Connection

input-data crunch-output

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I have had dogs for many years and I am always amazed at how they learn. They are sponges the way they take in the world around them and form their behaviors as a result of that environment. 

Dogs learn from other dogs from the very start of their lives. Their mother teaches them about food and water and then that feeds their instinct to survive. She teaches them bite inhibition and they learn how to play by interacting with their littermates. 

Dogs learn from other dogs too if they have them in their homes and at the dog park. I am raising a puppy now and I am amazed at he mirrors the behaviors of our other dogs. Dogs of course form some of their behaviors because of instinct but they do learn from observation. He has learned proper etiquette in a pack of dogs by being corrected by them. My puppy has learned the art of calming down by watching my other dogs settle down for an afternoon snooze.  

He also has learned form watching humans and from training . He learns how to live as a dog in a human world. Dogs learn what is expected of them and because they for the most part like to please humans they modify there behavior to be able to live with us and I think they do so with happiness. 

Or if they don’t have positive modeling a dog can become what we would call a “bad dog”.  It is uncanny how what the dog sees and learns – the inputs- can create the type of dog he will be – output. 

I was a programmer and software engineer in my past. And I sometimes look at things in that logical vain. A program gives us information after we have given it input and it thinks about what it was given and then gives us output…its view of the info we sent it. 

 Input- crunch data – output

I was thinking about this today as I watch my dogs interact. And I thought about this is terms of how humans learn from birth – it is different than dogs of course  – our minds are complex but the way we form as humans  – the information we get (the input) -from our very first breath- is coming at us and we begin to develop (crunch data in our immature brains) our worldview and sense of self(output). 

It is in this early time that we are given most of our input from our family. We had schools and friends and Tv and now there is social media as well. But what we saw at home mostly influenced what developed our worldview – our truth based mostly on our families inputs. Positive and negative.

As we become teens we begin to see the outer world in a more real way. We may then begin to question our parents worldview if we see things that stand in opposition to what we have been taught in our homes. -We begin to form our own worldview – our own truth. 

What is truth? If we each have our own idea of it is any of it real? Truth only exists in the mind. We can get input like – the sky is blue and we can decide if that is true or not. 

Some of the input we receive help us to develop our values and morals. 

It is amazing how two people can receive the same input and have a vastly different opinion or learning experience from It (output). And our worldview can change at any time based on more input. 

One person may see a racially unjust society while another thinks there is opportunity for everyone. 

We are fed so much information in this day and age from many sources. I have Apple News and Facebook and Twitter, Tv news, podcasts, and family. There is so much. So much to influence how we can see the world. How do we decide what is right? What we hear at any given minute can form or reform our truth. It kind of freaks me out. We each can see one thing in such a different way. Like the witnesses of a car accident or a robbery all giving conflicting stories. 

We are all living with differing version of reality. 

Wow-

How do we coexist with each other when we each have a version of truth that differs values that may conflict? 

Well we see recently that it can be very hard to do.  

I think we all need the willingness to step outside of ourselves. I try so hard to step back from my views and look at the big picture so I can be sure I am not  being sucked in by some false observation – or maybe I will have an input that I misread or decide that it means something else entirely than I first thought.  I need to be willing to take all the input and reprocess it and to see if my output changes. Many times discussion between humans can help change our perspective and view on a topic…maybe seeing something else through another persons eyes may not change your view but can invoke compassion and care for the other person.

New real life experience can change us too. I know cancer changed mine.

As I have matured I try to choose the truth that sides with compassion, love, giving, respect and tolerance. A view that doesn’t stew in anger and one that can be helpful.  It is easy to tear things down. Harder to build them back up. I have failed myself and rebooted many times. But I am glad I am open to do that. We will always be part of our past. If we shed beliefs they kind of follow us around…like they are still attached – and we can pick them back up again but we want to be sure they are worth taking back.

I am always working on my worldview. But great writers and seers and philosophers leaned on love as truth. So I try to process my inputs using that algorithm. I can’t say that it’s the absolute right way but it’s is the right way for me. My reality.  I am a work in progress and will always be. Ask me next week- I might have a different worldview. 

But we all have adapt to a world of people who live different truths.

It is hard to get along in this world with so many different truths lolling about. We all think we are right. But in order to get along we have to look outside ourselves and as my husband says “model the behaviors we want from others”.

Zoom Trivia Night- during a Pandemic

Zoom meetingZOOM- whenever I hear that name  I think of the song from the long ago show by the same name. “We’re gonna Zoom , Zoom, Ah Zoom. We’re gonna Zoom ah, Zoom ah, Zoom. Come on give it a try…We’re gonna tell you just how…” I think that is how it went anyway.  Anyone remember that? Clearly Zoom was named by a much younger generation who did not know this show ever existed. Oh the limits we had on TV in the olden days!

Well , we Zoomed the other night! Yes we did. AND we did it with friends! We had a Zoom Trivia night. I have been seeing many Zoom gatherings lately posted on social media. My husband went to a work happy hour on Zoom. He said it was pretty cool.

Last week we took a Zoom stretching class with a trainer (who is also my sister-in-law).  It was fun! Well as fun as stretching can be when you have become rather inflexible! I have also gone to church services on Zoom. I think during this time this is a much needed outlet for people.  I am grateful to my friend Pastor Tom Atkins for having these intimate sessions.

I had been missing game nights that we had begun to have with our family and friends over the last six months or so and I was missing connecting with humans. Texting is one thing but seeing people and talking to them is another.  I  was also hoping to feel semi-normal for a bit- everything is so off kilter now. But I suppose there is nothing normal about Zoom parties – or maybe a few weeks ago it was not a regular thing to do- but the world has changed in a short time. I just wanted a distraction for a bit from the pandemic.

So I decided it might be fun to host a Zoom game night.  I was and am a novice to Zoom but decided to tackle it and create a meeting. It is not too hard. But a couple things I didn’t know cropped up. One thing I learned was that it we were limited to 40 minutes per meeting only so I had to upgrade to a plan that can be cancelled any time. The cost is $14.99 a month. This way I could have unlimited time for my meeting and up too 100 friends. Which was not the number we would have for the game night!

Once the meeting was created I needed to decide what games to play. I also welcomed input from those invited.   I googled the phrase “Zoom game night ideas” and got a lot of hits.  There are a lot of drinking games- sounded fun – but I was not looking for that.  There was a form of bingo and Pictionary and much more.  Feeling a bit overwhelmed I decided to keep it simple. Trivia. All invitees agreed.

Trivia it was but then we had to decide how to play it. I found a phone app that all attendees  could have logged on to and played together while we were on Zoom – but I wanted to try it out first because I didn’t want it to be like we would be on our phones more than we were interacting via the video app. The idea was to socialize- I can play Words With Friends whenever.

In the end I just asked everyone to bring some form of trivia questions to the meeting. And it was BYOB – haha.  Everyone was able to access the meeting pretty easily. We made introductions as we had a mix of friends and family playing. Then we decided how to play because I wasn’t sure of a proper format. Should it be teams or individuals.

We decided one person would read the questions and we would be teams and would have mini-games.  One person would read out the questions for that game. Each game consisted of ten questions.  Teams could discuss questions privately after each question was read as there is a mute feature. We made a 30 second time limit to get answers written down but really never needed that. Then we would score our answers and I kept tally. We played about 5-6 games.

It was great fun! We shared our guesses before we were told the answers.  We had a lot of laughs. We had 9 people total (our teen niece did opt out after a bit- understandably!). I did learn some things-

  1. Zoom meetings gives one a reason to shower, blow-dry and put on makeup for the occasion.  One sister-in-law thanked me for having the game night as it made her shower. I put on make-up – this was  because it was a rare social event and it made me feel normal getting ready -like I was going out. Except I wore Pjs to the event! My girlfriend that came posted that she was primping for  the event!  Oh what our world has become!
  2. As people had their adult beverages the talking got louder and it was a bit harder to communicate. But it was a lot of laughs!
  3. Live music is an added bonus. My very talented BIL Pat played a couple songs on his guitar.
  4. Zoom has the option of changing your background and honestly you could have a whole party dedicated to adding funny backgrounds behind you!
  5. It is something I definitely needed.

We plan to host another Zoom game night soon.  I really needed to feel connection with others (as many can relate to this) and maybe for a couple hours forget the stress and sadness that all the news from the virus brings. This is an unprecedented  and scary time but we are lucky to have the ability to connect in this way.  It doesn’t replace real human connection but it was very uplifting for me and my mom and husband.  For a while it was just fun and laughs –  and I got tidied up. So that’s something!