Big guy in the sky v. complex me

When I learned a little about Eastern thought, I didn’t see the properties of God explained or worshipful practice involving kneeling and supplication.  I am confident there is some of that, but I was impressed with the exploration of my use of my own mind and other aspects of my body and me.  I have written before about seeing in the campus schedule of classes, a class about relaxation.  I thought what do students do?  Relax for the whole period?  I have since learned that achieving genuine relaxation can be  difficult, given some circumstances and conditions.  Socrates is famous for his principle “Know thyself”, which is a big aspect of Eastern practice.

New types of mechanical devices

If you watch “The Closer” or “Major Crimes”, you see a team of LA police officers investigating.  One of the members of the group is “Buzz”.   He is not the usual officer but more of an equipment technician.  He takes various types of pictures and can modify, enlarge, slow down or speed up their showing. He is in steady demand, both at a crime scene and later back at the station.  In several fields of work, new and valuable equipment can assist in the analysis of events in ways that unaided police cannot.  In many fields, new types of technology accomplish things faster, more completely, more minutely with fewer errors than unaided humans can.

Look it up with Google

I probably look up some little thing in search.google.com four or five times a day.  I know this is the age of emerging artificial intelligence but so far, I find the power of the “search engine” much more applicable to my thinking.  What is Anthropic?  Do upper or lower teeth cause more trouble?  What is Mozart’s Queen of the Night so enraged at her daughter?  See ?  This is the type of deep, important question that comes to my mind and can be answered by Google Search.

Famous opera arias

Twice I have searched for the most popular opera arias and listened to them.  Nearly all the recordings are on YouTube.  The second time I did that I experienced an odd feeling, one of almost being drunk.  Elation, joy, happiness.  They are not all depictions of love or positive feelings.  Mozart’s The Magic Flute has a famous aria by the Queen of the Night.  It is beautiful and very memorable but it turns out the woman is enraged that her daughter refuses to murder a man the Queen deeply hates.  The Queen has commanded her own daughter to take this dagger and kill Sarastro. When the daughter, a grown woman, refuses to do so, the Queen flies into a deep rage, threatening to disown the daughter.

Who's tense?

One day, I was paging through the campus schedule of classes and I saw a class entitled “Relaxation”.  I had just finished a class that I had planned and lectured in.  I thought it must be much easier to teach students to lie down, be quiet and still and relax.  That was the beginning of my being aware that for some people in some circumstances, relaxation can be difficult to achieve.

I just looked up “are more men or women too tense” and found “Women experience anxiety disorders at nearly twice the rate of men. “ I also read that there comes a moment in a girl’s life when she realizes she is being looked at by a man.  The sort of looking could be judgemental, evaluative and the result could be negative!

Old news

I found out today that I am not in the popular wave.  I am not surprised nor uncomfortable.  I have been nerdy and out-of-fashion often.  Who else would buy an expensive watch and not wear it in favor of an older, cheaper watch?  Who else continues to email when texting is IN? Who else uses Google, Firefox, Duckduckgo and others several times a day to ask about tiny or weird issues? Who else prefers a low-cost laptop over a pocket-handy smartphone?

Mary Roach books

Bonk - human sex and reproduction

Gulp - eating and the parts of the body that treat food

Replaceable You - emerging practices and technology that replaces or substitutes worn-out part of the body

Stiff - adventures of the body after death

Mary Roach writes unusual non-fiction books about humans, their bodies and their lives.  The titles listed above are some of my favorites

Starting, stopping and re-reading

C.S.Lewis wrote a book called “An Experiment in Literary Criticism”.  His proposed experiment deals with re-reading.  He pictures a middle-aged reader in a library trying to recall if this book is one that she has read or not.   He was a professor of literature and knew plenty about books and reading. He emphasized that a well-written book may repay re-reading, in part or in whole.  He wonders whether the quality of a book should be figured by how often it is re-read. 

Is there coffee?

My wife does not like interruptions.  That trait and others have gotten me to be the coffee-maker in our mornings.  But we are both aging.  That enabled me to forget to deliver a cup to her after the coffee finished brewing.  I don’t think I have managed to do that before.  About an hour after the drip stopped, she asked if the coffee was ready.  It had been ready for quite a while.  I promise to stay alert to the coffee situation.

Saint Monday

I am reading “The Week” by David Henkin.  He wrote about “Saint Monday” and lost me.  I looked up “Saint Monday” and found that as people moved into the industrial age from the agricultural age, workers invented “Saint Monday”.  Such a saint drew reverent absence from a job after a weekend of too much alcohol.  Shades of Labor Day!