~ efficiency of motion ~
I would like to dwell for a moment on what I feel is an important issue that has been largely ignored in the literature of what facilitates human accomplishments. I call this the principle of efficiency in motion and it rests on the notion that in order for people to accomplish a given purpose, they must be able to arrive at a certain destination without wasted time and effort. After all, in order to accomplish most anything, the first step involves transporting one's person to the location in which the accomplishment is intended to occur. On pretty much a daily basis, I find that my ability to get to my destination is hindered by some person getting in my way, being unconcerned or unaware that they are in my way, and failing to get out of my way in a timely manner. I do not insist that anyone speed, I merely wish that some people would be more aware of themselves in their surroundings and engage in a degree of efficiency of motion to facilitate the smooth flow of human beings.
The most recent example that comes to mind was over the weekend when I was at the grocery store. Josh and I were driving back into town and we decided to stop by the grocery store for the purpose of quickly acquiring groceries and then continuing on with our enjoyable evening. After we had loaded up the groceries into the car, I proceeded to navigate my shopping cart over to the shopping cart holder dealie, when this woman (who apparently had a prior history of getting in Josh's way in the store), rushed her cart over, clearly cutting off my shopping cart right of way, and then proceeded to spend several moments adjusting the way that her cart fit with the other carts in the rack, and I was standing there, flabbergasted that someone would feel the need to circumvent the normal flow of shopping cart return, and then proceed to obstruct the ability of those she cut off from returning their shopping carts. After I was finally able to return my cart and make my way back to the car, Josh had this look of horror on his face and said, "I can't believe she just did that!" I would never had thought twice about the incident if she had simply cut off my shopping cart, but the fact that she had the gall to then dawdle and linger, thereby delaying my ability to return the shopping cart...it was frustrating. It's these sorts of breakdowns in order and efficiency that, on a larger scale, can disrupt the entire flow of human beings. I don't understand why people don't seem to understand that their dawdling affects others. We are not islands, and when we linger and take our sweet time moving around, not worrying about whether or not we are in someone else's way, this can cause a chain reaction of a lot of people being delayed in what they are trying to accomplish. It really bugs me! I don't insist that anyone speed, but I would appreciate it if everyone made a more concerted effort to reduce the extent to which they linger and dawdle without concern for other people.
In other news, I went to a wine bar with some classmates last night. One of the members of the class had devised a way to relate the class material to wine tasting, in particular, how the quality of the wine glass shapes the way that the wine is perceived. It blew me away! Blindfolded, we sampled wines in different types of glasses, and the same wine tasted completely different depending on the glass. It was so incredible. Afterwards, I met up with Josh at another bar where one of his friends was to play some music with a band. Today I am nursing a bit of a hangover.