Reflection: Still Here

Signing a lease one more time. Moving into a second year in an under-200 square foot studio that has been better to me than its larger predecessor. My favorite apartment/unit ever, if you go back a bit, was an attic. But this little room with the corridor and the separate bathroom: It's of a scale that's easy to decorate. And putting it online motivates me to do just that. My problem has never been finding the wherewithall to function; it's finding the motivation. It's hard for me to do things because they feel comfortable or because they create aesthetic pleasure. It doesn't click; it doesn't connect. The question has already been: But who will see it? Who will it please? I can't live life as a tree in a forest. If no one hears, I don't make a sound. If no one watches, nothing is tidy. There's this great need to be observed by loved ones. And the great motivator has always been: for you. Living my life online makes me live it brighter and more according to custom.

So, understanding that, maybe it wouldn't come as such a surprise to persons from long ago co-op days that one of the niche topic areas I have moved into, on Squidoo and elsewhere, is designing small spaces. This is the recent Squidoo page that has gone the highest: Shabby Chic Studio Apartment

Reflection: A Star for Passing Brain Chemistry

Talking about purple star lenses again -- but I'm not bragging. It's the stories surrounding the stories that I want to talk about. Someone gave Struggling to Pass Brain Chemistry a purple star. I wrote that story, as some will remember, four or five years back. I later made the choice to self-publish it on Squidoo. Putting it up on Squidoo... well, that gave the story some things it wouldn't have had otherwise, and I'm talking about something more here than giving it a music soundtrack. The comments on that lens... they're a substantial part of why I put it where I did. It went on Squidoo to collect acceptance, and Squidangel blessings. It did that. And a while later it got its purple star.

Those purple star awards... I'm not the only person on Squidoo who has gotten several in a short span of time since it became a pay-it-forward program. I also want to tell a story about... well, not about the first two, but about what I was doing when I got the email notifications. I was checking the one email I don't get scared to check, and I was looking for an email from almost the only friend who has that email address. (And why not? He is on so many shared networks. He couldn't die or do anything noteworthy without it hitting all the major networks. What's an email? But I digress.) Anyway, though there are more purple stars than LOTDs ('lens of the days') in Squidoo-land, it's still considered something of an honor, and boosts your rank and all that. So a lot of people would have reacted (do react) with some excitement -- to the first at least. My response was, "But I'm not looking for a purple star! I'm looking for for a note from..."

Still monotropic after all these years: Laser-light and not incandescent. It's about what I'm looking for, and what I care about, and not what the world chooses to give me. This (the end of this paragraph is an edit, some time later) can sound snobby of me, but no. In 'real life' people have sometimes thought I was not altogether there because I didn't respond to something in a normal ways... like maybe I didn't even hear or observe. I just don't tend to have normal emotional responses to things -- good or bad -- if it's not something that was on my radar. I'm not 'deflected'... though I can surely act if I get inspired.

There are a lot of words I didn't know when I first penned the "Brain Chemistry" piece. But, with the exception of folks' names, I've changed only a few. I may not stand by the labels worn in those days, but I stand by the rest.

Reflection: Strong Bonds

When I put a new blog, I tell this one here it'll always be my #1 commitment in blog-land. When I contemplate a little pot of meandering rosemary, I tell the basil plant, it's my precious little one, it and not that other plant. And as for the netbook... it's this netbook, this, this one I'm committed to.

There's research now that attachment is actually a drive, related to pair bonding, and supported by its own neurochemical system. It's not normally as strong a drive in humans as it is in certain other species, but like other drives, it can be out of whack and out of proportion. (We know that drives can cause strong impulses that can't be explained at the logical or macro level, but do we realize how many small -- well, often small! -- drives we humans have within us?)

What I see in genetic testing is the chance to talk about things that I haven't been able to before -- kind of like web writing, but opening even more doors. (And, yes, there's a little more I know than what I write on the blog at this point.)

Reflection: Basil Plant to the Foreground

New digs... down one floor only. I'm in a smaller -- but sunnier -- apartment in the building I've lived in for most of my time in Seattle. Now I want to speak about that basil plant, looming large in the foreground. Today it is sitting atop the dollhouse, right up by the window, soaking up Seattle sun. Yesterday afternoon it did the same. If I had a little Fujifilm camera handy today, what a shot I could get: the basil plant against a segment of North Seattle skyline... kind of like a little green leafy Space Needle. (The Space Needle isn't actually as downtown Seattle skyscrapers, and it is not in fact downtown. Photographers like to take pictures looking down from Queen Anne Hilll.)

I've done something now a bit surprising to those who know me: I haven't exactly set myself up as Martha Stewart, but I do have this page on Squidoo, One Room Living with tips and pictures. And yup, things are much more spiffy when I'm armed with a camera, a scanner, an internet connection... It's the monotropism thing again: I function at a much higher level when I have a reason, a real reason, for everything I do. It's more comfortable doesn't tend to cut it as a reason for the likes of me.

Hard to Keep Me Off the Internet...

It is hard to keep me off the internet. My phone and internet have theoretically been moved to my new room today -- I moved down a floor in the world! -- but there are some obstacles in the way of actually getting ethernet up and running. This is after all a 1920 building. The phone jack, which of course wasn't designed for ethernet, almost appears... well, walled over. The apartment manager, Jack, is going to come up later to remove the old phone jack and try to install the ethernet one. Hopefully Jack will have the jack -- and the internet -- working later today.

So where am I typing this post from now? No, not the local library, which doesn't open til 1:00 on Tuesday. I am typing from... my new mini-studio on floor 3. It juts out a little into the alley, see, and I am a little closer to the free wi-fi zone on 'the Ave' a block over. Close enough to... I am sitting on the day bed by the window enjoying a very week internet connection, courtesy the city of Seattle. This city-of-Seattle-sponsored-freebie wouldn't do at all for, say, internet teaching -- that's reason alone for ethernet -- but if I don't mind pages timing out quite frequently, I can engage in some internet activity!

I think it may help to raise the (adorable) netbook more to window level, but I do want the (adorable) netbook perched in a very secure position. So I have my arm and the netbook resting on... no, not a lap table... a large stuffed bear.

Speaking of which... I was taking some pictures of my 'recording studio' and the studio, in general, but there is another little obstacle. The computer that's hooked up to the scanner at Online Coffee is down. Actually all the computers in that corner were wearing "Out of Order" signs this morning. But... there is another Online Coffee with a scanner that doesn't work as well, but, last I knew, was working.

It can also be hard to keep me from scanning pictures if I have a mind to do so.

Now if only everything else were so easily solvable... using will alone.

Reflection: Irises Crossing

I enjoy things more when I see some big reason for doing them -- when they seem, to me, to fit into a personal grand design. My first summer in Seattle, I roamed all over with my disposable cameras. That habit surely did fall away. But now, with so many goals -- personal and pragmatic -- tied to what I put on the internet, I go roving with Fujifilm cameras again. It's not a chore; I enjoy it -- yet at the same time, I require a reason to enjoy.

Seattle is still a beautiful city, even despite... The snippet of (my) song lyrics that appears on the sidebar of this blog -- the lyrics that this blog derives its title from -- include the lines, "I cry for disappointed dreams/ For things you would not give to me/ But in between you're beautiful.." There's a bit more of that on the Evening Nigh Reflections opening post.

I just got a roll of film developed, and scanned some things this morning. I didn't intend to photograph the crossing sign along with that iris, but I kind of like it. I chose not to crop that one.

Reflection: The Experience of Reward

An understanding of the brain can help us understand some basic funky little things, like why we might bite into a hard candy when ostensibly we want the taste to last. The candy releases neurochemicals into our brain, and so the biting may give a bigger rush. So what is it about really -- the taste or the brain chemicals?

If we accept that a lot of things may ultimately not be about our senses but rather about the chemicals released in our brains in response to our senses... well, then we can begin to understand so much, like what happens when the process goes awry. People realize, because they've witnessed the effect on peers (on TV if not in real life!) that drugs have a detrimental effect on the reward/ motivation system. Most of us, though, have less experience with people whose brains that work like that naturally -- people whose reward systems aren't triggered normally by their senses, but instead respond to only a limited set of stimuli. (It doesn't occur to a lot of people that that way of being even exists at all.)

I told a friend once that what looked like excessive fear on my part was actually monotropic vulnerability. I'm not sure the distinction was clear. I meant that if a person's reward system is triggered in unnaturally strong ways by just one or two stimuli -- and if they fail to respond to other supposed rewards -- then an unnatural amount of their attention is going to be focused on those one or two things.

picture credit

Reflection: Quality of Life

My brother and I had an interesting conversation. See, I still haven't gotten my ID replaced, and it's caused some minor inconveniences. So Kevin asked me if I would save time if I was more organized. I suppose I would save some time, yet I see no impact whatsoever on my quality of life. The real impasse, understanding-wise, is this: My brother -- and I suppose most people -- have an assumption that it somehow impacts my quality of life whether I'm convenienced or inconvenienced, whether I'm comfortable or uncomfortable, or clean or dirty, or whether my purse is stolen or not stolen. Why would my quality of life be different either way?

I think some people who are labeled as high-functioning autistic-- including some who are very highly accomplished in their particular field or area of obsession-- share this trait. They almost can't be motivated by their senses. And... they almost can't be motivated by anything but their own particular cause or obsession. I think the difference is taking place at a neurological level.

I think that relates to... Well, I think people mostly just assume that everyone sees it as more pleasurable for a loved one to give them flowers than to run around and squawk like a chicken. I am perfectly capable of understanding that it's supposed to matter to me. The fact remains -- it doesn't. (More about that in a previous post: The Kitty Carryall Metahor).

Reflection: The Difference Between 'Illogical' and 'Not Logical'

Can everything be classified as either logical or illogical? I don't think so. I think a lot of people call behavior 'illogical' when it is merely 'not logical' -- and that there is actually a huge difference between those two things. So much of our experience, whether we're normal or not so normal, is not about logic at all -- it's about drives and impulses and changes in arousal level (perceived as either interest or fear).

Is motivation logical? Well, it's mitigated by logic -- hopefully-- but that's not the same as being driven by it. There's quite a bit of evidence of brain reward systems running on chemicals (ie dopamine) in kind of a 'ka-ching ka-ching' fashion. There's scientific evidence of reward system irregularities being implicated in various disorders. Is a person less logical because they fail to experience reward or motivation in the more typical ways?

Ah, and then there's the issue of drives. Just about everyone has heard the term 'drive' applied to things like sex, but there's also a drive toward monogamous/ faithfulness, supported by its own system of neuroeptides. (Some of the early research on that came from studying prairie voles, and why it was that they formed pair bonds and nurtured their young for a long time when other related species didn't.)

Of course I've also written recently about the issue of sensory processing -- having the 'volume of the world' turned up unusually high or turned down unusually low. Ultimately... I think it's illogical to expect others' non-logical parts to operate the same as our own!

Reflection: The Distance Between Obsessions

I've talked so much now about how it is that all my life people have misinterpreted the reasons for my own actions. Well, I'm partly to blame for that, and I'm not the only one who has mis-authored their own life. How many of us have hidden our motives and the inner workings of our clockwork, not just from our friends and acquaintances, but from the doctors who would prescribe treatment? We do it out of fear.

Think about this: As long as people see my obsessions as primarily fear-driven, as avoidant or away obsessions, they at least won't be frightened of me Nobody's frightened of such a mousy person -- and so there are times I've wanted to cast myself as the 'mousy person'. At the moment people see the toward in my obsessions... well, do you know how often across decades of my life that I've been afraid of people seeing me as scary. See, you will find heroes, yes, but also some dangerous people in that population of people who are driven single-mindedly by their own obsessions.

There is fear in me, oh, yes, and that's art of why I am so compelled by 'the distance between obsessions' -- by the way the towards tower like mountains above the aways. There are things in my life I won't cross through just because someone is holding my hand... yet I will barrel through if there's something on the other side that drives me enough. I think it's less true that I'm plagued by unwanted obsession as that I'm dependent upon obsession and single-minded drive. That's surely a part of the reason that I have trouble seeing anything as truly desirable that I won't allow myself to be knocked down and smeared with blood over.

That picture of course depicts The Little Prince. I've always identified with the book and seen in it the positive side of a particular way of being. I've got some analysis of The Little Prince on Squidoo and it's done pretty well as of late.

credit: Musicienne, Flickr

Reflection: A Glimpse of Heaven

A new section of online CLEP begins today -- I'm expecting probably a couple students -- and I think it's understandable that I've shut out news from the world (taken the phone off the hook) these few hours before. Here I sit writing... and I want to write more about my 'underwhelment' theme today. It can be difficult to know what another's experience is like. Sometimes it's hard for me to tell to what extent I'm experiencing or feeling things less than others -- and to what extent I have a stronger need to feel them.

Understand: Some of us need a lot of 'whelment' to function optionally. It's not that I want another human to cost me or bring me pain, but it's hard for me to imagine experiencing real pleasure in human interaction that isn't based on the willingness to incur tremendous cost. I don't see that there's that much pleasure or excitement in flirting with another person. And I don't see that there's that much comfort in a hand on the shoulder. There some, yes, but compared to the strength it takes to get through this life the comfort seems awfully flimsy. As for people getting highs from stuff like sex... well, to me it seems not much of a high compared to looking at another human in an "Anything for you" way.

Being really, really 'whelmed' -- whelmed by obsession, whelmed by love -- that's what I depend on. Some of us are made of pieces that seem contradictory or paradoxical til you look. I don't let others put me through things because of low self esteem. I let them put me through Hell because with that willingness to go through Hell comes the only glimpse of Heaven that I've ever seen.

Reflection: Situational Strengths

I put a couple paragraphs on my squid blog, too, about yesterday's attack and having been dragged still hanging onto the purse. Alex first interpreted my description as having frozen and that was why I wouldn't let go even when someone was dragging me; I wrote back that that wasn't quite the case, that the keys belonged to the office at the apartment and I had obsessively drilled into myself not to lose them. It seems that in a moment of crisis I protected what I had obsessively drilled into myself to protect, and that took precedence over fear that I was or should have been feeling. I can't remember experiencing fear except in connection with maybe losing the keys. It's kind of bizarre that I was in that zone and hung on so tightly to the keys, which are so much less of an obsession than a human attachment or pet...

I will say, though... A lot of people see my obsessiveness as fear-driven, and it certainly can be, but there tends to be something underlying fear that is larger than the fear, and that something is attachment. Maybe it's because people don't see the attachment driving the fear that that they get surprised by the crazy levels of strength that can pop out.

I am thinking of somebody who told me once to grab his wrist and "hang on tight" -- and then did this tai chi thing where he spun around and broke my grip... or would have except that I was still holding his wrist. That kind of floored him, so he had to do the whole thing over again. (He did the same thing six more times, and I did the same thing six more times.) See, it was because of who the person was that the symbolism of the whole thing wasn't lost on me -- that it bacame more than just a party game to me. I got this notion that if I could just hang on everything was going to be okay, and I was going to hang on tight, so help me ---!

I sure don't like to get in the kind of situation I did yesterday, but I will say that a part of my attraction to obsession in other sorts of situations is because I've tasted before the kind of strength that "This I will protect if I bleed" can find in me.

Yesterday I made wrong choices; I am kind of puzzling over how much danger I might have put myself into. I also imagine that I should have let their professional fix the knee. I said it wasn't any worse than taking a fall, but I was overlooking that I did get once an infection from a fall that I took a few years back.

Reflection: Whelment Issues

I found a book Fidget to Focus on the lobby bookcase and have been read it intensely. Ever since college, I have been aware that I identify with some ADHD behaviors characteristics (again) others are simply the polar opposite of me. A relatively new theory, based on brain research: that a person with ADD has some brain systems that process stimuli so poorly that it results in constant boredom, or underwhelment.

I not only sleep well with caffeine in my system -- I seem to sleep better with all around lousy sleep hygiene. I know there are people who can remember me sleeping on the couch of a 16 bedroom co-op, amidst the chaos and the activity. I wonder if anyone sees some humor in the following passage. "Fidget strategies work for falling asleep, just the way they do during the day, the goal being to help us achieve optimal arousal for a given activity. One mother reports that her daughter, who occasionally declared herself too bored to sleep, experimented with different sleeping venues: the floor, the couch, and once even the bathtub."

On the next line, though, I cease to identify with the phenomenon: "Changing where she slept created just enough novelty that the strategy worked every time." There's a general assumption that the chronically bored seek out novelty... But what if one's brain processes novelty so poorly, on an emotional level, that they simply fail to experience normal 'whelment' from it? What if, in order to experience 'optimal arousal' or 'whelment', they have to get a good rhythm going?

To be continued...

Reflection: Differing Abilities

More than a decade back, when I first heard the term 'Aspergers Syndrome' I was struck by how half the symptoms sounded just like me and half sounded exactly the opposite. That feeling has persisted.

There are several well-known members of the Squidoo community who claim the label Aspergers. One, a woman with high-functioning autism, is such an excellent writer. She vividly described some things I do not have personal experience with -- like being overstimulated by eye contact or having to struggle to read body language or understand nonliteral verbal expressions. Her webpage didn't describe her monotropic tendencies, but she stopped by my monotropism page, and said she identified completely with what was written therein. She said that once she was working on a project for a client and fainted because no one reminded her to eat. More interestingly, she reported that when she doesn't have something to plug into, she 'freaks out a little'. She depends on having some 'one thing' to plug into. Ah, yes -- and that type of dependency is one that would simply not occur to most people!

I have been known to shut people out who, it would seem, could bring me comfort or provide me with support. I shut them out because of a fear they will bring news of loss. I cope very poorly with loss; I suppose one reason I cope so very poorly with loss is that, in addition to all the other things (love and the usual suspects) , loss can deprive me of the obsession that I depend on to function. It's not comfort, but rather obsession that runs my reward system. Something that isn't obvious to most people on the surface: that this woman who copes so poorly with loss copes quite well -- better than the average person -- with tremendous levels of demand.

I commented to a friend years back that I experienced very little anxiety in situations where the outcome depended on my own actions: I experience anxiety only in situations where the outcome is out of my hands. Another thing of course that people miss: that very high sense of personal competence -- that "Well, maybe you can't, but I can" tendency. If anything, it's probably a bit too high. It's not entirely unfounded: When a person focuses narrowly on one or two things, they tend to get good at them.

Credit: Animal Photos

Reflection: Listening to Caffeine

Here is my Listening to Caffeine lens -- my second-to-most-recent one. Monday is one of two days that I am available to sub all day. I didn't find a position today, though I sorely needed it. If I had been up plugged into the online Subfinder at 5:30 this morning (as I was on Thursday) I would have had a better chance of finding something. Over the course of the early morning hours, positions briefly open up -- very briefly some mornings.

By the time it was obvious that I was going to spend the day at home... well, I was writing away. The writing gig would be very supplemental in the income department, even if I manage, over time, to push a few more lenses into the upper tier. Still, I can point the educational ones -- like the one I wrote this morning -- at my website and eduFire profile. And of course there's a song on the Animoto site -- which I may set my Farmer's Market slides to -- called "Love is Better Than Money". Ah, that it is. Still, it's better if I don't run out of money altogether.

Now speaking of markets -- and of caffeine -- Super C energy drink is back at Madrona Grocery Outlet, and I should stock up. I gather that it's more commonly people with ADHD who can drink coffee or energy drink and say, "Well, that was a nice nightcap -- yawn." I don't have ADHD, but I have said for a long time, that my brain is distinguished by very unusual attention patterns, moreso than by anxiety per se. Isn't it interesting that the very brain chemicals that are stereotypically associated with anxiety -- the so-called 'fight or flight' chemicals -- tend to... mellow me out a bit? I do take diphenhydramine, but I'm more likely to konk out on half a dose if I have a little caffeine in my system, too.

Image credit: Saut Eman, Free Digital Photos

Evening Nigh's Year in Reflection

The first Evening Nigh Reflections post, In Between Time, went up on August 12. This blog is less than five months old, a baby yet in some ways, but already this is post #92. In the early minutes of this new year, I have more prayers in me than resolutions. I hope I don't always need this blog so very badly to serve as my soapbox. I imagine the blog posts will spread out a bit as time passes. But I fully expect to carry this blog -- my online writer's journal and soapbox -- with me across the years. That's the way I've been with various things that I've made a part of me.

Now I want to call people's attention to something on the sidebar: the list of "favorite soapbox posts". I didn't make this blog searchable until late September: posts before that time don't appear as thumbnails in my Link Within widget. Today the 'old' post that I most feel like pointing people's eyes toward: Authors of Each Other's Lives. It features the same old picture of my mother as does a newer post that does show up in Link Within -- but it's quite a different post. The thesis of that post: Most people don't write about others and submit them to journals or anthologies -- but we are all, in careless and not so careless ways, the authors of each other's lives.

"Netbook Attachment/ Beautiful in My Eyes" is one of the oldest entries that does show in that related post widget, and I'm glad that it appears as often as it does. I guess that means folks are reading it! But the blog post that I most want my friends to read, if they haven't already, is Riding a White Horse With A Toaster Oven. That post links to a Squidoo page with more in-depth writing on the same topic. There's a lot in there that... just wouldn't be likely to occur to folks on their own. Now I'm thinking of someone I met more than a decade ago (yup, more than a decade back!) and the things he didn't know when he made himself in not-so-careless ways the author of my life... When a person can only think up one reason for another's behavior, it doesn't of course mean there only is one reason -- it could simply mean they themselves are ignorant.

That line was rather snippy, wasn't it? I try not to write too many like that. I'm going to continue being the authors of other's lives, but I'll focus on those I do love, and I'll try to do it with care. Said The Moody Blues: Wherever you are, whatever you do, whatever you say: say, say, say it with love.

Photo credit

Reflection: 'Play Dates' For My Blog?

I am not sure whether I just arranged 'play dates' for my blog or signed it up for summer camp. I wrote in Out and About in the World of the decision to make this blog fully public and searchable, and in For an Audience of One, of feeling that, if I was going to be perpetually inspired to do my best work for an audience of one or two, then I'd do well to try and harness the products and let them serve me in more pragmatic ways...

If you've ever gotten the impression that my more business-oriented websites hold this one in disdain -- oh, no, they adore this blog; they just wonder what others (clients, colleagues) would say. (I've known human beings to think along very similar lines.) Anyway, the websites had a meeting today. They felt they had a superb community program for this blog to enroll in. "Evening Nigh" they said, "How do you feel about going on some 'play dates', doing show and tell -- that sort of thing?"

Translated, that means that I decided it would be good to enroll in a creativity challenge, where my blog could discuss and share creative works with other bloggies. (I do want to note that the other websites view this one as a most valuable contributing member of the 'family business', and they very much want it networking and making friends -- however, they don't all necessarily very much want it networking and making friends with their friends.)

Note: This picture is a Creative Commons piece -- thought it would do well for an article with a children's lit/storybook theme, then also decided to use it here.

Reflection: More Horse-Themed Metaphor

I'm contemplating why it is I've sometimes impressed people as passive. Partly it's because that strong will comes out in such narrow areas, while in most areas of life, I'm -- if not exactly lackidaisical -- at least without strong opinion or urge to act. I think that false perception results also from my willfulness being turned inward. Have you ever noticed that people who get in yelling debates on the bus never convince each other of their arguments? They always have exactly the same opinions at the end as they did at the beginning. It's so obvious: No matter how sure a person feels about being right about something, they still can't exert their will on others -- that's dangerous as well as futile. Lying on the couch and crying, on the other hand is merely futile. Those tears, though, are generally perceived as passivity and not as inverted will.

Someone dear once said that his bouts of self-aggression were expressions of inverted anger. Well, outward anger was no more apparent in him than that strongwilled streak in me -- indeed the suggestion could seem laughable. I'm thinking of the ways in which we're similar and the ways in which we're different. There really isn't a lot of anger in me -- but ah, that streak of willfullness... So here's my next horse metaphor: Just because one thinks they should have the reins, it doesn't mean they're mad at the horse.

Reflection:Riding a White Horse With a Toaster Oven

I made this blog searchable along about September 23. Posts before that time don't show up as thumbnails in the Link Within widget. A few are linked to there on the side under the heading "Favorite Soapbox Posts". Today, I'm posting a link to some off-site writing, and I'm also including a snippet from an older post:

"Being monotropic... it's as if you got born with a giant power cord growing out of your back. Plugged into an outlet -- a suitable obsession -- your energy is high and the level of drive and dedication can seem surreal. Unplugged... well, appliances just don't work so well unplugged.

Being monotropic can mean there are times when you're growing up that people see you lying there immobile, and imagine you need a knight-in-shining-armor. But it can be hard to be a knight-in-shining-armor to a person who runs on obsession the way an appliance runs on electricity. It's a little like hoisting a toaster oven up onto a white horse and expecting it to start doing something."

When I write blog posts, I strive to make them reasonably short and snappy, as well as colorful. My Squidoo writing sometimes goes into much more depth on a particular subject. "Making Sense of Monotropism" is the most complete piece of writing I've done on this subject. It's the 10th Squidoo lens I've written, and the 2nd one I asked for a "Squid Angel Blessing" for. Maui's lens has garnered blessings from several 'Squid Angels'. The angels have more clout than regular members, and the ability to boost a page's lensrank a little -- the page may then be seen by more people.

I do want people to see this. My friends -- there are some friends out there -- will you be my squid angels, too?

Reflection: The Big Squid Want You!

I know, I know -- that there is not a big squid, it's a little one -- but little squid do grow up into big squid.

On Squidoo, there are "big squid" who have some perks, promotion wise. Sometimes a person will get a big squid nomination when they've just written a few lenses. The thing is, though, that you have to have 50 lenses to be a big squid. So the nomination basically amounts to, "Keep doing what you're doing, but do more of what you're doing, and do it faster."

For some people, Squidoo is a pretty good source of supplemental income -- but if a person sees it as just that, it's less likely that they'll ever get to the pont where they see any income at all. There are going on 900,000 lenses out there, and a lot probably do fall into the category of 'spam'. Those with ranks of 85,000 or above are earning at least pocket change, either for the writer or for the writer's designated charities. As the lenses move up in rank, that share increases. I think it's a good strategy to have a large number in at least Third Tier, and a handful that one's striving to drive higher.

I use the word stategy, and strategy it indeed is; there's a lot more than just writing involved. That's okay with me. I believe that this world contains umpteem microcosms that each have their own forms of popularity contest and their own particular strategies. The question isn't necesarily whether we're willing to play popularity games, but which ones we're willing to play. If we do manage to follow some particular rainbow through to the other side, will we have reason to cherish what we find there?