Our language

Today, we had a Zoom session with Prof. James Berry on our changing language.  He said that English can be thought of as emerging in 449 AD as the Romans withdrew from Britain and Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Fresians started living more or less together and more or less developed a unified or semi-unified language.  

He mentioned euphemisms and said that sometimes the substitute for a "bad" word becomes itself "bad".  As I have written, once I was trying to warn a large auditorium of college students to watch their words when working with children in the lower grades.  I told them I had recently seen a college student with shoelaces that said "bullshit" over and over again along them.  No reaction from the group.  I knew they used the word often.  I said the children had not become used to the word and thought of the brown, creamy stuff that comes out of bottoms when they heard the word.  The whole room erupted in "Ewwww!" as mental and repulsive pictures formed. 

Prof. Berry also said that February was losing its first r, that English speakers don't like that initial r right after a b.  His comment reminded me of the janitor and the janitor's aide in Scrubs who proudly informed the main character that they had indeed been to the "libary".  The janitor corrected his aide's pronunciation: "libRary". The aide learned fast and in a sentence or two later, said, "You must be angry.  Your face is almost strawbRerry."

Tuesday

I knew it would be busy today.  Tuesdays are often the busiest day of the week.  I guess they are the days often considered the day after the beginning of the week and one on which business can go on as usual.  But then, I looked it up in Google:

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=which+is+the+busiest+day+of+the+work+week

The info I saw did not highlight Tuesday. But that is the day my friends have gotten together for lunch.  We are about to begin doing that again.

We were out of bananas, maybe the reason we most often go to the store.  It was emptier than usual, so the shopping went quickly until a box of blueberries opened on me and rolled in every direction across the floor.  To sweep them up, we had to move the cart a bit.  Squashed berries!  Then, the checkout machine would not, not, not accept my card. After several tries by me and the clerk, I inserted cash.  The machine refused my card multiple times.  Then, I got $5.61 in coins for change.

We had an excellent LIFE session on the history of clocks.  I jumped into a Zoom meeting of lunch friends. Lynn left to work in Gallery Q.  Seconds, later I heard her phone!  She left it behind.  Yuck and a half!  I will take it to her on the way to my hearing test.  Quick!  Eat a piece of toast with apricot jam and gulp a quick cup of coffee.  Oops!  Left the coffee pot on since 7 AM so the coffee is extra hot.  Forgot to have my morning tea so I better get the caffeine but the stuff is too hot.  Overfilled the mug.  Can't cool it with ice without spilling it.  Overfilled!  Spilled.  

By now, it is getting late.  Lynn needs her phone.  Get in the car but the car senses I don't have the fob on me.  I might be a car thief!  Go back inside for the fob.  It is warmer today so must switch to lighter jacket.  

I deliver her phone.  Go to the hearing test.  They look in my ears.  Right one: ok but left one: too much wax for a good test.  Go to the hospital without an appointment and try to get wax removed.  Get past the front checker after admitting I have no Covid symptoms.  Go to audiology on 4th floor.  Persuade desk nurse to get me to an ear cleaner.  Wait.  Wait some more.  Audiologist goes into my ear, probes, hurts a little, repeats.  OK!  Good to go.  Return to the university audiology department.  Hope to take up where I left off.   Wait awhile.   Other patients exist, too, you know.  

Get tested.  Press this buzzer if you hear a noise.  Ok, now repeat with the other ear.  Say these words.  Ok, now repeat with the other ear.

Home: eat, drink, be grateful.  Not least for the convenience of a compact community.

Reading and appreciating

We are both fans of Bill Bryson and I have read several of his books to Lynn.  I knew before we downloaded Best American Travel Writings of 2016 that he was the editor and not the author of any of the chapters.  Still, we got it.  The first chapter was about travel in Morocco, written by Michael Chabon, author of "The Yiddish Policemens' Union", a story of what happened when the United Nations gave Alaska to the Jews instead of Israel.  It was ok and so were subsequent chapters but last night, I read
"Rotten Ice" by Gretel Ehrlich, which appeared in Harper's Magazine in 2015.  It is about Inuit and ice culture and what, in 2015, was happening to human lives that depend on thick Arctic ice but don't get it because of climate change and global warming.  As Wisconsinites just emerging from winter and in the mood for spring (daffodils, robins and green leaves on trees but not yet), we are not drawn to ice floes and temperatures way below zero.  But the story and the effects on involuntary changes in customs and ways of life is moving. 

It has been a week since I fell/got tangled in the bed clothes or something and I am repairing.  Having a sore back that shoots me some pain when I move, sit, turn or breathe, makes me understand and respect the intelligence of deciding that the time has come to leave this life.  I don't feel that way but I can see that I and others could.

I have been in the mood to write about intelligent feet.  When we are examining who and what we are, it can be wise to consider our smarts and gifts:

• Bipedalism that frees hands to do marvelous stuff

• Small, sensitive feet that enable walking and running and gymnastics and dancing

• Language and writing and electronic communication

As I understand it, leaving this life if successful, is irreversible.  So, it seems wise to check and recheck, and then wait and re-evaluate and think again.  But I guess we may come to a point where we can help ourselves and others by exiting.

Questioning with helps

I am reading through "The Joy of Search" by a Google guy named Daniel M. Russell.  I would like to pick up some hints on getting what I want from Google and from other "search engines", like Duckduckgo and Bing.  I think that hints will basically be of two types.  I imagine technical hints, maybe something like "press control-r while holding the capital Z and the Num Lock with the tip of the nose" for casting spells on the machine.  But I also imagine more general hints such as 

If you take ten seconds to write down your question BEFORE you start your research process, you'll find your process will be much, much more effective. It's almost magical; you have to figure out (a) what you're really asking, (b) what terms you'll be searching for, and (c) what kind of answer will satisfy you.

Russell, Daniel M.. The Joy of Search (p. 7). MIT Press. Kindle Edition. 2019.

I am finding more and more that writing, jotting really, is entering my life.  It helps if I jot down what I want at the store.  It helps if I jot down what I want to do in the next few hours.  

From "Incognito" and several other books about our unconscious mental operations, I recognize that when I actually speak and when I actually write, I engage parts of myself that I can't sense directly but are sophisticated and helpful.  

The business of forming and re-forming questions and taking a moment to write them down, consider if they ask what I want, and seeing them change while thinking has come up with me before:

https://fearfunandfiloz.blogspot.com/search?q=questions

Google it

I am interested in the modern set of tools and aids that are available where I live.  Basically, the internet and what it offers.  I realize I can probably buy drugs and weapons but I am not thinking of those things.  I am thinking about what interests me.  There is some story-telling and fiction that gets into our lives but it is the non-fiction that attracts me the most.  

Everything I read or listen works for me better if it is in English.  When I think of English, I remember a place in the San Francisco Science hall where the same passage was spoken by English speakers from different parts of the world.  Some of the speakers were quite difficult for me to understand and that was way before I needed hearing aids. So, I am limited in learning to what I can find in English or what has been translated into English.  Google Translate has about 115 languages in it but it is a tool for translating only short passages.

I have gotten into a habit of taking questions to Google.  So, when I wonder if many animals require a varied diet, I ask Google if many animals do.  Most of my questions are rather general and basic.  I am not a deep expert in almost all subjects and my knowledge can quickly get out-of-date. I do find that asking Google a question of interest or searching for a topic on my mind nearly always turns up some helpful information and some valuable sites, books, articles, blogs, videos, podcasts or other sources.  Whatever I find leads to further possibilities.  Usually, what I find explands my thinking or changes the words I am using to inquire.

Yesterday, I learned a little about Daniel M. Russell, a Google engineer who works on Google search and his book called "The Joy of Search." He also has a blog called "SearchReSearch".  I find that asking Google is a valuable thing to do. It is fun, eye-opening and helpful.  One of the helpful parts of a Google search page of results is usually found near the middle of the first page, possibly of thousands.  It is called "People also ask" and the questions there often broaden my thinking, add to my set of search terms and sometimes satisfy me then and there.

Did you read "War and Peace"?

Somewhere around 40 years ago, I created my best course. If you are a former teacher, you know that teachers are often required to get further professional education.  Thus, they may have many graduate credits, most of which are in their specialty, primary ed or shop or whatever they teach.  Teachers are interested in the whole world and my course was simply a review of what they had read over their lifetime.  

The main assignment was to make a list of the books they had read - ever.  That is a nutty assignment but a good exercise.  First, I urged them to list books they could remember reading, especially books that they remembered helping them through new insights or deep pleasure.  Of course, most adults today have read many books that they can't recall.  Sometimes, a class member would look at another classmate's list and recognize a title they too had read.

As a teacher of testing and grading, I spent much time learning and teaching modern testing methods.  The typical standardized test today is a multiple choice test.  

Which was George Washington

1. President

2. Counterfeiter

3. Pilot

4. Printer

Normally, if you can't remember what George did, you may still recognize the best choice shown.  That is the issue often referred to as "recognition v. recall".  If you can recall something, the action is in your head.  If you recognize something, it comes from your eyes or ears (or nose or fingertips).  I wanted evidence that a book I recall has made a deeper more lasting impression on me than a book that I recognize out of a lineup as having read.  Our ability to recognize includes more items than we can recall.  I couldn't find evidence that recalling "The House of Intellect" tells me it is deeper in me than DeVries' "The Tents of Wickedness" but I am confident that recall indicates a stronger effect on me than mere recognition.

I did learn that when older people like me realize that someone they see has a name they can't recall, they are recognizing that person as someone whose name they used to know.

It is lovelier than it seems

I was happy to see that Hannah Fry has an article in the latest New Yorker titled "What Data Can't Do".  I am a Hannah Fry fan.  She is the author of "The Mathematics of Love" and is a young British mathematician.  I sent the Fry article to two friends and they both liked it.  

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/29/what-data-cant-do

You may have trouble getting to the article without being a subscriber or starting an account.

Educators are quite aware that humans are deep and complicated.  We have all heard tales of the genius who did poorly in school and went on to amazing thinking and performance.  A young woman statistician and mathematician is a good candidate for noticing where math and people don't match.   Her article is the first I have heard of Goodhart's Law, which can be looked up on the internet and in Wikipedia.  I liked the language that said the basic idea is that any indicator that gets attention gets gamed.  That means that when the Soviet government gave its textile industry quotas in yards, they quickly reset their machines for narrower, longer products.  When payoff for sheeps' wool in another country depended on the weight of the wool, whaddaya know, it was quickly wetted.  

But what I didn't expect, Dr. Slygh, was how touching and moving Fry shows our world to be.  It is more subtle, sensitive, twisty and deep than can be easily captured in formulas.  Yes, we are just at the very beginning of machine intelligence and artificial learning and we will get better at building machines that help us get good answers.  But during the building and evaluating, we can see that love, freedom, forbearance and forgiveness in the human heart are jewels of shades and touches that can't be easily captured.

Heretical wondering

Charlotte J. Beck in "Everyday Zen":

If you can just do that for three minutes, that's miraculous. Usually after about a minute we begin to think. Our interest in just being with reality (which is what we have just done) is very low. "You mean that is all there is to zazen?" We don't like that. "We're seeking enlightenment, aren't we?" Our interest in reality is extremely low. No, we want to think. We want to worry through all of our preoccupations. We want to figure life out. And so before we know it we've forgotten all about this moment, and we've drifted off into thinking about something: our boyfriend, our girlfriend, our child, our boss, our current fear…off we go! There's nothing sinful about such fantasizing except that when we're lost in that, we've lost something else. When we're lost in thought, when we're dreaming, what have we lost? We've lost reality. Our life has escaped us.

Beck, Charlotte J.. Everyday Zen: Love and Work (Plus) (p. 26). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

But I'm wondering: what's so bad about reminiscing, imagining, and such.  If I am going to sink into reality on a regular basis, I think I should also dream, fantasize, imagine and figure.  You know what Emily Dickinson said, "There is no frigate like a book" or in modern language, "nothing like a friggin' book" (or movie).  With those tools, we can visit the moon, Mars, Hades and Paradise.  And return!

2 to 1

Today we got our second Covid shot and that's good, indeed.  Last night, I half-fell and hurt myself and that's not good.  I just finished The Phantom Tollbooth and that's good.  Here are some good quotesL

I read about a car with no engine.

    "How can you get it to move, with no engine?"

    "It goes without saying."

    ________________________

        "It seems to me that almost everything is a waste of time," he remarked one day as he walked dejectedly home from school.

_________________________

As he and his unhappy thoughts hurried along (for while he was never anxious to be where he was going, he liked to get there as quickly as possible)

________________________

"I'm afraid not," he replied sadly, as several filthy tears rolled down his beak. "I've tried, but the best I can manage to be is a nuisance

_______________________

He invariably leaped before he looked and never cared where he was going as long as he knew why he shouldn't have gone to where he'd been.

A friend wrote

A friend wrote

"Thank you for your list of good books. After I'm through editing the book, I can read some of them."  

The books referred to are in the blog post for yesterday. https://fearfunandfiloz.blogspot.com/2021/03/great-for-this-spring.html

My post yesterday in "Fear, Fun and Filoz" gave a list of advantages to developing awareness of one's own mind and the thoughts, subject and nature of that mind's focus.  Those advantages make developing mindfulness literally life-changing, that is, life-improving.

The statement "I can read some of them" has the sound of willing effort - will soon be ready to read some of those good books.  I do recommend them.  Whether it is personal nutrition or exercise or enjoying humor, reading and re-reading, just like watching and re-watching, can be fun and nourishing.  Getting a second dip, a re-painting, a touch-up coat of inspiration of whatever sort seems attractive and valuable is often the best way to spend some time.  So, by all means, read some of those good books.

But don't be fooled.  It is easy to develop mindfulness, 5 or 10 minutes at a time.  It has to do with you, not books.  It is not unknown a desire for more time than just 5 or 10 minutes to develop.  After a while, the mental habit of lightly watching over what the mind is up to spreads to all the waking moments.  That is the condition of mindfulness, being aware of what is on the mind.  

You can practice developing mindfulness while at the time being a devoted Republican or Democrat, a devout Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Jew or any other religion including none.  Just about all religions make use of silent concentration on a single attention point.  You don't have to use the well-known lotus cross-legged position of sitting.  Sit in a chair if you or your legs do better that way.  Sit up away from the chair back.  Use a smartphone to set a timer for 4 or 5 minutes or so.  Just tell Google "set a timer for 5 minutes." Try to concentrate on a single spot you can see.  Each time you catch yourself thinking, stop and return to concentrating and attending.  Repeat tomorrow.  You are on your way to better, richer, fuller living!

Great for this spring

Imagine a treatment for anxiety, everyday stress, and depression that: 

• Doesn't involve drugs  

• Has no unpleasant side-effects  

• Costs nothing  

• Is available anywhere  

• Can be used by anyone  

• Has been scientifically proven to work

There really is a solution that ticks all these boxes. It's called "mindfulness." In this book, you're going to learn what mindfulness is, how to make it part of your everyday routine, and how it can transform your life.

Telford, Olivia. Mindfulness: The Remarkable Truth Behind Meditation and Being Present in Your Life (p. 9). Kindle Edition.

There are a few strings.  As Olivia Telford writes, this activity is free but that means that it is difficult to make a living promoting, explaining, advocating or teaching it. The activity does require personal effort.  How much effort is undetermined.  You can make use of techniques for improving mindfulness in just a few minutes a day or you can enroll in a month or a year of retreat.  What you choose to do and how you choose to do it may change over time.  It doesn't require heroic effort or even big effort.  As one of my favorite authors, Chade-Meng Tan, on the subject says, you just need a mind. The same author explains the minimum effort needed: one conscious breath.

I moved away from steady promotion of mindfulness development when I got a little bored repeating the simple directions over and over.  That happened about when I began this blog, in 2008.  Since then, I have read Larry Rosenberg's "Breath by Breath", several books by Jack Kornfield, Sylvia Boorstein's "Don't Just Do Something, Sit There!", Harvey Aronson's "Buddhist Practice on Western Ground" and other titles mentioned in this blog or on my website, such as here:

https://sites.google.com/site/kirbyvariety/meditation-1

I will add that developing mindfulness is far more valuable than fighting stress and anxiety.  Doing so increases one's ability to see oneself, life, friends, issues, joys and other feelings better, understand them better and enjoy them better.  Hard to believe but what else motivates an old guy to be such a promoter?

Got it!

The book club voted to read "The Sympathizer" next.  I recommended "Polar Star" by Martin Cruz Smith but that book didn't get enough votes.  "The Sympathizer" sounds good and it has high ratings.  I checked a few sources like the library and Libby, the library e-app, but I decided to spend the money and download the book from Amazon.  It seems to me that Amazon has the best e-selection, speed, prices and convenience.

But when I went to download the book, I got a message that I bought the book in 2016 so it is already in my e-archive.  I am both pleased and chagrined.  I don't expect myself to remember every book in my library, either paper books or ebooks.  It is nice not to have to spend any money to have a copy.  Some people dislike the e-reader and prefer an old-fashioned book, the kind with weight and pages that gather dust.  

I have sometimes felt that Amazon is too pushy and sends me email about products too often.  But I do like the feature that in general, it blocks my making a second purchase that I don't need to make.  I'm the guy who has donated books to the public library, got to visit their sale, found a book I liked, paid for it, brought it home and opened it to find it was a book I had just donated.  Yes, I am attracted to that book, must have been !

---------------------------------------

Today is the first day of spring and I just saw a robin in our backyard! Honest, that is a robin, just a poor photo.

4:37 AM CDT tomorrow morning

4:37 AM Central Daylight Time tomorrow morning is the moment, according to the internet, of the spring 2021 equinox.  The moment that the sunshine is perfectly on the line leaving winter and beginning spring.  The expectation is that things will get bright and warmer until the maximum is reached on Sunday, June 20 at 10:30 PM.  So, it is summer from then to Wednesday, September 22, at 2:20 PM, summer ends and autumn begins.  

You know that plants and animals look forward to less cold and dark and more warmth and light.  You and I are included in the animal section and we will see our moods rise and our spirits lighten.  We may take to dancing and prancing. We may just glow more, frown less, smile more and growl less. It'll be fun!

Sometimes, anticipation is as good or better than reality. A major reason is that mental limitations prevent us from imagining in great detail.  The anticipated state can be totally wonderful while the actual one will almost certainly have a few downsides and irritations we currently don't know.  So, get out a nice spring wine or a mojito or your choice for celebrating and toasting our success and our fun future.  Pour out drinks for everyone old enough to drink them and put them on the table for early consumption.  Be careful you don't knock them over during the night.  

4:37 is early for a celebratory drink but this once, it may be all right.  At that hour, you will be thinking of daffodils and Easter and coming fun, enhanced of course with vaccinations and safety.  By the time you get another post in "Fear, Fun and Filoz", winter will be over!

Body mass index for older adults

Between losing some height and slowing metabolism, it can be easy for older people to gain weight.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=body+mass+index+for+older+adults

However, evidence seems to be emerging that older people will live longer if they have more body fat than was previously thought best.  The body mass index is often calculated from a person's height and weight.  The person's age and sex is often ignored.  

BMI in Adults vs. BMI in Older Adults

Category	BMI Range for Adults	BMI Range for Older Adults
Underweight	<18.5	<23
Normal	18.5 – 24.9	23-30
Overweight	25 – 29.9	>31
Obese	30+

May 21, 2020

BMI in the Elderly: What You Need to Know - The Geriatric ...

You can see that younger adults can be considered overweight with a Body Mass Index of 25 while an older adult with a body mass index of 30 is "Normal".

Well, that's a surprise

In graduate philosophy courses, I studied some writers and some writings that I liked and that helped me through life. One of the papers that still comes to mind more than 50 years later was "Nothing Matters" by R.M. Hare.

"Nothing Matters" by R.M. Hare

Put that in Google (or Duckduckgo, if you prefer) and you will find summaries, maybe the actual paper.

Hare and his wife had a Swiss student boarding with them.  One day the student came home from his class at Oxford, having realized that "nothing matters."  This is a similar idea to some expressed in the Bible chapter of Ecclesiastes.  We are born, we live, we die.  So what?  The sun rises, the sun goes down in an endless cycle that has no significance.  Poor kid!

I knew the feeling and I felt evidence that the feeling doesn't hold up was everywhere.  I wanted to say to the student, "Can I have your shoes?" If he said no, I would take that as evidence that his shoes mattered.  His hunger, his family, his life - they matter to him now.  Later other things will matter, that is, carry significance and value for him.  It's true that if you look around, you might not see anything mattering but that isn't the end of the story.

I was reminded of this analysis the other day.  My friend has often mentioned something not being what she expected.  I don't use the word "expected" very much.  I pictured her as somewhat uptight and rigid while I picture me as more relaxed and flexible.  Then, ordinary language and its use plus a little self-awareness got me thinking a bit analytically.  I figured out that I get surprised almost hourly.  What the government does, what my friends do, the weather - all sorts of things surprise me.  I read recently that much of the time that we laugh, we have been surprised by something.  

Well, if I am surprised, doesn't that mean I was not expecting this to happen?  I laugh all through the day.  I must have had my expectations in the back of my mind while life and others and things and fate and probability did things I hadn't expected. 

Reliable v. the latest

When I learned about developed theory of mental testing, the first and fundamental concept was reliability.  The basic idea is that things are easier if when I measure the height of a table, I get the same measurement if I measure again.  Things are easier if I can find the table's height and that height doesn't change. You might have noticed that I picked my "dead" table for the example and not the tree outside or my height.

I guess since someone came along with the idea of a wheel, inventions have shown their value.  Not every invention but some are so helpful, we don't ignore them but instead adopt them.  It can be comfortable to consider AN invention but in truth, inventions get modified.  Dr. Amit Sood does a nice job reflecting on the difference between the Kitty Hawk airplane that made that early flight and modern airliners in his book "Mindfulness Redesigned for the 21st Century".  Even inventions don't stand still.  

We are living in an age of change, of purposeful innovations.  There are high schools that teach "entrepreneurship" and plenty of other sources of encouragement to start something new, often with a new product, maybe a new invention that will change everything and light up your life.  America has been aimed at doing new things ever since European ships poked around the continent.  Since we may be biased toward change, innovation, invention, "improvement", modification and variety, we might want to consider more respect for staying unchanged, reliable and steady.  At least until the next software update changes things.

"This will change your life forever"

From time to time, something reminds me of the article by E.B. White called "Irtnog".  https://fearfunandfiloz.blogspot.com/2018/10/irtnog-20.html  His piece tells the story of the increase in writing and the consequent trouble readers have in keeping up.  The Reader's Digest came along to condense articles but other digests sprang up and soon there were too many digests to digest quickly and keep up.  Then a genius condensed everything down to one single word.  If you knew that word of the day, you were ok and you hadn't missed anything.  The word for a recent day was "Irtnog".

Just like 1938, only much much more so, we are living in a time that is a challenge.  One strategy for keeping up, other than condensing and digesting, is choice.  My article is only one among many others.  Sometimes, I hope to get more readers by using a dramatic title:

This is a MUST read!

Don't miss this!

Don't miss out!

Be the first in your circles to read this!

One can employ superlatives:

The best book of the day

The best book of the week

The best book in English

The best book ever, anywhere

I see this book, tv show, automobile, shirt, pants, whiskey, hamburger will "change your life."  The next step is to add a long dramatic time frame: This book, movie, cheese wil "change your life FOREVER!"

My research shows that if you have read this far, you have changed your life and mine FOREVER.  A short while back, I had not had you as a reader of this post.  Back then, you had not read this post.  But from now on, we are both living with your having read this post!  Zowie!  Gazoom-ist!

Ok, the truth is that every instant is fresh and new and has never happened before.  The addition of each instant changes my life from before (no instance of THAT INSTANT) to after (THAT INSTANT) has happened and is part of my life.  Weird thing is, while instants are changing my life forever, instants are changing yours, too!

Daylight saving, being interesting, meditating and comics

I forgot that daylight savings time starts today but Lynn didn't forget.  I have heard of controversy, some people think it should always be on and some think it should never be.  I like the change, even when caught off-guard.  

When Lynn gets on Zoom, she laughs and jokes.  Does she enjoy her Zoomers more than me?  Should I connect with her over Zoom from a different room?  Would I be wittier?  Would I be more romantic or attractive or fun on a small monitor screen?

Several older people, 70 or more, have noted their minds move more slowly now.  It is well known that recall of names is especially likely to create a "senior moment" where the recaller knows the name but cannot get a good grip on it.  Such senior moments often show the memory is there and can be retrieved but that it may take more seconds or minutes than it used to.  As life goes on, we all get more experiences and thus more memories.  I have read that some of the slowing is literally attributable to have a full head.  I think there are several reasons that older people have a tendency to sit quietly and consider memories and life and what it is all about.  It may well be easier to watch thoughts go by and notice their contents when things move more slowly.  Some people get into trying to give children and young people meditative habits but elders may be better situated to meditate, ruminate and enjoy doing so.  

Today is Sunday, March 14, 2021.  I recommend the Zits cartoon and the Doonesbury cartoon of today.  Zits is about responsible behavior and Doonesbury is about end-of-the-world scenarios, both interesting subjects.  

the story of us

I just finished a novel written by my former department chair, Dr. Nancy Kaufman.  It is the first novel I have read by someone I know rather well.  I keep having questions that will never be answered about what really happened and what is the story constructed by a story-teller.  

https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Menekaunee-Nancy-J-Kaufman/dp/B08TQGG59T/ref=sr_1_1

The novel is The Girl from Menekaunee and it is the story of the author's mother.  As you know, I have never been a mother nor a daughter.  I had a mother and a father and a stepfather and I liked them all and I still do.  I have not lived as long as either of my actual parents but I feel that the older I get, the more respect I have for any lived life.  It is not that easy to become an embryo and to grow to a baby and to emerge as an infant and to grow up.  It is not that easy to face middle school and high school and what to do after high school.  It is tricky finding a partner and living with a partner, trying to amass adequate funds, exercise appropriately, respect others, love some others, have and keep friends - the list just goes on and on.  

Then, when you feel that you see how to live the rules, the possibilities and the abilities change.  One wrinkles up, the doctor recommends less salt or more salt.  Important people leave this life, along come smartphones and scams, online banking.  I just got James Nestor's "Get High Now", which says it lists 175 ways to get high without drugs.  I can't decide whether to get high or not.  

A friend asked me recently what quotes have influenced me during my life.  The general idea is to find a statement, not too long, please, that offers guidance or comfort or inspiration at all or most stages of life.  The one that first came to mind was from Psalm 100, King James version, "It is He that hath made us and not we ourselves."  I also think of Henry Thoreau's comment that the old have nothing to say to the young.  

I realize that we have no evidence that He had any ideas of birth control and artificial hearts and that sometimes a word from the old is of some value to those younger.  Still, it is not only difficult to know just what either parent experienced at any point in life but also hard to recall what we ourselves did and are doing.

Been to the liberry

I like the tv show Scrubs.  It is silly but clever.  Who knew that being a new doctor is a hospital was so funny.  

The janitor doesn't like our hero, a young physician.  The janitor is older than J.D. and doesn't like that the young greenhorn is admired and increasingly competent.  J.D. gets picked on by the janitor and his less competent assistant.  J.D. challenges them: "I have 30 cents in two coins and one of them is not a nickel."  After a couple of days the janitorial team announces they have solved the problem.  The janitorial assistant announces with pride they have been to the "liberry".  Head janitor corrects him: "libRary".  They have found a misprinted dime now worth 29 cents and they added a usual penny.  

J.D. informs them they haven't found the solution.  OK, smart guy, what is the solution? Thirty cents = a quarter and a nickel.  But one of the coins is not a nickel.  True but the other one is.  

Today, Bill Kirby went to the library for the first time in a year.  What a pleasure!  I went straight to the new non-fiction and looked at every book.  I borrowed "Volume Control", about noise around us today and "Everyday Bias" about exactly that.

Charged by Linda Ronstadt

Once in a while, Lynn has had it with more Mozart.  When things get like that, it doesn't help if I switch to Donizetti or Great Drinking Songs of Opera.  It may be a little better if I play Linda Ronstadt.  I did that the other day.  As I am listening to Linda repeatedly allege that I am no good, I am somewhat surprised when she sings," I'm gonna say it agin". 

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=you%27re+no+good+linda+ronstadt

By golly, she does.  She goes through her whole rigamarole all over, even though I had just heard it.  It set me to wunderin'.   If the same person on the same occasion repeats a charge against me, does the repetition itself increase the weight, the force of the charge?  I don't think repeating a statement over agin, right after it has been said, happens very often in normal discourse.  When I heard Linda say she was about to repeat herself, I immediately thought that the song writer couldn't come up with anything better than to have the singer repeat.  

I have noticed that many songs repeat the same words many times.  I mentioned to Lynn that I thought it was a failing of modern popular music.  She said,"Are you kidding?"  Just think of the amount of repetition in an opera.  The villain announces he will kill the hero and repeats his intention over and over.  

If Linda and I were flirting and she charged me with being no good, (an outlandish charge that, even with clarification as to the time frame and the ways I am alleged to be no good, would be hard to make stick.)  No good??  No good at all?  How about the fact that I didn't run any redlights?  How about the fact that I stopped at all the stop signs?  Don't those actions indicate at least a smidgen of good?  How about a potential for good?  Does potential count?

We need some fear?

We watched a Nova program on PBS that showed biologists introducing two packs of wild dogs onto African plains to get more fear into the animals that live there.  https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/natures-fear-factor/

We tend to think that life with no fear is good and that fear is bad.  I guess that overwhelming fear can take over the body and leave me trembling and incoherent.  I keep reading that thinking positively and being happy is good although the book by Barbara Ehrenreich, "Brightsided", does a good job of explaining how positivity can be taken too far.  You may know about the character Pollyanna.  Evidently, the name and the character who irritatingly sees the up side of every damned thing comes from the 1913 children's book by the same name.  Roger Bullis will be happy to know that anyone with Kindle Unlimited can borrow the book for $0.00 or the book can be fully purchased for $0.00.  Look it up in Amazon's book section if you are interested.  

I am confident that many people, especially old men, can explain that life is tough and not a piece of cake.  There is pain and loss behind every other bush.  Voltaire knew that back in 1759 when he wrote "Candide", a satire in which his Dr. Pangloss (glosses everything) glosses everything.  Alec Baldwin is a modern day gusher who compliments your eyes, your hands, your furniture, your friends, your…… in the Friends episode "Enthusiastic Parker".

You will be happy to know that it is still true that alertness and awareness of predators and predicaments is best mixed with open-eyed awareness of life's gifts and your stunning good fortune.  Yes indeed, things could be worse.  That's about as far as Midwesterner care to venture toward optimism.