Nothing to do but stay alert

There are times when you are supposed to stay alert but nothing is happening.  Waiting without making noise in a deer stand for a nice buck or doe to walk by so you can shoot it.  Waiting in her waiting room for the doctor to see you.  Waiting for your cousin while the other passengers stream off the plane. All those situations can occur naturally.

It looks to me like quite a few jobs have standing around at the ready built into them. You get hired to answer the phone but nobody calls.  You can hired to check ID's at the gym but nobody else comes in.

Sometimes, the image of a cat or a fox waiting for its dinner to run out of its nest is used to depict the need to stay quiet but ready for action at any unpredictable moment.  Some animals depend on their ability to stay ready in waiting for their livelihood.  I wonder how often a sleepy cat dozes off and lets its prey escape.

Several times, I have heard complaints from people who are supposed to be alert and ready but lack other business to do in their jobs that such moments are especially unpleasant.  I think if I were in the right management or data analysis job, I would try to gather data on productivity, satisfaction and errors from people required to stay alert but forbidden to do other things and compare it to data on those variables for people told to find other things to do (Dust? Call customers? Remind people of their upcoming appointments during the next few days? Data entry or analysis?).  They might even be told to spend the time they can on their own business (Reading?  Chatting or video visits by way of Skype or Google Hangout?  Answering email? Paying bills online?).

I imagine there is already a ton of data on this question since it seems basic to many jobs.  I put "require employees to stand at the ready" into Google and quickly learned that, for instance, the Utah government differentiates between "being on-call" and "being on stand-by".  It appears that a person "on call" is not required to be engaged in work-related activities until and unless called while a person on "stand-by" is paid the same as when fully engaged and is ready at any time.

Sometimes, job rules and whole conceptions of human nature are divided roughly into two camps, the easy and the tough.  The easy pictures people as basically good, engaged, rational and honest.  The tough pictures them in need of steady supervision, punishment, and strict rule enforcement.  As far as I can tell, both pictures apply and neither is always more accurate or superior.  I would still like to see performance data since I nearly always suspect that happier, freer people do better for both the organization and themselves.

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

Winter light portals

We had a tour of a Pueblo house once in Taos.  There were few windows and they were small.  I wondered about the hours spent inside in dark interiors.  Windows matter for our human habitations.  I think I have read that it took a while for people to learn to make a flat sheet of glass that could serve as a window.  I have also read that they couldn't make a big sheet so you get these small panes of glass framed in separate pieces, mullioned glass:

(By the way, a local research librarian showed us that choosing Images from the upper part of the Google search page and then choosing "search tools" and then choosing "usage rights" shows pictures, drawings and diagrams that can be used for non-commercial purposes. So I am able to get a picture of just what I am talking about.)

You might think of winter as a dull and drab time and it is.  Many cloudy days.  However, you might not think of the snowpack covering the ground and plenty of snow on branches and bushes.  When the sun shines brightly and the sky is a brilliant blue, it is truly beautiful, uplifting for sure.  Then, add to that the underlighting from all the reflected light from the snow-covered ground and the snow-laden branches and you have light everywhere.  That is when you can really be thankful for the glassmaker's skill and the installers who arrange for all that light to pour in.

You can see that plenty of light comes from the ground and roof tops, from the snow:

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

Early morning at Greatgrandmother's house

You may be like me.  I only met my greatgrandmother a few times and I was quite young, maybe 4 years old.  But things have changed lately.  You may realize that being a parent is your responsibility.  If you become a parent, you are involved, quite closely.  But other people make you a grandparent or a greatgrandparent.  You can be sitting in front of the fire knitting and Boom!  Somebody makes you into a grandparent, without your knowledge or permission, without your presence even.

You probably have sung the song that says "Over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother's house, we go."  Here in the north, we have a river and woods and snow.  People will be coming here to grandmother's house but things have changed.  Our wi-fi is beaming a signal through the house.  The stove just beeped that it was as hot as Lynn had set it to be.  We have been in touch with several friends by Facebook and email before breakfast.  

The greatgrandparents had a banana each and protein bars for breakfast, instead of bacon and eggs and biscuits and butter.  Ok, I did have a whole wheat bagel with light butter.  That is butter mixed with canola oil. 

I keep YouTube at the ready for all our information needs not covered by the Google (or Bing backup) search page.  I thought I would elicit nostalgia by playing a YouTube version of Over the River and Through the Woods from the past.  I found Danny Kaye and the Andrews sisters by the same method my 14 year old jr. high greatgrandson uses: put in a few words and let the software suggest what you are after.  That way, you don't need to spell or type but just select.  I selected and began playing the song.  Immediately, my musician wife (voice, choir, French horn, trombone, piano) said,"Oh, yuck!"  I snapped it off, not wanting to implant an undesired earworm.  She said,"That was a good song, once.  But it has been so overdone."

Things have changed lately.

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

Our brains, and the rest of us, too

We have the two mental systems of reaction: the immediate one that can get us alarmed before we realize that it is not a snake but just a stick, and the slower one that we use to figure out how we can get ourselves to put our sticks away where they belong instead of leaving them in the way.  These two systems are often referred to as system 1 and system 2.  You could probably say that Freud's idea of the Id was our system 1 and combining his Ego and Superego would be about the same as our system 2 with our internal clerk-mathematician-scientist thrown in, too.  The book Thinking: Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman discusses these fast and slow systems.  The much older book The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey discusses the need in tennis drills to give the analytic system 2 something to do, such as call out "Hit" when the ball hits the court.  That way, the basic body-connected system gets a chance to do the stroke in a natural and relaxed way.

Our brains and bodies are shaped by millions of years of evolution.  What can and did happen in such a span of time is way beyond normal imagining so I am hesitant to dismiss any part of our bodies or ways of thinking as wrong or superfluous.  Modern Western thinking tends to be just that: thinking.  And thinking, fast or slow or both, can be good.  However, we are more than our brains.  I was interested when I heard about Sohini Chakraborty, an Indian woman who applies ideas from dance and dance therapy to helping traumatized young women. Research may eventually show that movement of different types, using rhythms of different kinds and tones of various types, can indeed assist in getting a handle on better ways to think, feel and move. There may be something sometime to using different scents and olfactory experiences to heal or promote healing or better prepare for healing of various kinds.

I have seen more and more how doing yoga stretches and postures can prepare the body and mind to mediate.  A friend just told me the other day about an app that will vibrate when I should improve my posture.  My own physician has consistently maintained that exercise, especially aerobic exercise, is good for my brain.  Prof. Satterfield says the same thing, reporting that physical exercise has been shown to be more effective for brain function that brain-training software, which itself has a small positive effect but long lasting one.

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

Taking steps in a good mood

I am listening to Prof. Jason Satterfield's Great Course on mind-body medicine.  It seems clear that positive emotions produce more health and enjoyment than negative ones.  Bet that really surprises you, huh?  Suppose I step on your toe on purpose but you see a blue bird.  Stepping on your toe seemed intentional on my part and you aren't happy about such poor manners, deliberate insults, the pain, not to mention the damage I did to your shiny shoe.  Still seeing a bluebird at this time of the year is definitely a gift and a special experience.

Sometimes, we can't let go of a negative experience, a deep worry, a bad sign.  Sometimes, we can.  We may be able to think about the blue bird, how lucky it was that we glanced out of the window just then, how we normally are deep in our work at that time of the afternoon.  Where we put our attention, how long we have it on a particular target or subject, how we react to a fact, an occurrence, an event is often under our control.  If we realize that we are still feeling down about the toe-stepping incident, we can consciously move our attention to something else.  But if we get caught up in thoughts about the large number of times we have been treated poorly, we are into the negative story and may not even notice the possibility of thinking of something else.

Since I stepped on your toe, you may have to take steps.  Charging me with assault in the civil or criminal courts may be called for.  Sending a note to my mother complaining about my poor behavior may be more appropriate, not to mention cheaper.  Moving your attention to your happy place doesn't have to mean that you are off in la-la land all the time.  The point is that it may be possible to whack me a good one upside the head while being in the very best of moods.  Some very great thinkers are admired by billions for tempered advice to offer the other shoe and that may be what you most want to do.  Using your best thinking, that may be the best path to take but there is no reason to deprive yourself of a good mood throughout your thinking and subsequent action.

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

Long time ahead

In the 1980's, two other professors and I taught a course called "Futures".  One was a historian of science and the other an environmentalist.  We were sparked by the book "Limits to Growth", a book by serious people who tried to predict when pollution would overrun us, oil and gas would be used up and our supply of fresh water, too.  That sort of disaster was predicted for the year 2025, I think.  We read many other predictions and found most uncheckable, unfalsifiable, undated.  I have read that the oracle at Delphi in ancient Greece made the prediction "The Persians the Greeks will defeat", just vague enough about who would win and when that it goes in the unverifiable bin.

My great grandson showed me a YouTube tape he was interested in.  It was a comparison of video games that purported to be about the future but which turned out to be the actual events after the game was produced.  So, somebody thought they would take some of the games currently on the market and make predictions about the future of society, human life in general and the living conditions on our planet at various times in the future.  I wasn't impressed since I have found so many predictions that are dire (pleasant ones don't get any publicity) but undated and quite possibly unfounded.

Shortly after, I came across this BBC timeline for Earth over the next 10 quadrillion years.  I don' t expect to be conscious or worried about the environment then but you make want to take a look.  The graphic alone is worth seeing.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140105-timeline-of-the-far-future.

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

Distractions

I have written about the other links on many web pages of information.  But the links on that page were stationary ones.  When gathering information from around the web, there are also distractions that are genuine interruptions.  I see a link for jackets and I click on it.  I see a page with pictures and writing that are about jackets but before I can read it, a small banner appears across the jacket page inviting me to give the jacket company my email address.  The wording assures me that really great jacket buys appear in their newsletter all the time and I will be astounded at the prices of these great jackets. If the interruption has a middle level of politeness, there will be a large X in the upper right corner.  The X is a switch to dismiss the invitation and get back to the jacket ads.  In some software, simply clicking elsewhere will dismiss the intrusive "pop-up".

It only takes a moment for me to get irritated with the whole business.  I was interested in jackets, not in an ongoing relation to a jacket company and certainly not in additional advertising of that sort coming to my inbox.  So, when I run into a lower level of politeness and get a page that does not disappear but just keeps on staring at me, waiting for me to enroll myself in their ad list, I will close the whole page. If necessary, I will shut down my computer and go read one of the 60 or so old-fashioned paper books I have that don't send ads at me when I am trying to read a page.

When I first started using a Kindle, just knowing that I had many other books right in my hand while reading was enough to get me tempted to ask myself if one of those other books would be more fun at the moment than the one I was reading.  You know how people sometimes jump through the channels rather rapidly and can't seem to find anything they want to watch.  Just pausing in the story enough to ask myself if I am tired of this one is enough to be a bit of a distraction.

I have other links scattered in and beside on my own blog page so who am I to talk?

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

Risks in living and dying

I keep hearing of people being 90 and older.  I googled what % of 65 yr. old Americans will live to be 90 but I didn't get any very clear answer other than the odds of living to 90 or 100 are rising everywhere.  I guess the odds are pretty good, even for males.  I did read that 75% of current Americans 90 or older are women.

I also read a couple of articles by Steve Vernon, one titled "Living Too Long is a Risk!"  I guess an experienced actuary and financial advisor would use such a title, complete with exclamation point, because he feels that outliving your money supply is a horrible thought.  Ok, it is a risk to drive a car, to be a passenger in a car, to stay at home all the time, to go down stairs, to go up stairs, etc., etc.  I personally have been taking risks since before I was born.  I often take risks that I don't realize I am taking, such as living on a planet that travels through space on an orbit that intersects with the orbits of 90,000 other celestial objects.  I took that particular risk for decades before I realized the number of possible intersecting objects was so high.  Once I have learned of the risk from author Bill Bryson in "A Short History of Nearly Everything", I have kept right on living on the same planet, basically ignoring the risk.  I am fairly indifferent to the problem but basically I don't know of anything else to do.

I have gained a new respect for the spectrum of feelings, memories and worries associated with aging, disability, pain and death.  I do admire the writing, the acting and the story lines created in "Grey's Anatomy" and of course, a good deal of what goes on in a major urban hospital deals with living and dying.  Older episodes are available for streaming and we have been watching an episode a night for since the summer.   During that same time, we read Atul Gawande's "Being Mortal", a consideration of many aspects of the last parts of our lives, including death.  Both sources show how sensible and intelligent people, contending with the forces of love and of the biological urge to live and keep on living, can veer off into unexpected stances when approaching their death or that of others close to them.

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

Less rousing, please

Balance or moderation, the middle way is often the key.  Because we can literally do extraordinary things when aroused, stimulated, energized, keyed up, advertisers and marketers often use the language and imagery of cheerleading, sports ecstasy and general hoopla for everything from toothpaste to stock purchases.  It can be a little tiresome to find so many noisy urgings to hurry, see the upside of a new tv or blender, buy new pants, root for the team, etc., etc. It can get a little boring.

Surely, somebody somewhere must be in a position to say "you probably don't really need our product and it is very much like its competitors but it might fit your needs someday. We offer ours for a middling price, about what others charge for their equally good products.  If you have bought our products, we thank you.  We don't want your email address and do not plan to pursue any deeper relationship with you, even though you are probably a good person. If you haven't ever used our product, why not give us a try sometime?"

In politics, I am looking for messages along the line of "Hi, I am Susan _____ and I am seeking the office of public attorney for your county.  My opponents are very capable people and you may want to vote for them.  The incumbent has a passable record and I have no reason to expect that I could do better in the office than she has but I would like the opportunity to try and I do have good credentials.  Please vote for Susan _______."​

People who are used to a steady diet of rousing language may be somewhat addicted to such messages.  Robert Johnson, a well-known psychologist and author, tells of a young woman at his gym who is responsible for writing a slogan on the gym blackboard.  She asked him for an idea and he recommended, "Standing still, we surpass those who run."  She stood still herself for a moment and then said,"No way!".  She turned and wrote "Go, go, go!" on the board.

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

Traps

We have traps in the north.  This is where larger mammals with valuable coats can be found so people trap for pelts as well as to cut down on pests like bush-eating bunnies, root-eating voles and mice.  This is the land where I once found my office neighbor sitting in the doorway to his office, knee to knee with another professor.  They were trading furs they had caught themselves on the traplines they tended before coming to work.  One confessed that he really wanted a beaver tail.  Later, the other sent a large tail in an interoffice memo envelope.  Unfortunately, the recipient was away at a conference for a week and by his return, the mailroom was reeking of a bad rotting smell.

But there are also traps for people.  A bad buy can trap you in obligations.  An obligation that you took on willingly can turn out to be a burden.  We have watched six years of Grey's Anatomy.  We have seen Richard becoming increasingly dysfunctional due to an alcohol problem and Derek eagerly take over the job of chief of surgery.  You have heard that "heavy lies the head that wears the crown."  You have read "Atlas Shrugged" and experienced the weight of responsibility and leadership yourself. There is loneliness at the top.  So, it is no surprise to you that there are many executive, staff and procedural decisions that Derek must make that are traps.  These are situations where he will have trouble if he decides to and trouble if he decides not to and more trouble the longer he waits to decide.  He is often trapped in that way.  What can he do?  Not much.  He tries to bear the criticism, the Monday morning quarterbacking, the new arrays of enemies produced, along with, of course, the hearty congratulations and the thank-yous from the other side.

Opposite positions don't always arrive between people.  There can be a change of heart.  One of us gets sick and the prognosis is not good.  We love each other and we agree that there should not be "heroic measures" taken to artificially prolong life.  But when the real dying sets in, the person about to be left alone has a change of heart.  That final moment is to be avoided.  Yet, the papers are all signed and in order.  One of us wants to be unplugged and suddenly the other strongly disagrees.  Either way, the hospital is trapped.

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

Challenges

I have never been a big one for challenges.  Challenge me to a duel and I will try to slither out of the deal.  Show up at dawn with your second, awaiting me and my second and our choice of weapons and you will wait a long time.  I don't mind dying for a a good cause but I haven't found one good enough yet.

I suspected the instructor or coach who challenged us to double our efforts and win the game for our side of engaging in cheap manipulation.  But, I have seen that challenges can indeed energize, mobilize.  I once watched a little boy of 2 or 3 dawdle over his spinach.  He didn't show any enthusiasm for the stuff.  Then, his mom said that she thought she could finish her spinach before Spike could finish his.  Zoom!  His spinach disappeared and he was gleefully the WINNER!  See, he WON!  Have you ever won a spinach-eating contest against your mom?  Well, he did.  He won! You didn't win.  He did.  He won.

A famous challenge was issued by President John Kennedy.  He said the US would land on the moon  by a given year.  I am not completely sure what had to be accomplished by the space people between the president's statement and the moment when US astronauts did indeed walk right on the moon surface.  It seems very possible that we might not have ever gotten to the moon had Kennedy not issued a challenge.

Challenges and competition are basics of male life.  I think the little red-headed girl is very beautiful but so does Charlie Brown.  She just calmly eats her lunch but Charlie and I watch her lovingly and we watch each other warily.  Brothers are famous for such rivalry. Even though one brother is older and more mature and a very tough competitor, that doesn't mean that the younger brother is going to capitulate and just give in.  Ha, ha, no, Sir!

If you want to get some insight into the place of competition and challenge in the life of boys and men, read "Fighting for Life" by the Jesuit scholar Walter Ong.  Ong is well-known for his explorations of the impact of writing on societies but "Fighting for Life" makes clear the many ways that different societies have both suffered and exploited the male impulse to fight, to contest and to try to win out over others.

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

I have trouble deciding what to write about

There are so many enticing possibilities for a blog topic:

1. School security today - can you identify yourself to pick up your grandchild? - Friend's adventures

2. Weather difficulties and air travel - Tornado in Florida disrupts air travel - Friend's adventures

3. Any of the 3 or 4 hundred prompts I have written for myself and plan to get to sometime

1. Because of my interest in minimizing the old man's habit of telling the same story over and over, I try to strikethrough the prompts I have used.  

2. On my most recent prompt list, the last three prompts not used are

1. Trying to learn to enjoy being in a state of craving, just craving, not satisfying - Open to Desire by Mark Epstein

2. What happens inside us when we get the giggles and can't stop laughing

3. Funny things a guy like me with hearing loss thinks he heard someone say

4. The importance of faces and facial expressions and facial structure - See the National Geographic Book Talk on "The Hidden History of the Human Race" by Christine Kenneally

5. Applications for assistance in dying - the Season 6 Episode 18 of Grey's Anatomy, available on Netflix and elsewhere - What?  If I get turned down, I don't get to die?

6. Killing the web with apps - trying to snag a larger and more permanent customer flow with an app that only sends your stuff their way - Wired mag or web site

7. Working to maximize the income from intellectual property - Many authors, photographers, poets and others would like to get more money for what they make.  What is a good idea or a thrilling or eye-opening read worth?

8. Go to the Google search page and type "flip a coin" - Google blog

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

Bridging time

I like to try to pay attention to the blogs that post snippets along side my own blog writings on my Google Blogspot page.  One such is The Writer's Almanac by Garrison Keillor and his assistants.  Today's post is a poem called "A Child's Evening Prayer" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.  I have heard of that poet many times but have not read much of his work nor about his life and times.  I am interested in the perspective of children so I read the poem.  

It begins with the line

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,

Sometimes a single line really says a great deal.  Take for instance one of my current favorites, the response to a woman he is dating by the never-married 39 year old PhD in genetics, Prof. Don Tillman, in The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion.  The woman has suggested they go to a coffee shop and Tillman replies

"Oh, I never drink coffee after 3:58 PM because of the half-life of caffeine"

I learn quickly that Prof. Tillman is likely a bit of a nerd and somewhat insensitive to the moment.  He may not be much of a romancer.

The line beginning a child's evening prayer was written by Coleridge in about 1807.  He is noted as one of the founders of romanticism in England, often said to be a type of art and thought that arose in response to enlightenment's discovery of and focus on classical sources of philosophy and art.  In general, from the limited amount I know, I can summarize the romantic drift by saying they focused on the idea that human emotions and feelings matter.  They wanted to celebrate feelings and explore them, to feel.

I was surprised to read scientists trying to create directions to keep safe stores of radioactive materials worried about stating directions in any language that would last for 10000 years.  There is some thought that human speech is not much older than 25000 years.  Thinking that English, for instance, changes quite a lot in only 1000 years, they pointed to Chaucer's language and our difficulties with that.

Today's fashions and themes would be quite likely to steer a man trying to write a child's evening prayer away from beginning with "Ere I …" even if he were trying to set the scene for a child in 1800 in England.  We might say something like "before I lay down" (I think we are losing the bothersome distinction between "lay" and "lie" as we seem to have done with "will" and "shall") but check with language people if you are interested.  To get a current reaction to the language of 1800, look up Coleridge's poem and see if you can read the whole thing without impatience or irritation.  It is one way to see that times change and so do styles.  

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

Please remove our snow

A big part of my life has passed since I lived in Maryland.  There snow does fall but rather infrequently.  When it does, we could count on it melting and evaporating within a day or two.  One of the first lessons we learned about the upper Midwest is that snow accumulates.  An inch today will add to the inch from yesterday.  Evaporation, even at cold temperatures, does take place and you can see snow sagging where some has been taken up by the atmosphere.  Cold temperatures, say below zero or below -10 or -20, do impede evaporation, though, and you can't count on the process for snow removal.

 

Our roads will be driveable if the snowplow drivers can possibly get them that way and they usually can.  In some bad storms, drivers may put in long hours behind the wheel of heavy and powerful vehicles that can easily take out a mailbox or other property that is near the road. Some residential services plow our driveways very often, sometimes to the point that the homeowner feels taken advantage of.  An inch or less of snow can usually be dealt with by the resident.  The charge per time may be $25 or $30 and some people sometimes feel they would rather do the job themselves.  We actually have a John Deere snowthrower but we haven't used it in several years.  Many snowfalls are too light or too heavy for the machine.  A very thin layer of snow may not be taken up by the machine and a heavy layer can cause it to jam repeatedly.

Less frequently, snowfalls can be blown by a strong wind into very impressive piles.   Without snow fences, these piles can quietly but steadily build up to completely block a road.  Driving along in a strong wind in a situation where you can barely see through the driven snow along a road that is covered with white in a field covered with the very same white is not fun.  A high wind can drive the snow right at your eye level, creating an unpleasant visual effect, especially after a couple of hours.  Add a factor of driving behind a large truck and it becomes even less enjoyable.  The truck creates a small snow whirl of its own just past the tailgate, right where it makes seeing where you are going even more problematic.

 

Despite these difficulties and the occasional heart attack from over-exertion while shoveling, many locals strongly dislike a winter with too little snow.  A snow blanket protects many plants from intense cold while attracting skiers and snowmobilers.  Many parts of the economy do better with a good amount of snow.

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

Have a great day!

I like to be wished by others to have a good day.  I want a good day instead of a bad one.  Sure, the occasional bad one is going to contribute to my sense of gratitude and enjoyment of the next good day.  But I often get wished not a good day but a GREAT day.  I think that is overdoing it.  I just had a great day yesterday.  I need to rest a day before enduring another great one.  Great days can be stressful.  I wonder what I did to get such a great day.  I fear that I will drop the ball and turn what was a great day up to the drop into a bad day.  Bad days are bad enough but to drop the ball, causing the bad day myself is vexing.  Who wants to be vexed?  Ever been vexed?  Well, then, you know what it's like.

I have occasion to talk with young people and when one of them wishes me a great day, I put the wording down to habit.  Sometimes, the wisher feels she is having a great day and wants others to get such a prize, too.  There is a certain American exuberance that is reluctant to call for a good day or even a better day.  Why not ask for a GREAT day?

Well, there are reasons.  Each gray day, each day on which you drop a fine book into a puddle of dirty snow melt, each day on which your cookie shatters and falls all over the restaurant floor, each such event is contributing to your future joy when the another fine book is carried without incident, another cookie gets completely into your mouth.

Connoisseurs of days know that the greats need to arrive in a ratio of 1:2.597.  We need just about 2 and 6/10 poor or ordinary, possibly slightly trying days of loss, forgetfulness, disappointment and taxation to have our delight for a great day maximized, as was proved in Munich in 1756. Please don't wish an oversupply of GREAT days on me.  Just your smile is more than enough on most days.

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

Not your everyday treadmill and it is for sale!

Another picture of your everyday shrimp treadmill, which I understand is actually for sale!

http://news.sciencemag.org//sifter/2014/11/iconic-shrimp-treadmill-now-for-sale

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

Being friendly

I have read that without modern communication and transportation, we humans might be in close contact with somewhere around 150 people.  I guess there are ideas floating around that that number is about how many we can remember and be reasonably close to.  I am not all that sure what "being close to" actually means.  It can certainly be those we know by name, those we feel an internal brightening when we see.  I am confident that being in the same room, being close enough to speak to someone is not the only measure these days.

There are people that I feel close to that I have never seen or been in the physical presence of.  I saw friends from decades back at my 50th college reunion and that contact renewed some contacts on a fairly frequent basis that take place electronically.  Google is just one of several companies that offer ways to chat quickly using only printed letters on a screen or to hear each other's voices with some fidelity or to see each other on the screen.  I have taught distance education, where the student sees me live on a tv or sees my image on a tape or reads web pages Lynn or I wrote and emails me reactions to or homework.  But we have never been near each other physically.

Of course, there may be secretaries or receptionists or phone operators with whom I could have regular contact over years but never meet.  I am intrigued by the movie "Her" where we see the main character get closer and closer to the very intelligent and highly developed operating system of his new computer.  The first story in the collection "I, Robot", copyright 1950, shows a very believable picture of a child who feels closer and friendlier towards her robot nanny than to her rather cold and distant mother.  So far, there are no robots listed in my contacts but that may change.

In C.S. Lewis's "The Four Loves", all of which are human (friendship being first, followed by affection, eros and agape) prefaces chapters on them with a chapter on animal-human friendships.  I have had several occasions to see that Lewis was smart to leave a place for dogs, cats, horses and no doubt other friendships between humans and others.  I got plenty from listening to Frans de Waal discuss his years of experience working with and observing apes, some of whom recognize him personally after 20 years of separation.

I thought that face to face friendship might be enhanced with expert software.  The author Susan Cain and others have books and TED talks about introversion and its strengths but maybe prompting software could whisper in my ear buds good conversational beginners.  I did check the iPad app store but didn't find anything yet.  I do realize that the last thing we need is yet another reason to look at our phones in the presence of others instead of their faces and eyes.  

Seeing and hearing friends is an extremely great pleasure and a very lasting one, too.  I have just begun listening to Justin Satterfield's Great Course on mind-body medicine.  He says that 40% of premature deaths come from behavior, including social behavior, and smoking and drugs.  He also said that someone has classed "social and behavioral medicine" as the antibiotics of the 21st century.  Antibiotics followed public health measures such as water treatment plants as allowing longer life at better quality of life.  Much of human behavior relates to others and being friendly, is a skill that can be developed  and improved.

How about a nice bowl of chicken soup?

Buddha lived a long time before Jesus and he thought differently.  No real surprise because he also lived in a different culture.  Stories of the young Buddha explain his very human desire to find a path to happiness.  He is famous for focusing on desires, wants as a basis for human suffering.  I really want a bowl of chicken soup and I am disappointed that there is only chili.  I am enjoying Dr. Mark Epstein's book "Open to Desire".  This American psychiatrist knows Buddhism and he also knows current American ways of living, which clearly include desires for many things and experiences.

The book explains the common experience of hankering after a great bowl of chicken soup, only to find that this bowl isn't all that great.  It is not as good as the bowl I remember getting last month.  It is not as good as I hoped it would be.  I will make some more next week and I will use better ingredients and greater care.  I will eat it with some excellent bread.  It will be really, really, really great.  At least, I hope it is.  I hope I don't feel disappointed again.  Maybe I should just forget chicken soup.  Maybe I should just eat bread and drink water.  Maybe it is better not to have any hopes.  That's it!  Extinguish desires!  If I desire to be without desires, maybe I will never be disappointed again.

Epstein explains that it can actually be helpful to expect to be disappointed sometimes and to just feel the disappointment.  I don't have to blame myself or the soup.  Besides, knowing a little about myself and psychology, I can throw in the knowledge that having chicken soup each day over the next week will lessen the delight and increase my feeling that chicken soup is pretty ordinary stuff.  I can be confident that I will pay less attention to the next bowl.  I can feel that chicken soup is not what it used to be or that I am not the chicken soup eater I used to be.  Meanwhile, just as Buddha observed, I am beginning to want a good bowl of ham and bean soup.  Yeah!  That would be great!

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

Metronomes and buggy whips

I am interested in rhythms and beat speeds.  Ever since I watched the TED Talk by Alan Watkins and became familiar with the oximeter to check heart beat speed, I have wanted to train my ear to be able to read beat speeds by just listening to them.  I know modern metronomes can flash lights and emit sounds or both at various speeds.  I am trying to remember to check for iPad apps that might be related to any subject or interest I have.  So, I looked in the app store for "metronomes".  I was surprised at all the possibilities.  They made me wonder if sales of separate metronomes have been noticeably affected by the many low cost and free apps available.  And that was just checking the Apple iPad app (from application = program) store, not the Mac apps, nor the Android apps.

Makes me think of buggy whips.  I have never driven a buggy but I have seen movies and drawings of a whip that sits in a holder like a flag holder, right where the driver can pull it out and crack in the air above the horses.  One book on the future or another uses the demise of the buggy whip due to the invention and spread of horseless carriages with no horses to respond to the sound.  I can imagine a happy buggy whip manufacturer with good sales and a prosperous life rather suddenly finding the market for this previously essential item drying up. 

The study of innovations and their spread, the reasons for adoption or lack of it, the speed and direction of adoption is an important discipline. The related subject of entrepreneurship, the building and sale of companies, the job market and the economic activity of the nation and the world are connected to the invention and adoption of innovations.  There seems to be some cultural and national characteristics that affect the welcome and speed of innovations and changes.  I personally suspect that currently innovation is perhaps oversold and that consistency and reliability are likely to gain and retain peoples' interest and business. But then, I am pretty old.

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