Analysis of Variance
“And so it is. Just as you said it would be.”
The move to El Paso has been easier. As a stronger woman, as a wiser person, as a more open human. But it leads me to this rather frightening yet perhaps practical perspective that life repeats itself. From a training perspective, practice makes perfect, and perfect an expert almost makes. From the expertise literature, experts are able to process information and respond at such a level that seems almost effortless. But from the human perspective, how much of life are we willing to put on replay before it becomes the frightening idea that “history is repeating itself”?
I practiced making this move…across the country…4 times now (in 5 years). That doesn’t bode well for the next 5 years…as the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Expert, hardly. Tired, most assuredly. Perhaps a more important question is, have I learned anything from move to move? Undoubtedly. I’ve learned that I can do it, that I’m not going to break, that boxes and packing peanuts are the devil’s gift to movers. But I’ve also learned that there is a never-ending conflict between restlessness and rooting fought between the traveler and the homebody who both co-exist in one’s soul. It is this conflict that leads some to return to where they feel they should be and yet drives others to seek novelty wherever it may exist. There is no right or wrong choice, but a choice nonetheless; one which may drive some to excellence and others to eternal novice status. The rub is that each can produce either, and that’s where chance comes in.
Or does it. I was asked recently if I believed in some sort of an ultimate being. Wow. That’s a hell of a question to ask on a first date (I don’t know if it was better or worse than the marriage question.). After a tentative “yes,” he responded, “perhaps chance is too easy of an answer.” Um I’ve had a few drinks, please don’t make me think of such things…let me be sober and fully clothed when I answer that later. [Note: I’m sober and fully clothed and under the effects of caffeine.] Any numbers of things are based on chance and random variation. In statistics its rare we can account for any one variable/personality characteristic/etc. to make up for any more than ten percent of the variance in an outcome. What happened to the other ninety percent? Where the hell did that come from? Chance? Something we’re so not looking at? And so we find there is no easy answer. Is it ever that we’re really lucky (and this implicating chance)? Or was this a planned manipulation resulting in the systematic variation of our life.
And so not only has history repeated itself with respect to my varying geographical location, but my studying behavior has as well. I find myself again and again in Starbucks, and while the specific place may change, the outcome does not. Perhaps it is highly adaptive behavior, the result of chance (who’d have thought that in a loud coffee house I’d do my best work?), but turned into a systematic outcome. Adaptive not only in the sense that I accomplish work I set out to finish in the setting, but I have this uncanny ability to attract the fancy of many a barista (does it become “o” as it should for a masculine noun in Spanish?) while there. Yes, the men of Starbucks have once again fallen prey to the phenomenon. When I was told that I could always have a second chance with someone, little did I know it was generalizable to others like him. And this time I’m open to the possibility that we may not be in the same place in our lives, that he’s not the typical person people would put me with. He’s incredibly creative and presumably talented, a deep thinker, outgoing personality, young (ah!), and undeniably sexy. My only question is, can I get Tiffany’s on a Starbucks salary? Well, and can I actually open myself up to him and get one in the bag (or bed, however you look at it) this time? History repeating itself.
Sometimes I like to see life as this infinite connection of circles. Perhaps it’s an artifact of too much ANOVA analysis, or (as many would preferably like to think about it) a mental picture of John Mayer’s “that’s the way this wheel keeps turning now.” They intersect at specific point and come full circle to connect to itself. And one event shares some of the variance of another and those two events or months share some of the variance for this or that relationship. And perhaps the rest is chance. Or something else we’re not looking at.
[Insert Venn Diagram Here]
I probably should have done a path analysis. But then you would have cried.
The move to El Paso has been easier. As a stronger woman, as a wiser person, as a more open human. But it leads me to this rather frightening yet perhaps practical perspective that life repeats itself. From a training perspective, practice makes perfect, and perfect an expert almost makes. From the expertise literature, experts are able to process information and respond at such a level that seems almost effortless. But from the human perspective, how much of life are we willing to put on replay before it becomes the frightening idea that “history is repeating itself”?
I practiced making this move…across the country…4 times now (in 5 years). That doesn’t bode well for the next 5 years…as the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Expert, hardly. Tired, most assuredly. Perhaps a more important question is, have I learned anything from move to move? Undoubtedly. I’ve learned that I can do it, that I’m not going to break, that boxes and packing peanuts are the devil’s gift to movers. But I’ve also learned that there is a never-ending conflict between restlessness and rooting fought between the traveler and the homebody who both co-exist in one’s soul. It is this conflict that leads some to return to where they feel they should be and yet drives others to seek novelty wherever it may exist. There is no right or wrong choice, but a choice nonetheless; one which may drive some to excellence and others to eternal novice status. The rub is that each can produce either, and that’s where chance comes in.
Or does it. I was asked recently if I believed in some sort of an ultimate being. Wow. That’s a hell of a question to ask on a first date (I don’t know if it was better or worse than the marriage question.). After a tentative “yes,” he responded, “perhaps chance is too easy of an answer.” Um I’ve had a few drinks, please don’t make me think of such things…let me be sober and fully clothed when I answer that later. [Note: I’m sober and fully clothed and under the effects of caffeine.] Any numbers of things are based on chance and random variation. In statistics its rare we can account for any one variable/personality characteristic/etc. to make up for any more than ten percent of the variance in an outcome. What happened to the other ninety percent? Where the hell did that come from? Chance? Something we’re so not looking at? And so we find there is no easy answer. Is it ever that we’re really lucky (and this implicating chance)? Or was this a planned manipulation resulting in the systematic variation of our life.
And so not only has history repeated itself with respect to my varying geographical location, but my studying behavior has as well. I find myself again and again in Starbucks, and while the specific place may change, the outcome does not. Perhaps it is highly adaptive behavior, the result of chance (who’d have thought that in a loud coffee house I’d do my best work?), but turned into a systematic outcome. Adaptive not only in the sense that I accomplish work I set out to finish in the setting, but I have this uncanny ability to attract the fancy of many a barista (does it become “o” as it should for a masculine noun in Spanish?) while there. Yes, the men of Starbucks have once again fallen prey to the phenomenon. When I was told that I could always have a second chance with someone, little did I know it was generalizable to others like him. And this time I’m open to the possibility that we may not be in the same place in our lives, that he’s not the typical person people would put me with. He’s incredibly creative and presumably talented, a deep thinker, outgoing personality, young (ah!), and undeniably sexy. My only question is, can I get Tiffany’s on a Starbucks salary? Well, and can I actually open myself up to him and get one in the bag (or bed, however you look at it) this time? History repeating itself.
Sometimes I like to see life as this infinite connection of circles. Perhaps it’s an artifact of too much ANOVA analysis, or (as many would preferably like to think about it) a mental picture of John Mayer’s “that’s the way this wheel keeps turning now.” They intersect at specific point and come full circle to connect to itself. And one event shares some of the variance of another and those two events or months share some of the variance for this or that relationship. And perhaps the rest is chance. Or something else we’re not looking at.
[Insert Venn Diagram Here]
I probably should have done a path analysis. But then you would have cried.
posted by Cat at 11:13 PM
1 comments
