Unique Words I've Learned

[floppers]

at lala having to retool...and Stephen tweaking the randomiz(s)er...I'm fairly sure the answer is still 42.

By the by ....foxes chitter...it's a strange sound a bit like a scream, a cat smoking with senators, and ...just plain odd. I know, because I once had two foxes on my garage roof, having a chittering conversation about how they might reach some goat horns that were on top of a ladder, in the middle of the yard, out of the reach of Mud, Moose, Obi Wan Kenobi and Chewie.

I know what a skunk is, and I know what skunk is, but I don't know what to "get skunked" means.

[lalatan]

To get skunked means to come up with nothing or to be overwhelming defeated. For instance, in cribbage you're considered skunked if the game is over and you have <60 pts.

Yes, I heard foxes' chittering on a nature show but that was probably for Naboka/dannyb's conversation.

"tweak the randomizer" is the words Stephen used to describe what he did to get some new games out after Russ complained about it and others agreed.

Ok, my turn to be confused. I'm on my nerve pain med now so I don't get "I'm fairly sure the answer is still 42." Please explain.

[floppers]

42 is the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything. It took Deep Thought 7.5 million years to calculate the Answer.

[Naboka]

42 is the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything. It took Deep Thought 7.5 million years to calculate the Answer.

Flops.

Shh.

Whispering.

On good authority, Deep Thought also calculated simultaneously, over time periods reminiscent of bees pollenating the universe, that every number you can imagine is the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life.

The number is often dependent on how much pollen decorates your flower.

Though, long sentences never translate accurately when whispered.

So...

[Naboka]

Lalatan.

When family congregates, table conversations are always open and inclusive.

The meal is always more appealing when feeding off one another's thoughts.

Just as food itself tastes better when we eat with our fingers. And learning is faster when we enlist more sensory channels. The more involved we are, the richer our lives.

The things you learn. The things you contribute. There's such an intricate balance between giving and taking. Much like dance. Give and take. Motion and direction.

Sometimes you simply have to trust that your contributions will feed a starving mind that lacks the wherewithal to write a thank you card. That they were fed matters more than the card.

As for your methodology, I gather that you're very systematic and organized. I admire your discipline. Maybe even feel a bit jealous. As organized as I try to be, my mind always takes flight. Always. What serves as an anchoring point for an organized person is merely a springboard for me.

Some of us just lack the capacity to implement good advice. Like a gymnast explaining how to do a double back layout. It's not that her instructions aren't exact, it's only that her student has trouble walking up stairs. A single back layout is out of the question. Much less a double.

Gladwell's book Blink discusses how we know long before we can reason it out logically. If you haven't read it... I would imagine that The Force of Knowing Before Reasoning is strong in you.

[2cute]

(ps:

as for the hospital:

tests, tests, tests.

Should we slice him up or not?

Apparently not.

Apparently being healthy has advantages.

I expected the same operation that a friend had just had last week for the exact same condition. He went in and they sent him straight to surgery after test-test-test. And he was a much younger, much larger, hulking brute of muscular overdevelopment. Knowing that I would never see my wife again, I was in the hospital bed, hooked up to an IV, BP band inflating and deflating, electrodes covering my chest and texting mysterious messages to a demanding monitor which banged her gavel when grammar erred. But, in the end, the doctor came back, patted me on the head, said I was too healthy, and advised me my nurse would soon return with magic pills.

One to make me larger. One to make me small.

But, the surgery we expected,

won't do anything at all.

That's two surgeries this month escaped. My GP sent me to an orthopedic surgeon for knee replacement. Who said I was way too healthy and that the bone structure was still good, so we'll settle for injections. Knees are smiling and playing crazy eight in the backroom.

Why?

Go ask Alice.

Excellent rendition ...

Glad you're too healthy. Being in the hospital sucks in the best of times. Luckily your time was short.

[bwt1213]

42 is the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything. It took Deep Thought 7.5 million years to calculate the Answer.

That's Douglas Adams for you. The real answer is ONE. And it's obvious.

[floppers]

42 is made up of ones. most Everything is, ones...and zeros.

[bwt1213]

42 is made up of ones. most Everything is, ones...and zeros.

Even more obvious than that, but you're almost there. There's one, or there's nothing. We're not nothing. So, what are we?
And then there's the poet's answer: "I am he as you are he as you are me And we are all together". And if that doesn't spell "one", nothing does.
Thank you, Lennon. Please play the song. And then play "The End".
And then play WordTwist.

[Naboka]

Since my nonsense about bees and pollen didn't really translate:

(much like Deep Thought's 42 fails to translate without definition)

Douglas Adams was also a computer programmer. At the time, the programming language was ASCII. The number 42 translated to an asterisk. An asterisk was a variable. The variable could be anything you wanted it to be.

Thus, 42 was Deep Thought's way of saying life could be anything you wanted it to be.

Of course, "anything you want it to be" is dependent on a lot of things. Your inclinations, your abilities, your exposures, your learning, your influences, your opportunities.

In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell posits that opportunity is a major key to success. Doesn't matter how smart you are, how capable you are; if you lack critical opportunities you will not succeed to the degree you would have having had those.

Not everyone has the physical capability to be a prima ballerina or supermodel. Not everyone has the mental capacity to run a major business. Or become a great singer.

And those that do need opportunities--and cross pollinations. They needed exposures to what others provide. Pollen.

And bees carrying that pollen from flower to flower.

Though, the pollen from an iris doesn't help a rose. The pollen has to move to a plant that can use it. All the great ideas in the world are completely useless if they only reach individuals completely incapable of grasping them.

The mental pollen must reach minds capable of using it. And, our mental growth depends on that cross pollination.

The superhuman concept of overcoming all odds without anyone's help or influence is pure myth.

Usually, "what we want life to be" is utterly dependent on that cross pollination of thought, where someone inspires you, where the back and forth provides the ideas that give you a vision of "what life can be."

I've noticed that being around certain people makes my mind race with ideas. There's an amplifying affect. For whatever reason, I'm more capable just being in their presence. Had I not been exposed to them, my thoughts and capabilities would be different to that degree.

The idea of "what we want life to be" doesn't exist in a vacuum. Had a person been kept isolated their entire life, their ideas about what life can be would be considerably different than had they been cross pollinating from birth.

So, 42 becomes a concatenation of 42's, with each variable colliding with and multiplying (or cancelling) other 42's.

The critical factor is our WILL to determine the outcome of those 42's.

Without will, nothing else matters.

[lalatan]

Lalatan.

When family congregates, table conversations are always open and inclusive.

The meal is always more appealing when feeding off one another's thoughts.

Just as food itself tastes better when we eat with our fingers. And learning is faster when we enlist more sensory channels. The more involved we are, the richer our lives.

The things you learn. The things you contribute. There's such an intricate balance between giving and taking. Much like dance. Give and take. Motion and direction.

Sometimes you simply have to trust that your contributions will feed a starving mind that lacks the wherewithal to write a thank you card. That they were fed matters more than the card.

As for your methodology, I gather that you're very systematic and organized. I admire your discipline. Maybe even feel a bit jealous. As organized as I try to be, my mind always takes flight. Always. What serves as an anchoring point for an organized person is merely a springboard for me.

Some of us just lack the capacity to implement good advice. Like a gymnast explaining how to do a double back layout. It's not that her instructions aren't exact, it's only that her student has trouble walking up stairs. A single back layout is out of the question. Much less a double.

Gladwell's book Blink discusses how we know long before we can reason it out logically. If you haven't read it... I would imagine that The Force of Knowing Before Reasoning is strong in you.

Naboka, I very much appreciate that you took the time to write what you did for me. It triggered a time of reflection for me. It's very difficult to see ourselves since we live in our own heads. So outside perspective is often required to do so. I realized that I'm probably perceived as being bitchy on this forum, mainly because I am right now and may have been for some time. Of course, that's a surefire way for people to avoid you and/or not desire to interact with you.

I have an incurable condition known as erythromelalgia. It causes moderate to severe nerve pain in feet. The pain becomes more acute with heat, stress or overuse. I experienced the onset of it 20 years ago, it has been with me every day since and is getting progressively worse. Narcotics and painkillers do nothing for it since it's nerve pain. I had to quit working in 2002. I didn't know I had it then nor did any of the specialists I went to see. (It was only 3 years ago that I discovered the condition on the internet myself.) So I laid around the apartment to get off my feet and the result of that was chronic bursitis in 6 locations on my pelvis for the last 18 years. The poverty caused by my not being able to work ensured I couldn't get any physiotherapy for it. Since then I've been icing my sore spots for 30 minutes every 2 hours. I can't stand, sit, or lie down more than 5-30 minutes, depending on the day. (Concrete is my mortal enemy and it's everywhere. If I have to stand on it, the pain begins ramping up in 3 minutes and usually becomes intolerable after 15. If it comes to that, I'm in agony for a few days if not more, especially if 2 such events occur. I went to a summer wedding 3 years ago because they really wanted me there. I stayed an hour and had to bail. It wrecked the rest of the summer. This year my wife had to get out of this city or she was going to burn out. In June we took a 3 day vacation we couldn't afford and started out on a 4 hr trip to our favorite spot. They were rebuilding the highway, blasting rock from the mountain. We sat there in the heat for 3.5 hrs waiting for them to clear rock from an unexpectedly large rock slide. On the way back a gas station burned down and the highway closed. An 8 hr round trip took 16.5. My cold packs were warm after 4 hrs so the vacation was a torture fest for me. Still haven't recovered.) I refer to myself occasionally as "the man in motion who doesn't get anywhere" because I'm shifting my position every 10-15 minutes to even out the pain, yet I only get out of the suite once a week. There's no use me describing what it's like to be in pain every minute of every day (except when sleeping) for 20 years because nobody can truly understand unless they too live with it. It grinds you down in many ways and sometimes you break down emotionally.

In 2014, my wife discovered WordTwist and told me about it. I was delighted because Hasbro no longer made PC versions of the game. I enjoyed playing it and it got my mind off the pain and the constant mental effort of managing pain every day. I didn't read the forum for the first year, then became curious, had a look at it and discovered tips on improving my game play. Most importantly to me, there were people there who seemed to like talking about words, something I never experienced in my life.

So, back to my reflections. I know I do not like my lot in life (and still don't) and have become somewhat bitter about it, which is also toxic for any relationship. I allowed that to spill over into some of words I wrote on the forum. I had become self-centered and put unreasonable expectations on the people in the forum. I have received some emotional support from various folks here and I'm grateful for that. But I was reminded that people are not here for that reason and I should not expect anything like that. I'm sure many are on here to escape some difficult times in their lives and enjoy something fun just like I am. So I apologize to all who have been affected by my attitude. I didn't intend to be bitchy or make you feel uncomfortable with my words but that's what happened. I take responsibility for it and intend to make appropriate changes.

Last night I remembered an article I read years ago entitled the Search for Significance, which was about teenage girls engaging in serial monogamy because they felt insignificant. I think every person wants to feel significant in some way and have even read words on this forum to that effect. (one member wrote to not be forgotten after your death or something similar). I think it's something the disabled struggle with since we are effectively social lepers in our culture. I learned people prefer to visit other people who can do what they can do, like stand around talking or go on outings. I understood that my desire for significance drove me to think my WordTwist accomplishments were important. In reality, they are not important at all. If I died tomorrow, they and I would be forgotten within months or a few years. My good friend, turtlerace, probably died 3 or 4 years ago. She was on the forum often and then all of a sudden vanished, even though her premium member status didn't change. I had no way to contact her husband, Bruce, because I only knew she lived in Tennessee and he wasn't a WordTwist user. She had been recovering from a coma for 30 months so I suspect whatever originally caused the coma caused her ultimate demise. I doubt if many who knew her on the forum even give her thought. So I was wrong to think they are important. They are not.

I learned a lot of psychology in my alone years and it really helped me understand others and myself. People always do things or are a certain way for a reason. Naboka, you correctly cast me as a primarily melancholy temperament. Most of the people on this website are. There are 4 basic temperaments and each person has a primary one and a secondary one, a blend of temperaments.
There a few sanguines like yourself here and a dusting of cholerics. Tim Lahaye summarized each temperament: melancholies live for order, sanguines live for fun, cholerics live for work and phlegmatics live for calm. Pretty accurate in my experience.

So I know exactly what causes me to be the way I am. From the 5 Love Languages by Dr. Gary Chapman I discovered I am a words of affirmation person, meaning that I seek that and also seek to give it.

Anyway, I've gone on too long.

[Naboka]

Lalatan. That's heart wrenching.

As I read, my mind flooded with images.

By nature, I'm an analyst and problem solver. The inclination is to solve everyone's difficulties. Frustrates the wife to no end when I try that with her. She tells me to just shut up, listen and try to understand. To just have some sympathy and empathy.

I do not understand why life must be so horrific for some. The line from Marlon Brandon came to me: the horror. Having been exactly there I knew exactly what he meant.

Victor Frankl was subject to the horrors humans inflict on each other. After surviving the Holocaust he wrote "A Search for Meaning." I can only imagine what he experienced, only extrapolate. Just as I must with your situation.

I disagree about the importance of your accomplishments on Wordtwist. Importance is meaning. And only we give meaning to anything. Only we can look at the galaxy unfolding above us and deem it beautiful. It doesn't matter that we are so very, very tiny and the universe so vast. The universe gives no meaning at all. Only we can do that.

Only we can determine what is important. It matters not what anyone else thinks about it. If we deem it important, then it is important. If we value it, then it has value. Nothing has intrinsic value. Only we can give it value.

Self doubt is best flushed down our mental toilets. But, self doubt is also useful. It keeps us humble and forces us to adjust our thinking. What it should not be allowed to do is stop us. The more we attempt, the more doubts will arise. Like eating and pooping, doing and doubting are interlinked.

A person who has no self doubt is a nut case. A raving narcissist. Like guys I dealt with in war, some had no fear. They were friggin' crazy. Literally, crazy. Sociopaths.

Self doubt is healthy--in moderation.

As for you being bitchy, I hadn't noticed. Granted, I don't read all comments and forums. But, like self doubt, sometimes it's appropriate to be a little bitchy. And, those who have problems with a little bitchiness have their own emotional difficulties they're unable to deal with. Pain makes all of us a bit overly sensitive and irritable.

In meditation, you don't try to control your feelings, you just observe and understand. You don't resist the feelings. Resistance simply gives them increased strength. Self flagellation over having normal feelings just leaves welts.

Sometimes, we don't win fights. Sometimes, we get beaten badly. But the courage to keep fighting, to keep finding a way to turn the tide has always been admirable. Sometimes that contest unfolds on life's largest stages, sometimes quietly in dark bedrooms. But, courage is courage. Only the audience changes. Only the storytelling changes.

So, this audience admires your courage in the face of overwhelming odds. This audience applauds your accumulation of records that give your life meaning.

To me, that is important. To me it is important that you appreciate your accomplishments as much as the rest of us. Feeling good about yourself is...a good thing. Those accomplishments may not be discussed in history books, but who gives a f. History books aren't alive--we are. And it's the little moments of pleasure that make our lives worth all the sacrifice and struggle.

[lalatan]

Thank for your kind words and thoughts, Naboka. I understand what you mean regarding my achievements. I'm still proud of them because many of them have never been done before on this website. My error in thinking was that others might think of them the same way. But like many other things in life one person values something and many others do not or much less so. I should have allowed for that possibility in my thinking. I probably exacerbated the condition by reporting many milestones of mine over the years.

I too like to help people if possible. So I'm probably a fixer as well but opportunities are very limited now. One curious thing I learned about telling someone something that really helped me personally is that the vast majority of people do not take the advice, even if they are desperate. I remember listening to a touring speaker at women's conferences say that she tells the women they don't need to boil lasagna noodles before making lasagna. (She was happy to find that out for herself when it saved her doing the extra step.) When she returns to the same venue next time she asks for a show of hands of who had changed their way of cooking lasagna. (The audience is largely composed of those who attended the previous time.) W/o fail only 1-3 women out of an audience of hundreds to over a thousand raise their hands. Pretty astonishing but also telling. It seems to part of the human condition.

I realize there are millions of people living around the world much worse off than me. I recall about 10 yrs ago watching a video of a Christian organization that gathered and refurbished used wheelchairs in the US and give them to poor people in the third world. They went to the Congo, drove and then walked to a dirt-floored shack in the bush. There they gave a wheelchair to a man in his mid-twenties who was paralyzed from the waist down since early childhood. He crawled around like a seal on the ground all this life. When he went to the village his parents loaded him into an ancient wheelbarrow and pushed him there. When they arrived he would crawl around the village. He had callouses on his elbows that made them the size of the elbow pads hockey players wear! After they lifted him into the chair he shook the donor's hand, thanked him and then said, "Now I am a man. I can look you in the eye." Chokes me up every time I think of the story.

[iBnutz]

Lalatan, if you listen to Joe Dispenza's youtube videos, he will tell you how EVERYTHING is curable, even your erythromelalgia. And your achievements have set a bar so high that it Boggles my brain! They are a very important and notable part of this game! The only reason I keep playing is to find just ONE of your big words!
Nobaka, your eloquent response brought tears to my eyes.

[floppers]

I'd never noticed any bitchiness, and I notice those things.