They did WHAT?

It is difficult to discount one's own personal experience.  Among my experiences is the matter of the book "The Limits to Growth".  The book came out in the early 70's and my friend and I had not read anything that predicted a future so bad.  Roughly, the work looked at data and extrapolated to the conclusion that severe air pollution, drought, exhaustion of fossil fuels and other unpleasantries would be fully on humans by 2025. After discussing the book while pounding me on the tennis courts, my historian friend began to wonder about the history of the future.  What predictions had been made of the future in the past and how accurate and useful had they been?

We began a course on 'Futures" in cooperation with a member of the Natural Resources faculty.  We had plenty of chances to hear about frightening possibilities in our world from students and visiting presenters.  Fast forward to the Post-Inconvenient Truth era ushered in by Vice President Gore and many other thinkers, worriers, and scientists.  So, by now, I am older and entering that part of life when I may die.  I have reached a chronological age when Ezekiel Emmanuel, the oncologist, hopes to die and advises everyone to stop getting flu shots and medical care.  Within the next 20 to 30 years I may well be checking out.  Some predictions and predicaments will no doubt catch me before then.  However, so far, I have had to face very little in the way of catastrophes and serious challenges.

On our recent trip to central California where they have been experiencing bothersome, costly and frightening drought, they showed that their own water conservation practices were far more effective than observers thought possible.  The presenter we listened to on Wednesday on US Energy Policy gave similar hopeful information.  She showed us graphs and charts and explained our energy consumption patterns. She made clear that the biggest factor in our energy usage is (wait for it) US!  Who knew?

Who knew that we could be so flexible, so imaginative, so good at saving, at changing, at modification?  In future studies, there is the famous "horseshit hypothesis".  The idea is that if a prediction was made on the basis of the amount of manure produced by the horses used in New York City in say, 1885, the prediction would be that 8 million people living in the space of New York City with the number of horses needed for that number would of necessity be up to their necks in manure.

What if we live without horses?  What if we talk to each other and even look at each other when we are far apart?  I recommend shelving despair and limiting worry to Thursday mornings only.  Neither of us is smart enough to bother despairing.  Put some faith in the humans.  They are wily. They are smarter than you know, than they know.

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

Rate the group

W.E. Deming, Jerome Juran and many others have thought hard about ratings and grades.  They didn't pay much attention to the grades we give students in school, which is probably a very large portion of all grades given. Although, when Microsoft first came out with Powerpoint for many presentations, the data they gathered to see if the effort was worthwhile found the business world full of presentations outside of schools.  It might be that more grades and evaluations are given out of school than in, for all I know.

They were more interested in business and organizational situations where people are asked to rate their co-workers.  Many people have studied the problem of evaluation of workers, colleagues and employees.  Of course, some people are going to be more valuable, more productive than others.  I guess most of us would attribute superior performance to superior ability and superior diligence.  They would clearly matter.  However, chance is a big factor and sometimes the opportunities one person gets are quite rich while another is hit by bad luck.

But ratings themselves can be affected by personality and bias, explicitly and also unconsciously.  If your face reminds me of my least favorite uncle, I make find your work inferior for reasons neither of us would ever know about.  If you don't like people with English surnames, I might never get a very good rating from you.  

But if you and I work in the accounting department, we might look at what the department has achieved over the past year and rate that effort instead of the individuals in the department.  It might help all of the members of our department to think about the department as a whole and its record.  What have we done well as a group?  What was not done well?

Trying to move the focus of evaluation from individuals to the group's effort and effect can benefit all.  There is less bickering and backbiting and more genuine thought on what will make for progress on variables of importance.

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

Mental flow

With enough meditation practice, you can get in the groove to watch and know your mental flow without getting caught up in sub-stories.  Let's say that every time you think of that girl who suddenly turned inexplicably cool and distant, you get a little peeved.  No, not a little peeved, make that damned straight peeved as anybody would be who got treated that way.  When you think of the way you felt, the loyalty you had shown, blah, blah, blah….

That is the sort of thinking that shows getting caught up in the story.  You normally think of a subject and then you think about that subject: is the job finished?  What is the next thing that ought to be done…. and so forth.  But with enough awareness of your mind and the way you tend to use it, you see that you are thinking of that girl that you get peeved about or the job and its next step.  You can develop a skill of simply watching your mental flow for a while as a kind of meditation.

Sometimes, what you can observe of the flow is better than watching television.  You can observe that you do jump around mentally but it is not random.  One thought leads to another, things that have been in the back of your mind for a while come forth.  Your basic drives of hunger, thirst, affection, duty all suggest what you might get started thinking about.  You can get the urge to have a cup of coffee, it can build up to quite a strong level and then you can remember that you never called your friend back and have yet again put off sorting and folding that clean laundry.  You could almost decide it is good to sit with a pad and pencil since good ideas and important tasks can flow through the mind so quickly that you need to jot them down.

You can see that I have not mentioned any sacred persons, religious figures or holy texts.  As I have written recently, the advantages of meditation are many and one of the most fundamental is being closer friends with your mind and mental habits. If you have practiced concentration on a point, be it visual or physical like your breathing, for a while, you might want to try simply observing your mind's flow.  At first, there may be no flow since you are there watching.  But within 3 to 5 minutes, there will be.  In fact, by then, you may be thinking of a good dinner you are anticipating or be in some other area of thought.  If you catch yourself doing that, note the subject if you want but then go back to a blank-ish mind and take up observing to see what gets shown next.

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

Could it all be perfect?

This passage from The Trauma of Everyday Life by Mark Epstein has stuck in my mind.

Maya's (Buddha's mother, who died within days of his birth) predicament mirrored one that the Buddha would confront over and over again in his adult years. People could not believe in their own Buddha nature. Even Gotama himself, in his pre-enlightenment years, could not believe in his inherent perfection. He thought he had to extinguish himself to find transcendence. His mother acted out of a similar belief. Unable to stay with the thrill in her human embodiment, unable to believe that her physical body could bear her joy, Maya was forced to take refuge in her celestial bliss body, the only one that could hold the feelings evoked by her child. In so doing, the Buddha's mother acted out an inadequacy that many a mother— like many a lover— is vulnerable to, an inadequacy fed by thoughts of doubt and fear that erode confidence and corrode connection. Doubting the capacity of her physical form to sustain the thrill of her motherhood, Maya was compelled to seek a self -state that split her off from her child. Like an infant forced to disconnect from his ruthless self when his mother fails to receive it, Maya could endure only by dissociating. Forsaking her body and her child, she survived by departing her physical form.

Epstein, Mark (2013-08-15). The Trauma of Everyday Life (p. 78). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition.

I have read that the Buddha feared that he would be unable to explain in a convincing way what he had discovered about life and our minds.  Telling people they are inherently perfect would never work.  They can easily produce dozens of examples from their lives where they have sinned or erred or failed in some personal way.

Tara Branch has a book on Radical Acceptance and if one can take a longer view, it seems possible that the entirety of one's life might be accepted as ok, even though such acceptance might be difficult.

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

Stories of feelings

A friend told me his rule of thumb for noting when an action or police show on tv should no longer be watched.  It's when the characters start falling in love with each other.  Some people prefer a story in which the police search for clues and then try to track down the bad guy (or girl! - it can happen these days and let's be open).  But when the very beautiful female detective starts getting long, lustful looks from the very beautiful male detective, he says the show has gone downhill.

You know what is going to happen next.  Feelings!  Jealousy!  Doubts!  A good writer or team of them can run on emotions for decades.  In fact, the early soap operas did exactly that.  Plenty of shows do so today, too.

Given our wiring bias toward bad news, we are going to notice when the very beautiful female detective has tears in her eyes because the very beautiful male detective is rumored to have spent the weekend with his former girlfriend.  WE know that the rumor is not true and that it was launched by that less beautiful other male detective who is hoping to have a close relationship with the very beautiful female detective, despite the fact that HIS daughter is planning to undermine his plans because of the way he treated her mother.

Our antennas are alert for threats and a threat to you or your area might become a threat to me and my area.  Besides, we are basically good-hearted people and we hate to see such a beautiful female detective, played by an actress who got the role because of her large expressive eyes, in tears.  Since feelings can change easily and actually do, spicing up the tales of pursuit of bad guys (or girls) with the goings-on in the police station extends the possibilities for the writers. If we do keep watching, we will probably develop a feeling of closeness with the story characters.  We will experience an extra level of delight when the usually gruff and possibly insensitive policeman manages to be quite poetic when he gives the best man's toast at the wedding.

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

All together

When I think of large coordinated efforts such as military operations, space exploration and even college curricula, I am impressed at what teamwork can do.

There is a recent TED talk by Atul Gawande, a surgeon and professor of medicine at Harvard, in which he explains that medicine has progressed to the point where individual effort is insufficient and more teamwork is essential.  He mentions "pit crews" like those that change tires and do other maintenance in very short time in a NASCAR race and puts such teamwork out as a model for medicine.

He says,

"Well, we've now discovered 4,000 medical and surgical procedures. We've discovered 6,000 drugs that I'm now licensed to prescribe." He explains the need for checklists, the subject of one of his recent books, to verify that all the important steps in a medical procedure, especially those frequently overlooked, have been taken.

From about 1920 on, Bell Labs and others relied on the work of Walter Shewhart and later on such people as W.E. Deming and Joseph Juran to work out the concepts and mathematics of very high quality manufacturing.  In the 1980's and since, many of the same ideas have been applied to other sorts of teamwork, such as administration of large organizations.

More and more people are getting trained in "Six Sigmas", quality circles and related approaches that aim to make very few errors in a large team effort.  Some Asian companies have reported such enthusiasm for improving quality and driving error rates toward zero that they have had to demand riled-up workers not come to work on holidays and in extra hours.  They were hooked on doing better and finding ways to make that happen.

Once a team of cooperating members gets esprit de corps, gets a real team spirit, they run on a high octane sort of fuel.  They can get very enthusiastic about bettering their performance.

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

What is this minfulness goop?

We are taught critical thinking, in school, in research, in our purchases, in our media-saturated world.  So, when we read about "mindful" this and "mindful" that, it is easy to write the whole thing off as a big scam, some hot deal, some foolishness. I have been thinking and reading about the subject for about 20 years and I can appreciate all sorts of doubts and cautions.

I read about a school in Ohio that had been teaching and practicing meditation for quite a while but recently decided to stop when some parents of the students started to worry that the whole idea was anti-Christian and maybe some sort of subversion.  It happens that Ohio is the one state with a U.S. Congressman, Tim Ryan, who is a published author of a book on the subjects of meditation and mindfulness.  His book "A Mindful Nation: How a Simple Practice Can Help Us Reduce Stress, Improve Performance and Recapture the American Spirit" explains his own meditation practice, what it has done for his hectic life as a Congressman, and what he sees as a potentially valuable tool.

"Mindful" usually means "aware" as in I am mindful that my library book is overdue and needs to be returned.  So what's the big deal?  I am aware of my hunger, the time, the temperature, and plenty of other things all day.  Why should I strive to be aware, when I already am.  Well, in general, the hullabaloo is about being aware of what is going on in the mind, almost as if we can see into it from next-door.  If you can step back a little from the mind, not too far back but a little, you can see what is going on without being caught up.  Being mindful in this sense is equivalent to a very valuable source of self-knowledge.

 

So, it makes sense that as physician, marital partners, religious practitioners, athletes, law enforcement personnel, teachers and students gain better self-knowledge they can see what they think and feel more accurately, they can provide better feedback and correction to themselves and they can perform better, professionally and privately.  If you visit the home page of Mindfulness.org, you can be overwhelmed by all the claims and smiling faces.  You can suspect the whole damned thing is just a little too happy, smiley, pleasant and bright.  You can just see a kindergarten teacher or a long-distance flight stewardess (near the beginning of the flight) with a glowing smile plastered on her face which she intends to keep there, come Hell or high water.

The activity of trying to concentrate on a single point or place or word or sound for five or ten minutes has been part of every serious religion.  Such an activity is the basis of almost any meditation method and its purpose is to increase one's sensitivity to the placement of one's attention.  As that sensitivity increases, I get a little more likely to notice that I don't want Miss X's company or I really am going for another glass of wine or I drag my feet about doing housework.  I am in a better position to get to know Miss X better or do a better job at not being near her.  I can make it more trouble to have alcohol and I can begin some serious work with somebody to change my habits.  I can reconsider my housework, what needs to be done and who I can get to help with it.

So, when you read that mindfulness improves relations among workers, aids people in avoiding alcoholism and makes for cleaner houses kept by happier householders, it is true because we are referring to the basic mental tools that are behind and inside all human activity.

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

Senior citizen texting codes (an additional message for today)

Texting can be a big help.  Short, inexpensive and not calling for an elaborate response.  Why let the kids have a good thing all to themselves?

Here are texting codes just for senior citizens.  I was alerted to this new communication tool by Twitter.

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

Habeus Corpus again

In an attempt to fashion a government that could govern and at the same time, be fair to the governed, the practice of permitting a prisoner or someone acting on his behalf to have a review of the reasons and circumstances of his detention arose long before there was a United States.  Even if the prisoner had died in custody ("accidentally fell down the stairs" or some such) the prisoner or his body needed to be produced in a hearing.  The words "habeus corpus" are translated as "you must have the body", in other words, show the judge the prisoner alive or dead.

Since the writ of habeus corpus and its force and practice are fundamental to government, the words and the admonition to pay attention to the body pop up elsewhere.  The English playwright Alan Benet used the words as the title of his sex farce.  Once in the realm of sex, we revert to attending to our bodies and are very conscious of the body's fundamental place in our lives.

The importance of our bodies to our lives is basic, despite the fact that in this era, many people live in such a way as to emphasize their mental lives, their thinking ability.  The body responds to use, indeed, gets trained to the sort of use or non-use it experiences.  So, we have the current mantra on the importance of exercise.  All sorts of physical activity can assist in keeping a healthy and alert relation between the rest of the body and the head/brain/mind.

Actually, even the least use of the body still relies on many bodily processes.  The "corpse pose" or savasana in yoga, where you lie flat out, as in a hospital bed on your back, still requires the muscles of the heart and lungs to do their work. Your ears still hear and your liver and kidney still filter.  So, for any part of this earthly and complex and miraculous life, you need the body, even while much of it dangles from an office chair while you press little keys on a keyboard.

I believe our society is fascinated with the idea of effort.  Try hard and try harder.  When we try hard, we can feel and see that we are doing so and we can feel virtuous.  We do find that many goals, both important and frivolous, are reached when we try hard and then try harder.  So, it is not surprising that in an area like exercise and athletics, we tend to have a strong feeling that the only good exercise is a long and vigorous one.  When you are in your 20's, long and vigorous can certainly pay off.  Later in our lives, the idea that anything but long and vigorous is pointless can be a costly one.

Isometric exercise where the muscles are clenched vigorously without moving has long been known to be valuable.  For at least 50 years, it has been known that hold the muscle very tense for 6 seconds is enough to cause strength improvement.  Clenching muscles from the feet to the top of the head successively, in a form of body scan, can be a form of increasing body awareness and a good preparation for meditation.

The recent article by Alexandra Sifferlin in Time of 1/26/15 explained that one minute workouts have benefits:

"1 MINUTE:

Go as hard as you can. Gibala's team has shown that you can improve fitness in just 60 seconds.

The workout: Get on a stationary bike or treadmill. Give yourself a short warm-up and then pedal or run as fast as you can for one minute.

The benefit: Men and women who tried the one-minute workout for six weeks improved their endurance and lowered their blood pressure."

--

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

Crab treasures

Men show nastiness, grumpiness, hostility for a reason.  Sure, we can all try to be warmer and closer, more accepting of each other.  If we succeed, it may be easier to live together and to enjoy each other's strengths and ideas.  But the negatives are part of the logic of life and at times, lie right in our paths.  We can try to sidestep them and we can learn to work around negatives, using different perspectives and tools for uncovering the basis for hostility where possible.  But I wonder if we are richer and more integrated if we can not only accept nastiness but give it some of the honor and respect it deserves.

If I find that you really like me, that is easy to accept.  I often consider myself wonderfully attractive and congenial.  You, being intelligent and observant, see those qualities too and I can totally understand and sympathize with your acceptance of me.  But if I learn that you find me difficult company, a little slow, too focused on boring topics, that is not so easy to accept.  My impulse, of course, is to try to "correct" your view of me.  I want to explain how my habits and views are basically ok or even better.  I want to highlight some sterling parts of me that you might not have noticed.  I might go so far as to avoid broccoli if I find you disdain broccoli eaters.

If you find me pretty bad company and stay away, I can probably handle that.  But I may find that you depend on me for grumpiness.  If you have a sweet and friendly nature, you may find it difficult to snarl and belch at the world.  I, being male and elderly, have a certificate empowering me to show zero sweetness or friendliness.  I can easily find fault with anybody and anything.  When I run a little low on negativity, I copy that of a few other guys I know to restore my bearings and reorient myself.

So, keep in mind that me and my kind represent a natural, even genetic treasure.  Sure, sweet rolls and candy are nice but the day may come with you need a little anger, disdain or crabbiness.  Let me know since I keep a store of such things handy and I can help others see the world through rotten-colored lenses.

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

Zoning out and insect observation

The latter part of the book by Jack Kornfield "Bringing Home the Dharma" tells of meditation masters who had not transferred important insights about their lives, habits and personalities from mindfulness into good living and habits.  Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote that she didn't like students who zoned out and would stick them with a thumbtack to jolt them out of their trance.

Simple concentration meditation can do wonders for one's awareness of the way the conscious and unconscious minds play with us, pull tricks on us, filter out what doesn't make us look good to ourselves and others.  But it isn't a perfect tool.  If you want to, you can sit concentrating on the breath, calm yourself into bliss and still be a real pain.  If you don't give yourself a good examination once in a while and pay attention to the results, you can still avoid self-knowledge and any application of good sense to better living and better behavior with others.

Once you get comfortable with settling into your own mind, you can take shelter there to avoid contact with others and with problems. You can decide that others are bothersome insects that are beneath you and quietly and steadily view them with contempt.  Of course, with genuine and open awareness, you will see what you are doing and take steps to import the beauty of life and company into conscious gratitude and respect for it all.

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

I'm a genius

Just told I was a genius by a couple with outstanding academic credentials.  Would you like to be a genius?  Here's how:

1. Use electronic devices, such as computers, smartphones and tablets like iPads

2. Encourage others your age to use such devices, too

3. Be receptive when others have trouble using them or learn of something they would like to do with them that they can't yet

4. Tell them who might be able to help them

Here's what happened:

Field: I'd like to ask you a question.  What can I do to get my iPad to change orientation?  Now, it stays in portrait mode even when I hold it sideways.

Me: Do you have the position locked?

Field: No

Me: Have you tried the Lockhorn's percussive maintenance?  Try smacking the thing with the edge of your hand.

Field: Doing that is not helping.

Me: Well, here are some places in town where you can get it repaired if it has lost function.

Field: Wait!  Bill, what if I tried locking the position and then unlocking it?  Do you think that might fix the problem?

Me: I don't know.  Try it.

Field: Ok, here goes.  Hey!  It worked!  Bill, you're a genius!

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

Research, trying out and experimentation

I wanted to be a teacher because it felt right, I enjoyed studying and interacting with people of any age and I enjoyed explaining.  So, I attended the nearest teacher's college, which was close by and quite inexpensive. (It was subsidized by the government.)  However, when I really got into the courses on how to teach, in my third year of college, I was appalled.  The courses were for those in training for elementary school teaching, for students in the 1st to 6th year. I felt there was too much emphasis on making attractive bulletin boards and too little on the psychology of young kids and their situation in life.

(Later, when I was a teacher educator myself, I realized that a big part of my problem was the transition I was going through from being a student to being responsible for the education of others.  I might have benefited from a little more occupational philosophy and personally-oriented psychology.)

I was young and full of misguided temper.  I had never taught and never trained anyone to teach but I was sure my critical feelings were on target and appropriate.  Later, when I learned that I could not continue teaching without a master's degree, I first tried working in the direction of math and science.  But the limitations of my previous studies meant quite a bit of preliminary coursework, which I had insufficient funds and interest for.  So, I cast about for a good direction and figured that if I had had such distaste for my teaching training, I should work for clarity as to what the best training and educational methods were.  On the way to a master's degree, I got redirected to my doctorate in measurement, statistics and experimental design.

So, I have spent quite a time using the heading of 'research' in my thinking and my work.  I feel personally justified in spending money for an electric shaver and then finding that I don't like the relatively expensive little machine and happily return to an inexpensive razor and shaving cream.  I put the foray into electric shaving under the heading of 'research and experimentation' and am satisfied with the expense and effort.

I find that a great many things in this modern American world can be put down to trying things out.  I realize that taken to extremes, any sort of lifestyle can be put down to research.  A major difficulty is that YOLO, "You only live once".  So, you can experiment with being a vagabond or a millionaire but you aren't going to have the life time to run through many lives.

Still, I think many of the struggles and questions of our lives can be helped with experiments, formal and informal.  Trying a new sort of computing or communication, a new sort of domestic arrangement, new places to travel, new and different books - there are many sorts of research and experimentation that have low costs and big payoffs. And there is the fun of being an explorer of one kind or another.

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

Lynn's weekly letter

Lynn writes a weekly letter every Sunday for relatives and friends.  Here is this week's:

Hi, Everyone

I say a week back to normal. At least it was a week of normal for us--maybe you would disagree. :)

The first part of the week was spent getting settled in again--laundry (of which there was a LOT), going through all the mail that came in our absence (a lot of that too), and working on the 373 pictures we took during the trip. We actually took more--I deleted the ones that didn't work at all. For instance, both pictures I took of the rape of an elephant seal were totally out of focus. There were a few other shots that also were too out of focus, that didn't begin to show what we were hoping for, were hopelessly insipid, or accidentally taken of feet as one was walking, that I deleted.  I also deleted about 1/2 of the pictures we took with our iPads, since we seem to manage to get multiples of most of those shots. The shutter seems to be faster than our fingers.

We took more pictures with our iPads on this trip than we have before, for a reason. When we travel lately I only take my iPad, and not my computer, and so when I write, I write from my iPad. (I have an external keyboard for it.) I cannot get pictures directly from my camera to my iPad; I have to use my computer in between, and I like to be able to send at least one picture with my daily travel notes. The camera gives a lot more control in the type of pictures it takes, and I can carry it around my neck, while the iPad requires a hand to hold it all the time. But on this trip, Bill carried the iPad and I carried the camera. That worked well. But I can see a very fuzzy picture of an iPhone in our future trips.

The weather on the trip was far warmer than here at home, and that was a real pleasure. The first morning we were there, it was 31 degrees when we awoke, but the off shore wind later in the week got the temperatures up into the upper 60s and lower 70s. All the people who lived there kept saying how unseasonably warm it was. We were missing temperatures here at home that were well below zero, and with even colder wind chills, and so even 31 degrees seemed rather pleasant to us. The day we visited the butterflies was warm enough that I zipped off my pants legs. It went up 75 that day, the day the schools were closed in most of Wisconsin because of the cold. Since we've been home, it has still been cold, but there have been no days where it has remained below zero all day, and at least one day when it went up above freezing for a few hours.

I recently learned that our bird feeder is in the wrong spot, and I will have to move it in the spring. Birds like it to be near trees, so if hawks come around they can easily hide. I put our feeder out in the open to keep it out of the reach of squirrels and also to be close enough to the house so we can bird watch as we eat our meals in the dining room. It's also close enough to the house that I don't have to shovel snow too far out into the yard to refill the feeders. (I should get snowshoes.) The birds still visit it pretty much, but I guess they'd visit it a lot more if it were somewhere else. This time of year, most of the birds we see at it are downy woodpeckers, chickadees, various sparrows, and goldfinches. A few ground feeding birds come around too: juncos and doves, and occasionally squirrels and rabbits check out the ground for scraps. Bill suspects deer too--we've seen many footprints in our yard. But right before we went on our trip we saw a pileated woodpecker out there, a beautiful bird, but so much bigger than the feeders he couldn't get any food. He didn't stay long. And yesterday a flicker was eating from the suet feeder. He was large enough that he had to do some acrobatics to get the food, but he stayed a good while.

The rest of this week has been, as I said, pretty normal. We had Noah here on Monday, Bill ate lunch with the guys on Tuesday, Wednesday night we had some friends over for dinner (that is not usual, but we wanted company), Tuesday and Thursday I went to my exercise class for the first time in 3-4 months (my Achilles tendon is not quite fully healed, but I can move more normally again), Friday Bill met with his philosophy bunch, Friday night we attended the opening of an art show, and last night dinner out with friends. We both had dentist appointments and attended one LIFE class this week. I spent enough time working on ceramics since we've been home that Bill begins to wonder if I have moved to the basement.

While we were away, Dave came over and installed another shop light in my studio area and added wall switches to turn them on and off individually. That is part of the reason I spent so much time down there--it is well lit enough now that I can actually see what I'm doing (not that it gives me more talent, however.) I learned about a new technique or two, and I want to try them. But in addition to making several bowls, I made an elephant. I am anxious to see if it turns out at all, or if it will explode when i try to fire it. If it does work, I will be happy that nobody can see its insides, because they are not exactly artistic. I had to do a lot of patching.

It's good to be home. I don't know if we will still be saying that in a month or two. But we currently have no trips firmly planned until the end of October--New York city for a few days.  My mind is working on other strong possibilities, but we don't necessarily agree on destinations. I still want to go to Cuba, and I'm interested in touring Ireland and Scotland. Bill is not interested in either of those trips. We might go to FGC again this summer (it's in North Carolina), I'd love to go to ceramics camp again, if there is a class that sounds of interest, and maybe a yoga retreat at some point. Bill bought tickets for a play in Pepin Wisconsin, and that would be an overnight trip. Bill would like to spend time in the major Canadian cities--Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, and Vancouver--on separate trips. And someday I would like to go to Finland. But a lot of these trips may not work out, since we are getting older and less able to do some of the things. And we find flying more and more of a pain in the neck, especially from this tiny airport, which requires too many connections.

That's it for this week.

Love, Lynn

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

Read it again!

My wife is ahead of me in listening to Alexander McCall Smith's "Corduroy Mansions" series.  She has listened to both volume 1 and the 2nd one, called "The Dog Who Came in from the Cold."  For my money, Smith is the best writer there is: humane but still crisp, funny, original, eye-opening but basically respectful.  He is the author of the many volumes of the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" Series, set in Botswana, and of the "44 Scotland Street" series.  He has many other books, also.

Here he describes a certain magazine in which one of the heroines' picture will soon appear:

The publication of full-page photographs of attractive young women of a certain class was one of the great traditions of British journalism, better established than the rival— and vulgar —tradition of plastering naked women across page three of the Sun. The "Rural Living" girls could not have been more different from their less-clad counterparts in the Sun, separated by social and cultural chasms so wide as to suggest that each group belonged to a fundamentally different species. Rural Living girls were photographed in a rural setting, although from time to time one might be featured in a cloister or some other suitable architectural spot. Generally they wore clothes that were not entirely dissimilar to their mothers'. Indeed, in the case of those girls of very ancient breeding, where long bloodlines had not been synonymous with commercial success and where genteel penury was the order of the day, the clothes they wore were in fact their mothers', having been passed on with relief when it was discovered that fashions had come full circle and the outfits were once again à la mode.

Smith, Alexander Mccall (2010-07-08). Corduroy Mansions: A Corduroy Mansions Novel (1) (p. 18). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

There is so much to chuckle at and appreciate in that selection that I laughed when I listened and I laughed again as I read it aloud to Lynn.  Sure, she had already heard it but one of the functions of a marriage is to share language you love, preferably multiple times.  

Amazon has a program of selling the audio book and the print book together at low or reduced prices.  After listening a while in the car, it is satisfying to find the passage in print and read it again.

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

Mindfulness, schmindfulness

Ever been to a three ring circus and find it difficult to catch all the acts going on at once?  That happens in this complicated, fast-moving world all the time, in the circus and out.  Mark Epstein wanted some toast:

I had been craving toast for several days. The food had been remarkably good, but I had gotten it in my head that what was lacking was fresh-baked bread. It didn't seem like such a big thing to wish for— the vegetarian meals just needed this one little touch to feel complete. On this morning, six days into my stay, the bread finally appeared. Granted, it was gluten free and made from chickpea flour, but it still looked good. I cut myself a slice, toasted and buttered it, took a little bit of apricot jam, made myself a cup of tea, and settled silently into my seat to relish it all. I was very mindful and lifted the toast to my lips to take a bite. It was delicious. I chewed and tasted and swallowed and noticed how I wanted the next bite before I had completely finished the first. When the sweetness faded and the remnants of toast turned to cardboard in my mouth, I was ready for more. I waited, though, remembering the instructions for mindful eating: Finish each mouthful completely before taking the next bite. I have only a vague recollection of what happened next. I believe my mind wandered to the laundry I had to do the next morning. There wasn't that much to think about anymore, but that didn't seem to be stopping me. Would I do one load or two? Could I put them both in at the same time? My wife would be happy if I came home with all my clothes washed. The next thing I remember was that my toast was gone. "Who ate my toast?" my mind cried as I stared at my empty plate.

Epstein, Mark (2013-08-15). The Trauma of Everyday Life (pp. 104-105). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition.

As far as I am concerned, it is good to be aware of both dangers and beauties in this world.  External and internal things may need noting and attending to.  Practicing concentration and practicing observing the stream of thoughts and feelings does tend to lead to greater awareness of how and what the mind is doing.

Still, finding that in a moment of deep satisfaction, the mind has begun to anticipate doing the laundry instead of concentrating further on enjoying one's toast does not seem to be a sure sign of attending to a wrong or inferior subject.  Sure, if you meant to get a few more grains of pleasure from toast and jam but you forgot, well, heck! However, it is worthy of debate among a dozen philosophers as to whether keeping one's attention here or there is better in the long run.

Parents and teachers try to remain open to various ways of thinking as explained in my post of Dec. 6, 2010.  One person may choose to relish good bread while another chooses to ponder the laundry.​

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