Other parts of my brain

"Hacking Your Mind" is a set of four tv programs available on Amazon Prime and on PBS.  It is labeled Season 1 but I haven't seen anything about future seasons.  The first of the four episodes is titled "Living on Autopilot".  The idea of a person's internal autopilot relates to internal intelligence and controls in our bodies.  

I am interested in the parts of me that operate well but that I can't easily control or affect with my mind.  I have this web page of references that I have read and that inspired and educated me a bit:

https://sites.google.com/site/kirbyvariety/books-about-the-unconscious

As I wrote on that page, the book "Incognito" ($6 for Amazon download)

has been the clearest and most useful source I have used for understanding what goes on in me that happens outside my conscious thinking.

It seems true that the human brain is amazingly powerful and good at both logical and intuitive thinking, at relating feelings and emotions to choices and courses of action.  Still, heartbeat, blood pressure, digestion, physical balance and many other aspects of my body work with the brain but outside the conscious mind.  The author of Incognito, David Eagleman, likens one's conscious mind to the CEO of a complex organization.  Eagleman compares issues and decisions the conscious mind works with to items assistants bring to the boss for a decision.  Two words that have been helpful to me in thinking about my mind and my bigger, more powerful brain are feelings and habits.  

The first episode of Hacking Your Mind explores typical human feelings, habits and tendencies.  They are often anchored in human biology but the habits and procedures that we learn from others affect us, too.  

If you are over 60 years old, you already know a great deal about yourself: where you have been, what you tend to like, who and what you tend to avoid.  You know which hand you tend to use for delicate work, what foods you like, what books or movies or activities have been fun.  There seems to be a certain amount of baloney in the description of "Hacking Your Mind" but recent events have brought to the minds of many some fears of advertising, electronics, bribery and other tools and tricks that might be used to control or partly control many of us.

120741091101

"Moonwalking with Einstein" by Joshua Foer is about human memory.  I have just been reading about chunking.  He examines techniques and approaches that memory champions employ.  One of them is chunking.  This post is titled "1207410911101".  If that was a series of random digits, it would be 12 digits to remember.  For a younger person, it might be that.  For an older person, it would probably be easier to remember Pearl Harbor and Nine Eleven.  The US naval installation at Pearl Harbor was surprise-attacked on Dec. 7, 1941 and Nine Eleven is the date in September, 2001 that the US suffered a surprise attack by Al-Qaeda.  

Foer and others make the point that we can often remember something if it is associated with other things we know.  It turns out that our memories are not recordings like a tape or a CD.  They are related to other things and we can remember items that are associated with other items.  Suppose I use "In God we trust all others pay cash" as a password.  I remember the sentence and I translate it into IGwtaopc.  If the web page insists on special characters, I might use IGwtaop$.  I already have capitals and small letters but maybe I need at least one numeral.  If so, I would throw on one or two numbers, maybe changing the sentence to "...6 others pay cash."

I have read that rhyming verses have sometimes been constructed to assist the memory.  If you say "Ogden Nash", I say 

When called by a panther, 

don't anther. 

For no good reason beyond a little interest and my normal laziness, I memorized that little verse of his.  Those nine syllables stuck in my head and they remain there.  He has very memorable titles, which give me a laugh without even bothering with the long poems.  Example: To a small boy standing on my shoes while I am wearing them.

Princessing

The Netflix series "The Crown" has reminded me of the story of Diana and Charles.  The entire series has had me thanking Everything That Matters that I was not born into any royal family.  Episode 3 of season 4 has me doubly thankful.  The show has alerted me to princesshood and its pros and cons.  Then, along came Hayley Zablotsky, a writer for Narratively, with an article called "Secret Life of a Children's Party Princess".

I was a little boy but I have never been a little girl.  As I understand things, little boys tend to admire champion swordfighters and battle winners.  I gather that little girls are not likely to be interested in sword play or victory on the battlefield.  When I was even dumber and more ignorant than I am, I assumed that competition and jostling was more of a male thing but as episode 3 of The Crown season 4, there can be very serious and determined competition between girls for place, honor and victory.

As I have looked into princesshood a little bit, I was surprised at the dominance of Disney.  I gather that many young girls have learned the basics of princessing from Disney animations.  The article linked above includes a brief exchange between the young woman acting as a princess and a young girl checking out the woman's credentials.  The exchange makes clear that princes will normally be expected to be equestrians and to have beautiful horses that have interesting and attractive names.

Boring!

I keep reading negative comments about 2020: it's a garbage year, I hope 2021 is better, closing down things has hurt us, lost jobs, the virus has created fear and death and divided people politically.  The situation has increased online activities and further concentrated business and wealth in a few hands while many people have poor internet.  We are just beginning winter and that further constricts us and robs us of fun and action.  

So, naturally, with all that, the subject of boredom comes up.  I have some posts on the subject that may be of interest:

https://fearfunandfiloz.blogspot.com/2017/08/i-may-be-running-low-on-boredom.html

The Pocket service that comes with using Firefox browser offered the article by Shayla Love from Vox called "How to be bored".  You may already be a very experienced bore-ist and not need any help.  If you want to check Love's ideas, click here: https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7mzbx/how-to-deal-with-boredom

I have heard that boredom is a serious problem for zookeepers. I am guessing that an expensive animal will live longer and in better health if it isn't bored all the time.  I intend to follow the example of the dogs across the street and chase Lynn around the house.  At our age, we don't go very fast. 

Gut, hunch, intuition

Gut, hunch, intuition

Reading "Incognito" and many other books about our unconscious minds, I can see why it makes sense to take note of my feelings and hunches.  I may be aware of something without having paid much attention that I am aware.  I guess if you sneak up behind and say "Boo!" and I jump, it is partly because I had assumed nobody was back there, even though I didn't pay attention to my assuming.

Whether I talk to somebody about feelings, or I write or paint about them, theorists often note that making the effort to describe internal feelings helps to give me a little space between them and me.  Deciding what colors or symbols or shapes represent a fear or a hope helps me think about what's going on inside a little objectively.  The tv series on Amazon Prime and on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is mostly about being persuaded by words and pictures to be for or against some cause or group.  It is true that we have built-in triggers for wanting something or fearing something but it can also be valuable and fun to be somewhat in touch with feelings and fears.  To be aware of myself, with a little distance to give me a chance to decide if I really want to eat another candy, can lead to better harmony between me and myself.

I like to ask myself what has been important to me over the last day.  I am in the habit of doing a little reading and watching some fiction on tv.  That habit can create images that are more memorable than putting on my shoes this morning.  So, I can't really do a complete review of a day or even an hour for that matter.  Still, trying to recall any peaks and valleys in the last 24 hours does turn up some things.  I talked to a couple of friends on the phone and I saw family members when they visited.  Just like when I look out the window, moving snow or flying birds are more interesting than weeds and stones, people also move and express themselves.  What moves matters.  

I don't make a definite decision about what or who matters but I keep trying to see what comes to mind when I ask myself what's up.

Some place else is great!

It's not too exciting here. I have been here quite a while and I have seen the sights here.  It would be exciting to be someplace else.  I don't want to go to any particular other place.  Every place I think about would quickly change into a typical place, one without anything special about it. No, I don't want to go to any particular place.  They all have their disadvantages so I want to go to a general place, some place non-specific.  You know what they say, wherever you go, there you are.  So, wherever I go, that's where I will be.  There would still be a whole slew of great places I'm not.  

Maybe I can do better with time.  Once I was there and another time, I wasn't.  I'm told that I can't be in two places at once.  That may be true but while I am sitting here, I can be walking among the giant redwoods in northern California.  I not only did that once, I also remember it.  So, with very little effort, I can recall the scene and my companions and being there, right while I continue to sit right here at this keyboard.  

When I try to think of a place I have actually been that was fun, uplifting, exciting, generally good, I think of Hawaii and I think of Florence.  I liked both of those places and I was aware that I liked them right while I was there.  That is one criterion that matters to me.  Just about any memory can be delicious or boring or negative.  It was so beautiful!  I was so grateful to be there, whole, alive, enjoying!

When I try to think of a time that was fun and exciting and uplifting and generally good, it is a bit tricky.  When we waited in O'Hare for hours for our plane to be repaired, we were delighted, deeply, to be told it was time to board.  When the pork roast was done, and ready to eat, and served, and cool enough to swallow, that was a very good moment.  

Ok, I am going to take the lazy way out.  I am not going to drive to the airport or bike over to their house.  I am going to appreciate this breath, this quiet and comfort right here, that I am in now.  I am not going to project myself into a lovely moment of the past or something really fine in the future.  I am taking this moment, right now to be grateful, even for good things I haven't thought of.  I know they are here anyhow.

Images

Around Christmas, writers and other creators try to recall or create good feelings about Christmas.  With cold and difficulties, we can appreciate good humor, good gratitude and happy endings.  Last night, it seemed a little wrong to watch a show about a shooting.  I asked Lynn if she wanted to watch a Chrstmas movie.  She said she would love to watch "The Bishop's Wife", a movie from 1948, starring Loretta Young, David Niven and Cary Grant. We found it on Prime Video and watched it. 

We had both seen it several times before but it was long enough since the last viewing that it was certainly not hard.  It didn't feel like the same old thing.  We have found that with enough time, re-watching is fun and entertaining.  

I certainly knew the name and face of Cary Grant and Young and Niven.  Loretta Young reminds me of my long-term girlfriend from 8th grade to 12th grade.  I think of David Niven as debonair and an important character in one or more early Inspector Clouseau movies.  I remembered that Cary Grant had a different name from birth until it was changed in Hollywood.  I just looked the man up and read

Once told by an interviewer, "Everybody would like to be Cary Grant", Grant is said to have replied, "So would I." 

Cary Grant was born Archibald Alexander Leach

The "so would I " comment makes me think of Cindy Crawford.  She was quoted somewhere saying a similar comment.  She said she wished that she looked like Cindy Crawford, the person who appeared in photo shoots and tv, the person who got expert make-up and costuming and lighting.  

The older I get, the more respect I have for ideas, legends and images.  I do realize that humans carry in their heads and in their art, drawings, photographs and descriptions using words all sorts of things that differ from the physical, material world.  I do realize that I need kale and carrots, water and calories but I am confident that insubstantial ideas and goals and inspirations move us, too.

Wish for you

It's the big night and the big morning.  Hope it all works out and you can be rather satisfied with whatever doesn't.  

Merry Christmas to you!

Memories

My wife and I have lived together for more than 60 years. We haven't been together every moment of those years but basically the great portion of them, we have.  So, it is surprising when she remembers something we did together that I don't remember.  Well, it used to be surprising.  Not having identical memories has happened to us enough times that we have gotten a bit used to discrepancies coming up.  

I have been reading the book "Moonwalking with Einstein" by Joshua Foer about memory.  I am not too far into it.  So far, I have learned that most humans can distinguish between pictures they have seen and pictures they haven't seen very well.  The book discusses giving memory tests in which 2500 images are shown for 3 seconds each and then later testing by asking which of a pair of pictures was in the set looked at.  People can do quite well in that test and the conclusion has often been that visual memory, remembering what has been seen, is very powerful.  

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=2500+pictures+to+test+memory

I guess it is quite possible that my memories are not very accurate.  I have heard that every time I recall something, the memory information is modified a little.  My sister is a little bit younger than me and I can remember looking through the passenger side window of our family car and seeing her as a tiny newborn in my mother's arms.  But when you ask me the color of the car or her blanket or what Mom was wearing, I don't know. I do remember that Mom told me at the time to go into the living room of the house so she could let me hold the little bundle.  I remember that I did and that I held her sitting on our couch but again the memory lacks many details.  

I think the present moment is always important and much of the time, the past hour or day or week is actually less important.  I can feel good about something I did or that happened but I think the memory is just like a line of text in a list: "I made coffee" or "I took out the trash".  I have two dozen or so notebooks in which I started some sort of memory book or diary but I am aware that I have not felt a desire to go through them and recall things.  I have many blog posts and once in a while, I do look through them, usually at the same date in an earlier year.

Locating good books

If you live in the USA, you are almost certainly familiar with 'hype'.  It's hype that convinced me that the decoder ring in the cereal box would change my life.  I find that it is best to avoid wading through hype when trying to find good books to read.  It doesn't matter whether I want tear-jerking heartbreak or nightmares or wonderful new recipes or an explanation of gravity waves, reading the blurbs and the latest press releases is not a good way to find reading that appeals, charms and enriches.  

It is not just books, either.  Articles that appeal to me because of the topic or the language used in the Pocket service very often come from a few years back.  I found the same thing in the physical library. I like to browse books that are five or ten years old.  The storm of hype and blurb and overblown words has passed by then, and it is easier to see quickly and more accurately if a given book really seems likely to add to my life, knowledge and feelings.

The tried-and-true approach can be overdone.  A professor who studied at the University of Chicago looked down on its famous Great Books program.  Sure, the ancients knew valuable things but he said imagine studying science at Aristotle's level.  That's why it pays to get things that are modern, just not too modern.  My technologist friend repeatedly advised not to jump on the bandwagon (I have never actually seen a bandwagon and I am not tempted to jump on one if I do) too soon.  Let the bugs, flaws, and errors get discovered, complained about, and fixed first.  

It tickles me how excellent books and movies are just sitting around waiting to charm and fascinate when I look past the very latest.  

Entering winter

The internet told me that this morning at 4:30 AM my time, the north end of the earth was as far from the sun as it gets.  When it reaches that point, we say we have entered winter.  From now until the summer solstice on June 20 at 10:31 PM, the earth will get closer to the sun and we will experience spring.

Honoring ancient gods and beliefs, buying and wrapping gifts and thinking about Santa and Christmas, we tend to associate with winter.  In Wisconsin, that means snow, ice, wind and all the goodies we long for.  But the associations with cold are at odds with the fact that from today until June 20, the north side of our planet gets more and more sun, heat, and daylight.  Just think of any snow, ice and wind as warming signs.

You know that it is warming that many people fear.  We don't want to be desert everywhere.  We don't want too much heat.  We are actually a somewhat delicate lifeform, not too cold nor too warm.  The next planet toward the sun from us is Venus.  It's too hot for us and Mercury is worse. Mars is too cold for comfort, with an average of -81°F.  

Some people use the solstice as markers instead of Christianity, sending out greetings of "Happy Solstice!"  

Save for later

Firefox browser asked users to explain what they are grateful for.  I answered "Pocket", their service that appears on the temporary page when starting a new tab.  Pocket uses the space to offer links to articles that have appeared somewhere on the internet that seem of interest.  As with many products, there is a free version and some more advanced versions that cost.  Until today, my free version did not display the number of articles I had saved but I knew it was high.  Today, for the first time, I opened a Pocket app on my smartphone and that app told me that I have over 2500 articles saved.  

That number reminds me of my ebooks and other over-grown files.  The internet invites that creation of writing, of "content".  This blog and the many others are written by someone and that someone may be trying to express, to create good writing, to educate, to sell:

How many blogs are there in 2020? There are over 600 million blogs in the world today, out of over 1.7 billion websites. In the United States, there are over 31 million active bloggers posting at least once per month.Jan 2, 2019

How Many Blogs Are There? (And 141 Other Blogging Stats)

I have never thought of myself as a shopper but I do see many articles mentioned on Pocket that are of interest.  I suspect artificial intelligence or other mechanisms are at work to try to funnel me articles that seem like they would be of interest to me.

So far, each article links to the source publication and includes the name of the author.  There are authors' names that I recognize but I often wind up searching the name in Google to see something about the background and history of the writer.  

Using Firefox, just about any page that shows up anywhere can also be saved to Pocket.  Like an over-active squirrel, I keep saving items of interest that I may want to get back to, even though I already have way too much saved.  

When humans developed language, they invented a tool that can communicate valuable information but it can also convey dreams, hopes, fears and jokes.  It is the same problem I have in a library but there, the limited strength of my arms affects how much I can carry home.  It is so much easy to quickly save something of interest to be read "later".  I am not sure when "later" will get here.  

You may want the same stuff!

I have heard of women using their wiles on men.  That poor gender may be especially vulnerable to wiles being used on them.  I have never been so good-looking that an unbearable number of wiley women focused their charms and spells on me.  My wife has mentioned more than once that I might do well to be a little more conscious of my appearance.

I confess that I squirmed and pondered about a likely subject for today's blog post before I even remembered my face.  I just read today about a friend who has been using the same medicine my doctor prescribed for me.

This medication is used on the skin to treat pre-cancerous and cancerous skin growths. Fluorouracil belongs to a class of medications known as anti-metabolites. It works by blocking the growth of abnormal cells that cause the skin condition.

Fluorouracil Topical : Uses, Side Effects, Interactions, Pictures ...

I am getting close to the time the doctor said I could stop applying the cream.  I am just about at the height of my new beauty, don't you think?

Remember that time?

Between Alzheimer's and dementia, we have all heard of memory failure.  As has happened in many parts of my life, I got an early start.  I have been able and willing to remember many things but I have had sharp memory and alertness failures, too.  

It was in the 4th or 5th grade (I can't actually remember which), that I walked to the shoe repair shop only to arrive with just one of the pair I started out with.  That went over real big with my parents.  But, I have forgotten all about that now.  

You may have heard of memory tests of remembering three words:

https://bit.ly/3mwSg74

I just saw a note that said a person remembered the words of the test by totally concentrating on them and repeating them silently until asked for them.  I have been wondering how it would go over if I whipped out a pen and said,"Mind if I just jot them down?"  I do that sort of thing for myself all the time with phone numbers or long names.  

Many of my friends and acquaintances say they fear memory loss.  I can understand that loss would be no fun but it is also true that forgetting can be quite valuable and helpful.  I have read that a major factor is oldsters being unable to think of a word or name that they used to know and feel like they know now but can't recall is that they have so much already remembered. And, of course, there is the aspect of traumatic experience or something considered shameful of being unable to forget.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=value+of+forgetting

The current issue of Time includes a page of new terms being used, most of which relate to current politics or the virus situation.  One word is "blursday", the name of the current day of the week when you can't remember which day it is.  We use our phones, tablets and the front page of the paper we just brought in to check.

Half a dozen comments

We are about to send out Christmas greetings.  Many will be emailed but some will be sent by US Post.  Lynn writes a yearly newsletter reviewing the year.  I know it is the fashion to say 2020 has been a trying year and it has in many ways, but it also has some good parts, too.  I won't get into them here, but they will emerge as we think about the year and notice them.  

Yesterday, I wrote about browsers like Edge, Safari and Opera.  You can take the name of any browser, search for that in Google and download the browser to your computer.  I have Chrome and Firefox on my phone but anytime I unwisely pick up the phone and start using it for browsing or any serious interneting, I am reminded how much better, faster and more fun it is to use a computer instead.

I got another report from 23andMe yesterday.  That is one of the firms that analyze a person's DNA.  I used the National Geographic's Genographic Project twice and 23andMe.  The whole subject is just emerging and I recommend one company or another.  If you get your imagination going, you can be afraid of all sorts of unpleasant discoveries but you are who you are, and you might as well find out who that is.  We have been thinking about giving our greatgrandchildren a kit but we haven't done so yet.  We have two granddaughters and they are wonderful.  Despite prodding from the spell checker, I continue to refer to the next generation after grandchildren as "greatgrandchildren" and not "great grandchildren".  I think the term without an internal space is clearer.  

I like to refer to Amazon's Charts.  They list fiction and non-fiction that has sold the most and that which has been read the most.  Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling continues to dominate fiction reading.  Among most purchased today was "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", written in 1957.  I love that.  

I am founding a small (imaginary) internet company called Blessings.com.  I have found that none of us can really count our blessings.  There are simply too many.  I plan to hire some data analysts, some clerics, some scientists and our crew will count your blessings for you.  You can't really do it by yourself but from a nominal fee, we will get the full count.  We had plans to rent the adjoining office for Gripes.com but we find an Australian group has gotten there ahead of us. 

As old friends and parties who have strayed or moved reconnect at Christmas, I find I have to appreciate faster.  I am up late and rising early but I am still having trouble appreciating fast enough to keep up.

Browsing around the world from your desk

In the Windows operating system for a computer, there is a browser that is part of the software.  It is now called Edge but it used to be called Windows Explorer.  It used to be represented by a blue lowercase e, then the e got an edgy snip in the top and now it is represented by a blue swirl or wave. A browser is a computer program that enables a user to jump around the world to various websites.  You may have read that scientists started sending data to each other and Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, working at the Bern, Switzerland atomic energy center, saw the possibility of inventing what we generally call "web addresses" and allowing communication much like email.  

The address window in a browser is where we type in the web address we want to reach.  For instance, the world wide web address for the "page" of this blog is https://fearfunandfiloz.blogspot.com/  The "address" is also referred to as a "URL", universal resource locator.  The first browser we used was Netscape Navigator but when we began using the web, many of the organizations and possible destinations we were interested in didn't have web addresses at all.  Then, ads and groups began to acquire an internet presence.  

Just as it takes a while to find out what some of the possibilities with a smartphone are, it takes a while to learn your way around any set of mechanical options.  You can investigate Google Blogs or Wordpress or Google Sites to start writing for people all over the world or post pictures for them of your garden. That would develop your own URLs.

Modern Gutenberg

Marks on paper still matter.  Books on paper still matter. But there are alternatives and some of them fit our needs better at times.  

With many cameras and phones and tablets, it is possible to quickly make a video with sound that lasts a minute or two.  That can be attached to an email.  It can be placed on drive somewhere in the sky and the link to the file can be emailed. 

A regular old email with words of love or admiration or appreciation or affectionate memory can serve and also be an invitation to reply.  All of these tools plus phone calls and text messages can cut down on our use of trees/paper. But marks on paper still matter.  

I know some people who purposely write on paper with a pen and send the paper to friends.  Signing a Christmas card in person and adding a short message is considered more personal.  But in some cases, a piece of paper printed by a printer machine connected to a computer is still preferred depending on the purpose, the creator and the recipient.  

That brings up our office printer.  I just returned from Staples with several copies of our Christmas newsletter.  We like their special paper and fast service.  We don't use our own office printer much but we want it to work when we need it.  Our current printer is probably the 5th or 6th printer we have owned and it has been the most trouble.  

Some of the trouble probably comes from months of non-use.  It is clear that a good bit of the trouble comes from our attempt to do things using wireless methods instead of old-fashioned wires from the computer to the printer.  Lynn wanted to print some yesterday and I spent about three hours getting a single sheet printed.  I finally decided to avoid being wireless.  I wasn't even sure that our printer had some sort of recipient plug for a wire.  Once I started looking for a connection point, I found one right away but the connection was a decidedly non-standard one.  We now have six book shelves devoted just to electronics, wires, devices and media such as thumb drives, not to mention the four bankers boxes and what's in the basement.  

Naturally, the last electrical cord I checked was the one that fits the computer.  No magic wireless communication, just a nice long unbroken cable that reaches from the printer to the computer.  Click on "Print" and it prints,  Wow!  Magic!

A different list of books from Seth Godin

I don't know much about Seth Godin but he writes a blog post just about every day.  I gather he is in marketing.  I subscribe to his blog.  Writing daily is something of a rarity and this man often has good ideas.  The list of books below was posted on Seth's Blog on 12/13/2020

https://seths.blog/2020/12/seeing-differently/

His post ends with the statement that writing can be directed to other things than books, such as video and play scripts.  If you use the link, you can see a high school girl's prize winning video about the meaning of quantum physics.

I get several recommendations from Amazon daily but they don't cover as wide a range of subjects as this list.  I thought you might not see this list so I am posting it, too.

--------------------------------------------------Titles and comments from Godin

Here are some books for the end of the year… fifty years of ideas that have helped me understand the world differently:

Gödel, Escher, Bach — Before meta was cool, Douglas Hofstadter won a Pulitzer Prize for this intricately created examination of math, art and music.

Caste — My book of the year. Wilkerson helps us see how persistent and hidden the indoctrination of race and status lie in our culture.

Understanding Comics — Another meta book, and a masterpiece of explanation and insight.

The Red Queen — There are a ton of very cool books on evolutionary theory and this one is particularly good.

Knocking on Heaven's Door — Lisa Randall's explanation of physics will change the way you look at the world.

Guns, Germs and Steel — Another classic, it has earned its spot in the canon. An explanation (not without controversy) of how the world ended up as it did. This is what the study of geography is actually about.

The Beginning of Infinity — After you read Randall, this book will take those ideas and expand them. A lot.

Impro — This book transformed the way I saw human interaction, and had a significant impact in the creation of This is Marketing.

What Technology Wants — Kevin Kelly has changed my mind over and over again, and this one is the one I think about the most often.

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas — A short story from Ursula LeGuin that you will never forget.

Debt — An astonishing look at 5,000 years of human history by the late David Graeber.

The Jazz of Physics — A great book, even (especially) for people who think they don't like either.

When Things Fall Apart — Each of Pema's books is special, and the audio books in particular. This is a fine place to start.

Books are an extraordinary device, transitioning through time and space, moving from person to person and leaving behind insight and connection. I'm grateful every single day for the privilege of being able to read (and to write).

Vision, tears and sense

I was impressed when I read that my vision field is bigger than I can really pay attention to.  It's a periphery thing, you know, in case something over there on the edge moves or jumps or something.  When I keep my eyes still, I can become aware of items within my vision that I had not been paying attention to.  It seems a similar thing happens when I imagine something.  Reading the poem The Joy of Writing, I was given an image of a doe drinking from a stream.  I can see the animal.  She is more or less facing me, with her head down over the bank.  My mind supplied details that neither the poet nor my conscious mind required.

Last night, we watched the local Monteverdi Chorale do their Christmas presentation on their Facebook page.  Moving!  Beautiful!  The voices, the tunes, missing John Lay brought tears to our eyes.  It is right there if you want to look it up.  The carol Still, Still, Still in their presentation or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on YouTube will do your heart and soul good.

Ever since my Nigerian coach encouraged me to up the level of my waiting, to recognize waiting as an important and honorable activity, I have been waiting better.  This last time I meditated, for an instant, I could see my remaining minutes.  I could sense their end.  I felt an inner jolt and a silent protest: "No!" I have heard that I am wired to dread and avoid death so I am not surprised that sensing the time left and no more could elicit some sort of basic internal protest.  If I am going to beat the record for long life, I still have a long way to go so I am objecting to any termination or vision thereof.

Writing

Today's Writer's Almanac got me thinking about writing and imagination.  Today is the birthday of Gustave Flaubert, author of Madame Bovary.  He is quoted as saying that he spent the morning removing a comma and the afternoon putting it back in again. He wrote:

https://www.garrisonkeillor.com/radio/twa-the-writers-almanac-for-december-12-2020/

(also see at that link the excellent poem by Joy Adonizzio "Forms of Love")

"It is a delicious thing to write, to be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating. Today, for instance, as man and woman, both lover and mistress, I rode in a forest on an autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves, and I was also the horses, the leaves, the wind, the words my people uttered, even the red sun that made them almost close their love-drowned eyes."

Those comments reminded me of Wislawa Szymborska, Polish Nobel Laureate in Poetry 1996 and her poem The Joy of Writing

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1996/szymborska/25585-poetry-1996-13/

The Joy of Writing

Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?

For a drink of written water from a spring

whose surface will xerox her soft muzzle?

Why does she lift her head; does she hear something?

Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth,

she pricks up her ears beneath my fingertips.

Silence – this word also rustles across the page

and parts the boughs

that have sprouted from the word "woods."

Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page,

are letters up to no good,

clutches of clauses so subordinate

they'll never let her get away.

Each drop of ink contains a fair supply

of hunters, equipped with squinting eyes behind their sights,

prepared to swarm the sloping pen at any moment,

surround the doe, and slowly aim their guns.

They forget that what's here isn't life.

Other laws, black on white, obtain.

The twinkling of an eye will take as long as I say,

and will, if I wish, divide into tiny eternities,

full of bullets stopped in mid-flight.

Not a thing will ever happen unless I say so.

Without my blessing, not a leaf will fall,

not a blade of grass will bend beneath that little hoof's full stop.

Is there then a world

where I rule absolutely on fate?

A time I bind with chains of signs?

An existence become endless at my bidding?

The joy of writing.

The power of preserving.

Revenge of a mortal hand.

By Wislawa Szymborska