Complexity Simplified

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Wed, 22 May 2013 08:22:18 PDT

Nighttime Visitor

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Free Kindle Download All Week

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Mon, 06 May 2013 03:00:11 PDT

Good news--free stuff this week! My short story, The Gate of Heaven, is available as a free Kindle download all this week, May 6-10, 2013. If you don't have a Kindle, no problem - get a free app for your computer or phone here.

The Gate of Heaven is the lead story in my recently-released collection, The Gate of Heaven and Other Story Worlds. If you like this story, consider getting the entire collection. It's available both for Kindle and as a paperback.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 07:35:27 PDT

Magnolia 2013

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The Garden is In

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:08:04 PDT

This photo shows why I haven't gotten much reading or writing done this weekend...dug out lots of weeds, added compost, raked everything flat and put the first plants and seeds into my garden today. Here is how it looks today, April 7, 2013. A bit bare, but spinach, collards, cabbage and chard can be seen in the background. More photos coming as it grows!

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:26:35 PDT

Natural Bridges State Park, Santa Cruz, California

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Book Review: The Power of Habit

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:24:03 PDT

Although this book, "The Power of Habit," by Charles Duhigg was published over a year ago, and although I received a pre-publication copy even before it came out, I am only now getting around to reviewing it. The reason is not that I have a terrible habit of procrastinating (well, okay, I do) and it's also not that I never get around to writing blog posts (well, okay, that's true, too).

Charles Duhigg (c) Elizabeth Alter

The reason I am only now reviewing this book is simple: I started reading it and was so inspired by what I was learning, that I stopped reading and started putting its lessons to the test in my own life. The book got laid aside, except for occasional dips in to remind me how it is that people change old habits and start new ones, and I only recently picked it up again and read through to the end.

I know it's a horrible cliche to say this, but it's true: this book changed my life. For the better. With the insight provided by this book, I was able to break some old habits I didn't want anymore and also to start some new good habits that are now firmly established as part of my day-to-day life.

This is not a small thing. I'm a person who has always been very good at establishing good habits and sticking with a new program of activity I want to add to my life. I believe I inherently understood the habit loop of "Routine/Reward/Cue" that Duhigg so clearly describes in this book. And, yet, having his explanation, in both language and diagrams, for what I already knew how to do helped me refine my own process and understand myself better. It also helped me see why it was that I was a pro at establishing good habits, but not very good at breaking bad ones, even ones I wanted to change.

When this book came out last year along with great media coverage and dozens of reviews in prominent places, I wondered if I was reading the same book everybody else was talking about. The angle taken in almost all these publicity pitches was almost exclusively about marketing and understanding how business has exploited the new scientific understanding of habit formation to persuade (some might say manipulate) us to buy their stuff.

Since Duhigg is a business reporter for the New York Times, I suppose this explains the bias in the coverage. The business world knows his work and his "platform," as they call it in the publishing biz, is squarely in this area.

While the coverage by the media may have done its job for the publisher and pushed up sales of the book, it seems to me that it's done the book, and its author, a disservice. Although "The Power of Habit" includes plenty of stories and examples taken from the business world, it is primarily a book about the science behind habit formation and change. I don't know where bookstores shelve it, but it ought to be in the "popular science" section.

This book is a good, excellent even, piece of science writing. I am no expert on the neuroscience that Duhigg so deftly explains, but he has clearly done his homework in this area. The book is filled with extensive notes and references to the original literature and the explanations within the chapters themselves are clear and informative. He's visited the labs, met with the scientists and their patients, and explained all this work in an entertaining way. The book also has a valuable appendix with a detailed explanation of how an empirical approach can be used to figure out the roots of one's own bad habits.

I highly recommend this book to anybody struggling to break some bad habits or wishing to establish new good habits. But beware: it might very well change your life.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 16:57:59 PDT

The Path Forward

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Nearly Wordless Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:15:23 PDT

Spring's Arrival, 2013

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Another #amwriting post

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 11:13:22 PST

I have another guest post up today on the #amwriting blog. This one is about Yoga for Writers. Check it out and leave a comment if you are so inclined!

Free Download!

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 06:26:30 PST

My short story, "The Omega Upgrade," is free today--and all week--as a Kindle download. From Feb. 4 through Feb. 8 you can read this story for free. If you don't have a Kindle, get a free app for your computer or mobile device here.

If you enjoy this story, you might like some of my others, available in a collection, "The Gate of Heaven and Other Story Worlds." This book is available both for Kindle and as a paperback.

Finally, if you are in the Washington DC metro area, please join me tonight at One More Page Books in Falls Church, VA. I'll be reading a selection from my short story collection and signing copies of the book. Hope to see some of you there!

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 03:00:00 PST

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The Day I Became a Killer

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 16:02:10 PST

When I was thirteen, I went to 4-H camp. We were there for a week and I was given a rifle and taught to shoot. It was nothing unusual. All kids where I lived, Idaho, were taught to shoot.

It turned out I was a very good shot. I still have the target that won me a ribbon in the 4-H competition in 1968. I found it in my scrapbook along with the blue ribbon I received for my banana nut bread that year. I actually have several target sheets in my collection, accumulated over a couple of years of 4-H camps.

I was praised by the adults around me for my shooting abilities and encouraged to practice. I loved hitting the bulls-eye of the target, so I eagerly agreed.

My award winning 4-H target

One day, my parents took me to the shooting range just outside of town. It was not a fancy place. The targets were metal cans set on a fence rail, all of them rusted, punctured multiple times by bullets.

I shot a few cans off the rail, each shell making a satisfying ping as it found its target. I was firing a shotgun that day. I didn't really like it because it was big and kicked me in the shoulder when I pulled the trigger. We were about to leave when my dad pointed to a dark spot on the hillside. It was much further away than the cans on the fence, but he said he thought I could hit it. He said I was a great shot.

I loved being praised for my shooting ability. I don't remember even wondering what the dark spot was. All I remember is lifting the gun, peering through the sight at the spot, and firing. The dark spot disappeared.

My dad suggested we go see what it was. I didn't much care, as I was ready to go home, but I trudged up the dry hill after him, navigating around sagebrush and cactus. When we reached the location where the dark spot had been, I saw them: feathers. Brown and black and white feathers, spread across the hillside.

It was an owl, he said. Its body had probably been blown apart, he said, by the shell exploding inside the bird. I didn't hear anything after that, since my stomach was twisting and I turned and ran, overcome with guilt.

I had killed. I had not intended to kill, but that seemed beside the point. I had done it.

It had never occurred to me that all these shooting lessons were training to be a hunter. I hadn't wanted to be a hunter. What I wanted was the praise of my father and my 4-H leader.

I never picked up a gun after that. In less than a second I had gone from shooting paper targets and cans to being a killer. I could not change what I had done, or who I had become, but I could vow to walk away from the gun culture, the one that glorifies shooting and hunting and vigorously defends our "right" to bear arms.

Advocates of "gun rights" talk about a slippery slope that will ensue if we begin banning certain classes of weapons or types of ammunition. Our right to bear arms will be taken away, they say. The "sport" of hunting will be threatened, they say.

Very little hunting that occurs in our country is undertaken for the purpose of putting food on the table. We need to be honest about the true purpose of this "sport," and ask those who defend hunting why they find it is necessary to kill other living creatures in order to have fun. There is another slippery slope, the one we begin sliding down when we confuse hunting for food with killing for pleasure. This is the truly dangerous slippery slope.

It is true that we, homo sapiens, are predators. Our place in the food chain is at the top and we must kill living things, either plant or animal or both, to survive. Joseph Campbell has said that the one, horrible truth of the cycle of existence that we all must embrace is that other living things must die so that we may live. When we take the life of another living thing for food, in order that we can live, we must do it in a humane and reverent way.

In these few days since the horrific killings in Newtown, Connecticut, many have called for action. Where to draw the line between guns we don't need and those we supposedly do need is being debated. I personally see no use for guns of any kind in our society, except in the hands of the police. A total ban on weapons would be fine with me.

Simplifying Complexity

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 10:45:05 PST

I started this blog four years ago today. I had a somewhat vague idea about what a blog was, and why I wanted one, but it was only through the actual writing of posts that I discovered what this blog is about.

I'm not going to say what that is just yet, because I've had a sense, for some time now, that the focus of the blog has been changing. It was just a vague feeling for awhile, a sense that the blog was holding me back, was no longer what I wanted to spend time on or write about. Now that I've done a bit of analysis, I can see what that feeling is due to. I can see what has changed.

Take a look at this graph. It shows the number of posts per year on topics from two broad categories: (1) complexity science (the blue bars); and (2) writing (red). The data confirm the vague sense I had that I was no longer posting much about science. I hadn't realized, though, that posts about my writing life had actually crept in to take their place. In fact, the average number of posts per year (around 40) has not changed since 2010. What has changed is the content.

Number of blog posts per year in two broad categories - science and writing

Although I have had this vague sense for quite some time that my blog's purpose and focus has changed, I didn't want to confront it. I thought I "ought to" be writing about science. After all, I'm still interested in science -- I think about it, talk about it, read about it -- I just don't do it anymore. That has been true for a long time, actually. I gave up my lab almost ten years ago, published my last science paper nearly that long ago, and made a successful transition to what I considered a "second career" in science funding administration and, then, science writing.

I find it rather ironic and maybe even a bit amusing that I've figured out what's going on by taking a look at the data and analyzing it. Maybe I'm still more of a scientist than I'm ready to admit! This is just the way I think, though, and I can't seem to stop myself from looking at the world this way.

Anyhow, the upshot of this analysis is clear: this blog is no longer primarily about science. It probably never was, actually. It has been about all those things which interest me, one of which is science. In recent years, especially the last couple, I have been much more interested in writing and publishing than I have been in science. Anybody who is around me would not be surprised to hear this -- writing is what I do now. It is my full-time "job" (the quotes mean that while I consider it my job, very few people have ever paid me to do it) and it is what's on my mind. Hence, it's what I want to write blog posts about.

So, in the new year, I'm going to be doing some updating to the blog, primarily in the tagline area and description box for the blog. You won't see a lot of changes in the posts, although I hope this attempt to simplify the complexity of my life by writing about what I'm actually thinking about, will free me up to post more often. Only time will tell, I suppose -- and next year, at this time, I'll do another analysis of the posting data and we'll all see how well I succeeded.

In the meantime, take a look at my guest post over at the #amwriting blog -- today's post is my list of recommended books for writers. If you have a writer in your life and are looking for a gift idea, consider one of these great books. And if your favorite writing book didn't make it onto my list, please leave a comment with the details. Who knows, it may end up on my own wish list this year.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 03:00:04 PST

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Finished!

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 09:21:50 PST

I finished my NaNoWriMo manuscript night before last, coming in at just over 50,000 words. It feels really good to get to the end of this draft -- although I know I am far from having "completed" a novel. After a sufficient period of fermentation, maybe it will be ready for revisions. But, for now, I'm putting my feet up and taking a rest, and letting my manuscript sit over there, unlooked-at for awhile. Maybe a good long while!

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:16:13 PDT


Two Weeks to This...Paperwhite Narcissus


	Day 1

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11

Day 12

Day 13

Day 14

Day 15

Entering the Home Stretch

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 16:42:33 PST

Five days left in November and I am finally back on track with my NaNoWriMo project (see this post for an explanation of NaNo). I've done almost nothing but write this weekend and am now caught up to the word count goal for the day. (See above for my word count progress chart.) Hooray!

With less than 8000 words to go, now all (ha ha) I've gotta do is figure out how to end this story! I'll let you know in December (which is, by the way, this weekend) how I did.

And now, back to writing.

NaNoWriMo Check-in

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 09:06:48 PST

Yikes! It's November 15th, halfway through the month, which means I should be halfway to my goal of writing 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo. But I'm not. Here's my current progress chart:

As you can see, I'm about 4500 words short of today's target number of 25,000, so I've got more than a bit of work to do today. And that also means (obviously) that I shouldn't be fiddling around writing blog posts.

However, I know that I am motivated by graphs and charts and goal numbers, and even more motivated when others hold me accountable for what I said I wanted to do. And, I DID want to do this (still do) so I'm getting back to work.

Check out my other post on the #amwriting blog and let me know, either there or here, if you are also participating in NaNoWriMo. I would love to hear from other writers who are trying to do this crazy thing!

NaNoWriMo Starts Today

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 08:57:19 PST

National Novel Writing Month starts today, and I'm participating along with 300,000 of my closest friends. When I first heard about this event in which people pledge to write an entire novel in one month, I thought it was crazy. How could anything worthwhile come out of just 30 days of writing?

That was before I wrote my first novel. Now, I understand that NaNoWriMo is a way to provide writers support for dumping out that messy first draft. And I also understand that the successful NaNoite will have done a lot of thinking and planning for their book before the start day.

So, we are off and running and I'm happy to report that I've written a grand total of 496 words in my first half hour of the competition. If you're participating this year and looking for a writing buddy, you can find me here!

And now, back to work....

Amwriting Blog Post

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 07:30:16 PDT

Hey there, Complexity Simplified readers! Just wanted to let you know that I've published a post over on the new and improved Amwriting group blog. Today, I am writing about short stories: how important it is to learn to write fiction through writing stories first, then what to do with all those stories you produce in the process. Please take a look and leave a comment. Thanks!

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:16:53 PDT

The fall/winter garden in full and glorious color...


Cherokee Heirlooms...grew these babies from seed!

Red hot Chili

Rainbow Chard


Bok Choi

Carrots


Romaine


Red Cabbage

Announcing My New Book

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 07:53:44 PDT

I'm very pleased to announce the publication of my new book, "The Gate of Heaven and Other Story Worlds," a collection of short stories available in both paperback form and as an e-book for Kindle. Nook version coming soon!

In this collection of short stories, different individuals from different worlds discover that the reality they thought they lived in is not reality at all. Anne discovers that she has a secret power to conjure a previously unseen world. A soldier in the Civil War encounters a mysterious hut where he can hide and heal from his wounds. Elaine is disturbed by the deafening silence of the city around her and discovers that conversation is going on--it's just that she can't hear it. Myra Owen goes to Kinko's one day, unaware she is about to come upon a divine and holy work. A young girl goes fishing and her life is changed forever. In other award-winning stories, a bird arrives, bearing an unexpected message and a train appears in the middle of the night.

This collection of seven short stories includes two new previously-unpublished works, and also an Author's Note, in which the origin of each tale and the process by which it was written is discussed.

Thanks for taking a look and for helping spread the word. If you are inclined to leave a review on the Amazon site or elsewhere, please do so. Thanks!

The Pen is Mightier than the Sword

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 07:28:16 PDT

Well, it's happened again. A post of mind has elicited an attack from one who seems to be threatened by what I said and wants me to stop saying it. The first attack was a response to my post on child sexual abuse. This person seems to believe that this should be treated as a private family matter instead of as the crime it is. To be honest, I was not surprised at all by this response. It, in fact, proved the point I was making in my post.

The second, much more baffling to me, was in response to my recent Nearly Wordless Wednesday post, a photo of a statue of a serene Buddha with the caption "Om Shanti," which is a common way to say farewell in the yoga community. It basically means "Peace be with you," so perhaps you will be as surprised as I was to read the alarmed reaction that this post induced.

It began when, in a moment of gratitude after a weekend meditation and chanting retreat, I posted this photo, then posted a link to it on Google+. This elicited the following exchange with somebody I've never heard of, but who apparently has me "circled," as they call it on Google+. I will use Q to identify that person's comments, and A to label my responses.

Q: What exactly motivates, at a personal level, your attraction to "complexity" as you have here collected and described it?

A: Good question! I've been asking myself that for a long time. I was a practicing scientist for years and my interest in complex systems goes way back, to my PhD thesis, which was on developing a physical/chemical understanding of morphogenesis (the development of form and structure in embryos.) We didn't call it complexity in those days, but that's what it was. My research evolved from that early project into studies of self-organizing biochemical reactions and then to more complicated systems, such as the brain. The constant theme throughout has been a search for the complexity that is US - our bodies, our selves, our societies, etc. For me, it has been, in some ways, a spiritual quest.

Q: "spiritual quest" That is what I suspected – and why I asked. "Complexity" as it is often referenced by those seeking spiritual answers to existential philosophical questions is very different than complexity as a measure of an an attribute of information and the cost of processing at a causal level. The universe isn't concerned with (wasn't shaped by) how it feels to experience the universe. Cause and effect are an ordered affair. Cause first, effect later. It is this sort of self-centered seeking that so gets between humans and understanding the universe (any universe) for what it actually is (as opposed to what we want it to be).

A: What I meant by "spiritual quest" is that the desire to know "what's what" in the deepest way possible is what drew me into science and toward this field of study. It really has nothing to do with complex systems science per se, but with the drive to study the universe using whatever tools I can get my hands on. You're welcome to your own opinion and beliefs, of course, but my experience is that meditation and other spiritual practices have not gotten between me and my understanding of the universe at all. I don't consider this part of my "studies" in complexity, but it might explain this particular post. I think it's okay to be a full person and both do science and have a spiritual practice as long as you keep it straight how you came to know what's what. Oh, and BTW, Om Shanti is basically a prayer for peace - so, peace be with you!

Q: Ok, tell me what you "believe" and how it has nothing to do with, and in no way contredicts empirical causal reality. What I try very hard not to do is "believe". I accept measurement and theory that doesn't contredict measurement. Period. I try very very hard to keep my personal emotional and survival needs seporate from the development of an elegant and robust abstraction of what is in the larger causal sense – to know the hierarchical difference between "want" and "is".

That was the state of the "discussion" as of first thing this morning, but it's likely to be the end of it since I'm not going to continue to engage. I've copied his comments verbatim, misspellings and all, as an example of why I have not engaged in "discussion" of religion or spirituality "vs" science on this blog. It's the "vs" part of this I want to avoid - I see no conflict between these two parts of my life.

And, yes, the commenter is a "he" although I'm not identifying him out of some probably misguided sense of protecting the ignorant. One way to look at this exchange is as yet another example of the mansplaining phenomenon. Notice how he begins by explaining to me what the "correct" definition of complexity is. As one of the people who helped define this field, and spent much time in thought and discussion about what it should be called and what the concepts mean, I had to laugh at this patronizing swipe.

I'm not sure this is just one of those things men do, though. This seems to me to be an example of the approach used by the tribe of proselytizing atheists who don't even understand that they operate out of a belief structure. They do, of course, but the main problem is that proselytizing atheists do a great deal of damage to science. Those who cruise the web looking for what they consider unallowed mixing of science with religious and spiritual ideas are trying to convert people to their view with the same lack of subtlety, and lack of effectiveness, we see in any fundamentalist sect.

What was most surprising to me is that a photo of a serenely meditating Buddha was the trigger that brought this one on. I've come to expect attacks on open displays of Christianity but this is a first for me. I let the swipe at "self-centered seeking that so gets between humans and understanding the universe" pass in my response, although I completely understood it as an attack on the spiritual practice of meditation. Instead of asking, what would Jesus do (he would turn the other cheek, of course), I might ask, what would the Dalai Lama do?

Well, this is what the Dalai Lama has done: he has embraced science as fully as he embraces his meditation practice. He has investigated, encouraged and participated in neuroscientific investigations of the power of meditation. He does not see spirituality, religion and science as at odds and neither do I.

Namaste*

*Another common way to say farewell in the yoga community. It literally means "the divine in me bows to the divine in you."

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:23:03 PDT

Om Shanti

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Nearly-Wordless Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Raima) — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 04:00:07 PDT

The View from Mars

Photo taken by NASA's Curiosity Rover on Aug 23, 2012

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS