The world has become much more stressful, and people's nerves are frequently jangled.

There are many paths to reduce stress and find inner peace -- religion, meditation, exercise. One concept keeps cropping up and that is being in the moment. How do you stay in the present?

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So many of us are striving towards a future where we hope things will be better that we don't notice things in the present that should also improve our attitudes. But it's hard for a lifelong striver not to strive, not to work towards the dream of at least a warmer, less chilly life. (Can you tell it was cold here today? I don't think it hit 60, and of course there is far, far worse to come.)

I find some of my inner peace by dreaming of the future, so I'm not sure how valid a concept being in the moment is.

Perhaps there is an art in being happy with what you have. But in that case, what would you look forward to in the future?

D

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I think the trick is that if you are always in the now, you will be totally focused on what you are doing, which is more productive.

It also alleviates going over bad stuff in my head. For example, I talked with some very nasty people on the phone tonight. But it is over, and I choose to move on instead of replaying it in my head...

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You know, I didn't even think about that, since I am an extremely future-oriented person and very rarely dwell on the past.

My philosophy is that what's past is past, and you can't do anything about it, so focus on the future, which you can do something about.

I tend to forget bad things that happen very quickly. Of course this makes me more forgiving of them than I should be, because I don't remember them!

D

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I tend to remember bad things, and replay them in my head. This is not good for me, so my main interest in inner peace is to find a better way to live where I don't do that.

You are very lucky that you forget bad things quickly...

Sue

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It's the same reason, though, that I forget about some of the system's bugs, especially when another bug grabs my attention.

If you look at the bugs community, you will see that I'm trying to write them all down as I'm fixing them, but sometimes I think I can hold them in my head but don't. Then I forget and that can bite me when I install a new version.

Fortunately, my development environment, Ruby on Rails, has an automated test facility, so before I send stuff to the site, I have it run a battery of tests for me to make sure it's OK.

Of course the tests aren't perfect since if I don't anticipate that something will fail, I don't write a test, and if it fails then I'm still in trouble.

But tests have already proved their worth. Remember how unreliable David's Amazing BBS was? I think this has done quite a bit better.

D

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Oh dear -- this is not good. The messages are getting much to narrow to be able to read comfortably.

Hope your tests continue to be useful.

Sue

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It is funny to watch the string of messages getting narrower and narrower!

Never fear, however. I am thinking up some new ideas to make up for this.

Today is Security Day where I'm going to do as much as I can to improve security.

Tomorrow I will tackle this problem.

After all, we all need to get back to the subject of Inner Peace, and we can't have inner peace if we feel this squashed ... right?

D

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As I was typing that, music can on. Kind of ominous scary music. Is that something you wrote for Demon House?

When does it open?

Sue

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It opens on Friday. Wish us luck, we're going to need it!

Were you viewing the Demon House community? How do the pictures look? Do they make you feel Demon House is interesting?

Anyway, a jellyfish vibrates when s/he/it laughs. I think.

Oh, by the way, go to settings and check what happens when you try to put swear words as the web site access name. You'll laugh, I promise.

D

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I think Demon House looks pretty cool, and I hope it makes you lot of fun and money.

My name has been changed to noncelebacyspam! I got a good laugh out of that one.

Sue

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Then it has done its work!

This narrowing is getting worse and worse. I will have to do something about it soon, as well as your problem with not being able to delete mail.

I am still working on the security stuff. It should be finished today, and then (much to my relief) I will go work on those much more interesting things. I have some exciting innovations on the display of messages already percolating in my mind ...

D

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Now I am curious -- how narrow can this space get? :-)

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I think so narrow you can only fit in one word.

But it looks like there's a table that's not being closed. It's a difficult bug because in another section it looks like I close it, so it's necessary in one place to close it but not another :-(.

I will work on it once I'm (finally) done with the security upgrade.

Not forgetting your mail question, of course.

D

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I think so narrow you can only fit in one word.

But it looks like there's a table that's not being closed. It's a difficult bug because in another section it looks like I close it, so it's necessary in one place to close it but not another :-(.

I will work on it once I'm (finally) done with the security upgrade.

Not forgetting your mail question, of course.

D

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Thank you, David. It will be better once it is fixed. Of course, this does give each message a very novel look. :-) So where does one draw the lline with inner peace? Is it not peaceful of me to want this fixed? Should I just accept it and ignore it? These are the confusing issues that surrond the whole subject of inner peace. What is the difference between inner peace and total apathy and passivity?

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I edited this message, and it now looks normal. Okay, I am even more confused...

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Hmmm... it only looks normal after editing... now it is back to abnormal again.

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Well, if you just accepted it and enjoyed the resulting inner peace, perhaps it would never be fixed. That's the tradeoff of noticing problems - only if you notice them and point them out do they get fixed, but at the same time that means that you feel upset about them, which is not good for inner peace. Oh dear.

But rest assured that this one's first in line once I have the security stuff done. I have that nearly completed but as always there are niggling details ...

D

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I guess if you pointed out the problem in a loving, non-attacking way that would be okay. And if you just noticed it and mentioned it without getting upset that would work, too. Attitude is key here.

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Well, things should be somewhat improved. The display is still too narrow but it's less bad than it was before.

Better solutions to this particular problem are on their way. I think this reply-based format isn't well suited to when there are a relatively small number of people talking intimately with each other.

I used it because of the potential for a moderation system, but I think the rant room might work better here than that.

So I am going to make it optional and see what happens.

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I can't wait to see what making it optional does, exactly.

It is much, much better!

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For some reason, on Internet Explorer, it actually cuts off the whole right section. If that sort of thing happens to you, the handy "Direct Link" sends you to a page that starts at that message, so you can see the remaining messages more pleasantly.

D

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Since I don't use Interet Explorer, that is a non-issue for me. It all looks much better, so that's good. But since there are so many messages, it took this thread quite a while to load, fyi.

Sue

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the Examine all Communities feature or the Replies feature?

They would both get you right to the latest messages, which would make those things easier.

I'm still going to improve the look of messages but I thought you'd find that suggestion interesting.

Is there any inner peace in using Internet explorer? Do you know?

D

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