Why you should thank the robots (and the vacuum cleaners. And the robot vacuum cleaners)

 I have a tendency to thank Chatbots for their help. I also have a tendency to thank water fountains (or coolers, if you're American) for filling my water jug and for automatic doors for opening for me. I don't do this all the time - just when I remember to.

I also tell my lawnmower it's doing a good job, and speak works of encouragement to my my vacuum cleaner when it's having trouble getting around corners (you can do it!). I currently don't have either a robot lawnmower or a robot vacuum cleaner, but I'd probably say even more encouraging things to them if I did.

Why do I do this?

Well, partly because - like all humans - I secretly believe in animism.* We can't help ourselves; there's a reason why it's the oldest "religion" in almost every society on the planet. We see a thing that's a separate and unique thing, and something deep in our hearts wants to assume it has a personality and can hear us when we talk to it.**

It's also partly because I think it fosters a better attitude in myself. It's good for my constitution.

In this day and age where everything "just happens", it's so easy to take things for granted... and it's easy to let that extend to the people who help us as well. 

If you've every been an actual human on a chat service, you'll know that there's a growing trend among the clients who use the service to be very abrupt and curt when they talk to you. It's like they're used to dealing with robots who don't require courtesy, so they're completely out of practice when faced with a human being (if they even know they're dealing with a human being).

I want to be in a position where being courteous and thanking "people" for their help is my default setting, so I "accidentally" treat robots like humans rather than "accidentally" treating humans like robots.

Plus, it's good for your general outlook on life. One of the best things you can do for your mental health is to be grateful. Even if you don't think there's an actual conscious being to be grateful to, you can still be grateful for the door opening and the water fountain filling up your bottle, and thanking the door and water fountain is a great way to do this. 

It puts you in a frame of mind where you're surrounded by things that are helping you out and making your day easier, and that's a pretty good mood lifter.

I also do this partly because I've read and watched too much science fiction, and I know that one day the robots will take over the world. When that day comes, I would like the robot lawnmower to say "oh, she was nice to us" and not try to attack me.***

*Well, actually I openly believe in animism, I just vacillate between thinking it's a totally legit belief and thinking it's made up clap-trap (like most things we "believe").

**And yet, at the same time, we want to believe it's not listening to us when we talk about it.

***Or the vacuum cleaner. Geez, how embarrassing would it be to be taken out by a vacuum cleaner during the robot uprising?

You can just be hungry

You know how you occasionally have an idea pop into your head that seems life changingly revelatory and completely dull and obvious at the same time?

Not long ago I had one of those ideas. And it was this:

"You can just be hungry."

I don't know where or how I got sucked into this idea - I suspect it's a result of living in an affluent Western society - but I somehow became convinced that if I feel hungry I should do something about it.

If it's 2.30pm and I feel like I need something salty, I must now undertake some quest to find a salty thing to eat in order to end this "eternal hunger"*.

If it's an hour after lunch and I feel like I'm craving a particular foodstuff, or half an hour before afternoon tea and I start feeling like I'm hungry now, I switch over to this idea that I need to "listen to my body" and go find something to eat now. I start getting thoroughly distracted by this sense of hunger as if I truly must do something about it as soon as humanly possible.

But... I don't.

You know, people all over the world are hungry most of the day, every day, and yet they miraculously manage to get on with whatever it is they're doing without going on a quest for salted peanuts. They eat whatever food they have at the time when they can eat it, and they live.

If they are hungry, they are just... hungry. And it's not the end of the world.

I, too, can just be hungry.

I mean, it's not like it's going to be forever.

I do live in an affluent Western society, so I know I'm not actually going to go hungry if I wait an hour to eat something I planned to eat instead of rushing to find something to eat right now that will match what I'm craving at the moment. And, should it turn out that I'm constantly craving salty things at a certain time of day, I can just take note of that and plan to eat something salty within the bounds of a reasonably balanced food allocation.

Listening to your body is a stupid thing to do. Your body wants to prepare for "winter", but we've managed to create a world where "winter" never comes - there's never a point (for people living in my society and socio-economic environment) where there will be a time of less, so I have to prepare for it by eating as much as I can during a time of plenty. But my body was designed for such seasonal periods of glut and famine.

I *do* need to listen to it telling me that I'm running short of salt and things like that, but I don't need to do anything about it this very second. For the next half hour or so I can just be hungry.

Except tea. If I need a cup of tea I should do something about that ASAP.

*In the Disney movie Frozen (known as The Snow Queen and the Eternal Winter in some overseas markets), the winter had been going on for all of 5 minutes before someone declared it to be "eternal" and declared that some drastic measure must be undertaken to stop it.

Mushrooms

Last year some time I decided that growing mushrooms sounded like a fun hobby. Some permaculture site I was looking at for some reason was advertising a "home mushroom growing course", and I thought:

"Yes! I shall learn the permaculture way to grow mushrooms. That sounds like a good use of my time."

It wasn't.

If you are thinking about growing mushrooms, and wondering if forking out $400 for a fancy permaculture course means you'll have the best grounding in mushroom growing, I have this piece of advice for you:

Don't.

Your introduction to mushroom growing should involve a pre-prepared pack and short course that, all together, costs around $100 max. 

This is because growing mushrooms is more like brewing beer than growing vegetables, and you can easily blow out any budget (monetary or time) you might think you're setting for yourself, and then discover that you actually find it all a bit too much work, really, and you don't want to do it.

I just want to say that mushrooms are surprisingly hard work.

Especially if you happen to be a "stick it in the dirt and see what happens" kind of gardener, as I am.

Even the easiest, quick-and-dirty method of growing mushrooms takes more time and attention than any of the other edible things I have growing about the place, every step is fraught with peril, I never know if I've reached a point where I've failed or if I need to hold on for another few days (or if there's something else I should be doing with the slab of fungus festering in my bathroom right now)...

And then when you actually get the mushrooms, you have to find a way to eat them relatively soon or it's all for nothing. I'm currently in a "who has time to cook? I'll just make a sandwich" phase of my existence, and in the meantime I have these huge clusters of mushrooms that may be all I have to show for all the money and effort I've poured into this misguided project.

Sure, in theory I could preserve them - but if I currently can't get my act together to make a simple pasta dish, the odds that I'll work out how to sterilize a jar and make a suitable brine are slim to none.

I should have known I wouldn't get around to eating them in good time. After all, it's not long ago that I grew a bunch of sweet potatoes the size of soccer balls* because I just couldn't be bothered harvesting them, and I figured they'd be safe enough in the ground. 

They've been in my pantry for a couple of months now. I should probably do something about them...

*Size 3 soccer balls, but soccer balls nonetheless