Creating your reality

I just watched Don Juan De Marco (starring a younger Johnny Depp). What was really fascinating in the movie was how the central character (Don Juan) invented a reality around his fantasy, immersed himself in his reality, and even imposed his reality upon the world around him.

At the start of the movie, we see Don Juan dressed up in his "Zorro" costume. He walks into a restaurant, sits across a woman, and seduces her in short order. He is all spanish accent, intense eyes, low voice, and titillating touch. Watching him, it is no wonder the woman succumbs almost instantly.

Fast forward to the tail end of the movie. We see him dressed in a long sleeved T and blue jeans. He is talking to the judge where he freely confesses that he made up the character of Don Juan. Gone is the accent, gone are the frilly clothes. In their place, we have a teenager out of Phoenix AZ, speaking in a slightly midwestern accent, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, who fidgets and brushes his hair back nervously. We see him as he is - just another normal teenager, slightly awkward under scrutiny.

What's amazing here is that this teenager could confront and totally change himself and transform from a gawky teen into a smooth seducer.

I think it speaks volumes on how much our self image influence the reality that is constantly forming and reforming around us. With every thought, every gesture we make, we constantly shape our reality to be whatever we want.

Attraction is not a choice

It's funny how our hearts operate on a totally separate plane of reality from our brains. Our brains create these laundry lists of some ideal gal (or guy) we'd like, then our heart just jumps in and decides to fall for someone else.

I've been reading quite a bit about human psychology recently, and it seems that the reason our heart and mind aren't always quite in sync can be traced back (in part) to our roots as animals.

For Men, our genetic prerogative is to sow seed and procreate. As such, we look for "healthy" specimens to procreate with, and hence a genetic disposition towards being attracted to pretty girls. Men have always been the providers (eg hunters of food) and as such tend to look for "weaker" women who must be protected.

Women, on the other hand, have always been the nurturer. As such, women are genetically predisposed towards being attracted to men who, in one way or another, have presented themselves as being able to provide for the woman. An interesting point here is the presence of what is known as the Halo effect (Robert Cialdini, 1984). In short, the halo effects says that if you are good at one thing (eg good looking), people assume that you are good in other related areas as well (eg good personality, nice person etc). Face it, would you rather give a ride to a guy in a suit, or a guy who looks like he hasn't showered since the Reagan administration?

Anyway, my point is, there's thousands of years of evolution stacked up behind us which influence the way we feel. This is stuff that totally circumvents our brain, our logic, our conscious thought processes.

Inspiration for today's post comes from Obstacles to Love

Update 03/14/2005:

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind."
William Shakespeare: A Midsummer Nights Dream.

DynDNS update script

I caved in and wrote my own perl script to update DynDNS.org's DNS servers. All I needed was a simple lightweight tool that I could use to automate my IP updates. But nope... I couldn't find any such tool in their list of update clients. So I wrote my own. Feel free to use it if you want. This was written in perl 5.8.6 and requires the LWP and Switch modules, so you'll probably need a decently recent version of perl to run this.

Children's fund

Mix 106.5 is holding a children's fund raiser for the Lucille Packard Foundation for Children's Health (or is it the Children's Hospital? one of them...). I strongly urge you, dear kind soft-hearted sweet-natured reader to donate by calling 877-858-8848. They take credit cards and paypal... :)

And in case you ask, yes I did donate.

Baking

It's beautiful outside. The sun is shining cheerfully and the skies are clear blue.

But inside my underground subterranean office, it feels like a freakin' oven! I'm suffocating here. See, that's what happens when your office is somewhat underground, has one wall which is almost entirely glass which also happens to catch the afternoon sun, and oh, there's almost no perceptible ventilation in this area. I need to step out before I become... before I bake dammit!

Like I said, it's beautiful outside...