Headlines, TOC, index, list

​A large collection of books, clothes hanging the closet and folded in bureau drawers, the tools downstairs, Kindle books available on Amazon, PEW religious headlines of the day - a collection of items is a bit of a challenge.  What is here?  What do I want?  Where is it?

When we have a goal, we need some sort of guide or map.  Where are books by Ian Rankin?  When we don't have a goal, things are more diffuse.  How is the statistics section?  Anything good there?  What about books on baking and wine making?

It is easy for me to forget that either locating an item or deciding on an item, I want some sort of information quickly, a title or a sectional name like Nature or History.  Sometimes the title is an attempt to capture the book: "The Story of a Counterfeiter Who Evaded Capture."  Sometimes the title is an attempt to capture me: "Unforgettable Tales of Heroes in the American Revolution".  

In just the Amazon Kindle store, there are over 1200 items about headlines.  The reporter and the editor who work on the story of the horrible fire create a headline.  It will be listed among many other headlines.  Maybe it will be written to convey the gist of the story, that several people escaped injury , or it can be written to tease and draw, "Deaths narrowly avoided by heroic actions".

I have heard that men shoppers tend to be more focused on an item they have decided they want before they enter the store.  I have a pretty good relation with myself, my tastes and my recent foods, books, movies, etc.  My memory may supply the name of an author to track down or a subject I have been wanting to read.  Psychologists say that humans are prejudiced against being in a state of uncertainty so that may be why I speedily focus on a book, an author or a subject.  It is not just in books, either.  I tend to recall that I haven't had fish lately and then buy some, regardless of whether there is a sale on steak or not.

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

Twitter: @olderkirby

Complaints

​A friend accuses me of over-optimism, even pathetic, childish glossing over the vicissitudes of life.  A person my age, especially a man, is expected to be growling and snarling and I am not fulfilling her expectations.  I don't usually care much for expectations, having more of a "you never know" philosophy about the unfolding of the future.  But she is smart and so I am reconsidering happy, multi-colored thoughts.  

Another friend has dropped hints that I could refer to meditation and mindfulness a little less often.

Let's take rosiness first.  Around here, it is white, not rosy, the time of year, as Garrison Keillor says, that nature tries to kill us.  Here in this country, we are in the midst of round 97 of the clown convention of both sides, egging us to vote for their plan.  What's to be upbeat about that?  Our friends in the media keep pestering us to worry about issues and locations we haven't thought of when we already have enough trouble getting our taxes in.  It is clear that things are not like when I was a kid, as far as I can remember those conditions.  Things were great then, but now?  Nooooooooo. Fears and disagreements and plots and slacking off everywhere.  It's hard to say how bad things will get.  Before they get even worse, that is.  I just don't know if things have ever been this bad before.

Meditation?  Who needs it?  It just leads to more timidness and more tangled thinking about what if and who if and when if.  A big swill of booze is the ticket.  More sugar and more cookies will help more than being aware of our thoughts.

It is weak and sinful to laze about.  Should be dusting more, especially during this time of closed windows and furnaces running all the time.  Should be watching the markets more diligently.  How about an oil change?  Just how long have you needed one?  And, when was the last time we were in the gym?  Just thinking about those machines won't do it, you know.​

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

Twitter: @olderkirby

We are getting richer and it's tough

We know more.  We know how to have more.  We know more about the dangers and disadvantages of having more.  We realize there are limits to our lives, our time alive, our ability to appreciate, to be affectionate.  

I can't prove these things are happening but I see signs and experience anecdotes. Young people are picking up a wide variety of ideas. Not just ideas but practices, too. I participated in several hours of group snowshoeing along snowy trails in 25 degree temperatures in some noticeable wind yesterday.  Our guide was a young naturalist who had us stop at every trail junction and read a poem she had brought along. I was too cold to be in the mood for poetry but she quickly and efficiently advocated not only for nature around us but for "the moment we are living."  

That seems to be a good sized piece of the wisdom and philosophy of the Eastern world that we can all adopt and use to our benefit.  Here a young woman on her way to being a first-time mom has the nerve and the impulse to try to put the minds of some senior citizens into useful appreciation not only for observable nature and its scents but for the intangible moment.  We knew what she meant and we were indeed respectful of the call to mindful aware of invisible time and our now.

Maybe because of effort, communication, attention to each other and interest in ideas everywhere, we are getting to be more like lottery winners.  We are coming into possession of billions, often in the form of increased finances and funds, but also in truly noble goals for ourselves and others.  We are new at handling more thinking done deeper and faster, Like lottery winners, we are in possession of more possibilities, more considerations and so many directions can be confusing, tiring even. But multi-dimensional thinking using many disciplines and tools, with wise sifting of philosophies and religions to extract the long-range best, we are headed toward a truly amazing future.

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

Twitter: @olderkirby

Fake it until you make it

Educators and scholars may have a special interest in the mind.  I certainly do.  I am not very interested in carburetors or furnaces even though they are very important in my life and I know it.  I am interested in the powers and foibles of the mind, which, under the right circumstances can invent and design carburetors and many other important and useful things.

Bessel van der Kolk and acting as a tool - Dr. van der Kolk's book "The Body Keeps the Score" is about trauma, deep and damaging fright and negative experiences had by some in battle, sexual abuse and marital violence.  The first part is about understanding how people dealing with trauma feel and act.  The second part is about treatments that tend to quiet fears and return the mind to normal.  One of the treatments can be acting: a traumatized veteran plays a part in a real play with real actors where he needs to act out what he wants to feel his traumatic experience.  Doing so gives him back his normal feelings and dissolves the trauma.

UW- Whitewater math exam and male or female names

Dr. Shen Zhang at Univ. of Wisconsin - Whitewater and her associates gave math exams to both male and female college students.  The exams for the females already had names on them, some male names and some female names.  The women with male names on their exams did better than those working under female aliases.

Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body by Dr. Jo Marchant - This recent book by a microbiologist is a fine-toothed examination of advanced research into different aspects of placebos.  I have not read very much of the book yet but I will.  I am impressed by how much can be done to tease out more knowledge about placebos and imitation treatments. Imaginative and far-reaching research with modern tools and ideas is just beginning.

No consideration of mind power should omit hypnosis, another subject about which more is known these days.  I recommend books and pamphlets by Mary Elizabeth Raines, an experienced hypnotist who has hypnotized me twice.

The downside of the mind over the body game is that too many people can play, people with no knowledge or worse, people with nasty motives.  I can tell you anything, require anything of you, hear any sort of complaint or difficulty you have and then simply tell you to focus on what I say and forget about your own interests, pain or needs.  In other words, mind over body is an area that attracts charlatans, dictators and bullies like meat attracts cats.

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

Twitter: @olderkirby

When will you believe me?

I received an email from a friend stating that she was stranded in the Ukraine.  Could I send her $2500 to tide her over?  Or, any amount I can afford?  She is a worldly person and might be in the Ukraine or anywhere else but I thank my suspicions.  So did she and she thought her email provider did a good job fighting off the hacker who tried to bilk her friends.

I guess more providers are instituting two step verification where to sign on, you put in a password but you aren't on until you send back a code the provider sends to your phone or other contact.

There is a question in philosophy that often revolves around an axe.  My grandfather gave me his old axe.  I liked it and heated my house with the wood I split using the axe but eventually I had to replace the handle.  Later, the axe head was so nicked and old that I had to replace the head.  The question is "Is the current axe still my grandfather's axe?"

An older well known statement is "You can't step into the same river twice".  After the first dunking, the water flowed on and the next step will not be into the same water.

How recently do ID pictures have to have been taken?

I ask you to recall that we went to Mapletown High School together.  You say that many people went there and you aren't convinced I am still the same person I say I am.

I doubt if it will help but I could try the Nasruddin the Fool movement of looking at my reflection in the mirror and stating "Yep, that's me, all right."

I could ask my hospital to analyze my blood and show that the DNA matches what is known about my blood.

I could recite various items in my history.  Maybe only I would know them.  Maybe the list of facts will suggest other records or witnesses that you accept as identifying me.

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

Twitter: @olderkirby

Troubles and five human basics

​Prof. Mark Leary in his Great Course "Understanding the Mysteries of Human Behavior" gives five motives that people have:

1.    Acceptance by others

2.   Belong to groups

3.   Influence others

4.   Protection from enemies

5.   Form intimate relationships

I see many personal, social and political actions and statements that lead me to believe these five basic motives are active in most people but they can easily conflict with each other.  Leary just mentions desires and says nothing in the list about convictions.  Convictions can be related to fears and sins as well as hopes and perceptions of duty.

If I think it is my duty to get people to accept a particular religion and I find they don't want to, I can be convinced I will never go to Heaven. Depending on my picture of duty and the consequence of failing to carry out my duties, I may see eternal torment ahead.  I want to earn the respect of my family and others in important relations and I will lose some of that respect if I fail to do my duty, as they see it.  So, I may try to use force, bribery and trickery to gain new adherents to my religion.

 

I may be convinced that my brother should give up smoking.  After hounding him, and repeatedly emphasizing the evidence against smoking, I am picturing the day, years from now, when he is grateful to me for dragging him away from smoking. I picture the day that he is in good health and lives a long life, in part because of my hounding. My good intimate relation with my brother may be sacrificed for my conviction that I can hound him into healthier living.

If the evidence really does show that smoking will hurt my brother with high probability, I may be a coward not to hound him.  I may be a bit piggy to enjoy his affection, seeing all the while the likely result of his smoking and the pain and fear in his wife's eyes when she sees him light up and smells his cigarette.  For some reason, it seems unlikely that same brother or my other siblings will accuse me of cowardice or self-indulgence if I just keep quiet.

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

Twitter: @olderkirby

Senior citizens who listen, ponder and question

I attend 2 to 4 lectures a week in this organization for older citizens.  But whenever people try to explain what the group is, they begin using the phrase "lifelong learning".  I imagine the alliteration of the two L sounds makes those words come to the tongue easily.  But I think that description could be improved on.  It makes us sound like we attend to learn things.  Learning is something we were supposed to have done in school, where we had to take tests to show that we had learned.  

Everyone knows that school tests don't really check everything we have learned but they represent a challenge and sometimes ridicule, punishment or disappointment if we didn't do well enough on the tests to satisfy ourselves or our parents.  In the organization I am thinking about, called "Learning Is ForEver" or "L.I.F.E.", we don't have any tests.  We don't have any homework but one or another of those who attend may go home, find a book or articles that extend the ideas.  How do we know we are learning if we don't pass tests?  We don't.  

I think it really is the discussion as well as the words chosen by the presenter that lay a foundation for us to think about the subject at hand.  Between 70 and 100 presentations are available over about 15 five-day weeks, or more than one a day.  The subjects are chosen by a committee and the members get a listing before it all begins. From that listing, each member ticks off the presentations they desire to attend.  It is quite rare for all those who selected the session to attend.  Usually between a third and half of the roster comes.  

It is a little difficult to say just why people come.  Meeting together is a social event and over time, we get to know each other pretty well.  An outstanding characteristic of the group is their maturity and their excellent, insightful and sometimes challenging questions they ask the presenter.  Some of the visiting college faculty who usually teach typical college students are surprised at how vigorous the questioning is.  One presenter said it felt like he was doing his doctoral orals all over again. 

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

Twitter: @olderkirby

trying to be more precise, less ignorant and less vague

​My friends were discussing numerical estimates, especially subjective ratings.  The physician asks, "On a scale from 0 to 10, h​ow bad is your pain?"  Some people find such questions irritating or off-putting or scary.  How can I know what the correct rating is?  What if I say "5" when I should have said "7.2"? Lynn suggests that those who have difficulty with such questions ask the physician "On a scale of 0 to 10, how much do you want an answer?"

I wrote my dissertation in 1968. Back then, there was a big change going on and it is still happening.  The change more or less started with Bruno de Finetti (1906-1985) and Leonard Savage (1917-1971).  These men and Howard Raiffa and others sought to make much greater use of information in people's minds.  The idea is that it could be useful.  In fact, it is already being used in many fields.  Anglo-American statistical methods of analysis of experiments began back with the publication of an anonymous article by an employee of the Guinness Brewing Company using as a foundation a "null hypothesis" of no difference between two groups.  W.S. Gosset published his article in 1908, relying on work done since the mid-1800's on what errors could probably be expected in readings in astronomy.  

The big change just beginning in the mid-1960's was movement away from null hypothesis testing and into Bayesian statistics.  The men mentioned above urged more use of what is called a Bayesian approach, after a British cleric Thomas Bayes (1702-1761).  He published after death on the adjustment of a probability in the light of additional evidence, the way to modify conditional probability. Often a Bayesian approach is much assisted by some initial guess, such my guess that there is a 10% chance there is oil underground right about here.  That figure from my head, 10%, will get corrected over time and experience.

Today, we are in the midst of a push to use computers better and more intelligently in all walks of life and in another push to computerize medical records and communications.  As soon as you have data collected, statisticians want to analyze it for patterns.  

I was interested in this ad I saw this morning as it shows the increased use of math, statistics and precise (although sometimes misleading) definitions:

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

Twitter: @olderkirby

Body positions

I have written about the body several times but not so much about how we arrange the body.  As a guy who, as they say, tends to "live in his head", I have found that it is helpful and grounding to practice body awareness.  Focusing on my breathing, even consciously breathing slowly and deeply and smoothly, helps get me out of a bad mood, out of a worry or anything else I am focused on.  

It is not news that we live in such a way that we spend many hours sitting.  We sit to eat, to read, to watch television.  We visit each other and then have a seat. If you go to a friend's house for a party, you may be able to stand the whole time if you want.  But if people are mostly seated, you or they or both will be uncomfortable if you stand.  Even if you explain that it is painful to sit just now or that the doctor advised you to sit down less, you will probably have to repeat yourself in a few minutes.  

If you go to a meeting or an interview, all present will probably be seated.

It is also not news that social activities often include eating at the same time and place.  We gather for meals.  We meet for lunch.  We go out together to eat, sitting down.  When we "eat together", we usually eat different food, served on separate plates.  So, the essence is that between the time of my first bite and the time of my last swallow, you take bites of your food.  We call that "eating together" and if one of us is fasting or hates this sort of food or is medically unable to eat now - if anything interferes with our "eating together", it puts a little different slant on the occasion, maybe a little stress, maybe a little damper.  It is a little less complete or friendly or social, a little less of a celebration or a serious meeting.

If one of us needs to stand and one of us needs to sit, one or both of us may apologize.  We may explain the need for the difference in body position.

Seems funny but that's us.

What the mind does

There are quite a few videos on YouTube that show illusions.  Lynn showed me this one the other day.  It is a memorable one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNe6fsaCVtI

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

Twitter: @olderkirby

Energy for breakfast

People have been starved to death in parts of Syria. In the preface to his novel "Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh",the Chinese author Mo Yan writes about a time of starvation in his life:

In the spring of 1961, a load of glistening coal was delivered to our elementary school. We were so out of touch we didn't know what the stuff was. But one of the brighter kids picked up a piece, bit off a chunk, and started crunching away. The look of near rapture on his face meant it must have been delicious, so we rushed over, grabbed pieces of our own, and started crunching away. The more I ate, the better the stuff tasted, until it seemed absolutely delicious. Then some of the village adults who were looking on came up to see what we were eating with such gusto, and joined in. When the principal came out to put a stop to this feast, that only led to pushing and shoving. Just what that coal felt like down in my belly is something I can no longer recall, but I'll never forget how it tasted. Don't for a minute think there was no pleasure in our lives back then. We had fun doing lots of things. Topping the list of fun things to do was gleefully eating something we'd never considered food before.

Yan, Mo (2012-01-05). Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh: A Novel (Kindle Locations 56-63). Arcade Publishing. Kindle Edition.

The books "Catching Fire" by Richard Wrangham and "Paleofantasy" by Marilyn Zuk make clear what we already know: yes, the human sex drive is very powerful but not nearly as strong as our drive, our need and our pleasure in eating.  

Many adults have been schooled to believe that "breakfast is the most important meal of the day", that adequate protein, vitamins and other nutrients are important and come in a varied diet.  It is not something people I know face much but there are places and times where there is nothing for breakfast. I read a while back that the Japanese government tried to give its citizens succinct dietary guidelines with the rule "Eat 30 different foods a day."  

Because we eat quite often and we need to eat to live, we are all into food, eating, cooking, table manners and table society.  We started eating very early in our lives and have been doing it for a long time.  What our parents taught us, what we learned in school, what we have read combines with our experience and our goals to make a complex web of ideas, principles, practices and convictions.  

I have never starved to death so I haven't really checked out my need for food.  But I believe that I need it and that all animals do.  When I think of how many people, cultures, cuisines and foods there are, it doesn't seem surprising that there is a tremendous variety in ideas, practices and convictions people have about the sustenance of life.  Much of what marks our lives now seems to have developed in the last 100 thousand years or less.  But humans go back for 2 - 4 million years.  All that time, we have been eating this or that, in one form or another.

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

Twitter: @olderkirby

Definitely yes and not at all

​I read a job description the other day that the employee sought must be able to "handle multiple and sometimes conflicting priorities."  Sometimes theoreticians in various disciplines are interested in listing a set of rules or axioms by which a system or a theory operates. In 1932, Kurt Godel, an Austrian-American, proved that some systems exist or can be constructed in which it is not possible to have a set of axioms that completely describe all aspects and operations in the system and yet do not contradict.

Herbert A. Simon, an American professor (1916-2001), was an outstanding and prolific thinker and writer in many fields.  He won a Nobel prize in economics and contributed to several other subjects, including artificial intelligence (AI).  He noted that common rules-of-thumb and proverbs often contradict each other.  "Look before you leap" but "strike while the iron is hot".  From The Human Beast by Nigel Barber in Psychology Today: "Home is where the heart is" but "Familiarity breeds contempt."

If I say "Please remain standing but please sit down", it is going to be difficult to do what I say.  If Mom says I can have the car but Dad says I can't, maybe I will ask Grandma.  People run into contradictions and totally incompatible rules, laws, plans and pleas all the time. We can try to alternate between complying with one and then the other.  We can shrug and do what we want.  We can hide in back where we can't be seen.  We can choose between the issuing authorities on various bases: who punishes harder, who we actually want to go along with, who we paid attention to before when this sort of thing happened.

Sometimes, an academic or scientific picture of living is based on a very definite, even rigid picture of human thinking or activity.  Such clarified, simplified, abstract models of thinking or being or acting can be very helpful in giving us insight into our lives or into a new way of thinking or acting.  However, we find eventually that the clarity and simplicity is inadequate for a full picture of what we are, or do, or want.  At that point, we construct a new model of our beliefs or our science.

It is lovely that human judgment and desires are such that we can handle contradictions in love and life.  We are quite used to facing contradictory goals, where we want the "best" but can't afford its price, or want to be active and efficient while snoozing a little longer.  We know that it is when we face contradictions that things are getting rich and interesting.

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

Twitter: @olderkirby

Routine courage

About the time I first joined Twitter, I saw this cartoon:

https://www.google.com/search?q=new+yorker+cartoon+%22I%27m+getting+on+the+train%22&newwindow=1&biw=1207&bih=483&tbm=isch&imgil=1N-1amytriyiNM%253A%253Bw-HECY8PBpmPfM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.condenaststore.com%25252F-sp%25252FOne-person-getting-on-train-with-cell-phone-says-I-m-getting-on-the-trai-New-Yorker-Cartoon-Prints_i8479434_.htm&source=iu&pf=m&fir=1N-1amytriyiNM%253A%252Cw-HECY8PBpmPfM%252C_&usg=__i1oyq1EZH4_AlAz-D8GRKRMJHZE%3D&ved=0ahUKEwi9oMmAurPKAhUJ6SYKHfxQCa4QyjcIJw&ei=weacVv27L4nSmwH8oaXwCg#imgrc=1N-1amytriyiNM%3A&usg=__i1oyq1EZH4_AlAz-D8GRKRMJHZE%3D

Isn't that a hefty link???  It does lead to what stands out this morning.  Yesterday's post was about my Sunday morning routine.  Many mornings, evenings, holidays and other events have routines.  There are all sorts of books and articles about routines and habits, how to mold them, change them, improvement them, etc.  

They are part of all life.  I see that even the squirrels and birds have routines at the feeder, even in this 14° below zero weather.  Routines are fascinating.  They work much the same every time and yet we don't plan them and we don't think consciously about them. We go through them without noticing, except to admire our subconscious wisdom directing us over and over.  

When I first joined Twitter, some of the introductory messages encouraged me to be like the train passenger in the cartoon.  Use Twitter to state that I was brewing coffee, that I was pouring a cup of coffee, that I was lifting it to my mouth, etc.  Two different commenters this morning mentioned the description of a routine as a good conveyor of a person's life.  They said they get a feeling of intimacy and understanding of being with a person when they know something of that person's routine.  I think they are right but I feel strong reluctance in myself to say what I am doing.  Not exciting enough.  Not memorable or notable.  Embarrassing to relate.  Why do I feel that way?  How can I tell it is "beneath me" to write about routines?  Why do I think you will sneer at me if you read about my morning oatmeal?

I want to hear about yours.  In fact, I can be surprisingly interested in your routines.  I do need some detail.  Not too much but at crucial points your description will raise up questions in me: why that and not this?  How long?  How much?  Don't you realize that MY way is way better?  Got a reason why I should adopt your routine?  Is it really better?  Cheaper?  Faster?  More fun?

Usually too much questioning will get annoying.  It will seem like criticism or you will be unhappy that you don't know answers to my inane inquiries.  You will just wave me away.  Sometimes, a picture or a video of a routine being carried out will help.  (iPads are very good at both, Mrs. O!)  Not that pictures will always be better.  They are handy for some purposes and some descriptions but words make the background, words can direct the attention.  I guess I could say that careful awareness while carrying out a routine will tip me off to what parts create thoughts.  Tying my shoes, making a phone call - when doing something routine, when do I have thoughts direct me?

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

Twitter: @olderkirby

Sunday morning

We get ready for bed at 10 PM and are usually in bed by 10:30.  I turn off her phone and mine.  I turn off my computer and use a timer to shut off our internet connection.  Night pills, brushing teeth, flossing teeth - it takes time.  Most days I wake up between 6 and 6:15 without an alarm except what is in my head.

I call my friend in a different time zone and we often talk about half an hour.

Sundays, I make oatmeal for breakfast.  Used to be half a cup of oats for each of us but as we age, we need to cut back. ⅓ cup for each of us and twice as much water.  Sliced banana, sliced apple, raisins, craisins, walnuts. We have a device that cores an apple and cuts it into 8 sections at once.  When I can, I use chopped walnuts but they are often hard to find.  4 minutes on high in the microwave in a large glass

2 quart measuring bowl.  Stir well and give it another 3 minutes.  Set out milk in glasses and some more in a pitcher.  Add a cup of frozen blueberries to the mix when it comes out of the microwave.  Let the hot mix and the frozen blueberries interact thermically.  The berries become frosted and the moisture cools the mix to eating temperature.

She cleans up and I read my email.  She writes her weekly letter about her activities of the past week and mine.  She reads the letter aloud and that helps me remember what we did the last few days and what I did.  She goes off to Quaker meeting and I meditate, followed by housework, washing the floors or vacuuming the rugs, two activities that work well when I am home alone.  We generally meet for lunch at a local coffee shop.​

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

Twitter: @olderkirby

Playlists

Whether it is music or TED talks, you can find or make playlists.  Like reading lists, they are lists of songs or talks that someone feels go well together.  An album of music such as Barry Tugwell's French horn pieces often alternates between rousing music and calm music. When our greatgrandson was a little kid, Lynn made up a couple of CD's of music she thought he would like to listen to.  I just played one yesterday. It is full of pep and memories.

Of course the songs on it are familiar to us.  They are all popular music but not of the most recent decades.  

I have spent too much time trying to avoid retyping the list of songs and I am posting this as is.  I hope one or the other of these lists will encourage you to try Amazon Music, Apple Music or Google Music if not Spotify or some other sound and music service to give you a chance to list to music full of memories, meaning and spirit for you.

The first CD for him included these pieces:

1. I Wan'na Be Like You (The Monkey Song)  Disney Jungle Book

2. Heigh-Ho {'Snow White' 1937}

3. Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah {'Song of the South' 1946}

4. Jamaica Farewell

5. Don't Fence Me In

6. Mockin' Bird Hill

7. Jump Down, Spin Around

8. Jambalaya (On the Bayou)

9. The Purple People Eater

10. The Marvelous Toy

11. Day-O (Banana Boat)

12. (How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window

13. Swinging on a Star

The 2nd CD she made for him included these pieces

   

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

Twitter: @olderkirby

Costs and bests

Scott Adams draws the cartoon "Dilbert" and is the author of "How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big".  He promised in his blog to give his readers the best orgasms of their lives.  This promise was part of his discussion of what he sees in the Donald Trump campaign as manipulations of people's thinking.  I am not especially interested in any of that but I am interested in the abstract problem of anything being the best and the individual differences and insights between people in their choosing the best or something close to it.

Of course, Adams chose "orgasms" as a subject for its supposedly attention-getting value.  I asked a person I know about interest and enthusiasm for better orgasms and immediately got evaluative questions, "How much better?", "Better in what way?" and the like.  That is the thing with variables: the top reading on a variable often comes from an item that is not the top reading on other variables that are also important.  The best looking prince may be cruel while the wealthiest one is miserly and the sweetest one is unhealthy and unlikely to live much longer.  She wants handsome, wealthy and healthy and several other qualities, too.

I have spent many interesting hours with educated people discussing books.  Those discussions often involved trying to say what book was best.  As with many aspects of education, family life, marriage and personal living, such discussions of favorite books, movies, music, foods and clothes emphasize the individuality of favorites.  Not only do opinions and reactions differ between people, they differ within a single person.  When a 40 year old looks at a book they remember as thrilling at 15, they are sometimes surprised at how much they do not find the same outstanding quality in it.

We like to think that high readings on good scales will lead to happiness but when we switch our thinking to costs, the choice array can be surprisingly different.  The prince who tops out on some of the variables she has been thinking about lives in a different culture and to learn a new language and a new religion while living in a new country would be expensive in many ways.  Another top candidate doesn't want children and still another looks like he would not be a good parent. She estimates the cost for her and her children of parenting with that guy to be too high.

You can see why it is handy to be reasonably tolerant and accepting in life.  You can see the value of knowing the self as intimately and fully as possible since the self is the agent doing the evaluations and the self is the person who is pleased or displeased with the results.

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

Twitter: @olderkirby