I love this series!

I love this series!

Tags | nostalgio |
Is evolutionary psychology male-centric?

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Evolutionary psychology is the theory that all of our behavior can be tied back to evolutionary motivations to find the best possible mate and pass on our genetic code.

Without having fully thought about this, I think there is another side of this coin. While evolutionary psychology seems completely valid (and I agree with it), there are anomalies in it that rase the question of whether there is more to life than evolutionary motivation. 

Some people decide never to have children. Some people (i.e. nuns, monks, clergy) never “mate”, but dedicate their lives to service. Setting up your neighbor with an attractive friend seems conter to the single-minded goal of maintaining the survival of your own genetic code above others’.

The other side of the coin may be the “relational” side of our experience as social animals. As animal have evolved, social ties have become stronger and stronger, to the point where we can reasonably talk about a “society” of humans (or perhaps other animals) as if it had an identity of its own, greater than the identities of its individual members.

Perhaps the other side fo the coin is that human behavior is also motivated to preserve the identity of the whole society by being a nourishing part of it.

Looking at humans this way, there are many who contribute value to the collective whole. There are also some who (like parasites) live off the value created by others. Setting aside the individualistic motivation to propagate one’s genetic code, human behavior can also be seen as each person’s contribution to a collective survival of “humanity”.

Unlike other animals, we know we are going to die someday. We can think about how the world will be once we’re gone, and have that affect our behavior while we’re here. This would lead to a more relational approach to life, in which we use our relationships with other people and the earth itself as a way of “passing on” our influence. 

In this way, we affect the world not just by contributing to the “nature” of future generations, but by contributing to the “nurture”ing of future generations.


Surely this theory already exists, likely as a feminist philosophy. This has just been on my mind, since I’m now the parent of a seven week-old infant and have been contemplating the meaning of my life now that I’m fully responsible for the creation well-being of another life.

I think if we went about our lives thinking about how we contribute to the whole, we would make decisions that affect others in more positive ways. In this way, we are all struggling parents as we create the conditions that will affect how future generations will experience their lives on Earth.

Nipple confusion

Nipple confusion

This is my dad. There have been many newspaper articles about his auto shop, which has been in business for over 5- years in the same location, but this is the first video interview I’ve seen. 

I’m proud of him for his work ethic, his accomplishments, and his humility (he can barely see himself as the mentor he is).

This video allows me to see him in a different light. Whenever we are face to face, I see him as a father. He’s my father, who owns Hubbard Woods Motors. However, in this video, he’s simply Bob Berger, owner of Hubbard Woods Motors. His behavior and mannerisms are so familiar, yet slightly different from what I’m used to, because he’s just being Bob Berger the man and business owner, not Bob Berger the father.

This perspective is something I wish I could have for all my loved-ones. I want to be able to see each person I love in the roles they play in the rest of their lives away from me. It helps me see them for who they are, and not for how I would like them to be.

After all, accepting someone for who they are and allowing them to fully be themselves is the best way to love.

Resolving problems with Google Voice and iMessage on iPhone

After a grueling two years of using an Android phone, I switched back to using an iPhone, and I am thrilled to have a reliable phone again!

I have become reliant on Google Voice to manage all my phone and text communication, and I don’t want to switch to a different system. I ran into some problems when starting to use my iPhone, because iOS does not integrate Google Voice very well.

First, I use Sprint, which allows you to use your Google Voice number as your primary phone number. I also use my original phone number as my Google Voice number. (I think I accomplished this by porting my existing phone number into Google Voice.)

I got the Google Voice app for the iPhone, and was able to send and receive text messages, and receive voicemails through that. The problem was that whenever someone with another iPhone would text me, the message would show un in the Messages app. So I missed a few important texts because of this.

I changed lots of settings and notifications to have Messages notify me of any new messages, so I wouldn’t miss anything that showed up there, and I turned off iMessages, so other iOS devices would be forced to send SMS messages, which should show up in Google Voice. I didn’t want to use iMessages because all of those conversations would not be recorded in my Google Voice account, and I want to be able to search there for every text conversation I have.

An unexpected problem was that I had iMessage enabled on my iPad. When someone with an iPhone sent me a message, instead of it being sent to Google Voice as an SMS, it followed Apple’s path of least resistance and went to the Messages app on my iPad, via iMessage.

The solution: I disabled iMessages on my iPhone, iPad, and Mac. This way, a message sent from an iPhone will not be able to go through iMessage, and it will have to be sent as an SMS and show up in Google Voice.

The great thing is that Messages still works to receive MMS and group messages, which Google Voice cannot do. So I have full messaging functionality, but most of my interactions will go through Google Voice, as I wanted.

I hope this helps anyone who is struggling to get Google Voie to play nice with iOS and iMessage. The bottom line is: if you want to use Google Voice for all of your text communication, you can’t have iMessage enabled on any of your devices. 

Researching the trappings of our new life.

Researching the trappings of our new life.

I keep listening to this over and over again. It’s like sonic motivation.

(Source: Spotify)

Tags | music | spotify |
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