An Extrospective Revolution

"I feel like I may be on the edge of a phenomenal breakthrough of some sort in my life; a fundamental, revolutionary change in the entire way that I perceive and analyze the world around me. It's terrifying and exciting, all at the same time."
- Message from The Fly to Sara Faye, 17th March 2006

How do you perceive the world? Are you receptive to emotions and feelings? Are you cognizant of facts, figures, and hard data? Do you commune with nature, and ignore relationships with human beings? I tend to be extremely analytical; I thrive on data, though I have a tendency to be at least somewhat diplomatic (which is why I get along equally well with Mo-Licious and Sarah Canuck). I work better with people than most scientists and engineers; also, unless it has to do with tangible measurements (money, climate, distance, time, et cetera), I have literally no capacity for dealing with numbers. Calculus and complex algebra may as well be nuclear physics as far as I'm concerned, and when you get much beyond calculating exchange rates or travel distances, I'm worthless. However, I tend to understand sophisticated scientific concepts, and I can apply those where applicable.

"The scientist in the family... A man who, who takes sexual pleasure in the collection of data... Wearing the number seven shirt this evening, even his mother calls him 'The Edge'!"
- Pontifex Maximus, 06th June 2001, of the Prime Cardinal

In recent weeks, I have been consumed with the task of trying to analyze and interpret the actions of individuals, and establish a complex working hypothesis with regard to how to interpret the actions of individuals (particularly women), and how to influence said actions. Now, I know that this all sounds like a lot of psychology and/or Machiavellianism; it's not. It's simply a desire to understand people, particularly women, and establish a tangible system for interpreting and influencing those actions. The "science" of psychology is far more nebulous and subjective than that.

The whole process has given me a desire to look at my entire life in a far more objective, scientific, analytical way, and I feel as if I may be approaching a revolutionary breakthrough in my entire perception of the world around me. I feel as if I'm on the cusp, yes, the cusp, of perceiving the world in a completely and totally different way: as a massive interaction of cold, raw data.

The irony, of course, is that my specializations are in three of the most subjective fields in human existence. Journalism and history, though they should be more objective than most of the sciences (given that scientific disciplines require imagination, guessing, and hypothesis, whereas history and journalism should require nothing more than the objective reporting of facts) are two of the most subjective, bleeding heart, emotional fields known to man. Also, tactics, strategy, and military science is a science in and of itself, based on a single central belief: the best laid plans never survive first contact with the enemy. Even military sciences, the most objective of my qualifications, can never be a perfect science, due largely to the fact that an enemy's movements and decisions can never be predicted with complete and total accuracy.

And yet, here I am. At any rate, if this revolutionary shift in my entire perception of the world continues, I'll write more about it. Until then...

Thus saith the Fly.