Sharing

I often heard that sharing was good.  I thought sharing meant letting others use my toys and stuff and not hogging them for myself.  I pictured myself as the loaner or giver and somebody, usually somebody I liked, as the temporary recipient of what was being shared.  But now in older years, I find that I am the one who wants to share.  I hear a clever comment or read a good anecdote but it isn't really clever or good until I have shared it.  

Of course, I try to limited sharing.  For one thing, it takes energy.  I have to go and impose myself on a busy wife or friends or the already engaged public.  I don't care very much who they are or what they are doing.  I am pretty sure the idea, the comment, the book title, the story, the gossip I have is going to wow them, make them pleased to be alive and happy to have been the recipient of my sharing.

Notice that what I share tends to be something to hear or read, not to eat or spend.  I am not that generous.  I try to be Quaker-ish and silent-ish until I feel pretty sure that what I have to relate or show will indeed enrich the life, or at least, the day of my victim friend.  I used to repeat the semi-polite phrase "I may have already told you this", not being brave enough to actually ask them to stop me if they had heard my charming, memorable comment before. I try to speak rapidly so my revelation will be completed before they recognize the story and to my credit, no one has said "This is the 14th time you have weighed me down with this damned story" or any similar comment yet.  That day may be coming.

I see now that I owe my wife, my relatives, my friends and the owners of the 42,000 sets of eyes that have viewed these blog pages.  Each time she stops and listens to my amazing news, the wonderful Billy Collins poem, the funny joke, she has given me a gift of her attention.  So have you if you have read this far.  Thanks very much.  You have done me valuable favors and you have enriched my life.

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

What I think she should try

One day in about 1986 or '87, I discovered that my campus could connect  me from a given room on campus to one or more classrooms in schools 35 and 90 miles north of us.  This was a big deal since I was teaching teachers in courses which gave them salary raises and gave them new enthusiasms for their jobs. However, their days are such that they teach for a full day and then come to class.  Finding that they could go to another room right in their building instead of a long drive over icy roads dodging deer and other dangers saved money and their energy.  I was getting into what is sometime called "distance education".

I have a doctorate in research methods in education but I don't need an advanced degree to know that after teaching a whole day, with all the ups and downs of unexpected challenges and changes, less driving and getting home more quickly while driving more safely was a good thing.  That day lead to nearly 20 years of working in front of tv cameras, getting and sending student email and writing web pages they could use to learn and to show their knowledge to me.

Google has now created Hangouts, which can connect people in video calls.  In fact, up to 9 people from anywhere on the internet can all participate in a call at the same time.  What this means in my view is that she should take her practice and her activities and add a "distance meditation" branch to it.

The essence of meditation benefits is greater self-awareness.  Meditation, in the sense I am using it, means doing something with the mind that magnifies the way it is behaving so that when the mind wanders or changes what is being focused on, the wandering is highlighted.  If the wandering is highlighted, emphasized in some way, at the time it begins, the mind can be brought back to the desired focus.  This training vastly increases awareness of what one is doing with one's mind all through the day.  It vastly increases the chance that we can notice what we are doing, what we want in all our various channels of want and allows us to have more useful conferences with ourselves over what to do with our time and energy.

I have experienced all sorts of complaints over distance ed not being the same as a face-to-face classroom.  Right, it isn't the same and in some ways it is inferior to being on a solitary walk with a great teacher.  But in some ways, it is way better.  Try it, test it and you will find quite a few benefits, many not at all hidden. In the same way, she will experience all sorts of internal and external complaints over distance meditation:

"It ain't the same….

"It's a joke…

etc.

Still, this is what I think she should try.

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

Little by little, with gratitude

It is a very windy, overcast day.  It is cold.  Temperature is 39° but it feels like 26!!  The 21 mile an hour wind is just doing its job, cooling things down and I am just doing mine, complaining.  However, we are making progress.  Our snow is gone.  The plants and animals do need the moisture.  A variety of birds have visited the new bird feeders, which provide an assortment of mealworms, suet, sunflower seeds and thistle seeds.  The robins have been back for nearly a month.  They came back early enough to be hampered and challenged not only by snow on the ground but by snowfall, twice!  We still don't have leaves on the trees and we don't have daffodils but we DO have a flower, several honest-to-God flowers!

I know.  The surrounding ground does not look inviting.  It is not a golf green but we are still very happy to have bare ground instead of snow cover, green shoots including tulips and live, genuine, uneaten-by-rabbits flowers.  We are thankful.

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

More of that nourishing downpour

Mark Nepo's "Book of Awakening" helps set a good tone for each day.  It is one of those books with a message for each day of the year, but unlike some of them, the messages are helpful, and create a harmonious beginning.  With a beginning that resonates with me, my surroundings, my thoughts and the world I am in, I am pretty well set to see the good fortunes in a day and to deal constructively with the downsides.

Karen Maezen Miller's "Paradise in Plain Sight" is like her previous excellent books but this one may be better.  "Momma Zen" and "Hand Wash Cold" are full of clear language that shines a spotlight on aspects of motherhood, parenthood and marriage that are clearly platforms just waiting for us to see, and do and love and be loved. 

"Paradise in Plain Sight" is one of those books that stops me over each sentence or two.  So resonant, the echoes harmonizing with each other that the sounds of the words and the taste of the images require a pause at each step.  My background mind keeps interrupting the flow: "Yeah!"  "Exactly!"  "Hey, that's right!  I have a back yard, too! I can feel that way, too!"

She pulls back the curtain of her life on just those scenes, at the very moment that gives me a gift of her life and her mind, only to show me gifts in my own life and my own mind.  She says her book is about seeing what is in plain sight and it certainly is but she leads the reader to being better able to use what he sees.

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

Books and events fall from the sky

Rain can be a wonderful thing.  Plant life and our lives depend on fresh water.  In some places and under typical circumstances, rain falls from the sky for free.

But rain can be a miserable thing.  It and the color of sky and lighting that comes with rain can be depressing.  Floods kill and destroy.

So, which is it: rain is "good" or rain is "bad"?.  Both, depending on what has been happening in our lives.

Just like rain, these days books fall from the sky.  Invisibly, surprising, unbelievably.  I wish everyone would grasp the fact that they do.  If you have a computer, you can download free software that enables you to read a Kindle book from Amazon to your computer and read the book then and there.  If you don't like Amazon, you can do the same thing with Barnes and Noble's Nook or with Google Play. Smartphones and tablets like iPad can do the same thing, as of course, can e-readers such as the various Kindle models themselves.

We watched "Magic Beyond Words", the story of J.K. Rowling's life the other night.  My friend told me that "The Casual Vacancy" by this young woman was a good story but I saw that the ratings of her book written under a pseudonym were higher, so now we are several chapters into "The Cuckoo's Calling" by "Robert Galbraith", which we got from the sky last night.

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

Learning to walk in the dark with faith

We learned about Barbara Brown Taylor's "Leaving Church" and saw very high praise and critical reaction, both popular and by specialists.  I read it aloud while Lynn did her jigsaw puzzle.  Almost at the time we finished that book, Elizabeth Dias authored the cover story on Time magazine about the woman, her ascent as a Christian preacher and author.  Taylor teaches religion at Piedmont College and has several books on various religious subjects.

Many of my friends are atheists, some might be described as "unchurched" or agnostics.  Some are Catholics, some Protestants.  Some seem strongly repelled by religion or religious language.  Personally, I don't like what I consider religious bullying or pressuring, even when someone is doing the bullying or pressuring for the sake of saving "souls". I have lots of respect for the other tasks religions try to accomplish: trying to help people to a good and moral life of joy,love, compassion and kindness.  So, I respect all religions and those who practice them, with a few conditions or limitations.

Meanwhile, somewhere I read about Jack Kornfield, Elisha Goldstein and Sharon Salzburg and their efforts to expand familiarity and use of Buddhist concepts in the US.  I think the book "Bringing Home the Dharma" by Kornfield was my main source.  I have read a considerable amount of Kornfield but only a little of Goldstein.  I thought it was time for me to try to get some familiarity with Salzburg so I have begun her book "Faith". 

Both of these women have a great deal of value in what they say.  Both of them are in their 60's so they are old enough to know life and themselves.  You can look on Twitter (@olderkirby) in my tweets to see several from the early parts of each book.  You can also find me and comments on those books on kindle.amazon.com

Brown Taylor emphasizes what she calls the value of darkness, as mentioned in the title "Learning to Walk in the Dark".  She says it is ok to seek enLIGHTenment but it is also wise to seek enDARKment.  She notes that religion and philosophy use seeking the light, looking for light, asking for light as images and goals.  Buddhism starts with the premise "Life is suffering", that suffering of all sort is logically and totally unavoidable so seeking too rigorously to avoid all suffering is futile.  Taylor takes the position that there is value in the dark and that one can learn to find and appreciate that value.

Salzburg emphasizes that like St. Paul, the Buddha asked people to test his ideas, to put them to the test and check them out.  She explains how faith that emerges from carefully and rigorously questioned doctrine, beliefs and ideas tends to be stronger and better grounded than that which tries or is commanded to simply accept and obey.

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

Dr. Anastasi and loveology

This man has been my model since my 20's.  Part of me is a bean counter, an auditor, the person who expects trouble and suspects all possible sources of hatching some. When I went to college, I was in the grip of fervor.  By Heaven, I was determined, super-determined, ultra-determined to learn, really learn, every crumb of stuff needed to be a good teacher.  No, a great teacher!  In fact, THE FINEST TEACHER EVER!  EVER! EVER, EVER!

I had no idea at all that a more relaxed, loving stance might be more effective.  I was gung-ho, rah-rah, really ready to hit 'em hard.  I had no idea that they might not want to be hit hard.  That maybe more silence, more open-eyed, sympathetic seeing might be more effective, more productive, more helpful.  I seized on every word uttered and written, looking for evidence, for logic, for verification, for tight theory and clever concepts.  Meanwhile Bob was smiling, appreciating, radiating calm and common sense, glowing with friendliness and approachability.

He does fewer layups and lacrosse body checks these days but he still radiates love, appreciation,  He still points out the connection between love and service and joy and I am still learning from the man.  Thank you, Dr. A!

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

Joyology

My wife's smile

My wife's voice

Sunlight

Comfortable shoes

A glass of wine

A Manhattan

A good sentence

An arresting photograph

A piece of ripe, fresh pineapple

Seeing that the stain came out

Spotting a rare bird

Van Cliburn's 4th piano concerto by Beethoven

A deep breath, followed by another deep breath

A good pear

A good pair

My car starting

My car stopping

A good audio book playing while I am driving

That girl with the beautiful skin

That guy's muscles

Getting bills paid

Family laughter

First sip of coffee

Finding that I can do it on the computer

Finding that I can do it on the iPad

Blue sky

Warm breeze

Hot shower

Seeing the cleaned-out drawer, closet, shelf, room

That jump shot

The way the table looks 1 second before dishes are passed

Having that teacher, that doctor

Not having that teacher, that doctor

Getting rid of that cold

A good rain

Coffee ice cream

Tiramisu

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

Scrutiny today

Because of the time in history and the place we are living, the nature of scrutiny seems changed.  The change may just be in me.  I may have a more complete grasp of the difference between casual business, serious business and really serious business.  With casual business, you order a hamburger and fries and you get a hamburger and fries.  This tends to be what happens when you stop at Jim's Hamburgers and Fries at the outskirt of a small but comfortable town in an off hour, maybe after the lunch crowd has gone and before the high school crowd and the evening crowd begins.

You get into serious business when you order a hamburger and fries at McDonald's.  No experienced customer would stand at the order counter and ask for a hamburger and fries.  A garden burger?  A crispy burger?  Maybe a jalapeno burger?  Do you want lettuce and tomato?  How about the bun?  Want a bun?  Whole wheat?  Spicy bun?  Warm bun?  How about an oat bun?  Gluten free bun?  This is serious business but not really serious.

Really serious brings in science, several sciences, in fact.  Forensic, marketing, political, legal, financial, culinary sciences come in on the ground floor but we can go much higher.  Do you want gloves to protect your food from your hands and their germs?  Do you want organic food?  East coast organic, Mid-west or West coast organic?  Do you want priority service?  We can break into the service line and have your meal given a higher priority for a very low fee.  How about an insurance policy to protect you against loss, such as food stains on your nice clothes, being burned by overly hot foods, medical difficulty from food-borne germs?  Is this to go or to be eaten here?  Would you like paper or foam plates and cups?  Paper or re-useable napkins?

We can provide you with a memorable ordering experience but the actual food will take a while.  We take our ordering experience very seriously and try to provide you with a full set of options when you order.  Customer satisfaction is very important to us.  Can we ask you to fill out a short customer satisfaction survey for us?

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

Raking done

When snow covers the ground, trash and dirt can get covered up and mixed into it.  Then, along comes another layer of white and all looks clean and neat.  But then, the snow all melts and plenty of mess, junk, road sand (for traction) and other oddities are revealed.  This was a harsher winter than lately and there were plenty of chances for trash and junk to accumulate.

As the snow melts, while people are thinking about changing into lighter weight jackets, or Heavens!  No jacket!  No gloves!  While that is happening, much stronger and more organized forces are at work.  You usually have to purposely examine the ground closely to see little green shoots here and there.  The ground plants are faster to start up than are our trees.  The outside temperature is 51° right now but the only green on trees are the needles on the evergreens.

The oaks and maples are just as starkly bare as ever.  They will not be fooled into premature leafing.  We usually use the trio of robins, daffodils and green leaves as signs of actually being in the midst of spring.  Today ends the first third of spring but still no sign of leaves on the deciduous trees.  By another month, we will have some leaves but maybe not the complete set even then.

Raking the entire lawn and grounds is a spring ritual.  Doing that gives us a chance to collect beer cans loaned to us by passing cars.  I have a tendency to blame teens for them but it just might be grumpy senior citizens or roving packs of single moms.  We have sometimes paid a crew of five to seven men to cut the stalks of last year's wild prairie plants, dethatch and rake the lawns and remove all the cuttings and stalks.  This year, two energetic high school students did an excellent job with several machines and good skills.

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

Elder or senior citizen or old

When I write about people older than, let's say, 50, I tend to use the term "senior citizen" for such a person.  The large and well-known organization usually called "AARP" uses the word "retired".  The English word "elder", both as an adjective (the elder brother) and as a noun (I am a village elder), is sometimes used as a verb to mean give advice from an elderly perspective: the old citizen decided it was time to elder him.

The first time I heard of "young old" and "old old" people was when my wife was discussing the book "Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders" by Mary Pipher.  As relatives and friends age, they sometimes wonder at what age are we old?  There is no single number that I know of that marks the old off from other ages.  Pipher made the useful distinction between those with fewer years and fewer lessened or lost faculties and those with more years and more lost or lessened faculties.

On a side note: I just finished reading through Bart Kosko's "Fuzzy Thinking: The New Science of Fuzzy Logic".  I know that in my world of legal, scientific and argumentative thinking, people have a habit of asking for clarification of terms.  "What do you mean by 'old'?"  Sometimes, it is easier to just leave terms undefined, or vague or to refer to what has sometimes been called 'common sense'.  These are the sort of times when my mother would impatiently snarl,"You know what I am talking about!"

I have heard that the name "Elderhostel" was found to have too strong a connotation of senility or decrepitude so the organization tried using "Road Scholar" where it could.  My four year old greatgrandson can see that I am old, pure and simple.  Look at me: white hair, wrinkly cheeks - old.  

I find 'elder' a rarer word that is still understood by most and it is a single word as opposed to "senior citizen".  On and near college campuses and high schools, "seniors" mean young people about to leave school, not people in their 50's, 60's and on up.  Still, 'senior citizen' brings to mind someone aware of citizenship and political life, still a tax payer and a person who can often be relied on to have opinions, lots of them.

I have mentioned the Swedish statistician and medical researcher, Hans Rosling, before.  He emphasizes that the world as a whole is changing and pictures many people carry in their heads about life around the world are outdated.

Happy Easter!  Happy Spring!

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

Fwd: Cool science: A "starshade" to help search for planets

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: This week on TED.com <no-reply@ted.com>
Date: Sat, Apr 19, 2014 at 9:14 AM
Subject: Cool science: A "starshade" to help search for planets
To: olderkirby@gmail.com

Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser

This week on TED.com April 19, 2014

Talk of the week Jeremy Kasdin: The flower-shaped starshade that might help us detect Earth-like planets ​Don't forget there are some excellent TED talks on your computer, tablet, smart phone or smart tv.​ 06:38 minutes · Filmed Mar 2014 · Posted Apr 2014 · TED2014 Astronomers believe that every star in the galaxy has a planet, one fifth of which might harbor life. Only we haven't seen any of them -- yet. Jeremy Kasdin and his team are looking to change that with the design and engineering of an extraordinary piece of equipment: a flower petal-shaped "starshade" that allows a telescope to photograph planets from 50,000 kilometers away. It is, he says, the "coolest possible science." Watch now »

Playlist of the week On parenting (10 talks) Kids don't come with a manual ... but these talks on the complexities of parenthood offer insight and hard-won advice. Watch » Total run time 2:29:17

More from TED.com The parenting section of the bookstore is overwhelming—it's "a giant, candy-colored monument to our collective panic," as writer Jennifer Senior puts it. Why is parenthood filled with so much anxiety? Because the goal of modern, middle-class parents—to raise happy children—is so elusive. In this honest talk, she offers some kinder and more achievable aims. Watch » Puberty is an awkward time for just about everybody, but for transgender teens it can be a nightmare, as they grow overnight into bodies they aren't comfortable with. In a heartfelt talk, endocrinologist Norman Spack tells a personal story of how he became one of the few doctors in the US to treat minors with hormone replacement therapy. By staving off the effects of puberty, Spack gives trans teens the time they need. Watch » Pick up a book, magazine or screen, and more than likely you'll come across some typography designed by Matthew Carter. In this charming talk, the man behind typefaces such as Verdana, Georgia and Bell Centennial (designed just for phone books -- remember them?), takes us on a spin through a career focused on the very last pixel of each letter of a font. Watch » Within each of us are two selves, suggests David Brooks in this meditative short talk: the self who craves success, who builds a résumé, and the self who seeks connection, community, love -- the values that make for a great eulogy. (Joseph Soloveitchik has called these selves "Adam I" and "Adam II.") Brooks asks: Can we balance these two selves? Watch »

Dive into ideas from TED On the TED Blog: A $5 million challenge to help more people graduate from community college ... a bilingual TED-Ed Club shares the language of math ... and a crowd-sourced planet finder. PLUS: Apply to be a TEDGlobal Fellow! Deadline extended to April 25.

Quote of the Week " [We tend to think] if you add Democrats, you add Republicans, you've got the American people. But that is not the case at all. … The largest block, 40 percent, say they're independents." Adam Davidson Adam Davidson: What we learned from teetering on the fiscal cliff

Join the Conversation TED and TED-Ed are up for six Webby Awards this year! We're thrilled to be among hundreds of amazing nominees. You can vote all week » Education & Reference Education & Discovery Events & Live Webcasts Podcasts Education Variety " Henk Mulder on Norman Spack: How I help transgender teens become who they want to be   Dealing with your own gender and sexual identity can be hard enough when you're in your teens. But later, seeing your child trying to cope with a different gender or sexual identity of which they are increasingly sure but don't know how to bring out and about can leave you in a powerless pain, like watching someone drown out of your reach. Dr. Spack goes the whole way, which saves lives, but equally important he creates space for society to understand alternative gender identity. Societal hormone treatment if you like. I love that. Thank you for doing what you do."

believers and doubters Thoughtful perspectives on belief from across the spectrum -- from atheist to devout, from Alain de Botton to Billy Graham ... on the latest TED Radio Hour »

Become a Fan on Facebook Follow us @TEDNews | @TEDTalks News, speakers, Q&As and more: TEDBlog Get the TED app for iPhone, iPad, and Android

 

You are receiving this email because you've subscribed to our mailing list. We also send out daily emails, if you can't get enough of us. We love you too. Copyright © 2014 TED, All rights reserved. You're receiving this newsletter because you subscribed to it on TED.com. Our mailing address is: TED 250 Hudson St., Room 1002 New York, NY 10013 Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list   update subscription preferences   view email in browser

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

The last century

Downton Abbey was a tv show that helped me to see and feel the difference between the world of our founding fathers and mothers and today's world.  At the beginning of the 1900's, gasoline engines were well understood and electricity was available in some places.  But a good network of places to buy fuel for cars and a widespread arrangement of getting electricity to private homes was not yet in place in this country, let alone other countries.

In one of the episodes of Downton Abbey, the lord of the manor has decided to have a telephone installed.  Not a cordless phone of course, so users would be limited to using the telephone at the place in the building where the phone sat.   Using the phone required getting used to the procedure to use it and the protocol of language one used with the operator.  People were not used to hearing someone they didn't know talk to them while not being able to see the speaker.

As much as the new technology of gasoline combustion engines and electrical mixers and sewing machines, new social situations emerged.  This was in England, where social class and social barriers were probably stronger than in the US, where things more often proceeded  with more relaxed rules and maybe more nearly equal social strata.

Downton Abbey mentions, in places, the difficulty of nursing WW I wounded soldiers in a way that preserved the usual social ranks and separations.  Even though the middle ages had ended centuries before, the first world war and other forces and changes were making social mobility more possible.  I might become a wealthier and more important man than my father or grandfather were.  Much like today's computer nerds who start a new kind of business, I might get involved in occupations and projects unknown ever before in the history of the earth.

Better, purer water and sanitation still had a way to go (and still do over much of the earth).  Antibiotics were still just a dream so that any infection might mean death.  What we call 'mass media' were just getting started.  In much of the world, education for most children was non-existent or very limited.  Movies and radio broadcasting were on their way but slowly.

Downton Abbey was a tv show that helped me to see and feel the difference between the world of our founding fathers and mothers and today's world.  At the beginning of the 1900's, gasoline engines were well understood and electricity was available in some places.  But a good network of places to buy fuel for cars and a widespread arrangement of getting electricity to private homes was not yet in place in this country, let alone other countries.

In one of the episodes of Downton Abbey, the lord of the manor has decided to have a telephone installed.  Not a cordless phone of course, so users would be limited to using the telephone at the place in the building where the phone sat.   Using the phone required getting used to the procedure to use it and the protocol of language one used with the operator.  People were not used to hearing someone they didn't know talk to them while not being able to see the speaker.

As much as the new technology of gasoline combustion engines and electrical mixers and sewing machines, new social situations emerged.  This was in England, where social class and social barriers were probably stronger than in the US, where things more often proceeded  with more relaxed rules and maybe more nearly equal social strata.

Downton Abbey mentions, in places, the difficulty of nursing wounded soldiers in a way that preserved the usual social ranks and distinctions.  Even though the middle ages had ended centuries before, the first world war and other forces and changes were making social mobility more possible.  I might become a wealthier and more important man than my father or grandfather were.  Much like today's computer nerds who start a new kind of business, I might get involved in occupations and projects unknown ever before in the history of the earth.  

Better, purer water and sanitation still had a way to go (and still do over much of the earth).  Antibiotics were still just a dream so that any infection might mean death.  What we call 'mass media' were just getting started.  In much of the world, education for most children was non-existent or very limited.  Movies and radio broadcasting were on their way but slowly. 

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