"Jesus must have been a saint"

"Jesus must have been a saint" is a line from Marie Howe's poem "The Star Market".  Wandering through a marketplace, there are several unattractive people there that our wanderer shrinks from, even though they are "the people that Jesus loved."  Every now and then, I find a line that really gets me.  I suspect that most people would not even think that line, much less write it.

I think Jesus tried to say "Be kind" but one thing led to another and by typical standards, things did not work out well.  A couple of hundred years later, people were still thinking and talking and writing about him and what he did and the examples he set.  A couple of thousand years later, we have the Roman Catholic Church and its set of saints.  So, in a sense, Jesus was before his time but in another, He was the Saint of saints.

Pen and paper

You may have seen articles about the value of writing, including the value of using the old hand, wrist, fingers and arm to write by hand.  By hand!  True, I am not writing this by hand.  Also, true that I can find and use software that will write the letters needed to convey words that I speak aloud.  I tried that quite a while back and I found that the software I was using misunderstood me quite often.  So, now, notes by hand and then keyboarding to get those letters down in the right order.  

We have read that research implies our older brains are struck by passing through a doorway.  It is a doorway that is often responsible for our arriving in the living room or the basement without a memory of why we went there.  So, more and more, we are writing.  We use small spiral notepads and larger spiral notebooks.  We use scrap paper in a plastic tray.  We use note piles of individual notes, with or without stinkum.

Each day I write five or so themes that occur to me for that day's blog.  Today's themes include

    Statements can be false without really qualifying as lies

    Lawns here are green and growing, lawns!

    Michael Pollan's essay on caffeine being the tool behind the modern world

    "Anything is possible", we tell children and that is to some extent true but includes all sorts of possibilities don't want

I have been trying to use Google Keep (look it up) for notes and themes.  I like to be able to open Gmail and all Google services on all of my connected devices, Apple, Android or whatever.

Genetically female

In my work, I work with many women.  I went to an all-male public high school in Baltimore.  I was thinking of psychology but my mother suggested the teachers' college.  It was very inexpensive.  The high school was 100% male but the college was 80% female.  I have one sibling, a sister.  

I like males but I like females more.  The attraction is fundamentally sexual but on top, it is communicative and basic curiosity.  I knew about Ashley Montague's book "The Natural Superiority of Women".  In checking the publication date of that book (1953), I learned about "The Better Half: On The Genetic Superiority of Women" by Sharon Moalem, PhD, MD (2021).  He is an American geneticist. We had read an earlier book of his and as I say, I am interested in the human male/female divide.  I also found "Mom Genes: Inside the New Science of Our Ancient Maternal Instinct" by Abigail Tucker, also just out.  

I have been reading The Better Half.  I like to read on a Kindle reader where I can highlight interesting parts with my fingertip.  When I find a good comment, I like to send it to my Twitter account.  I have sent these:

Highlight (Pink) | Location 37

BIGGER. TALLER. FASTER. STRONGER. These are the words that have 

always been used to describe men.  But what if scientifically the more accurate words are frail, fragile, feeble, and vulnerable? 

Highlight (Pink) | Location 110 

As for centenarians, women's survival advantage is even more exaggerated: out of one hundred centenarians  alive today, eighty are women and only twenty are men.

Highlight (Pink) | Location 259 

Interestingly, as I was to discover, female mice can have much stronger immune systems, which could complicate the results of an experiment that's trying to cure infections equally in both sexes.

Highlight (Pink) | Location 491 

That superior cellular cooperation creates the fertile ground for a unique resilience that only women possess.

Opposites and tricks

I read the words "male subjugation". I am confident that the author was thinking of various methods and habits BY men to keep women down socially and politically.  I thought the words "male subjugation" might refer to women keeping men down.  I looked up "male subjugation" in Google and the first page of results included a note that said the software had 8 million results for that term but I know from experience that many of the results will be only distantly related to the search terms.  Every item on the first two pages of results was about women being put down, ignored, deprived of rights or education or recognition.  

Depending on what "male subjugation" turns out to mean in both thought and deed, I can be interested in the subject.  It is clear that in nearly all societies, men have political, family, artistic and other kinds of top billing.  I know of the book by Ashley Montagu called "The Natural Superiority of Women" (1953).  There is also the more recent book by the Israeli scientist Sharon Moalem, a man with both MD and PhD degrees called "The Better Half: On the Genetic Superiority of Women"(2020).  Since men seek women, pursue women, want women, die for women, give their lives to women and are created by women's bodies, I wonder about the relative value of the sexes to themselves, to each other and to all humans.

I enjoy the PBS program "Miss Scarlett and the Duke" about a woman detective in Victorian England.  Every time she turns around, some man is saying to her "But you are a woman!" Even bugs me after a while.

I like to keep my eye on traditional choices since I suspect down may be up and the opposite may be correct, at least sometimes.  My hearing aids recently had a checkup.  Ever since then, they have been hard to use.  I suspected the tubes that lead sound to my eardrums were too short.  I called the experts who help me with my hearing.  The audiologist took one look at my hearing aids and said,"I think your tubes are too long".  Opposite!

We have a little orchid among our house plants.  It was all droopy.  I said to Lynn it looked like the poor thing needed a drink of water.  She said it was all droopy because it has been watered too much.  Opposite!

I already looked there

We can't fob off the question.  Our cars won't let us.  I put my foot on the brake and press the button.  The engine starts right up unless I don't have the fob in my pocket.  Fooling the car doesn't work.  A bulge, some keys, the fob for another car - nope.  Must be the right fob, or no deal.  

Where did I put the fob?  There were only limited places: I didn't put it in the laundry, in the pockets of my pants hanging up.  At least, I am pretty sure I didn't.  I thought I had it in my pocket but the car gave the no-deal squeal.  A fob, yes.  Correct fob, sorry but not so.

Checked here, checked there.  Found it!  Great!  Car still doesn't start.  Damn - wrong fob.  

"Honey, what are you pacing around for?  What are you doing?"  Looking for the fob for my car."  Did you check the backpack you took on the weekend?"  "Yes, I already checked there".  She heard me and she believed what I told her but she checked there, too.  She checked down in the corner where the missing fob was.  She found it for me and launched my trip to the store.  

A second investigator, a more thorough search, a more imaginative search - sometimes, the second try reaches the goal.

Taking a trip

On April 6, we had waited two weeks after our 2nd Covid vaccination so we ate out in a restaurant for the first time in about a year.  It was fun.  Yesterday, we drove to La Crosse, Wisconsin, about 120 miles away and stayed in a hotel overnight.  We took the cheaper alternative of one bed but we found that we might be happier with two beds.  Lynn suggested two rooms.  Noise, disturbance, nighttime sighs and snores, insomnia can create the need for getting up and skipping rope for a while. That's hard to do without waking a nearby sleeping person.

In the early 90's, Lynn completed her doctoral degree and took a job at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse.   We had lived in Stevens Point for 20 years and thought the beautiful hills and river junctions of La Crosse would be a nice change.  We moved there but I kept working at UW-Stevens Point, too, as well as UW-La Crosse.  For a while, I drove weekly from one city to the other but it became clear that I had a better future at Point.  Eventually, Dr. L. Kirby joined me in Point fulltime, after our excellent son-in-law builder built us a new house.  

We have never been our current ages before and we do now find stairs, distances, hours more challenging than we used to.  This trip showed us that travel of some types is still good for us and fun and stirring.  However, we have traveled quite a bit and we have diminished appetites now.

Stevens Point is about half the population of La Crosse but the two branches of the University of Wisconsin are closer to being the same size. 

Alternatives

I may be busy over the next two days and may not post on this blog.  Meanwhile,

• Write several questions, topics or subjects of interest and search about them in Google and Duckduckgo.  If you have never used Duckduckgo, it's time to give it a try.  Search it in Google and try it.

• Consider creating a blog.  You can commit to writing something on the 24th of each month and increase the frequency when you feel like it.

• Visit the Fear, Fun and Filoz blog page and look through the archives of past 4,000 posts. https://fearfunandfiloz.blogspot.com/

• Visit the Kirbyvariety website where lots of stuff is stored.  Google is changing its website format but you can still see https://sites.google.com/site/kirbyvariety/

• Catch up on the book you have been meaning to get to, the movie you want to watch, the sock drawer that needs organizing, the photos that need the same thing. Don't forget TED talks and podcasts.

Assisting better

Maybe you have heard of Six Degrees of Separation.  

The notion of six degrees of separation grew out of work conducted by the social psychologist Stanley Milgram in the 1960s. Milgram decided to investigate the so-called small-world problem, the hypothesis that everyone on the planet is connected by just a few intermediaries.

I read about this research.  As far as I know, the idea was I will give you an envelope with a name on it.  If you know that person on a first name basis, mail it to them.  If not, mail it to somebody you do know on a first name basis who seems to you to possibly know that addressee on a first name basis.  I don't believe that any of the addresses were outside the US.  So, I have a hunch that more than 6 intermediaries would be needed between me and the average Asian or African.  

Whether the subject is our bodies or our relations, things can get complicated.  However, I suspect we are steadily advancing in our ability to deal with complexity and longer chains of relations or of reasoning.  One of the likely developments, it seems to me, is better use of kindness, assists, gifts.  I am impressed at how complex giving can be.  I benefited from several scholarships and assistance programs, both as an undergrad and as a grad student.  

I have heard of micro loan situations where a loan or a gift of something like $200 in the right circumstance can empower a struggling family or business far out of proportion to the amount involved.  I imagine artificial intelligence creating suggestions of the application of funds or goods or encouragement in a time, a form and a place that creates long-reaching good in new, cleaner ways.  Maybe like seasoning, where a small amount of salt or spice modifies a dish mightily. I guess a gift needs to come from an ok source.  I can imagine the reception of money or goods from an unknown person.  "What's the catch?"  "What's his angle?"  "What is he trying to pull?"

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

Rescue!

We listened to the author Anne Hillerman talk today. She and her father, now deceased Tony Hillerman, both studied journalism and both have worked as journalists but both are known worldwide as authors of novels about the Navajo Tribal Police. I did hear a talk by Tony years ago but I don't remember anything about it.  Today's talk was a lively, multi-topic one about being the daughter in a family that told stories, about having a father whose novels have appealed to many people all over the world.  

Both today's author and the nearby author of "A Reader Response Analysis of Hypermedia" seemed to sink their teeth into the topic of rescue.  In some fictional situations, as in some actual situations, a person can be in danger.  Very often, classical, longtime, oft-repeated stories feature a feminine character in some sort of danger but in the nick of time, a masculine character arrives in time to slay the dragon, arrest the bad guys, free the princess.  The two authors, both women, took some satisfaction when Anne Hillerman discussed books where she had Officer Bernadette Manuelito rescue Officer Jim Chee for once.  

Later, I asked the author of "A Reader Response…", "Who We Came From" and other works what sort of deep feelings she had about Female Rescuers.  I pointed out that male heroes get strength, increased longevity and better digestion from successfully saving heroines, but that wily woman (ever notice how many women are quite wily?) turned the tables on me, and asked how often I had thought of the benefits women rescuers reap from successful rescues.  I hadn't but I am on the job now.  

Anne Hillerman has carried on with the characters her father had in his novels and has a new book "Stargazer".  Hillerman shows so much energy that I would not be surprised to find her creating different characters in a different setting, maybe like Darko Dawson, detective in Ghana.

Three worthwhile items

Three items of note:

    Miss Benson's Beetle - book

    The Hate U Give - movie

    The Story of My DNA - book

Yesterday, the trial of Derek Chauvin announced a guilty verdict.  It happened that Lynn's book club discussed the book "The Hate U Give".  The discussion included a mention of the movie of that book starring Amandla Stenberg.  It is impressive to me how much the movie matches what happened in the real life arrest of George Floyd, even though the book on which it is based was written several years ago.  I think it is also impressive to see how smartphones mattered in helping the world understand what happened.

We have nearly finished with the book by Rachel Joyce "Miss Benson's Beetle".  The story of two women going from London to the French islands of New Caledonia, 1200 miles west of the coast of Australia.  Rachel Joyce repeats her masterful work in "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" in "Miss Benson's Beetle", although the stories are quite different.  Harold walks to the post office and keeps on walking.  Miss Benson has a longtime interest in possibly discovering a fabled beetle in the tropical land of New Caledonia.  I totally recommend both books, read as an PhD in English reads novels, slowly, carefully and fully appreciating them and the feelings they evoke. 

If you haven't had your DNA analyzed, do yourself a favor and have it done.  Anywhere from $50 to $200 can get you information on your ancestors.  https://fearfunandfiloz.blogspot.com/2015/12/dna-banking-and-analysis.html

We each bought a book from 23andMe about our DNA.  Between the two of us, much of Europe, Asia and the American continents are represented.  I admit that I am only European while the rest of us is carried by the female partner in this marriage.  

"Information on your ancestors" can mean anything from Grandma's date of birth to the % of your DNA that comes from Neaderthals, 6% in my case.  I read that checking the DNA of an English nobleman resulted in finding that he was not directly related to earlier holders of his title but that his butler was.  Surprises and new ideas can result.  Humans spread out from Africa but it took a long time and body and skin modifications along the way.

Denial and attention

A group of friends wants to discuss denial, the psychological mechanism for dealing with a situation that is overwhelming.  The more I think about the topic, the wider it gets.  We had an election recently which was marked by some citizens denying that it was honest and fairly run.  We have a situation on our planet in which the general temperature is getting higher and that has many effects.  In addition, the number of humans alive at one time is rising and that worries many people.  But some people deny there is a problem (We are still doing ok, aren't we?).

I read the advice of an old and experienced Korean monk who advised Americans trying to complete a very arduous experience to focus on what they were doing second by second and not pay attention to the difficulties and the time left in the task. I am interested in that strategy and I realized that focusing on getting the dishes done instead of paying attention to the fire in the kitchen sure seems like a type of denial. At the same time, I am aware of the impossibility of paying attention to everything or even just to every problem.

I looked up "denial" and found 367,000,000 results, leading off with this:

1. the action of declaring something to be untrue.
2. a statement that something is not true.
3. the refusal of something requested or desired.
"the denial of insurance to people with certain medical conditions"

I have a long-standing interest in decision making and deciding whether or not I accept the truth of a statement is definitely a fundamental sort of decision, one that I make many times a day.  

A few months ago, I got a book of photographs that a professional photographer had offered to others but were not accepted.  She subtitled her collection "The rejection of rejection".  Of course, when I deny the truth of a statement, someone who feels the statement is true rejects my rejection and denies my denial.

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Fwd: Fw: Photographer being Photographed . . . WONDERFUL!

Some pictures of animals or of little kids can bring joy and warmth.  Hope these do that for you.  Bill

Date: Mon, Apr 19, 2021 at 3:15 PM
Subject: Fwd: Fw: Photographer being Photographed . . . WONDERFUL!
To:

Date: Mon, Apr 19, 2021 at 8:06 AM
Subject: Fw: Photographer being Photographed . . . WONDERFUL!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ez62xlO1H4BpT_Z4rl2aph-ez56jUDqc/view?usp=sharing

These pictures are really great!  Hope you like them!  Have a good week! 

What do you mean?

I like talking, listening and reading.  Even though I studied Latin, French and a little German, I realize that I only know English.  Whenever I go to Google Translate (you know you can find most Google services with the name.google.com), I see around 60 languages listed.

7,139 languages are spoken today.

This is a fragile time: Roughly 40% of languages are now endangered, often with less than 1,000 speakers remaining. Meanwhile, just 23 languages account for more than half the world's population.

How many languages are there in the world? | Ethnologue

Because of the internet, international travel, social media and the energy and squirreliness of modern people, especially young people, new terms and new uses for old terms are always being introduced.  So, I am constantly considering what I and other people mean by their words.  

If you are trying to get a large group of people excited, motivated and united, it can help to shout some terms that they all hold dear.  Since the US is somewhat "diverse" and is concentrating on increasing the variety of origins, ethnicities, languages, and backgrounds of its populace, it can be fun and profitable to note what terms seem to command attention and allegiance. 

I have noticed that many political movements seek "change".  Sometimes the sort of change sought is not expressed.  When I hear calls for change, I ask myself if I too seek change.  Sometimes, sometimes not.  I could seek youth, fame, beauty, fortune but I suspect any of them 

1. Won't 'come' just because I seek them

2. If any of them does land on me, it will come at a price and with conditions and burdens and costs I won't welcome

In calls for change, I often find demands for "action".  I don't fit the description of a contemplative but I am both suspicious and sceptical.  What action, exactly?

I gather "climate change" is a good term for disturbing people and alerting them to the need to change their ways.  Just about everything I have heard or read gives me the idea that the earth may become far less habitable than it has been and may develop conditions that don't support humans.  I see that the latest issue of Time magazine has a large article about the problem and that Bill Gates, blamed in some places for Covid 19, has a book about handling the difficulty.  I haven't read it but I have it in the back of my mind.

I was impressed when the fictitious version of the US President in "Supreme Courtship" ran for re-election with the campaign slogan "More of the same."  I suppose that meant that politically knowledgeable people would never use such a slogan.

Words and feelings

I read The Writer's Almanac most mornings.  It features a poem of the day and biographical notes about famous people born on that day and some historical events. Yesterday's poem "Stay" by Kim Addonizio included a pair of lines that struck me as open-hearted and inspirational: 

Listen: when a stranger  steps into the elevator with a bouquet of white

   roses not meant for you,

they're meant for you.

This wasn't the first time that Kim Addonizio got my attention.  This time, too, I looked up a bit about her.

She ends her poem with lines quoted above.  I like them since they invite me to see a bouquet of roses meant for someone as a gesture of love and appreciation or maybe apology or maybe celebration.  I feel grateful that I belong to a species that can feel and express such feelings, that knows the feelings for what and when they are.

I can't always find a feeling of participation in others' joy and fun and gladness but often I can if I try. When it is your bar mitzvah or graduation or your retirement, I get to be glad for you and for me and for us all.  Not everyone gets or got to reach that point in life. It's an achievement and a good one.

When I see those gorgeous roses, I remember times when I found some knockout flowers like that for an important person or a big occasion.  When I see a joyful toast, as in The Student Prince, I can taste the beer and feel the energy and zest.

Ebook Gift

My friend is intelligent and sophisticated.  She has received ebooks as gifts before.  But this time, the email stating that she had received a gift seemed to have no places to click acceptance.  We looked over the gift notice carefully and I had to agree: where can one say ok?

Then, I noticed the large empty spaces in the message and I realized that there were no images of any sort.  After looking carefully, we found tiny letters off in the corner that said "Click to download images."   We clicked and among the images was one labeled "Click here to accept this gift."  We clicked and got the gift in her Kindle library.  I know that images are built of code and that code can be altered or house added instructions that cause problems.  

It is true that a good, old-fashioned book with paper pages can be quite reliable and usable.  However, the physical weight of the book, the storage of the book and accumulation of it and other books can make the use of computer files of a book's language a handy alternative to traditional books. To me, there are other important advantages.  The print can be enlarged or shrunk quickly and conveniently.  Highlighted text can be created with an ever-handy fingertip and the highlights, amassed in order in a file, can be sent to one's email (if using Amazon Kindle).  Most importantly, for an impatient guy, a Kindle book arrives through the atmosphere with no wire connection to anything.

But, as with anything, there can be errors, breakdowns and changes.  It can help to explain the problem in a few words in a Google or Duckduckgo search and see if the result helps.  There is also one's grandkids and the firm's customer service.

Do you miss your Ex, too?

I miss my ex.  Well, not all of them, just the good ones.  I have dozens.  Of course, I am not talking about marital partners.  I am referring to passwords of the past.  

These days, everything and everybody wants to see my identification.  I read once about Nasruddin, the Muslim jokester, who peered into a nearby mirror when asked to identify himself, and said,"Yes, that is me, all right".  Most identification checks these days involve more steps.  They involve passwords and multiple steps such as entering my user name, entering a password of at least 37 characters (must include upper and lower case English alphabet characters as well as several curses written in Mandarin).  Additional steps often include receiving a 19 character code by carrier pigeon and sending that code to the identification checker.

Over the years, I have created many passwords and I miss some of the better ones.  One of my first passwords was "I love this password since it is so easy to remember it at any time day or night, right?"  But machines and devices these days are set to remember the last fifty passwords used with them so I won't be able to use that baby for the rest of my life.  On television, I often see advanced electronic devices that send a beam into the eye to recognize the pattern of veins in it but I have no experience with that.  A friend had trouble with his fingerprint identification app not working properly.  A Google search turned up information that favored the traditional passwords for better security.

I guess I will just have to continue on with my current password buttressed with my offkey rendition of the Star Spangled Banner.

It was real and still is

Many stories are about a woman and man liking each other deeply while one seeks a rather permanent union and the other doesn't.  You can guess which is which but that can vary.  I, for one, know that as a graduating college senior about to take on my first teaching job as a 5th grade teacher, I was eager to launch a longtime relationship.  To me, being a teacher or a welder or a tool and die maker was fine and valuable, but didn't hold a candle to being a husband and father.  

The pleasures of sex matter a great deal but the union of a man and woman and the opportunity to be a parent is where real life is found.  On our campus, there were far more women students than men students.  I ascribe that to the low expectations for money-making as a public school teacher but at the time, I actually didn't think about salary.  In some ways, that was overly naive of me but in other ways, it was pretty smart.  Nothing has ever seemed as fundamental, as existence-affirming as having a household with a good woman and trying to be a good parent.  

The women on our campus had strong rules to follow about when to be in the dorm for the night, how to sign out for a date and related protection issues.  Such a situation can and today often is labeled "suppression" but to me, is a sign of the deep value of the females.  That their bodies and impulses and timing mechanisms and circuits could create a living human being, a mixture of me and her was way beyond the value of a fat salary.

Like many things in life, protecting while at the same time, nurturing and supporting a young woman's development and a young couple's journey into effective parenting is tricky.  Much like individual differences in reading, social success, sports and physical maturity, there are important differences between one individual and another.  Becoming a successful marriage and a parent is filled with pauses, errors, doubts and confusion interspersed with joys that reach to Heaven.  When you think about it, being a husband and a father is like being invited to the very best sort of party just because of who you happen to be.  

Is this surrender, research or experiment?

When my desperately bored-with-life soul first reached out to Braemar in Scotland from my home in Montana to offer my services in exchange for room and board, they invited me to come plant trees (see the Introduction). My initial contact was through a man named William, the manager of the estate grounds. What I didn't know was that eleven thousand trees had already been planted that previous April. Braemar intended to plant the remaining six thousand trees the following April. So when I arrived in September ready to plant trees, William told me the project was another six months away. "What am I supposed to do in the meantime?" I asked him. The response was something along the lines of, "Oh, there's plenty. You can bake bread, chop firewood, clean toilets, or do whatever needs doing. That's how it works here." At that same time I also learned that William would soon be returning home to Australia, so Braemar would have a new estate manager. The new guy, Trevor, would be sort of like my boss, since he was going to be in charge of all the grounds-keeping and forestry work. Apparently, they had assumed I would take the role of the Trevor's assistant. It took me a few minutes to recover from the initial shock of this news, after which I learned what the role would entail. Braemar had small livestock to look after, firewood to harvest, a vegetable garden to revive from the dead, fences to mend, and all manner of miscellaneous "whatever needs doing." The position didn't excuse me from any potential toilet cleaning, however, because Braemar was truly a pitch-in place, although staff members—all volunteers—mostly stuck to their assigned roles. The toilet-cleaning of animals, though, was front and center. I could have chosen to leave—and return home with my tail between my legs after having announced to God and country that I was moving to Scotland and not to be surprised if I ended up there for the rest of my life. Or I could stay and muck out chicken coops. I chose the muck. To my surprise, that choice transformed my life in ways I never dreamed (although not without first subjecting me to a lot of personal turmoil). I tried something different. I surrendered. Ooh, surrender! That word used to stick in my craw because I interpreted it as giving up or giving in. However, I'm slowly making peace with surrender, which I now see more as giving up trying to control situations. It's also about accepting new opportunities when they present themselves because sometimes plans change. Typically, most people aren't fans of change. We like knowing what to expect. We find comfort in routine and certainty. Even if we don't like the routine we're stuck in, at least it's familiar. We don't like being taken off guard because we don't like surprises, unless it's a lottery win. If change and the unexpected scare you, buckle up because the only certain thing in life is change. One day we're going to our favorite restaurant or visiting friends or vacationing on the beach, and the next we're on global lockdown because of a deadly pandemic. Try looking at it this way: Sometimes you're given what you need, not what you think you want. Change can improve your life or situation, lead to better health, deeper relationships, even fun! I reluctantly accepted my altered invitation at Braemar and in doing so learned a lot about myself, others, the world, and my place in it. I had to wade through lots of crap, chicken and otherwise, and that was entirely the point. It got me to a better place in myself. I learned to surrender to opportunities, even if they weren't part of the plan. I learned to accept that change happens, and how I respond to it makes all the difference to the outcome. Acceptance uses a lot less emotional energy and often results in much grander outcomes than I had imagined—even if it's a series of smaller changes that ultimately lead to something larger.

Snyder, S. A. . The Value of Your Soul: Rumi Verse for Life's Annoying Moments (pp. 17-19). Luna River Publishing, LLC. Kindle Edition.

Sorry, I wandered off

Our conscious minds are fluid and powerful.  But, they do have limits and as "Incognito" by David Eagleman shows, they tend to come into use after other parts of us have been working on an issue.  You may know about mindfulness, which is being aware of what is on the conscious mind. I ran into the name Dr. Elizabeth A. Stanley, a faculty member at Georgetown University and an advocate of meditation to sharpen one's mindfulness.  Her book, "Widen the Window" is about handling stress and trauma.  

My picture of meditation to increase awareness of what is occupying and preoccupying one's mind is mostly about concentration on a focus.  Such concentration and dedication to a focus vastly increases awareness of having wandered off the focus, whether it is a visual or body focus such as one's breath. Reading her book the other day, I came across her comments about research on mindwandering, more or less the opposite of steady focus.  The only book I have found on mindwandering is "The Wandering Mind" by Michale Corballis, a retired professor of psychology at New Zealand's University of Auckland.  As is often the case, I have read some of his book but it has been a while since I read any of it.  

It turned out that some comments made by Stanley and by Corballis both related to the result of distracted mindwandering.  Some work on randomly checking with adults about whether they were on task as they were supposed to be or off mentally wool-gathering implied to Stanley that focused thinking produced more happiness than mindwandering, while Corballis considered the research less definitive.  The more complete checking, rechecking and widespread comparison about human nature, habits and reactions as typified by this article:

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-knowledge-about-different-cultures-is-shaking-the-foundations-of-psychology

has been labeled by some as a replication crisis where certain "laws" or foundational suppositions about human behaviors come into serious question when it is discovered that some groups or societies don't behave in a way that Western psychologists assumed everyone must.  The processes of creating a fetus, bearing a child and living as a youngster and adult is vastly complex and as Eagleman tries to show, proceeds in many ways outside of conscious deliberate thought.  You have probably heard of evolution and The Origin of Species (1859), the book usually credited with a deeper and stronger concentration on where we come from and what makes us be as we are.  Maybe some focus and some mindwandering mixed in the right proportions is optimal until we get better insight.

Alive?

A friend said I seemed to be doing better at dropping my interest in and reference to death.  She said I am not that old and it isn't cool.  I have noticed that I seem to use Google every other day to find out if a given person is alive now or not.  Doing that is not because I am overly concerned with death.  Just about the opposite: it seems that writing, photography, movies and video has somewhat abolished death.  I was impressed with the relevance of today's Doonesbury cartoon:

https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2021/04/11

What bugs us today may be very much like what bugged people in previous times.  From Howard  Zinn's "A People's History of the United States":

In 1676, seventy years after Virginia was founded, a hundred years before it supplied leadership for the American Revolution, that colony faced a rebellion of white frontiersmen, joined by slaves and servants, a rebellion so threatening that the governor had to flee the burning capital of Jamestown, and England decided to send a thousand soldiers across the Atlantic, hoping to maintain order among forty thousand colonists. This was Bacon's Rebellion.

Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States (Modern Classics) (p. 50). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

I am impressed with the diligence that somebody uses to keep the language of a Google search current.  If someone is alive now, at the moment of search, the text on the page reads "is".  If that person has died, it says "was".  

To me, the fact that I need to look someone up to find if they are alive or not rather suggests that being dead is irrelevant, at least for some purposes.  If someone lived in the 1800's and letters written by that person are discovered now, we learn about that person, perhaps in a way similar to having a cup of tea with that person and talking.  So, use your pen and scrap paper, or your notebook, or your journal, use your camera or video recorder to say what's up.  Deciding what actually is up, framing what's up in words or interpretive dance is good for you and valuable for those that follow.

I was shocked

My Ipad shows me pictures sometimes.  The other day, I looked at one and I thought it was a news item showing the former Speaker of the House, Mitch McConnell.  Then, I looked more closely and discovered it was a photo of me!  The politician from Kentucky and I share very few viewpoints as far as I know.  I am trying to establish that I am not him and he is someone different from me.

Here is the picture that tricked me:

I can be reasonably warm and friendly.  I asked Lynn to take a picture of me that gives a different non-Mitch impression.  She did:

Communicating with me

I'm a little busy right now.  [That's my way of saying "Come back later.  Send me an email.  Not now.]

I think I know what you are going to say.  I think your statement is yet another in a long string of statements that basically say the same thing.  OK, I can see by your expression that you don't think you are repeating a popular message but one unique to your thinking and including original remarks and notions.  

So, OK, I am swiveling my attention to you, to your channel, to your message.  Your statement is front and center and I am concentrating on what you have to say.  In fact, I have pen and paper handy and am making notes.  I learned that it can be calming and supportive for you if I can repeat back to you a summary of your statement that you accept as a good capture of your message.

It is later now and I have read over my notes and reflected on what you have to say.  Despite the heavy hauling of removing my inner barriers and my intuitive feelings that I have heard your message before, after paying strict attention and noting what you say, I find that my original estimate was correct. I have heard your message previously and I have considered it.  Then, I tossed it out.  I consider it to stand on a surprisingly weak foundation.  I would not have guessed that someone with your high intelligence would have subscribed to the viewpoint you expressed.  My impulse was to dismiss your message beforehand.  I didn't and I listened and considered anew.  Now, I can see that was a mistake.  

I will keep my notes in case I wish to review your position.  In many matters, all either of us can do is bring to bear our best judgment.  Neither of us can tell what will serve best in the future.  Often, after careful consideration, we don't return to checking which of us had the better idea because we forget about taking the positions we do in favor of considering what we think is best on further questions that pop up at that time.

Howard Zinn and his US history book

Today our book club discussed Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States".  It is a well-known book and is possibly the most well-known revelatory history of our country.  As a college history professor, Zinn felt that the usual history taught in schools and colleges was too white, too self-congratulatory, too nice and too much of a lie.  As I looked up the book to download it, I was informed of two other books that were explicitly anti-Zinn's book.  I didn't read either of them but it appears that both are written by conservatives who feel Zinn's account needs balancing.  

A friend who has a history degree mentioned that no one can paint a picture or write a description or history without choosing what to include and what to omit.  There are an infinite number of facts that can be included and an infinite number of ways to describe and relate them.  

Zinn's first chapter is about Columbus and the group mentioned "Columbus Day" and asked whether the US should celebrate his arrival in the western hemisphere.  We discussed various alternatives to the holiday and the practice in some US states to make October 12 "Indigenous Peoples" Day in honor of the sacrifices and prices paid by native Americans when Europeans arrived and stayed.  

Zinn makes clear that his own background and experiences before specializing in US history had a strong effect on his views and interests.  

But my partisanship was undoubtedly shaped even earlier, by my upbringing in a family of working-class immigrants in New York, by my three years as a shipyard worker, and by my Air Force duty as a bombardier in the European theater (a strange word for that—"theater") in the second World War. That was all before I went to college under the GI Bill of Rights and began to study history.

Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States (Modern Classics) (p. 820). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

One of my very favorite books about education is "Uptaught" by Ken  Macrorie.  Professor Macrorie taught English and he emphasizes the difference getting WWII veterans in his classes made for him, his teaching and for the nature of the classes.

Have some water

I live in a town with a university.  It has the usual departments of arts and sciences but it also has a college of natural resources.  In that college, you can pursue majors such as wildlife management or water resources.  We have high levels of awareness of the importance of water.  

From a Google search:

By 2050 the U.S. could be as much as 5.7°F warmer, and extreme weather events, such as heatwaves and drought, could be more intense and occur more frequently. As temperatures warm, evaporation increases, further decreasing water in lakes, reservoirs, and rivers.Aug 11, 2020

Why is America running out of water? - National Geographic

In the countryside around us, there are farms.  Wisconsin is famous for its farming, especially dairy farms, but we have all sorts.  Farms depend on water for crops and animals.  

You may have heard of the idea that some humans have a problem getting adequate clean water.  

Clean freshwater is an essential ingredient for a healthy human life, but 1.1 billion people lack access to water and 2.7 billion experience water scarcity at least one month a year. By 2025, two-thirds of the world's population may be facing water shortages.

Water Scarcity | Threats | WWF

The subject of water is always an important one but today we had a special reminder.  We actually live in an area that has sandy soil, where water runs down through it quickly.  Many of the farms around us have large spray irrigation systems to augment natural rainfall.

Just yesterday, our state ballot included a referendum question about whether the state of Wisconsin should establish a human right to clean water.  Locally, it passed with 77% of the vote but I can't find the state result yet.

The other day I received a notice from our local city water department that my ten year permit to have a private well had expired.  I need to get a water sample kit and take some water to the College of Natural Resources to have my well-water tested in their lab.  Today, we had a visit from the water inspector who verified that our well is outside the house as legally required.  He couldn't find a "wild head", a device to ensure that our well water is prevented from back-flowing into the city's water system.  We have to get a wild head installed in our sprinkling system.