation was augmented by humanity (i.e., the 80% poverty rate that caused the earthquake to be so destructive). Clearly, Haiti offers a view into the worst of mankind and forces you (well, me at least) to wrestle with how I can be so indifferent on a daily basis.

I know I harp on this a lot. I certainly talk about human suffering a lot more than I take action to alleviate it. I get so wrapped up in my life (finding love, television, eating, sleeping, sex, work, money, etc.) that I don't see a bigger picture. It's incredible that in a world so interconnected we can also be so disconnected.

A couple of weeks ago I thought I had my next 5 years set in stone. I was going to save X amount of dollars, apply to certain schools, move, get a Master's degree, get a new job, and...live happily ever after? Now I'm not so sure about my plans. I'm going to take a step back and fight against the inertia that so easily drives along my life.

Though tragedy is an eternal part of the human narrative, so are grace, beauty, redemption, and salvation*. It's time to rewrite this tragedy.

*Paraphrased from a sermon I heard this morning.