Hit by a storm

I was hit by a negative emotional storm the other day.  I am not sure what brought it on.  Normally, I feel happy and connected to others and the world.  I usually see the whole enterprise of life as merry and worthwhile.

 

I realize that everything is not all peaches and cream.  I saw “Slumdog Millionaire” and have seen scenes and descriptions of the slums around some of the big cities of the world. I started a chapter of Amnesty International and I know a little of the misery visited on people for purely political and ideological reasons. 

 

I have been working on myself to stay alert and to face myself and the world openly.  I’ve been trying to let myself fully know what I actually think and actually feel, even if I am not pleased or accepting of some feelings, desires or thoughts.

 

The storm that struck was a bit vague but fairly strong and gripping.  I felt very sad but it was not clear why or about what.  I had been listening to Parker Palmer’s description of what bad, dense, clinical depression feels like.  I had visited my quite aged parents-in-law and witnessed their renewed realization that they are limited and hampered in everything.   I had begun “Schulz and Peanuts” and read of his icy mother and his worries about not ever really getting deeply loved by her.  I had been listening to the story of Mozart and his genius and frustrations it brought.  Maybe it was some combination of all that.

 

A friend asked if I have been keeping up on exercise.  Another said she suspected fear of death had crept into my mind.  Now, I seem to have lost the sadness, the feeling that nothing is worthwhile.  I feel again the futility of feeling that all is futile, of using energy to elicit or sustain gloom.  I can choose not to do that just now and I am exercising my rights.

 

 

Memorial Day 2021

Memorial Day is about armies, guns and death. It is not uncommon to say we should do away with warfare but there are times when people really don't want to suffer and going to arms seems the best choice.  

When I was growing up, Memorial Day didn't mean all that much.  I didn't lose anyone close to me in warfare.  I was born at the beginning of WW2 and didn't remember much about it.  I do remember my parents suddenly erupting with excitement and I learned it was because the radio had announced the end of the war.  I remember several Lassie movies I saw that involved armies.

Because Wisconsin has a short summer, the official start has traditionally been Memorial Day and the summer tends to end on Labor Day, the other Monday extended weekend holiday.  That leaves us June, July and August. We tend to think 80° is hot and 90° is really getting up there.  The resorts in the lake country of the Northwoods, Paul Bunyan country, have depended on college students for help.  The state legislature has said that colleges cannot begin fall semesters before Labor Day.  Climate change, online education and changes in what is thought to be good use of the post-highschool years may combine with ending the Covid lockdown to modify practices of the last decades.

Being an internet troll as a career

Doonesbury today is about Zonker aiming to be first an internet influencer and later, a internet troll (grouch, nay-sayer, ridiculer).  His uncle advises him to aim for something else, saying that Zonker is too nice and too sensitive.  The cartoon gets me thinking about Nastiness as a career theme and Careers in general.  

www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2021/05/30

My wife and I often look at our lives in some amazement.  When we were 20, we had never heard of the themes that have been the main features of our lives since then.  An article from The Guardian recently featured William Shatner and the idea that nothing matters, in all that serious a way.

getpocket.com/read/3338777736

 That sort of headline could be taken as an excuse to not care about one's occupation, how it feels to work in it, how well it pays, what it takes to get into the work.  At age 20, we had energy and pictures of what seemed like the likely version of the next few years.  Those pictures morphed as opportunities arose and problems reared their heads.  

I take seriously the idea that we don't really know what is in our closets, our wardrobes, our past, or our future.  I think it makes sense to work at having a good life but also noting what aspects of the current life are chafing or irritating.  Chafes and irritations can be suffered, but enough of them can be a call to look for something else.

Tipping today

With serious problems raised by Covid, I began tipping more.  What is fair, what is helpful is always a mystery.   When a business depends on customers, and I like the business and deal with it, I appreciate what the business does. Especially when the pandemic shrinks the business or really cuts the number of transactions per day, I want to give more money to support.  What a fair price actually is has gotten people thinking for centuries.  

If you establish a price based on your costs, your own income needs and what the competition charges, the final figure may be a good one from your point of view.  But, when I buy what you sell, the value to me, the appreciation for my purchase is a matter of my consideration and is separate from your calculations and your experience.  The loaf of bread or the bag of apples is never a matter of life or death for me.  I have some bread and I have some apples.  I can live without any bread or apples but I like what you make and the apples you sell.  I often ask myself how much trouble, and time you are saving me.  I don't make bread like Dave Arey does and I don't have any apple trees.  Your bread is delicious and your apples satisfy my hunger and both provide nutrients and variety.  I have bought from you before and I have found your products satisfying.  

If you want me to take some off your hands, if you have an oversupply and the bread will spoil or taking some of your loaves opens space for more baking, an activity you enjoy, taking some off your hands may be a favor.  When I know how much money I have with me, I may want to give you more than your price.  If you express unhappiness with a tip, or the size of my tip, I will adjust it but I generally know how I feel and what amount will express my feeling of gratitude, appreciation and hope that you will continue.

Seeing our life reading annual letters

Lynn has been on a sorting and tossing spree. It can be surprising what good judgment she has about what should go even when we disagree.  While working on her papers and records, she came across Christmas letters we sent out over the past years.  We spent some time reading them aloud today.  

It gives me a feeling of comfort and grounding if I know what happened when.  We have about 40 years of Christmas letters.  Of course, such documents are not used to report domestic squabbles or small irritations that have burdened us from time to time.  When you read a Christmas letter, you get highlights, positive events and accomplishments of importance.  Still, it is nice to know what year jobs started and ended, memorable trips were taken.  

The development of the internet and our learning how to make some use of it has been important in many ways.  Yesterday, I wrote about forwarding, something that is easy, quick and useful with email.  But the transmission of photos, videos and even ebook gifts do indeed change what we can do and with whom.  I started some use of a computer in 1965 but that was the laundry arrangement of giving the attendant punched cards and returning in a day to pick up the results.  

Lynn has degrees and experience in computing and taught me about making web pages and understanding what they were.  She realized that the elementary school library she ran would work well with a computer. We bought one and she lugged it to her school each day and lugged it home after using it all day to run her library.  When summer came, the computer stayed home and I used it steadily.  When she started taking it to school in the fall, I bought another computer.  She is still irritated that she had to lug while I bought my own tool.  The Christmas letters help us remember our difficulties in this matter even though she now feels her own heroic measures helped me grow.  

By 1984, we had our own computer at home.  Computers can be helpful but they need good software.  She gave me Appleworks for Father's Day that year and it launched lots of writing, information manipulation and calculation.  My friend told me that he could see that I liked computers and predicted that I would like them even more when the internet and web sites got rolling.

It has been my interest in mediation and watching my own mind and events in my life that has led to my daily blogging, a term I didn't like at first but I accept now.  Google's Drive, Docs, Blogger and Gmail have really added richness and connection to different moments in time and to different people

Forwarding to others

t hasn't been long since we have had the telegraph. Some people weren't too sure about the invention which used something called electricity.  What is electricity?  It is the stuff that lightning is made of.  So the telegraph sends messages using lightning, right?  

I looked up sailing across the Atlantic.  The answer was six weeks.  So, it hasn't been all that long that radio and faster, more widespread communication has been possible. These days, we have email.  Writing, pictures, videos can be transmitted quickly and easily.

I get about 20 or 30 emails a day but only 3 to 5 are sent by people I actually know.  Many of the emails I get are from someone in an organization and of course, many are advertisements for a service or a product. These days, when I get emails in news, comments or ads, I often think of a friend who seems interested in the main topic of the item and then I forward the email to them.  When I get something in the US Post, I very rarely send it on.  I could make copies with a copy machine and send the item on but I don't.  The speed and ease of email allows me to forward something to multiple people.  

I am wondering about convenience and speed of forwarding contributing to the phenomena of passing on to others.  I haven't found much about how much forwarding goes on.  I do see that some sources request me to forward to friends, citing "mouth to mouth" advertising as being powerful.  I suppose finger-to-email address is powerful, too. With a single word, I can insert 20 or so email addresses into a single forwarding and I have more than 20 such mailing lists.  I doubt that I am more than an average forwarder.

Streaming with Roku

Maybe 5 years ago, I saw an ad for the Roku tv streamer that said I could get Amazon Prime and Netflix on my tv with it.  We had just gotten back from a trip and we went to the store and got a new tv.  The old one was heavy and big.  The replacement had a larger viewing area but was quite light in weight.  My friends laugh at the replacement because it is comparatively small, but we aren't getting a 75" tv for our 70 " living room.

Months go by without our looking at broadcast tv.  Streaming from Netflix, Amazon, Wisconsin Public TV and Acorn can all be watched on our computers but the living room is set up to conveniently watch on the television set.  We haven't watched broadcast for years.  My friend worries that our tv ad consumption is dangerously low but we are doing fine.  My cinematic enthusiast friends enjoy Kanopy and the Criterion channel, but we have not got much interest in old movies even though we do use them sometimes.

We have found some tv series and movies that are more to our taste with streaming.  We are not drawn to monsters, murders depicted in detail or magic where the hero clicks his finger and thereby instantly teleports himself to another planet.  We are not fascinated by fake sex and have had enough simulated humping.  I suspect being old has provided us with so many sensational explosions that we are now jaded.  We enjoy facing the problems of ongoing everyday crime in Britain while it worries about Nazi invasions with Foyle, and the insensitivity of Dr. Martin.  We have traveled the Andes and watched Nature programs.

I keep forgetting that I am delicious

You might think it wouldn't be a problem, what with Covid 19 and all.  There are plenty of reminders that I am a walking, mobile pile of nutrients.  I was surprised to learn that viruses were only first known in the 1890's. Bacteria were known long before but they are in general much bigger.  It takes more powerful methods to see a virus.

 But it is not just some viruses that are on the lookout to consume me.  There is an article in today's Num Lock News about fungus:

Anti-Fungal

Fungi can cause serious debilitating illnesses in people the same way that bacteria can, and can spread around the world the same way that a pandemic can. At issue, though, is that the medical toolbox to fight fungi is considerably slimmer than that used to fight bacteria. The challenge is in part due to the reality that fungi cells have more in common with human cells than most bacteria cells have with human cells, so developing a drug that can fight fungi without hurting our own cells is a difficult problem. As a result, there are only five classes of antifungal drugs compared to more than 20 classes of antibiotics, and a new class of antifungals only hits the market every 20 years or so.

Maryn McKenna, Scientific American

I read once that grizzly bears are very mean and tough but that black bears tend to be more likely to eat a human arm or leg.  I am pretty well recovered from my wrist injury the other day.  Reading "The Better Half" about the genetic superiority of women over men has alerted me to the ways aging and deterioration are slowly getting me.  The book "The Longevity Economy" does a good job pointing out changes in lives when many humans live a good deal longer than they used to.  I used to think of simple wear and tear as the main force that ages me but now I see that there are lots of little, non-obvious forces that lust after my juicy cells. 

Transmission speeds

As my computer aged, it got slower, especially about doing something different from what I had been doing. Since going slow is often an antidote to today's anxious frenzies about immediate results, the machine's nature alerted me to all sorts of mini-speeds in my life.  From the time it takes to switch channels, or get an email I just sent myself, I became more aware of transmission speeds and loading/reloading speeds.  

In today's world of computing and interneting, a whole lot of transmission goes on.  If the web page doesn't reload, you can click on the "re-load" symbol to have the file that creates the page re-sent, often in an updated form, unless the reload is requested too quickly and the new version didn't register yet.

Transmission and reloading takes place inside us, too.  In fact, our senses often refresh quickly and automatically but as we age, the processes may slow down.  I learned from Robert Ornstein about the priorities our bodies usually use for sending messages and updates to our conscious mind.  

https://fearfunandfiloz.blogspot.com/2009/06/our-minds-and-reality.html

As with computer files, we are often concerned with what happened recently, sometimes very recently, like in the last 10 seconds.  If something is exciting, especially vivid or meaningful, it gets our attention, too. If traffic on the roads or on the internet is very heavy with lots of users, speeds can be reduced.  When I ask Netflix to show me a movie, it may take a moment to load the show, maybe several moments if many others are doing the same. Some people have t-shirts about loading speed:

https://www.amazon.com/Loading-shirt-Answer-loading-please/dp/B07M98RP6S

Over here

Yesterday, I posted a pair of links and some last names. The idea was to bring to mind the business of what we can sense, either with our senses that connect to the outside world, like sight and hearing, or our thinking.  Also the subject of mind/body medicine, what our attitudes and beliefs do to our bodies and health.  To me, it is a broad and fascinating subject.  

Today is a Sunday, which is often a busy day for us.  I call my friend.  Lynn writes a family review of the week.  

I know that many professors and other academics have deep knowledge and valuable things to offer.  I have listened to many audio courses produced by The Teaching Company.  More recently, they morphed into The Great Courses.  We have a Great Courses channel but we have gotten out of the habit of watching it.  We do get impressive catalogs every so often.  Lynn took an interest, partly because we are searching for television that appeals to us.  She ordered a tour of France, Ancient Civilizations of North America, and How Jesus Became God.  Each course has 24 lectures of 30 minutes each.  They should fit with our preferred watching schedule nicely.

The country seems to me to be entering a period of what is to me especially outlandish talk and behavior.  I am impressed to read that someone makes threats against the government or individuals and then claims to have been kidding.

Can you detect a difference?

https://fearfunandfiloz.blogspot.com/search?q=lady+tasting+tea

https://www.foodpolitics.com/2021/04/study-how-wines-taste-depends-on-what-you-think-they-cost/

Related names and subjects

    Placebos and nocebos

Hamilton

Marchant

Evans

Harrington

Hypnosis

Incognito

Positivity and Barbara Erhenreich's "Brightsided"

Educated and maybe smart, too

In graduate school more than 50 years ago, I wrote a paper about the purpose of higher education.  It was one of the first papers I wrote and it was for a class in the history of higher education.  Really, it was the history of Western higher education.  What is "higher"?  In the American system, we have elementary or "primary schools".  Quite a bit later, we developed "high school", not without some resistance and opposition.  Why warehouse eager, energetic young people in front of blackboards and textbooks when they could be milking cows or hoeing weeds?  

For more than 20 years, I have worked with a campus organization that aims membership at older and mostly retired people.  We have a mix of people who never graduated from high school on up to PhD's who had a post-doc fellowship (apprenticeship).  The other day, the energetic, well-spoken man said that he wasn't smart enough to go to college.  I have often heard people assess their own "smart"-ness by ranking themselves and others by years of schooling.  I can assure anyone who is interested that number of years of schooling, even with all top grades, doesn't guarantee such a student is "smart".  Just deciding what "smart" is has been deviling people for more than a century.  

If you can speak a complex language like English or any other tongue, if you can read English, if you can use a smartphone or a car, you are definitely smart, whatever grade you got from Mr. Smith.

Guess what has been uncovered!

My friend Horace Davis alerted us to the film "Traces of the Trade".  It is the story of discovering that one's ancestors in the "deep North" of the US were the largest business in slave trading in US history.  This information coincides with an interest I have had lately.  Ancestor or not - and ultimately, we are all related, what about finding that a longtime hero of mine did something immoral and nasty?

Matthew 7:1 advises that I judge not, lest I be judged.  That I cast opinions on and about others is definitely something I should be restrained about.   However, I became convinced during the 1968 writing of my dissertation that humans make immediate judgments about just about everything just about instantly. Much of careful thinking, critical thinking, not-critical thinking, helpful thinking and useful thinking includes checking judgements, re-considering them from time to time.  

On many occasions large and small, extended and brief ones, too, I have found that an initial impression gets changed.  I think it does make sense to avoid judgments since I find so often that initial enthusiasm wanes or preliminary dislike changes to like.  I noticed when I was teaching that one class seemed to be peachy while another vinegary only to discover in a month or two that the peach had developed an unpleasant taste while the vinegar had become distinctly caramel-flavored. 

I'm not that enthusiastic about split-pea soup but I live with someone who is.  Over the many, many years she has had to influence and train me, I have learned about her enthusiasm for the stuff.  Now, I think of it with an added note of "Yay!" because she gets all positive and the feeling is contagious.  

Other aspects of evaluating lives and contributions are memory and attention span.  I can't remember all the things I have done, much less learn and remember all the meritorious or sinful things you have.  It is far more efficient to just forget the past and focus on what's happening now.  In the meantime, do what is good and skip what isn't.  There will be times when you err but it is still worthwhile to steer for the good.

Fell

We had our house washed.  The water stream dislodged Ladybug eggs and related debris that dripped down afterward.  I tried to wash them off and succeeded but I fell.  I thought I was at the last ladder step but I was 1 off.  I tumbled backward on our concrete driveway and broke my fall with my hand.  Nothing is broken. It and the wrist are sore but otherwise I am ready to climb to dizzying heights and dive off backwards again.

The doctor said to rest my hand so I am going to stop typing now.

What is a sweetheart?

First couple of Google results mention romance and romantic relationships.  But I have heard women refer to a man as a sweetheart and they didn't mean a romantic relationship.  They meant a man who is generally nice, generous, respectful, appreciative.  

I have become more and more aware of some sorts of feminine behavior and comment that are sweet.  I mean it is sweet in the sense that I like it and want to be around it. Sure, I notice and appreciate nubile silhouettes, what is often referred to as a "good shape".  However, I have been out of the baby-making phase for quite a while now.  But I have learned that voices, word choice, speech emphasis, comment timing - all contribute to finding that a woman is a sweetheart.  

Another aspect of my reaction to women is gesture and movement.  I am often surprised by motions of the hand, head, body and legs that I immediately like and deeply know I would myself have not made.  I don't see men do them.  Voice, gesture, body language can all create a miasma of pleasant glow that makes female company a treasure

Missing friends

This link brings up previous blog entries in Fear, Fun and Filoz about death. 

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

One link is about Death Valley, which is a little off the subject.  Our good friend, Richard, died in the last few days.  He is the 6th good friend that we did not want to age or die but who did so anyway.  Our close friends that die seem to follow the pattern of being male and leaving their wives behind.  Dr. Sharon Moalem, a geneticist, has a recent book The Better Half about the superiority of the XX chromosome that bestows femininity and many advantages for fighting off infections and living long.  

Losing a friend or partner to death is not fun or jolly.  In addition to fear, confusion and loss, a death that is close to us often brings thoughts of the winding down of our own lives.

Adam lived 930 years. Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died. According to Apocalypsis Mosis, Apocalypsis Mosis (english translation) Adam died first, Eve died six days later.

Who died first? Adam or Eve? - Quora

https://www.quora.com › Who-died-first-Adam-or-Eve

One thing that death can do is encourage the living to appreciate what they have, the friends, the beauty, and the satisfactions.  I hope you have many right at hand and that you savor them. 

Sparks of imagination and possibility

We watched the PBS show "Extra Life", based on the new Steven Johnson book of the same name.  The book and the show are about what has caused the extension of average lifetime from around 40 to closer to 80.  The first episode of the show is about vaccinations.  There is a predecessor practice invented called "variolation".  African slaves told both Cotton Mather, the famous Puritan preacher, and Tom Jefferson about the practice of smearing some residue from the smallpox sores of someone with the disease into a small cut in the skin of someone to be protected.  

Many histories of medicine mention Edward Jenner, an English physician, who tried the more indirect method of vaccination, not variolation, using the related disease of cowpox to prevent development of smallpox.  

Today, we have forces in many places for education, for communication, for research, and for thinking.  We also have the term 'misinformation' for what gets termed rumors, ignorance and campaigns to mislead and enlist.  I suspect that a flash of an idea can occur to anyone.  Such a spark may be suggested by experience or by records of experience that we call "data' and "experiment".  Teachers have experiences where a student who usually seems almost asleep suddenly comments or contributes a valuable insight.  Teachers and parents also have experiences where kids have comments or questions that are out of nowhere and are based on amazing misunderstandings.

It seems that all us humans are remembering and misremembering, receiving zingers of brilliance and blunder, sympathy and suspicion all the time.  Don't you worry: we will eventually get it all straight.

Slowly spreading out

I talked with a professor who also teaches meditation.  We agreed that the calm and the awareness of internal states and the focus of one's attention that grow from meditation can spread to wider time periods.  I have been suspicious of long periods of meditation because I think it is too easy to get off into day-dreaming and not notice it has happened.  

Shorter periods are easier to stay alert to what I'm doing or not doing.  The Google engineer and author Chade-Meng Tan says that good meditation can be valuably done with one conscious breath. During the day, it is easy to become conscious of just taking a breath and at the moment, drop into full awareness of self and surroundings.  Pretty soon, meditative mind set is continuous.  I personally don't think that means I won't benefit and enjoy a more formal 5 or 10 minutes on the edge of a chair focused on a good visual anchor.

Troubles convincing others who I am

The Ziggy cartoon on this past Monday showed a panhandler asking for coins and donations on a street corner.  He wore a sign hanging from his neck that said "Forgot my Bitcoin password".  Poor guy was dealing with personal identity.  

I got a notice from the state motor vehicle office reminding me that soon I will need a special license to identify myself.  It has a star on it and it is called "Read ID".  To get mine, I had to show my birth certificate.  The panhandler needs to convince people and machines of his identity.  I may need to convince people and machines that I am who I say am.  The trouble involves the steps I go through to convince people of my identity.  

For ages, you would look at my face.  But as we know, if you last saw me when I graduated from college, you might not be convinced that the face I show is the guy you used to know.  You might interrogate me.  Who was a professor I had at my college?  Name some others in my class.  Such background questions are often "security questions" that the man I say I am would probably know (unless his memory has deteriorated).  If you have samples from earlier days of my fingerprints and my DNA, that might be used to convince you of my identity.  

On tv, I see people look into a device that compares the veins in their eyes with my pattern.  Maybe a computer has a record of my voice print, which might identify me, although my voice, too, has aged.  Maybe the behavior of my dog or cat will convince you of my identity.

When I give out my cell phone number or my email address, you might accept what I have given as truly mine, that truly goes to the real me.  So, if you send a 6 digit code to that phone or address and I successfully receive it and tell you what was sent, you and your machines might accept my identity.  

When Martin Guerre returned home, his wife and child accepted him but mistakenly.  Sometimes, identity is tricky.

Martin Guerre - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Martin_Guerre

Martin Guerre, a French peasant of the 16th century, was at the centre of a famous case of imposture. Several years after Martin Guerre had left his wife, child and village, a man claiming to be him appeared. He lived with Guerre's wife and son for three years.

Terms, conditions and intrusions

Many of my friends have Google email addresses.  I keep stressing that anyone with a connected device, like a smartphone, tablet or computer can easily get themselves a Gmail address.  One reason for doing that is to take advantage of what comes with a Gmail account, which is free.  On the basic Gmail page is a small 3x3 set of dots in the upper right corner.  That set of dots is the Google app launcher and it includes many programs and applications that can be used with a Google name and password that is used to get Gmail.  

If you browse to Blogger.com, you can start a blog, a site where you can write or post pictures that interest you or your friends.  If you browse to sites.google.com, you can start your own web site or just search "start Google website".  

When you use Google products and services and many other things on the internet, you will often find that you can't proceed without agreeing to the terms and conditions set for that product or service.  Some sites allow a user to proceed only if they check that they agree.  Some sites will only allow a user to proceed if the multiple pages of rules and conditions have been scrolled through.  I usually scroll through far more rapidly than I can read the words involved.  When I have tried slowing down and reading the words, I find many terms that I don't understand and many others that I probably don't understand.

When I visit various web addresses (a.k.a. "URL"s - universal resource locator, you can see why they wind up getting called web address), I get interrupted.  Usually rudely, impolitely and incessantly.  It seems a little dumb to write something and post it for readers all around the world to read it and then jam something else across the writing.  This something else is either politely or impolitely written, and it can be quite intrusive and insistent.  I get asked to state my email address and open an account so that the owners of this site can pester me and further overburden me with emails, pictures and the very greatest products hawked by the most attractive models in the world, or so they would have me believe.

The world's most popular browser for jumping around the internet is the Google browser Chrome.  ⅔ of internet users use that browser worldwide. 2nd most popular is the Apple browser Safari, used by about 20%.  I use Firefox as do about 3.5% of internet users.  Firefox is not Microsoft, Google or Apple or Amazon.  Its Pocket service is handy for avoiding some intrusions but not all.

Meditation at the gas pump

When I got gas in my car today, the pump showed a tv clip about mediation. I am still impressed.  I am eager to see better methods of education for all ages and situations.  By the time I retired, I had learned enough about meditation to see that it was a quick, valuable, simple practice that was showing itself to be very helpful.  It clarifies thinking, makes clearer what emotions are on tap, increases the ability to see and understand how one is using attention.  So, the day arrived today, when an ad for the practice showed up while I was filling the tank in my car.  I have written some web pages about meditation in this blog:

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

The link does not provide an exhaustive list but it can help.  

I also have some pages on the subject on my website:

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

It is natural to read to learn about meditation.  

Of course, there are many YouTube videos that may be helpful:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=how+to+meditate

Many people like to use a directed meditation tape or recording.  I find that simply sitting comfortably but in an alert position focusing on a single point or on breath is all that is needed.  It helps to have a timer set that makes a sound so you don't have to keep checking to see if ten minutes has passed.

How to meditate - simplified basic directions

Sit comfortably

Don't move

Concentrate on your breath

Do this for a number of minutes according to a timer

Chinese feelings

The Writer's Almanac said that today is the anniversary of the publication of the Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist document of wide importance.  The Almanac said that it is one of the oldest documents ever published.  The Wikipedia says it was published on May 11, in the year 868.  Various files and copies are available on the internet including several PDFs for downloading.  

I have enough to think about right now, more than enough, in fact.  I did read a small bit of it and I may get back to it one of these days.  I imagine that documents and ideas and concepts in Chinese and other portions of the East would be of interest to me.  This business of Eastern and Chinese history and thought brought to mind a book I read about called "Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out".  When something comes to mind, I often do a little checking into it. 

I knew the book was something I had heard about, probably on Amazon in the book section.  I looked it up on my computer and yes, again, got that message, "You purchased this item in 2013".  See?  I told you I had heard of it.  I have many Kindle books in my purchased archive and I don't expect to remember them all.  I really appreciate the practice of telling me that I have an item in my library.  

I downloaded the book and looked through it.  I saw a notice that the book had been published in China as "Shengsi pilao".  I often use Google Translate to try for some insight into languages I don't know, which is all of them except English.  I didn't even know if I could look up a Chinese word in Translate using letters from our alphabet.  Turns out it worked.

"Shengsi" was translated as "life and death".  I was surprised that evidently a single word meant all that.  "Pilao" was "fatigue".  I think I might use the English "existence fatigue" but Life and Death are wearing me out is much more poetic.  The book is written by Mo Yan, a Chinese author and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2012.

Being aware and in touch

Lynn showed me a piece of wood with a hole 10 centimeters in diameter.  I have heard that is often the amount of dilation that mothers need for their babies to be born.  I know that brain size and head size are not exactly the same but it is still the case that large heads and large brains affect human life.  I just read that episiotomies are actually performed less since research has shown mothers do better and heal better without them.  

Schools, culture, science and research all push for more thinking.  More imagination, more critical analysis of what we do, what other ways we might live, constantly urging us to think, to speculate, to wonder.  I very much like the information in Eagleman's "Incognito" that much of what we do is not part of our conscious mind.  I also like the first chapter of Prof. Lisa Feldman Barrett's book "7 ½ Lessons About the Brain".  That chapter of her book is called "Your Brain is Not for Thinking".  Her point, like Eagleman's, is that our bodies are quite complex. So are our lives and our activities. Our brains are the government, the control center, of our bodies and activities.  

Computers, smartphones, training and discussions tend to urge us to be aware of more, to consider more, to keep more in mind.  In fact, they will like me more if I think about the issues they think about.  

We can develop habits of being overworked, steadily distracted, frequently quizzing ourselves about conditions around the world, out in space, in our bank accounts and our wallets.  Does the car need an oil change?  How are the kids doing in school? Is there an election today?  When is that party I want to attend?  

It seems that we are getting so brainy, so connected, we are in touch with too much.  I suppose it is a sign of my age that I picture myself or someone I know when they are dead.  Dead - insensitive, unaware, not in touch, not conscious.  I picture life before the printing press, when I would not have known what the Pope or Luther were up to.  Life before the telegraph when I didn't know what just happened in DC or the state capitol.  

I am not yearning for those days.  I am just teaching myself to limit my concerns, to worry less, even to wonder about fewer questions.

Happy Maternal Celebrations!

I salute mothers, especially mine.  I also salute my wife's maternal work, which we actually launched together.  My rule of thumb is that mothers start with a contribution of 9 months while fathers contribute 15-30 minutes in launching the next generation.  It is true that financially fathers make large and important contributions but minute by minute, mothers count and they comfort.  

I realize that mothers range in warmth and ability, but in general, we need them and we are grateful for them.  Thanks, Moms!

Longevity effects

All over the world, people are living to greater ages.  For decades, age has been considered younger or 65-and-older.  We haven't reached the stage where 65 is only half of life but we might.  People are working on it.  So what?  

Here's what: a 65 year old is a different animal from a 95 year old.  That is not surprising when you think about it but for centuries, we haven't had to think about it because so few people ever lived to 95.  It is still rather rare but it is getting more common.

https://www.infoplease.com/us/population/population-65-years-and-over-age-1990-2000-and-2010

If you follow sports, especially high school and college sport, you already have the idea.  It's probability.  Where there are more throws of the dice, more odd and very odd things can happen.  So, as we get more people alive in the 70's, 80's and beyond, we get more diversity among them.  We get 90 yr old women who run marathons.  

https://sites.google.com/site/kirbyvariety/improbability-principle-by-david-hand

As people age, they pick up more knowledge.  In today's world, they communicate more widely and more astutely, what with Google searching and all.  Many older people have acquired more wealth and know what to do with it.  Hold on to your hat!  It is going to be a ride!

New machine

Computers have been and are now a big part of my life.  I read about "logic machines" and advanced calculators just before I began learning the computer language called Fortran ('formula translation').  I used computers in my dissertation in 1968 but I didn't touch any computer.  The university computer was accessed by special attendants only and the center was run like my dry cleaners is run.  Bring in a deck of punched cards and give them to us.  We will pass them through the machine to be read and the directions in them carried out.  The results will be printed on large sheets of paper.  Come by tomorrow at this time to get the papers and your cards.  

After graduate school, I was mostly an assistant professor of education but also a part-time director of the campus office of academic computing.  That doesn't mean running payroll.  It means calculating and computing for faculty research.  At the time, most professors had not heard of computers and saw no application for them in their lives.  Nearly all professors use words all the time and once word processing developed, the relevance shot up. Today, emailing, texting and reading research sources and communications is a big part of academic life.  

My home computer has gotten slower and slower.  It is ok as long as I don't change programs but when I want to open something besides what I am using, I have to wait for longer and longer times. Today, a new laptop arrived and I am using it now.

Sweetie

"My Love: Six Stories of True Love" on Netflix is definitely not your typical love story.  I put "Netflix love stories" into Google since I wasn't clear about the exact title. Up came

https://www.google.com/search?q=netflix+love+stories

Then, look at "Netflix love stories documentary" - six stories of longtime love, that is, elderly people who have been together for decades.  People in their late 70's and older are shown from six countries: US, Spain, Korea, Japan, India, Brazil.  What gets my attention is the force of our biological drives.  We have only watched the US and Spain.  We do get to see photos of the couple when they were young and had first met.  None of the women featured will now appear on the cover of Glamor magazine and none of the men will attract the chicks in a bar - too wrinkly, too stooped, too slow and careful and tottering NOW.  

So what happened?  You know what happened.  Time!  They farmed, shepherded, parented, cooked, sometimes disagreed.  They aged.  From one day to the next, not much changed.  Seasons slid by, holidays got celebrated, kids were conceived and grew, grandkids were born.  All the while, those hot bodies changed.  Now, they are more precious to a husband or a wife than ever but not to those looking at a mating age for a mate.

Busy

How can a person be busy with little nothings and interruptions?  Plan to consider one's life each day.  Much like the advice often given for meditation, plan to do the consideration at roughly the same time each day if possible.  That makes for a routine and a basic habit that comes up when it is expected and comfortable.  

Get an email that some parts of a play written by a local Arthur and planned for a Monday reading still have no readers.  Volunteer to be one of the missing readers.  Try to find the email with the attachment of the script.  Reconnect the printer from her computer to yours.  Print the script.  Let the organizers know what you are doing.  Oh, yes, check with the Arthur to see if he still wants you at his house to be there if needed during the live reading.  Ask if he sees any problem with a plan to have two parts of the reading done from his house.  

Print the script and inform the organizers of what you have done.

Read up a little on Mahatma Gandhi and writing by Leo Tolstory that inspired Gandhi.  Find the book The Kingdom of God is Within You by Tolstory and download it.  Write a blog note.

May the fourth

Our local learning in retirement organization sent out a message today with the subject line "May the fourth be with you".  This is a play on words used in the Star Wars movies, where one wishes another well saying "May the force be with you." Look the phrase up to see more.  

Some of my friends are addicted to puns and push the limits a bit beyond genuine humor.  Still it is easy to respect their energy and alertness as they look for any opportunity to twist a phrase into an attention-getting form.  

I admire seizing the opportunity to use today's date for a pun. What is a pun?  Here is a light-hearted explanation:

The pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophonic, homographic, metonymic, or figurative language. Wikipedia

 

After reading this, you are going to want to call up your friends and say "May the fourth be with you."  Some will be glad to hear from you because they like you or because they are glad you thought of them.  Even if they don't think your words are all that funny, just trying to spread some humor around can increase the chance that others will get the urge and some snickers or smiles may result.  Here is a page to give you a boost.  May the 4th be with you!

https://parade.com/1024249/marynliles/funny-puns/