"Matilda"

Last night we watched "Matilda."  Our greatgrandson had read the book by Roald Dahl and we had seen the movie before.  Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman are the worst parents and little Matilda's school principal is not only totally terrible but the worst school principal imaginable.  That is saying something but it is true.  

When we watched "Continental Drift" last week, much of my pleasure came from watching my greatgrandson.  Matilda is a bit more realistic movie with real actors instead of drawings.  The parents are so close-minded and the principal so filled with hatred of children that the story is not at all realistic, I dearly hope.

We follow Matilda from birth up to the age of second grade.  Most parents would notice the signs of extreme intelligence but not Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood.  When their baby, barely a toddler, spells out "Matilda" in well-formed letters in her spilled babyfood, they don't notice.  When Matilda repeatedly tells them that the car across the street is a pair of FBI agents keeping the cheating, businessman of a dad under surveillance, they don't listen.  They illegally keep their eager-for-schooling daughter out of school on the grounds that she is needed at home to sign for shipments of illegal auto parts that are delivered during the day.  Matilda is repeatedly told by Mr. Wormwood that she needs to obey him since "she is little and I am big and there is nothing you can do about it."

Enough time passes before Matilda is allowed to attend school, that by then, she has taught herself to read, has read all the children's books in the local library, where she goes alone each day and is reading Moby Dick when she admitted to the 2nd grade.  One look at Miss Honey and you know that Matilda fortunes have taken a turn for the better but meeting the principal Miss Trunchbull makes us fear for the child's safety, for all the children's safety.

Good and smart triumphs in the end but there are frightening twists and turns before this film shows us how.

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

Dishless

A woman is not a platter of food.  I know we use that expression: what a dish!  Biology, training, natural impulse and experiences can make it seem that measurements and hair style are foundational. But...

Wrinkled?  Flabby?  Tall?  Flat?  So what?  That's not the point.  

Can you see?  Can you talk?  Can you write?  Can you take pictures of beauty, quote good stuff, ask intelligent questions?  Can you comfort?  Can you applaud, celebrate, honor, appreciate?

Don't forget it is your voice!  Your emotional sensitivity and your ability to express emotion are what bring joy.  Your responsiveness to others, your vulnerability and openness electrify, not your bust or waist measurements.

Pick your favorite manly man and have him talk to a little kid he likes.  Listen carefully.  I find that he does not, indeed cannot, hit that upper C and move his face with the same speed and invitation that comes naturally to female humans.  Listen to him respond when there is good news on the phone and compare to a recording of your response, even when you have a headache.  You sound like an orchestra while he is a harmonica.  We place those ubiquitous sound tracks on videos for a reason: the sound, the voice highs and lows affect us all emotionally.

In many hetero-relationships, the woman takes over the worrying.  He comforts her not to worry, and comforts himself by doing so.  She is vulnerable to the goods and bads while he is too but can't feel it.  So, she is the emotional vault of them both.

There are always those cookies and casseroles you make that he "can't".

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

The cost of love

Some research has shown that having children is not always a happy thing.  After all, they can be trying and worrisome, at least at times.  I have not had a long term close relationship that did not involve children but I have experienced being a teacher and a parent.  Just as running a race or engaging in a competitive sport or game is not always fun, minute by minute, the overall result can be fun, satisfying, and leading to a sense of full contribution to life.

But, from a male point of view, having children is not at all the only factor in calculating love costs.  Prof. Judith Bardwick taught me more than 40 years ago that while a foundational fear among women is abandonment, among men, it is often suffocation.  Males experience the love of the mother with gratitude but usually have to "cut the apron strings" whether or not Mom wants them cut.  That orientation toward independence is often depicted as a journey to seek one's fortune in fairy tales.  Being alone, needing to compete for a place or a mate is often part of the male experience of other animals, too.

The health writer and physician Andrew Weil writes in one of his books that "Love = pain".  I think it does, in the sense that if you love someone, one of you will eventually die or leave and the pair will be separated.  Either or both of the lovers may be struck by pain and loss when that happens.  Still, to me, just as there is pain in emerging from our mother's body but it is needed and worth it if one wants to live, so loving is worthwhile if one wants a rich, full-spectrum life.

It reminds me of the taste of sweet.  When we are kids, sugar is queen.  Candy, ice cream, iced cakes, etc.  But the grown-upy taste of dry martinis, of olives, of dark chocolate, of various cheeses appeal in a way that the childish taste doesn't so much.  It is bittersweet to see your little darling go off to college, to see that he thinks more of the girl than he does of his mom nowadays.  Then, the music of life swells up and we hear the march of time and step right along with it.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Steel patience and silk/wool

I carry handy tools with me at all times.  The steel patience is spring-loaded and I can shoot out the blade in a microsecond.  It isn't a knife.  It's my steel patience tool.  I got it from Zen and it is very handy.  When it springs open, it releases my instant, unwavering patience.  I hear a strange sound and Zip!  I can freeze for quite a while, using my steel patience to remain unmoving and alert.

I find my mind wandering and Zip! My steel patience holds it still for as long as needed.  

I am waiting for the customer ahead of me to finish with the clerk.  Zip!  Just waiting, calmly, relaxed but focused, as long as needed.

Once my steel patience zips out, it quickly examines my body, especially face and feet, looking for tension.  After relaxing any tightness that it finds, it shifts my attention to my breath.  Slower, deeper breaths: in, in, in, in, hold, hold, out, out, out, out.  My steel patience holds me in balance, poised, breathing, existing, alert consciousness without agenda, needs or fears.  

Sometimes, I only use my silk/woolen patience.  The softer, cloth patience works better when I want to stay with another, in tune, and feeling their words and tone, and their mirth or pain.

What great instruments! I always keep them handy.

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

Indifference

A fine and insightful teacher that we admire said that she thought our greatgrandson would do well in junior high.  She predicted that he would meet any bullying or ridicule with "humor and indifference".  I was immediately struck by the phrase. What a great pair of tools!

I find that humor is excellent for increasing pleasure and diminishing pain.  My wife and I see many things differently but we are increasingly able to use humor to compare and contrast ourselves.  I personally find that I am a stitch inside my head.  I am five years old one minute and 55 the next.  My ego and basic drives depict me as a combination of Leonardo Da Vinci and Thomas Edison in the shape of Harrison Ford/Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Then I stumble on the carpet or can't find my keys and the committee of myself disappears in a puff.  Not to worry, my ego comes bouncing back with Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Stewart and John Kennedy.  What's not to laugh?

But indifference?  I hadn't thought much lately about that valuable tool.  I used to come across the word often while doing background reading in decision theory and related psychological and economic writing.  It is said that basically I like X, say tuna sandwiches, or I don't like X or I am indifferent to them.  Indifference is not especially promoted in our lives.  Ads are full of fake enthusiasm for this furnace over that or this car over that.  In order to let people into our heads and lives, we explain what we like and what we aren't so pleased with.  I have never tried asking my partner or my friends, "What are you indifferent about today?"  

I guess one would naturally supposed that liked things and disliked ones form a minority of the possibilities and all those things one doesn't know about would be good candidates for the indifference pile.  I took it as amazing that for virtually any topic, any proposal, any object, any idea, any person, I could quickly decide that I was attracted, favored it/them in some way, fancied it or did not.  If not, I was either in a sufficiently negative state that I could tell I disliked or I was in a balanced or ignorant state of indifference.  If I have never tasted tuna sandwiches, I may take a sort of automatic protective stance against what I don't know about or an indifferent one until I get further knowledge and reactions.

Indifference in humans seems related to independence in statistics and between variables.  When two variables are independent, a value on one does not affect the value on another.  When there is some sort of dependency or relationship, researchers are often happy.  Relationships may enable understanding or control of something they are studying.  However, independence is nice too, since the world is a little easier to understand if not all variables are related to all others.  They may actually be but in the time span of our lives and in terms of human needs and interests, the relations may be so weak or minimal that we can get along treating them as non-existent.

Indifference has been of interest to decision theorist ever since 1947, when von Neumann and Morgenstern tried to write axioms capturing rationality.  They thought that if I am indifferent between tuna sandwiches and ham sandwiches and indifferent between ham and chicken sandwiches, I had to be mathematically indifferent between tuna and chicken.  My choices do often follow that pattern but in some cases I am indifferent between A and B but not when the choices include a third choice, C.  When the context changes, my indifference may dissolve or weaken.  

I think schools and colleges should endeavor to increase indifference and the ability to create inner lack of interest.  A great many things in our country are rah-rah.  We are told that we just HAVE to care.  Our caring gets tired, stretched too thin.  A brighter future lies in the direction of more indifference.

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

To some of my favorite Moms

This from my friend from North Carolina in his weekly newsletter, Toward the Light

MOMS

Random answers from Elementary School kids when

asked about their moms:

*Why did God make mothers?

1. She's the only one who knows where the Scotch tape

is.

2. Mostly to clean house.

3. To help us out of there when we were getting born.

*What ingredients are mothers made of?

1. God made mothers out of clouds and angel hair and

everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.

2. They had to get their start from men's bones. Then

they mostly use string, I think.

*What kind of little girl was your mom?

1. My Mom has always been my Mom and none of that

other stuff.

2. I don't know because I wasn't there, but my guess

would be pretty bossy.

3. They say she used to be nice.

*What's the difference between moms and dads?

1. Moms work at work and work at home, and dads just

got to work at work.

2. Moms know how to talk to teachers without scaring

them.

3. Dads are taller and stronger, but moms have all the

real power 'cause that's who you got to ask if you want

to sleep over at your friend's.

*What does your mom do in her spare time?

1. Mothers don't do spare time.

2. To hear her tell it, pay bills all day.

* What would make your mom perfect?

1. On the inside she's already perfect. Outside, I think

some kind of plastic surgery.

2. Diet. You know, her hair. I'd diet, maybe blue.

* Why did God give you your mother and not some other

mom?

1. We're related.

2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people's

moms like me.

*Why did your mom marry your dad?

1. My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And

my Mom eats a lot.

2. She got too old to do anything else with him.

3. My grandma says that Mom didn't have her thinking

cap on

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

Love and compassion

C.S.Lewis wrote some good books and one of them is "The Four Loves", which he defines as Friendship, Affection, Eros, and Agape (the love of God for man).  He includes a chapter on love between humans and animals.

Eros is the focus of many discussions of love, as though that is the only sort there is.  It is the most important in a way, I guess, since it is related to the love that gives us life.  However, as one ages, other loves can be as important or more so.  In fact, all through life, the love from a parent or elder, from a sibling, for a child can be sustaining and powerful.  Many discussions of love put aside uses of the word that relate to inanimates, such as music or a poem or a book.

Buddhist discussions of meditation usually depict movement from awareness of one's mind, to observing one's mind and its passing contents, to awareness of other lives, to compassion for the state of existence, pain and joy that seem to be in others' lives.  Once one sees the lives of others and grasps the beauty, heroics, pain, fortitude and balance of them, love and admiration of others tends to follow.

The question of how to love can arise.  In the case of eros, nature has provided an easy-to-use avenue for most of us that brings both very strong pleasure and very strong union.  But in the case of our children, grandparents, neighbors  and many others, erotic pleasures are not appropriate or sometimes even possible.  There is steadily accumulating research on the subject of all types of love and how to do them best.  I like to keep an eye on scientists who seem level-headed and envelope-stretching at the same time. Prof. Barbara Fredrickson of the U of North Carolina is one of the researchers working on positive emotions and related subjects.  She just came out with "Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do, and Become."  She recently summarized some of the high points in this column. I am also interested in "Rewire Your Brain for Love: Creating Vibrant Relationships Using the Science of Mindfulness" by Marsha Lucas.

The question of the best ways to give and receive love remains.  Being nice, doing favors, listening with attention, understanding and remembering the statements made by someone you love are basic.  Giving the loved one attention, unbidden, is important.  I notice that many grandmothers try to have cookies or other goodies at the ready for grandchildren.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Apps

You may have heard the expression "There's an app for that!".  The idea is that whether you are trying to lose weight, scan a bar code, record a voiceover for a slide show or play a game, there is probably a short program for your iPhone or iPad that can do the job or assist you with it.  The big competitor these days to Apple in the applications or app race is the Google-based Android system for phones, computers and apps.  The Kindle Fire is in the Android family.

Yesterday, I attended an instructional session by Dr. Kristi Roth and the use of the iPad and apps that might be helpful to a teacher.  One of the most valuable things I learned was that an iPhone app will work on an iPad.  Since there are many more phone apps, that was interesting.  She said the iPhone apps are formulated graphically for the size of the iPhone but that didn't seem to be a problem.

The iPad and other tablets are indeed finding a place in many parts of our world.  Here is the Pope, using one and emphasizing to the church authorities that they need to know about and use the social media such as Facebook and Twitter.  At my meeting, I learned from a longtime friend that a 1 ½ year old became comfortable with the iPad in minutes and fell in love with a little game that she and a visitor played together on it.  The next day, the visitor got a phone call from the stressed mom asking what the name of that app was since the child wanted it badly on their own tablet.

I just learned this morning from Carl Zimmer, science writer, about this app for your phone.  It enables you to see in the background of the screen of your phone what is in front of you.  The app assists a walker who is texting to avoid open manholes and other pedestrian obstacles.

I am convinced that regular meditation practice enriches all aspects of life.  The ancients meditated by sitting still and concentrating on their breath so one certainly doesn't need an app or any equipment to meditate.  Still I was curious and searched through the iPad apps related to meditation.  The most interesting one was the Meditation Jar, similar to a snow globe.  One envisions the swirling bits to be worries and oughts. The app slowly settles them to the bottom of the jar.  Steady awake consciousness is comparable to that of a cat watching a mouse hole - alert and ready but relaxed.  Concentrating on the swirling, slowly settling bits is a good visual exercise and keeps the mind from falling into a story without your being aware of doing so.  
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Continental Drift

Back in the days that I remember fondly but vaguely, kids in schools spent lots of time with a wall map of the earth in front of them.  You were supposed to be paying attention to the teacher but the varied colors and shapes of countries and continents often took over your attention.  Especially the fit of the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa.  

I had heard that Alfred Wegener, a meteorologist, first proposed that the continents of Earth drift around but that since he was not a geologist, his ideas were not credited.  As usual, Wikipedia gives me much more to think about, such as the first statement of the idea being at least as early as 1596.  I watched part of Prof. John Renton's Great Course "Nature of Earth", an intro to geological processes and saw that the continents are dissolved a bit into the ocean and built back up a bit by them.  Coupled with tectonic plate movement, they drift a little, maybe 2 or 3 inches per year.

We like to have our great grandson over for an evening once a week.  Sometimes, things work out that we have time for a movie.  Yesterday, he picked the fourth cartoon movie in The Ice Age series.  I wasn't enthusiastic but I should have been.  It's called "Continental Drift" and is clever and engaging.

In the open, we see a quick cartoon version of the continents being formed from what is now called "Pangaea", the former single land mass of the Earth.  Of course, the geological processes take a seat several rows behind the more personal dramas of loss, separation, strife with bad guys.

One of the great pleasures in life is to catch a child you love in the moment of deep glee, that time when the child is overtaken by humor of a joke.  I saw this the evening before we flew out of a Texas airport.  We were watching "The Pink Panther."  Inspector Clouseau manages to drive a 2nd small van into the same swimming pool where his first submerged vehicle is just now being extracted.  When the boy realized the significance of the crane lifting out the first one, he was joyfully overcome with laughter.

In "Continental Drift", Grandma has not had a bath in years.  She falls into the ocean but says to family would-be rescuers, "Are you kidding?  This is great!  I haven't had a bath in years."  As she speaks, waves of ominous dirt spread out in the water from her.  A shark, twisted in death from her pollution rises to the surface.  All that happens in an instant and our guy was overtaken with intense reaction, gasping for air through his laughter.  Good to mix humor and geology.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Continental Drift

Back in the days that I remember fondly but vaguely, kids in schools spent lots of time with a wall map of the earth in front of them.  You were supposed to be paying attention to the teacher but the varied colors and shapes of countries and continents often took over your attention.  Especially the fit of the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa.  

I had heard that Alfred Wegener, a meteorologist, first proposed that the continents of Earth drift around but that since he was not a geologist, his ideas were not credited.  As usual, Wikipedia gives me much more to think about, such as the first statement of the idea being at least as early as 1596.  I watched part of Prof. John Renton's Great Course "Nature of Earth", an intro to geological processes and saw that the continents are dissolved a bit into the ocean and built back up a bit by them.  Coupled with tectonic plate movement, they drift a little, maybe 2 or 3 inches per year.

We like to have our great grandson over for an evening once a week.  Sometimes, things work out that we have time for a movie.  Yesterday, he picked the fourth cartoon movie in The Ice Age series.  I wasn't enthusiastic but I should have been.  It's called "Continental Drift" and is clever and engaging.

In the open, we see a quick cartoon version of the continents being formed from what is now called "Pangaea", the former single land mass of the Earth.  Of course, the geological processes take a seat several rows behind the more personal dramas of loss, separation, strife with bad guys.

One of the great pleasures in life is to catch a child you love in the moment of deep glee, that time when the child is overtaken by humor of a joke.  I saw this the evening before we flew out of a Texas airport.  We were watching "The Pink Panther."  Inspector Clouseau manages to drive a 2nd small van into the same swimming pool where his first submerged vehicle is just now being extracted.  When the boy realized the significance of the crane lifting out the first one, he was joyfully overcome with laughter.

In "Continental Drift", Grandma has not had a bath in years.  She falls into the ocean but says to family would-be rescuers, "Are you kidding?  This is great!  I haven't had a bath in years."  As she speaks, waves of ominous dirt spread out in the water from her.  A shark, twisted in death from her pollution rises to the surface.  All that happens in an instant and our guy was overtaken with intense reaction, gasping for air through his laughter.  Good to mix humor and geology.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Streams

Having been away for a while, I missed out on checking various streams.  Newspapers, blog posts, tv programs and more.  There is no way to "catch up", just as there is no way for me to live the days that have gone by in Costa Rica since I left that country.  David Weinberger has written "Too Big to Know" and he discusses the internet and all the topics and issues that can be found on it.  But there are other streams in our lives that are also too big to know.  They continue to flow on and we can only sample some of them after the fact and some we can't even do that.

When relatives get together at Christmas, we realize that hours and days, issues and achievements and disappointments have appeared in the lives of others that we didn't know about and weren't around to experience.  These days, there are many other streams: Twitter comments, email, Facebook, new books.  I try to keep an eye on "To The Best of Our Knowledge" and TED Talks.  Both are sources of good information and indicators of what is happening in the world.  I could probably find archives of "To The Best of Our Knowledge" and I can definitely see the 5 or 10 books they have recently talked about.  I can spend an afternoon or more watching TED on my computer or tv, but I have to settle for missing out on some good ones.

I got a iPad-mini for Christmas and I know there are more than a quarter million apps.  I am interested in trying to get to know some of them.  I am interested in something that keeps track of my attention and tells me when it fades or moves.  I have looked through about 500 games and apps but haven't found anything that fits the bill.

TED talks, TTBOOK (To the Best of our Knowledge) interviews and apps are ongoing streams that can be sampled.  They remind me of an orchard where the fruit is steadily growing.  I can wander through and pick some of the best that is ripe.  It would not surprise me to find that I missed something that was delicious.  There are just too many streams, too many orchards for a complete harvest.

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

Fwd: Bill Kirby (@olderkirby) shared a Tweet with you!

When thinking about American schools, it is smart to take all info with a grain of salt, especially that which is based on tests.

Bill

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Twitter <s-byqrexveol=tznvy.pbz-ddf93@postmaster.twitter.com>
Date: Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 1:54 PM
Subject: Bill Kirby (@olderkirby) shared a Tweet with you!
To: Bill Kirby <olderkirby@gmail.com>

Bill Kirby shared a Tweet with you:               The Atlantic @TheAtlantic Why gloomy pundits and politicians are wrong about America's education system theatln.tc/WFZJPg   12:00 PM - 22 Jan 13   Reply Retweet Favorite             View Tweets from Bill Kirby. Visit @olderkirby's profile           If you believe Bill Kirby is engaging in abusive behavior on Twitter, you may report Bill Kirby for spam. Forgot your Twitter password? Get instructions on how to reset it. You can also unsubscribe if you'd prefer not to receive emails when other people share Tweets with you. Need help? If you received this message in error and did not sign up for Twitter, click not my account. Twitter, Inc. 1355 Market St., Suite 900 San Francisco, CA 94103

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

Quite cold

Right now, it is -5° F but the wind chill is -20.  Such information is usually accompanied by the tag that at such a temperature, bare flesh will freeze in X number of minutes.  

I have read recently that a human body gives off around 100 watts of heat.  Of course, our body temperature is usually around 100 degrees and as Robert Heinlein helped me remember, we will be warm if we can trap the heat.  So, clothes, including hats, scarves and gloves, graduating to mittens and even gloves inside of mittens.  

I recently listened to Martin Cruz Smith's "Polar Star", narrated by Frank Muller.  The hero is Arkady Renko, who wound up on the Polar Star, a Soviet era fishing boat.  As often happens to Arkady, he developed enemies who wanted him dead but didn't want responsibility for his death.  They shoved him inside a fish locker, where the temperature was -40 and locked the door.  It was in a remote part of the ship and was extremely well insulated.  You don't have to worry too much but the description of his body's reaction to the trial emphasizes that Garrison Keillor is right: Nature tries to kill us each winter.  

I suppose "tries to kill us" is personification.  Conditions just emerge that are deadly if mishandled but I don't think there is a conscious attempt to steal our heat unto death, just an unconscious one.  Despite the distinction, it is still cold and attention is called for.

I made a new friend recently who was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba.  That city is a little north of the northern border of the US and is the one I was warned about when seeking a post-grad school job.  At the American Ed. Research Assn. convention, the job table included a position in Winnipeg.  I began talking to the recruiter who told me I would think it was very cold there.  Right now, that city of ¾ of a million has an outdoor temperature of -18° and a windchill of -35° F.  

One thing I found with deeper cold, say below zero Fahrenheit, is that once it gets cold, it doesn't matter much if it gets colder.  That is not strictly true.  Once, western Wisconsin experienced -54° and that was cold enough to interfere with methane gas flow from farm storage tanks to homes and barns.  Still, for the body, serious cold is all that matters and exactly what the thermometer says isn't too important.  Of course, in the Arctic seas or just on a lake, falling into water which is very cold is a different danger.  The cold water soaks up our essential heat very quickly.

I broke through the ice on a stream once, submerging my ski.  I stood on the ice a couple of years later and broke through again, right in front of my primary school great-grandson.  That second time, I was immediately chest deep in flowing, frigid water.  Both times, I was near my car and was highly motivated to get us in and home fast.  No damage either time, but I am staying off the ice these days.  It's better for my cellphone.

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

Self: Growing, changing, emerging, missing

If I say I like broccoli and you give me some, you might feel annoyed if I say I have changed my mind.  "I used to like broccoli but now I don't" or "I only like broccoli sometimes and this isn't one of those times."  If I am too fickle and changeable, it will be hard to know me and be my friend.  

That is true for me, too.  If I can't tell if I like broccoli, if I have to take some and taste it to see how I like it each time, I will add to my decision burdens.  If that condition also pertains to too many other aspects of my life, I will be overburdened and confused.  So, it is easier to just permanently decide that I like this and not that.  I like cheese sticks but I notice that sometimes they are really delicious and sometimes they actually taste pretty bad.

My parents owned a confectionary store when I was a kid.  I liked candy very much and felt I was in heaven looking at all the types just waiting for me to eat.  They gave me my first allowance of a dollar a week.  I spent the whole dollar on my favorite candy, candy corn.  Double yum!  I quickly ate the whole box.  Double yuck!  I haven't liked candy corn one bit since then and that was about 66 years ago.  

For self-respect and some feeling of continuity,, I have consistently maintained that I don't like candy corn.  During that long time since my overdose, I might have been able to enjoy it once again.  But it has been easier to simply hold to the image of myself as a candy-corn-disliking kind of guy.

I don't want to think that I don't know myself but actually in some ways, I don't.  I have never seen my liver or my brain.  I don't know very much about my elbow or my shoulder.  I don't know what I can remember and I don't know how to test or see all my memories.  I don't know how accurate they are.  Truthfully, I can't remember much of what I thought yesterday or how much of that I agree with today.

The Buddha famously concluded that there is no self.  I can see that no part of me is what I call the self but every time I look in the mirror, the person I see looks much like the person I saw on my last visit to the silvered glass.  Other people treat me as a continuation of the person they knew.  And of course, I feel that I am a steady presence even though I can remember that I once liked Lone Ranger and The Shadow on radio but am not now interested in listening to them.

I seem to spend pretty much time and energy trying to be consistent to some degree and yet open to change and novelty to some degree, too.  I don't know where I get the idea that I should perform that balancing act.  It just comes naturally but not easily.  I do make mistakes.  I think it will be fun to be with someone and it isn't.  I take up a book I started with pleasure but now, I am not in the mood.  

Heraclitus said long ago that no one can step into the same river twice, since the water flows along and changes.  Buckminster Fuller wrote the book "I Seem to Be a Verb".  Yes, I am a process, with some continuity and some changes.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Miscellaneous topics

White print on black background - a friend reports that her extreme difficulties with reading are much less than usual if she uses the Kindle Fire and iPad option of converting black print on white background to white on black background.  We are both surprised to find this improvement.  I haven't heard if her doctors are also surprised. I did read that the older computers, such as the Apple IIe, used less energy showing lit letters on a green background since only the letters used light and the rest of the page did not.

Feedback v. punishment - the case of speed reading signs  -Teachers, coaches and those of us who want to improve ourselves in one way or another are interested in motivation.  Punishment or loss of points or some penalty is often assumed to the the main way humans can modify their habits.  However, a good article in Wired magazine examined the speed signs that read your speed and post it just below a sign of what the speed limit at that point is.  All over, a better compliance rate is being observed with those signs that is the case with an officer pulling drivers over and giving them tickets.  Sometimes, good feedback, such as showing your current speed and what it ought to be, is more effective, and notably less expensive, than some official punishment.

"Just a few words very quickly" - I have a personal dread of hearing these words from a speaker or teacher.  It almost always turns out that far more than just a few words are spoken afterwards, and not especially quickly.  Often, people who care the most about their message and their audience seem unable to focus on the important part of what they want to say and say that, clearly and once.  

Micro-examination of speech, learning, emotional reactions, etc. - Daniel Kahneman's book "Thinking: Fast and Slow" makes the valuable distinction between the gut reaction which is often nearly immediate and the more complete but slower deliberate thinking our brains are capable of. The Buddhists often emphasize that desires are transitory.  You really want a cheeseburger but you restrain yourself for dietary or some reason and later find that you forgot all about that craving.  When I am keyed into careful observation of myself, it is fun to try to catch the moment when the craving vanishes.  The minute examination of my feelings and thoughts as they whiz by can be very entertaining, ironic and even downright funny.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety

Costa Rica visit

We went to Costa Rica on our first visit to that country.  I looked up some info beforehand and found that the nation abolished its army in 1948, that the average income is $11,000 a year, that the health care system costs less and is rated by some as better than the US system.  I learned that the country has a woman president but was told that her time in office has not been good and that "everyone took advantage of her."  The country has been rated as the best in the world for being green and ecologically conscientious.

We landed in San Jose and took a boat ride to Tortuguero ("full of turtles").  I felt like Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen.  We saw monkeys in trees, crocodiles, and many birds.  The most exciting bird for me during the whole time in Costa Rica was the scarlet macaw.  We didn't see these birds until later, on the Pacific coast.  As one member of our group said, looking at that bird in a tree just above your head sure lets you know you are in Costa Rica.  We saw a sloth in a tree just above our heads.  It was moving in its slow-motion way and was another sight I had never seen before.

From what I saw, most houses are smaller than American ones.  We didn't get inside any private home but the people seemed reasonably happy with their houses. We did experience plenty of rain and our visit was during the dry season.  I feel I may have a better appreciation of what the rainy season is actually like.

I had my first experience going down a zip line.  It consisted of 14 lines, each descended hanging in several safety belts from a pulley and zipping down to the next station.  We were told that our speed was about 20-30 miles an hour.  It got less scary after a little while and I recommend the experience.

We paddled kayaks down a river, and large 6-person outrigger canoes in the Pacific Ocean, near the shore.  We visited a coffee plantation and a pineapple plantation.  Those who pick the coffee beans and care for the pineapples do hard work.

We had good food but a little more beans and rice and fresh fruit than we could comfortably handle.

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

Back from Costa Rica

Got back in time for bed after a long day.  Tell you about it later.  We had a very good time.

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

Picture test for Sandy

Just put this up for Sandy.

Developing my quieting reflex

My busy friend said that he meditates for about 30 seconds, several times a day.  I immediately thought of the book "QR: The Quieting Reflex" by Charles Stroebel, MD.  I got a copy to give to the busy guy but decided to actually read through the book first.  I had read some of it before.  The main thing that caught my eye was the blurb on the cover of the 1982 book that it was about a 6 second technique.

Six seconds is just the amount of time that I read long ago to be the period German researchers had found was needed in isometric muscle building.  Hold a muscle as tight as possible for 6 seconds a day, they concluded, and that muscle will get stronger. I had found on my own that practicing relaxation at odd moments, such as when waiting for a traffic light to change or for my phone call to be answered, increased the chance that deep relaxing of tense muscles would come easily and quickly to mind.  Six seconds is a brief enough time that many things can be tried for that long without making a big, even a detectable, deal of it.  

The book is one of those out-of-print jobs that is offered at a price over $100.00 right beside another offer of $2.99. That always makes me laugh.  The selection and prices are better on Barnes and Noble used books and other markets than on Amazon, for this title.

Dr. Stroebel is a physician and the child of a Mayo Clinic physician.  He is a psychiatrist and was aware of efforts such as Transcendental Meditation to organize and somewhat simplify and secularize meditational practices for psychological and physical health.  The book contains a useful summary of many different movements since 1900.  As with Herbert Benson's approach, he summarizes efforts to assist in lowering stress.

As you may know, some members of the Society of Friends, known as the Quakers, have arrived at a religious practice which is similar in some ways to Buddhist meditation.  Through quite independent paths, all religions have arrived at the value for some of sitting quietly and still and seeing where one is in life.  Variations of the practice, in non-religious form, are now found in business, education, athletics, military training and medicine.  My interest is in the attention training aspect that tends to increase my awareness of what I am thinking about.  I develop a better ability to notice what is occupying my mind and whether I am facing full on the aspects of my life that are wonderful or horrible.

The bottom line seems to me to be the frequent practice of scanning the body for tension while focusing the eyes on a single spot, checking where I am and what I am about.  I don't feel that I need much training or equipment to do the practice, which can take Stroebel's 6 seconds, the Google engineer Chade-Meng Tan's 2 minutes, Victor Davich's 8 minutes, Herbert Benson's 10 minutes or B. Alan Wallace's 24 minutes.  I just need to do it several times a week.

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