Out in the countryside of the mind

Cordelia Fine's A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives

Shankar Vedantam's The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives

Prof. Timothy Wilson's Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious

Wray Herbert's On Second Thought: Outsmarting Hard-Wired Habits

I often find myself reviewing Ornstein's hypothesized sensitivity of our human wiring.  He thought we seemed to be put together in a way that organizes our minds and perception systems according to

• Recency - what was I just doing?
• Comparison - is this our biggest pumpkin ever?
• Vividness - is this extra-real in some sense?
• Meaning - does this mean I will be rich?  Eaten alive?

He makes clear that he means that these types of awareness are part of many levels of our nervous system, not just the high levels up in the brain.

But I am quite aware that my thoughts come from somewhere.  Sometimes, they are about things I don't see any point in thinking about right then.  When I am lusting after cashews but trying to concentrate on paying bills, I resist getting diverted to nuts.  

Where did the thought of nuts come from?  Who ordered that thought front and center?  I have not read anything that really makes clear what part of me sends pre-thoughts to the parts of me that create conscious thoughts.  I am still on the lookout for good, reliable, evidence-based explanations of the conscious mind, the subconscious mind, the unconscious mind and connections and communication between them.

A hot topic in neuropsychology and related subjects these days is "brain plasticity".  The discovery that the brain has parts and subsections but that it does "re-wire" itself as a result of training, learning, experiences is fairly recent.  Recently, reading "Rewire Your Brain" by John Arden, I saw that because we are complex beings and because we have important individual histories that shape us, there are probably several different sources that contribute to what gets thought.  Quite a while back, I learned about "emergence", a way of describing a phenomenon that comes not from a single basic source but EMERGES from a collective, whether it is a group of atoms or bees or vibrations. 

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

One-upsmanship, even against ourselves

Sylvia Boorstein is one of my favorite guides to acceptance and appreciation of the good sides to life and even to the good sides to problems and disappointments.  Yet, this calm and loving soul explains in "It's Easier than You Think", that when she first started working on her mind and habits, she hoped for very dramatic and special results.  She had heard that a really sincere, pure and adept practitioner would be able to levitate off the ground or literally bilocate.  She deeply desired to reach such a level but has not done so.

One of the gifts of older age is a lowered need to strive, sparkle or excel.  Yet, even mature people seeking quiet inside themselves and outside can get caught up in striving to be perfect, to win, to out-do oneself, if nobody else.  We are struck by comparisons, as in "my golf game puts me in the lower quarter of golfers my age!". There is no doubt about it: working to improve myself is motivating and does often lead to better performance.  But taking an appreciative stroll or reading a quiet book without noting how rigorously I walked or how much I retained can put my mind onto other valuable parts of being alive.  

When I was a child, I wanted to touch my brother last and be the winner of who-last-tapped-who-in-the-back-seat.  But getting away from gamesmanship and from working to one-up myself or others helps me accept the full range of life and its marvelous flavors and scenes.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Caring and heartfelt

One day I was talking to a friend who had just read through some short biographies.  She was a little teary about a few of them, reading of suffering, handicaps, and loss.  I had read the same documents depicting the same difficulties but they had not touched my emotions in the same way.  

Ok, she is female and I am not.  It is no news that many males are not as emotionally sensitive most of the time as many females are, most of the time.  (Notice all the weasel words I inserted.)  As a younger man, I looked down on being in the grip of emotion.  But I have two strong ideas in the back of my mind about women and men.  

First, women live longer than men.  That may be God's will or nature's plan but it may be an indication that men might do well to change their ways, their diet, or their philosophy.  So, maybe I should make the effort to be a little more sympathetic about struggles, hardships and sorrows that I learn about.

Second, (a corollary of the first, maybe) "the female always wins because of her greater quiet".  Rather than keeping my focus on what can be done, maybe it would enrich my existence if I took a moment to put myself a bit more completely in others' shoes, their lives.  If my perception is a little slow, I might have to wait a couple of extra beats to be able to more completely feel what they might feel.

I have noticed that young mothers can be arguing with their husbands or their fathers, turn their head, purr lovingly to the baby, and turn right back into the argument.  I have trouble switching emotional gears that rapidly and smoothly.  

My great-grandson and I went to the library in search of something good for him to read.  We asked the librarian for recommendations and she gave us a printed list.  The children's room is laid out in a complex way, with different stacks for different collections.  I am not clear on what is where nor on whether she has access to information from her computer that I don't.  So, I asked her if she would tell me where we could find some of the titles that sounded good.  They were popular books and one after another, we found they had been checked out.  The young woman seemed truly unhappy for us each time she found that still another book listed had already been checked out.  

I had never heard of the books and wasn't at all sure we would like them but she seemed somewhat hurt that her collection was not entirely available to us.  At first, I found the intensity of her emotional signals of regret a bit hard to handle.  Then, I realized.  She cares!  She actually cares.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

What is nonsense?

We learned in philosophy of science about the logical positivists.  A major part of our study related to "counterfactual conditionals".  These are If-Then sentences that refer to conditions that have not been met but might be, such as "If I were to strike this match" where I haven't done that so far.  There was an interest in developing a more precise language among some thinkers, especially in Vienna and Berlin,  in the early 1900's, preferably one in which true statements were easier to make and false ones more difficult.  

You may have noticed that children arrive in this world without user manuals.  For that matter, boy friends and girl friends happen without manuals, too.  As a teacher, I have always found the business of exploring minds and maybe getting to understand them just about the most fascinating thing in the world.  My mind is fascinating and so is yours.  So is trying to inform you about my mind and absorbing what I can from you about your mind.  

When we hear a baby babbling in a crib, we know that the baby is working on language and mental development.  We don't ask if what the baby is saying is true or false because as far as we are concerned, the utterances have no truth value.  I don't say they are nonsense, that they are actually meaningless because that determination is surprisingly difficult, fundamental and human.  Although, now that I think about it, Polanyi pointed out a long time ago, that animals from squirrels and raccoons to cows and dogs exhibit memory.  So, who knows?  Maybe the squirrel really does have meaningful Post-It notes in the nest that indicate the location of acorns, as depicted in an ad I saw.  Heck, even bees do a little dance, I am told, that may look meaning-free to us but conveys to the other hive members the location of some valuable flowers.

So, it is very difficult to say when something like an utterance or a book or note or the placement of a stone is meaningful and when it is not.  We like to say something HAS no meaning but what we mean is that we cannot detect any meaning being conveyed.  Someone from another era or culture, with sharper eyes or more imagination might be very touched or deeply informed by what we find to be nonsensical.  Snarling out "Nonsense!" can be effective rhetoric and may at least quiet one who disagrees with us, but proving that something is nonsense is difficult.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Three to fill a gap

I like to make one post a day but today, I sent out two by accident.  When I do that, I want to skip the next day.  Several readers have an interest in the posts but find it difficult to get to them each day.  They prefer to look at two or three at a time and I don't want to crowd their reading schedule.  

In the meantime, here are some extras if you already read both posts and are looking for something more this morning.

Handy tool for purchasing and copy: Download the free Kindle software to your computer.  In some ways, it is better than a Kindle, which costs anywhere from $114 to $189 depending on what features you purchase.  If you highlight a section of a book on the actual Kindle, you can't get to it except on that same device.  You can download your comments file to your computer but the Kindle computer software enables immediate copying and pasting of a passage, including a citation.

Improve your mindfulness in 6 second bursts: A man I admire mentioned that he has trouble meditating.  I don't know if he meant finding the time, the motivation or doing it "right."  Whichever, a friend told him to simply pay attention to his breathing at a moment here and there during his day.  Great advice.  Dr. Charles Stroebel advocated something similar more than 25 years ago.  He knew that scanning your thinking and your tension level at a red light or while waiting for your call to be answered, you can accomplish a lot for your awareness in 6 seconds.

Impressive list of Google company official blogs I have mentioned the many Google free products and services, so many that it is very difficult to even find the time to try them all out.  But I just found this list of Google blogs of many types and for many purposes.  If you want to see an impressive array of international and technical blogs, take a look at the Google blog list.  Hint: if you open the link using the Google browser Chrome, you get a neat banner at the top to translate foreign pages into English. 

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

The Eastern Intellectual Tradition

For 2,000 years or more, China had good reason to think of itself as the world's most civilized and advanced country.  Imagine the shock to Chinese feelings when it was discovered during the recent centuries that the countries of the West had technology, customs and ideas that the Chinese needed to learn.  Americans are used to thinking these days that they have the best country in the world: richer, freer, more fulfilling and more fun.  But if we are as smart and as advanced as we want to be, we will start now learning a bit about current India and China.  

That is a very tall order, but we really should also keep a eye on our ideas and understanding of Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand and other countries in that part of the world.  

It is not easy to learn new language and new ideas.  Listening to Prof. Grant Hardy discuss Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition, a Great Course offering, I experienced the same obstacle I faced in Hawaii.  The names go right through my head.  I think it is my ear and my brain.  I am not used to different tones.  I learned that when I say "Mom", I am communicating a word for my mother, whether I say it in a high voice or low, with a whine or with an exasperated impatience.  But lip and tongue work in one voice can be something worlds different from the same word in a rising or falling or modulated tone.  As with Hawaiian, I am not used to many short syllables that seem to be strings of say, a, with different consonants inserted.  Indian names tend to all sound like "Badafagalatamata".  Chinese names are easier for the most part, but I have to hear them since I have not learned to decode the weird English representations of Chinese sounds, called "Pinyin".  It rather bugs me that I haven't and I may develop the motivation to work on learning a little more.

I realize that there are probably several thousand Chinese people my age who would be interested in learning more about me and my culture if I would just speak or write to them in language they can understand. It does help my understanding to keep remembering that the US currently has less than 400 million while India has more than a billion people and China has several hundred million more than India. 

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Adding to our knowledge

Information informs, adds to knowledge.  So, if I tell you that the dictionary contains words, you would only be getting information from my statement if you didn't already know what is inside the dictionary.  

OK, that is not strictly true because if I tell you that the dictionary contains words, you know that I told you something that is rather obvious on its face.  You now know that I seem to be the sort of person who says things that aren't very helpful.

It was attention-getting when Brian Christian wrote in The Most Human Human: What Talking to Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive that Claude Shannon wrote the most important master's thesis ever written in 1948 when he wrote A Mathematical Theory of Communication, (PDF file, free) which founded what is sometimes called "information theory".  

Of course, there are many other candidates for a wonderful ground-breaking thesis, but the recognition of what information is, attempts to make use of it, transmit it and preserve it are everywhere these days.  It is natural for us to reflect on what information is when we find we are changing things into a digital format that we never used to have, or associate with books, movies, pictures, sounds, speech, blueprints and all sorts of records.

Right now, I have a note to myself to get around to three books on information science and theory:

• The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick
• Seife's Decoding the Universe
• Information: A Very Short Introduction by Luciano Floridi

I have read the second book listed but I got lost and didn't understand it.  Somewhat like learning HTML coding or other aspects of computers and for that matter, car engines, I like to buzz around the edges of the subject but serious steady study is not for me.

If you remember the hullabaloo related to the year change from 1999 to 2000, the Y2K worry and danger, and if you have seen the articles that predict any further wars countries are engaged in will be computer battles as well as people battles, you realize that the oil and other energy supply, the food supply and the electricity supply depend on all kinds of machines and their ability to process information.  If you, like me, were impressed that the bet between Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne v. John Preskill was about information coming out of black holes, you had heard another reference to information and its importance.  Even, if, like me, you have only a vague notion of what they were talking about.  If you, like me, are aware of the increasing problem of identity theft, you realize the importance of information that would allow bad guys to convince others that it is you asking for a loan.  A few decades ago, my university didn't have that very important office: information technology, that is, instructional, faculty and student computers.  Now, it even has an office of information security.  That office just hours ago sent out a link to the Better Business Bureau's information on the top online scams.  In today's world, we have information, error, and disinformation.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Out of Step

About a year ago, I saw that more and more commercial operations were communicating to me that they wanted a "relationship".  Not that kind of relation!  The kind where I love them while buying from them.  At least, like them very much.  Preferably more than I like their competitors and enough so that I gladly suffer their price raises and product shrinkages.

But you know me: I don't suffer if I can help it and I don't want additional friends or relations.  The ones I have are quite sufficient and my attention and energy only go so far.  So, I am not part of the big social media push.  I don't tweet and I don't Facebook and I don't Google +, at least so far.  I admit that people are fascinating but all my life I have had trouble concentrating on very many at a time.  I can sometimes pay attention to several neat, cool, imaginative people but I can't simultaneously think very clearly about me.  I'm still thinking of how cute she is or how much I wish I looked like him the next morning.  That's why I wear mismatched socks.  It's out of love and interest in others!

So, as Prof. Iyengar explores some of the social forces on our choice making, she tends to leave me behind.  What is in style, the current fashion, usually repels me.  I have even noticed that I tend to really get interested in tv shows only when they are no longer current and are in re-runs.  If it doesn't appeal to me, learning that the item is very popular doesn't usually enhance its appeal.  Too new is often too untried.  Too new is often too weird, especially in this day of the latest greatest baloney.

I never had a D.A. hairstyle.  (Look it up or ask your granny.)  When I have gone with the latest style, I have regretted it but that has been quite rare because I usually am confused about what the latest actually is.  As with others, I have usually been too poor to be able to afford the latest clothes, brands and gadgets.  At those times, I get down on myself for being out of step with the popular beat, I find there are too many.  There are competing drummers: my church, my political party, my Google Circle, the local PTA.  I get all confused about which style to adopt.  I soon revert to my usual habits.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

SharpBrains book

SharpBrains is a conference and a company.  They held their conference and now have a book out summarizing the conference on maximizing the health and longevity of our aging brains.  I downloaded it for my computer and my Kindle (and those of other family members sharing our account) this morning for $7.96.  Regardless of whether you have a Kindle or not, you can download the book and read it on your computer for the same price.  (You do have to load the Kindle software onto your PC or Mac or smartphone first.)

The book seems to be a good one for an up-to-date look at the subject through the eyes of scientists devoted to find the best, most helpful, least invasive and least expensive ways to keep our minds and brains sharp.  I have read the first and 2nd chapters.  The 2nd chapter lays out four main pillars of maximum brain health:

1. Balanced nutrition
2. Physical exercise
3. Stress management
4. Mental stimulation

Fernandez, Alvaro; Goldberg, Elkhonon; Cavanaugh, Gloria (2009). The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness: 18 Interviews with Scientists, Practical Advice, and Product Reviews (Kindle Location 717). SharpBrains, Inc. Kindle Edition.

So, check out your diet and eating habits and shape them up, if needed.  Get some physical exercise daily, whatever you can manage without too much time or pain.  Meditate daily for 8-10 minutes, as I have been telling you for three years.  And do those online games or sudoku or crossword puzzles, or write a daily blog.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Polite and present

Humans are always trying to figure how to live better.  Some have advocated keeping our eyes on the natural and tangible and forgetting about dreaming.  Others have gone for heavy-duty fantasizing and imagination.  I can see both sides and I dabble both ways.

Prof. Grant Hardy states that Confucius was the most influential person who ever lived.  You could doubt that and argue with it but it is difficult to conclude anything but that this man indeed had enormous influence, whether measured by centuries or number of minds influenced.  The writings called the Analects of Confucius are understood to be sayings of his, collected by students many years after working with him, much as writings about Jesus were written decades after his life.

Confucius wanted to be a government official but never really had a good post of that kind.  It was the highest calling in that time and place.  He lived about 500 years before Jesus, roughly the amount of time we are separated from Columbus.  He emphasized the need for,  and value of, propriety and civility.  Appropriate manners and good behavior, such as practicing the Golden Rule, were valuable tools for getting along with others then, just as they are now.

Humans often get curious about the meaning of death and what happens after death.  Confucius said,"How can we worry about the afterlife when we don't know how to live our present life?" Modern thinkers, even those very respectful of his wisdom and sincerity, would probably not be put off by a question.  Over the course of human existence, many have developed theories and answers to his question, even though we still don't know entirely know how to live our lives, nor what comes after them.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

What? Naked again?

Two weeks from today, I will hold the first of a pair of 90 minute sessions on reading good books.  A major purpose of such sessions is to share recommendations and reactions.  For many people 40 and older, it is difficult to remember all the books already read.  There may be quite a few and a good part of those are not all that memorable.

For me, it is much easier to get interested in non-fiction than fiction. I am not happy about that fact since I very much like a good story.  I believe part of the trouble is my age, experience and skepticism.  At over 70, I have read many books.  I have watched many plays, movies and tv shows.  I can still be absorbed by the lovely heroine and the pining of the hero for her.  But if he is simply too brave to be believed or she is too aware of just how mesmerizing she is, if the danger or the villain is simply the same old thing all over again, I am likely to wish them good luck and close the book at page 50.  

For me, writing is a hobby and a pleasure.  So, I am not interested in a detailed look at the exact anatomy involved in a bedroom or forest grove, whether it is romantic contact or swords and blood.  I am much more interested in being interested. That requires a little personality, a little novelty, something, as we say, personal.  We have all heard the old formula for a good story: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl.  That really is an old formula and to interest the modern mature reader, it needs to be cleverly embroidered or ignored in place of something smarter.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Principal stars

In college, I read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.  For some people, that woman was a deep thinker and a beacon.  For others, she was off base.  I never got too deep into her philosophy but I did get an appreciation for the burden of a leader from that book.  I think an immature view of a leader is that such a person gets to be the boss and tell others what to do.  As we age, we find through life, parenting and leadership responsibilities, that actual leadership is quite different.  There is continuous persuasion needed, political astuteness, a fine hand on the tiller guiding the craft through rocks, rebellion and wreckage.  I often see or hear the leader being pleaded with by party A to do this immediately, only to see or hear party B pleading that the leader never do this.  Meanwhile, other pairs of opponents are urging contradictory courses on separate matters with equal passion.  The leader who cares must weigh what is heard and advocated but can never please all parties.

The picture and layers of leadership become much more complex and delicate when part of the group being lead cannot fend for themselves.  I point to elementary school principals as heroes of leadership, who regularly wrestle cut-throat politics at a municipal or higher level while trying to stay fully open to the needs, views and confusions of kindergartners.  When you throw in experienced teachers who don't like what the school board or public or principal is doing, nervous parents worried about their specially gifted genius, gang warfare in the neighborhood, pimps and drug dealers lurking about, high-minded elders trying to stop society's slide into depravity and texting, throw those factors in and things start to get interesting.

A local principal whom I very much admire was a Navy seal at one time.  I bet his current job is just about as demanding, in its way, as that duty was. When I was student teaching, I was an uptight prig who knew all the answers and looked down on those who didn't.  My partner was both mellow and balanced, manly and tender.  He was a principal for years before retirement.  He showed me a loving, calm, firm path into teaching, which lead to a wonderful life of steady fun.  A third principal once showed me a list of his responsibilities, three single spaced pages.  At the time, I was interested in provisions our schools made for spotting and nurturing extra-bright kids.  There on page three, among very different sorts of things he was supposed to be on top of at all times, was creating and guiding gifted education in that school.  

If you are looking for an example of sharp, lively people in your community, check the local school principals.  You will find some great people.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Services possibly needed

I have fantasized about some new services and occupations.  I don't actually know for sure that these are new.  They might be available now somewhere.  

1- I notice that older people who live alone, about 25% of men over the age of 75 and 49% of women over that age, might be able to use a little help in keeping track of their activities and their time.  Some aspects of such a task could be mechanized, computerized.  Over time, the sophistication and helpfulness of the software would rise.

For a start, I envision an agent for say, five dollars a month, who keeps a limited version of the client's schedule.  When a new event or appointment is scheduled, the service would enter into that client's schedule, check how much time such an addition would probably require, note the client's profile in terms of health, energy level, boredom level, and other such variables as included by the client.  If the event seems likely fit the demands of the schedule, fine.  If not, a warning email or automated phone call would advise the client to cancel or limit the new obligation.

Since I have frequent contact with great-grandchildren who represent the elementary school and pre-nursery school population, I can see the many, many things that parents provide at that age.  We also have frequent contact with 80- and 90-year olds and in general, no one seems knowledgeable and motivated to assist them in watching over the scheduling of their time.  If they had a secretary or personal assistant, that might not be true.  

Many interactions between humans and machines can benefit from at least some human oversight.  At least up to now, a human, especially with a little training and experience, might be able to sense a problem in a person's life that software or any cut-and-dried system, even with many contingencies, could not detect.  

Such an agent's responsibilities might split between a talented, intelligent and motivated high school or early college student and some sort of supervisor of more maturity and education.  Of course, assurances of one type or another would be needed for the security of the data possessed by the service.  Detailed information about finances, medical needs, and simple location information needs to be available only to trusted agents and not to thieves or muggers or others seeking to harm or exploit the clients.

2 and 3- A bit more radical service would attempt to improve marital relations by purchased and then enforced confinement of a couple who have lost the habit of actually paying attention to each other.  Similarly, purchased and carefully delineated beforehand, a service to confine a person desperate to lose weight to a highly controlled environment where a limited number of calories were provided for a week or so might be of interest.  Those who want to break a smoking, drinking or computer addiction might also be interested.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Motivation research

Teachers wonder why students don't do their homework and parents wonder why kids don't do their chores.  Employers wonder why workers spend hours fooling around on the internet and pets wonder why it takes so long for meals to arrive.  There are many people in the world who would like to get other people to do certain things.  When physicians prescribe medicines or exercises only to find the patient has not done what was prescribed, they classify the patient as "non-compliant".  Compliance is a big subject since no or partial compliance complicates the picture of what was done and what wasn't.  

Being a smoker or an alcoholic or a junkie is a problem for person as well as for society.  Poor diet and too little exercise costs society as well as individuals.  What can be done?

Motivation research attempts to find out.  The book "Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us" by Daniel Pink explains some of the insights gained.  Quite a few aspects of motivation show up in work done by W. Edwards Deming and others in the field of process improvement, especially manufacturing processes.

One of the frequently discussed aspects of adult motivation is the relatively low power of money as a motivator.  Having some autonomy and control over one's hours, activities and work environment can be more motivating than a bonus or a raise.  I have read of manufacturing plants where employees spent many extra hours at the plant working on a project of special interest to them, once they had sufficient control over the work.

The motivation interview book linked above discusses the need for someone trying to find the motivation to give up smoking or alcohol to get a personal grasp of the difference between what he or she is now and the state they desire to be in.  That difference or discrepancy, once firmly grasped and even articulated by the person interested in changing seems to be fundamental in motivating sufficiently to reach the goal.

In his recent Time cover article, Dr. Mehmet Oz finds that he is behaving exactly like his patients do, even though he consistently advises them to do differently.  Why?  He realizes that when one gets a strongly negative diagnosis, there is an immediate impact from the diagnosis itself, aside of the future and the medical condition.  Family and friends are strongly affected and that is why he and his patients are quiet about possibilities and slow to allow further investigation.

I applaud the work that aims at uncovering inner obstacles to realizing our goals of being better people and living better lives for ourselves and others.  I take comfort in the finding of Prochaska and his colleagues that those who try and fail are MORE likely to try again later and succeed.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Pink lenses, anyone?

To friend I respect:"Hi.  How are you?"

Friend:"Oh, can't complain."

Me: "Sure  you can.  Give it a try."

Friend: "Don't get me started!"

I was impressed at how immediately he moved from not thinking he was even able to complain to warning me of a flood of complaints waiting that could be released.  

I see all sorts of opinion and reports of evidence that positive thinking pays.  In fact, I guess there is good support for the idea that people who are depressed observe more accurately while those who are in a healthier state emotionally tend to put a bit of an optimistic twist to what they perceive and what they think. It is something of a shock in this age of science and attempts at accuracy to think that positive twists, even if less correct, might be superior for health and motivation to seeing clearly.

Actually, we never see all that clearly.  In philosophy of science, we heard of the idea that "Believing is seeing", or when you believe it, you see it.  When I was about five years old, I saw a flying sleigh and reindeer pulling it through the night sky on you-know-what-night.  The notion is that once you believe something exists, you can see it, or think you can.  I have not read "Robinson Crusoe" but I read of the moment when a ship finally appears on the horizon and Robinson recognizes it as a ship, of course, but the native Friday has not seen a ship and only sees that something is there.  I have read of reports that some New World natives had never seen a horse or a man mounted on one and were not sure what they looking at when they first saw a mounted Spanish soldier.  What was that creature?  Did it have more than one head and one pair of eyes?

Deepak Chopra and C.S. Lewis both write about the difference between what is and what we can see.  Vision experts know about the retina of the eye and its ability and limitations in rendering colors, fast moving and very slow moving objects and phenomena.  In psychophysics, we learned that each of the human senses has an upper and lower limit in its range.  However, there are sights, sounds, and smells that are too big or too small or too faint or too strong for us to perceive.  So, if we are basically in the dark all the time, why not make of the best story of it we can?

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Hot news!

Hot news! - no matter what I do, I will look worse.  I don't look all that great now.  I'm short and I have white and sparse hair.  I have something of a paunch.  I don't know of any way to get younger but I don't want to be.  I now have a clear road to deterioration-ville, sometimes simply referred to by us down-the-tubes-ites as "D-ville" We think of the D as also standing for death, disability, disintegration, downfall, and dust.

The two of us have taken an interest in AARP and other magazines and organizations that scout out people our age and older who appear to be rather young and active. We are searching for venture capital to fund a magazine that highlights people in their 50's who look like they are 90 years old but only if such persons consider their looks to be a special gift and achievement.  We detect a steady effort to admire youth and being young and are against it.  We are preparing a wrinkle cream that should be on the market soon and it will be the most effective wrinkle producer ever seen!

In our effort to start a pro-aging movement, we see that such a movement will be in accord with the aging obstacles we have already overcome.  We used to be too young for X-rated movies, for the consumption of alcohol, for a driver's license.  We overcame all of them and we can vote and marry.  We object to being told repeatedly that we are too young for this and too young for that and then suddenly being labeled "too old."  We demand consistent, reliable labeling!

We are tired of being so damned attractive!  We are searching for decrepitude and we intend to find it, acquire it and retain it.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Keep 'em coming!

I guess rather naively I thought that conversation, letters and email were back and forth.  My father asked why I didn't write to my mother more often.  I answered that I wrote back immediately after getting any letter or post card from Mom.  He said,"Just write, Son, keep writing.  Don't wait for her to write to you."

That was truly the first time I ever thought of just writing.  Of course!  Many people, including my mom, "don't know what to write about".  When asked why, they will often explain that nothing exciting happens in their life.  High school and college are supposed to be places where we learn how to write.  We read great poets, essayists and playwrights and see what moving words look like. Yet, just as most people do not seem to gain much of a habit of reading books from their higher schooling, neither do they get a habit of putting words together.  

It is somewhat like carpentry.  You have to build a collection of words that show visual and other details, feelings, ideas.  A good collection can be built on any subject but it does take a little attention.  Right where you are, you can see all sorts of things to write about.  Just reflecting on what has happened to you today, you will find events, puzzles, satisfying moments and irritations that can be a foundation for writing. Naturally, if I rescue a beautiful princess from a fiery dragon, it may well be the event I decide to write to Mom about.  

But I have learned from experience that the first step is to apply my bottom to a chair and my fingers to a keyboard.  Get those words flowing!  Each word, each thought elicits more.  The more I write, the faster and more easily I can weigh what comes to mind for value, interest, charm, surprise.  So, the more I write, the better I become at assembling a collection of words, at aiming for the interests of my audience, at making simple statements that ring true.  

I have found that repeated attempts at communication in any form are far more effective that a single try.  Sending some note and waiting hopefully for a positive reply is stacking the odds against myself.  Try it on a relative you wish you were closer to or someone you love or admire.  Send a note.  Expect no reply.  Get no reply.  Send another note.  Over time, my dad's idea showed itself to be right: just keep those letters coming.  Send them regularly and often for 6 months or a year.  Use them to track your life and to develop greater speed and ease expressing yourself.  You will benefit and so will those who receive your writing.

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety