Imagine that you can focus your brain power on an object and make it explode. Now imagine that there is one can’t-be-exploded object in your apartment or janitor’s closet or steeple or wherever it is that you pass time mentally detonating objects. But you’re not aware of its invulnerability. You strain and struggle, wearing yourself to exhaustion, to collapse.

I have a teacher, Will Franken, who applies a level of effort magnitudes greater than that to the pursuit of elevating comedy. His conviction is bold, brutally honest, untouched–peerless. I’m not saying that he can’t elevate comedy. I’m saying that every Newton of his energy is intensely and continuously focused only on comedy. He doesn’t simply approach comedy, he pursues it with scrutiny and philosophy.

When you work with him, interesting philosophies and opinions appear that you’d never considered. The other night he pointed out how fame ruined everything. To paraphrase:

For the longest time fame didn’t really exist, and it wasn’t an achievement a person strove for. No, instead you pursued your art, honed it, elevated it. You reached the top of your craft through being immersed in it and from there were able to live off it. You’d made it. Then came “fame”, and someone said “No, you’ve not made it until you’re famous. That is what matters.” And now the achievement of fame, not the achievement of elevating your art, has become “making it”.

Fame yanked the soul out of art.

And to round it out, fame delivered an exacting and crushing kick to soul in that people often state that they want to gain fame, but few people know what they’d do with it. They have no actual reason or use for fame. They’ve never thought beyond the moment of obtaining fame. How can you skillfully temper that fame and keep your soul if you have neither vision nor plan nor even vague notion about what you’d do once you have it?

One of the best compliments I ever received came from a teacher who told me that of all the math students he’d had, I more easily comprehend complex concepts than anyone else. Strange concepts are naturally easy for my brain to swallow. I don’t know what other people spend their time thinking about, but my brain tends to stray towards the abstract.

I often have ideas where I understand the math that would be needed to support an idea and how that math would work but lack the finesse to bring forth that math. For example, in 2004 while I traveled by train through Spain I picked up a small notebook at a depot and over the afternoon proceeded to write a set of rules. When applied, the rules are how one would teach an autonomous computer system to visually identify objects. And from there I wrote a different set of rules on how to give such systems a form of intuition.

And on occasion I’ve had theories which I later discovered other people had thought of first. Such a moment is a bit depressing, but it is also very inspiring to have a moment where you know that you independently arrived at the same conclusion as someone else, even if the other person arrived their first. For example, in high school I developed an idea that I later encountered in my psychology classes known as “Matching Theory”.

About 12 years ago I picked up a sketch book and in the back I created three columns. The first column is about a girl. The second column is about the expansion of the universe and time dilation (or rather, expansion of the universe without the existence of time). The third column, related to the second , is about positioning in space. I never put weight behind the 2nd or the 3rd columns because they seemed novel and I don’t have any math to go with them.

Then last week, while listening to an episode of Radiolab titled “Space”, Neil deGrasse Tyson (a brilliant physicist) explained that Einstein’s general theory of relativity states that: “if you live in an expanding universe, in this fabric of space and time, no matter where you are, it will look like the center”.

Which is very strange to me, because that is what column 3 says too.

Today I awoke and proceeded to lead the life of a 10-year-old boy.

At work, the Indiana Jones Lego set I ordered finally arrived. I took a casual photo of the set, but then my VP insisted that I take a proper photo. This is why I love where I work. The result of his suggestion, one cardboard box and one Google image search later…

(While on the subject of Indiana Jones, a few weeks back I had the good fortune of seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark on digital IMAX. A more perfect action and adventure movie would be difficult to find.)

After work I settled down and had a delicious bowl of Annie’s macaroni and cheese. I’d never heard of Annie’s until I read an article about Facebook stock. The article listed better investments, Annie’s being one of them. Economics has never tasted better.

If you’ve never had Annie’s, flee your seat, purchase a box of each flavor, and settle into a world of pasta-based addiction. Cooking has been forever ruined by a palatable amalgam of powered-cheese goodness made from rabbits. Or made by rabbits. Or approved by rabbits. I don’t have time to read the label to settle the debate, so form your own rabbit-based, rabbit-labor, or rabbit-approved opinion. You won’t find a better macaroni.

Then I read more of “A Storm of Swords” and finished the evening with a delicious bowl of pudding.

A fine day to say the least.

Companies often attach a persona to a product to strengthen the brand and convince the consumer that he or she has a tangible relationship to the product. It makes you feel as though you’ve found a soul mate in a personable product, because what we all really want in life is an emotional investment in an emotionless thing. As a marketing ploy, it often times it works. As I sorted through the available cereals at work, I came across a prime example of it failing.

The Multi Grain Cheerios box is a box packed with sass, vanity, and condescension.

“I love looking my best.” Ah, a great way to start any conversation. This is the line most people skip at the beginning of the Gettysburg Address.

“That’s why I lead a healthy lifestyle and make Multi Grain Cheerios a part of my sensible diet.” In the history of man, no one has ever authentically conversed about cereal with such a sentence.

Add your own name to the end of that last sentence to compound the impact, “People who chose more whole grain tend to weigh less than those who don’t, Jessica.”

Since I’m not worried about being a fit, healthy, purple woman, I went with the manly route and made a bowl of non-Coca~Cola fortified oatmeal.