Utility Function quandries

What's your utility function?

In it's very geeky way, it's oddly more direct and clear than asking "What's your calling?"
In Artificial Intelligence, as my friend explained it to me, the utility function is the thing that the A.I. unit MUST complete. If you tell it to beat you at chess, it will do what it takes to beat you at a game of chess.

  The reason why it's more direct, and probably a bit more helpful is that it doesn't require some outside entity (necessarily), nor does it require "waiting". When one talks about one's "calling" it's a little more oblique, as if someone has to call YOU. I suppose you could take the antithesis of that view and decide your "Calling" is what number you decide to dial, as if you're the one doing the calling. Like, what do you CALL to? Not what CALLS to you?
One is more active, the other is more passive, you see.

Anyway, my friend asked me what my utility function is. And it took me a while to figure it out. It is also coupled with the question, "How do you think?" which he also asked me. I am eternally grateful for my friend. He is the best friend anyone could ever ask for or imagine. Especially because he leads me to discover things about myself that I didn't even know existed. He's THAT good. Because usually, I think either what I know about myself is enough, or I don't need to know anything else about myself. But oh, how wrong I am...

Anyway, for example, his utility function is to teach, essentially and to love. He thinks in a very step-by-step way, which is a very useful way for a teacher to think. Incrementally, and gradually coming to a point.

My utility function is to mediate. To be a diplomat. And I think in a very relational way. As if everything fits into a giant system, and I want to understand how all the elements work together, not necessarily how the elements work by themselves. I mean, that sort of information is also interesting, but it's the ties between events, objects, people, etc. that really interests me.
  For example, he would look at an apple and try to figure out how big it is. I look at an apple and wonder where it came from, who picked it (if anyone did), did bees pollinate it or was it a fly, how far did it travel before it wound up in my hand, and so on. The more information gather, the more complex I realize the world is, with all of it's systems, levels of humanity, interconnections of paths, etc. This way of thinking very much fits into my utility function: mediation and diplomacy. With both, one needs to understand the history of all the elements, their reason for being their, their effectiveness at resolving problems, etc. Rather than finding an isolated solution, I seek to find the solution by combining elements rather than by isolation.
I also am beginning to wonder if that's why my memory capacity is so strong. Because I make a lot of connections with information, facts, places, etc, I wonder if that's why I can remember so much random stuff. It certainly would explain HOW I remember things. It's usually relational. I'll look at a rope coiled on a dock (an all too infrequent happenstance for me... I miss coastal living) and I'll remember something I learned sailing. Or I'll remember a day on the lake with my father, with me coiling the lines on the dock in just that way.

Seattle, Wooden Boat Museum, July 2013

In a way, this coil represents my thoughts. It's carefully constructed, with different spirals of information, but they all touch in some way, and they are all the same line, although occupying a different tier of data, memory, or ideas. Every major thought or experience I have is enriched as I add more and more line to the central or working end of the line. Sometimes they take me a while to unravel. Slowly, as some lines have been sitting on the dock for far too long and are stiff and brittle, rough with sunlight and exposure to the elements unprotected, untended. A happy rope is a working rope. Gone unused, ropes get old very fast and decay.

I'm just blathering at this point. Although it is true my mind probably works that way. I see everything as part of one whole. It's just the one whole is so huge, it's hard to see it all from one tiny vantage point. It's one line, so my friend was right when he said he thought I think in a linear fashion. Which is sort of true. It's just a huge frickin' line. Or it's a fabric. Hell, I don't know what it is. 

But then again, that's not my utility function, is it? I don't want to figure out WHAT it is. I want to figure out how it works together. It's a lot less straight-forward. But it suits me, somehow.

Anyway, my other utility function is to love as well, take care of people the best I can and adopt a child. I want to adopt a child so badly, it's not even funny. I don't know why it would be funny, anyway, but someone adoption is ingrained into my life goals. I guess "The Rescuers" made a big impression on me as a child. As did other orphan stories. Except for Annie. Geeze, I find her annoying.

ANYWAY

In other news, I'm applying to grad school, because with all my utility function, I love the environment and plants. My friend jokes that I'm going to turn into Zyra one day. Yes, I just revealed I'm a League of Legends nerd. My summoner name is "RealKept" (Was, now it is "Thx4AllTheFish"). Add me if you want to play.

I'm applying to get into a Landscape Architecture program. I'm trying to write my letter of intent now. I figure I should start on that and my portfolio first because they are SO difficult to write and compile. I've actually been "working" on both for a couple months now. "Working" being defined as "stressing out over and thinking about constantly". So, it's nice now to write something that feels as if it has less riding on it's success. I guess I just have to treat the letter of intent the same way I treat this blog, at first anyway, so I can actually get something down and not freak myself out over it's importance. 

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

I want to get into MLA SO BAD YOU HAVE NO IDEAAAAAAAAAAAAA...

I guess I'm going to start freaking out again now, so I'll save you the over-powering use of ALL CAPS and just cut it off here.

Nerdy, sweaty, overly-meta-at-the-moment, ridiculous me.

The Vicious Cycle of Contorl, Stress and Relaxation.

The other day, I was visiting my darling and his parents, and I discovered for the first time the SNL skit "Cooking with The Anal-Retentive Chef" with Phil Hartman.
Very funny.

Not really what this particular entry is about, but it does lead into what I'm grappling with, personality-wise, with myself. I like to have these little sessions where I'm just thinking to myself. It helps me clear my cluttered head.
So.
Many.
Irrational.
Thoughts.
But that's what panicking and anal-retentiveness does to a person. Not that I'm an extreme case of anal-retentiveness, but I must confess that I am a pretty awful perfectionist. Which is enough to drive a person out of their skin, sometimes. Being somewhat anal-retentive and perfectionist tends to make me a tad on the controlling side. Not that I'm manipulative, but I'm accustomed to being in control. If something's going to work, I'm going to make it work, because I am in control.
There's nothing that quite states being out of control like saying to yourself "I am in control". 
Because, really, if you were in total control, you wouldn't have to convince yourself that you're in control. So, by saying it, does that really help? Or does it just perpetuate the kind of delusion that one has when they think they're in control? I tend to think it's the latter.
Because, really, there are few things we have control over- and the things we do have the power to master are very rarely things that we freak out about having control over, right?
I mean, you know you can do it, no worries, no stress; so, there's no reason to repeat I am in control like some kind of person obsessed with driving safety.
So, whenever I catch myself wrangling with feeling the need to be in control, I get a flood of thoughts that I must sort out... which is what I'm doing right now.
And I'll tell you why- although, even as I write, the anxiety of control is already dissipating, but I digress...
I'm acclimated towards dominating challenging situations. Except recently, as in the last 6 months when I have felt overwhelmingly like a failure. I quit two jobs, my relationship crumbled, friendships soured- and possibly expired-, moving back in with my parents was no triumphant feat either (although I love them), and my love for adventure dwindled.
I'm beginning to see the rekindling of a life I want to participate in, and I begin to feel it's warmth.
But for several months, I have felt powerless and in a kind of stupefaction that goes beyond depression and rules in the flat grey world of apathy. It's a nasty place. It doesn't even have the decency to shroud itself in a kind of dignified darkness. It's featureless, abandoned, tasteless void. And I hate that place more than I hate having depression, or any other anxiety; this realm is the doldrums of the soul.
And I'm pulling through to the other side. But it's taking a long while.
In the mean time- because the landscape of my mind is frighteningly blank, I feel this encroaching, unseen doom (even though this is completely irrational), because things are quiet... too quiet. Like the moment in a horror film before something terrifying happens when everyone holds their breath.
And I guess that's what it is, I've been holding my breath for ages, and I feel the suffocating effects. And why have I been metaphorically holding my breath?
Because I want to survive, and I feel like that's the best way for me to do it.

ANYWAY-
Back to the control thing- this sort of loosely ties into it, but I don't really care at this point because it's kind of late and I'm exhausted.

BUT-
I'm not a controlling person. I don't seek power, I don't want people to do everything I want, but I do want things to work out. So, in my insane little way, I think that I can will things to work, in what I deem a favorable way. So, I try to control things. Because I want it to work out perfectly. Anal-retentive.

But what happens when things work out pretty much perfectly and you're NOT controlling anything? It takes away a sense of pride of accomplishment, is what it feels like. I feel totally out of place when things go well from no direct effort of my own. It feels so weird to have things go in a positive direction without feeling like I'm forcing gigantic magnets of matching polarities towards each other.
To be more specific, it doesn't feel just "weird" it gives me anxiety. A lot of things give me anxiety, I'm kind of an anxious person if I'm not careful and don't CONTROL IT.
God.
Damn.
I can't get away from it!
It's like a never ending loop.

Anyway- things are going really well. I need a job, but my tax returns were pretty sweet this year, so I'm not as stressed out about it as I was.
But life is pleasant. It's good, it tastes of honey and music. Which is NOT what I'm used to. I'm used to striving for a foot hold in the edge of a cliff. And lately, I have been spoiled with what feels like a magical elevator in comparison. So easy. Too easy.

I just MUST learn how to relax. I'm getting better at it.
But I'm trying really hard not to stress out about relaxing more.
Gotta let go of the control and the stress. I need to just accept the good things and be grateful.

Sleepy, incoherent, chasing-my-own-tail ridiculous me.