Older brains failing to recall

When a group of us get together, we allow for times when a memory will not come to a speaker. The usual sign is a head being turned upwards and slightly to the right, the eyes being raised to about 2:30 on the giant invisible clock face with maybe a hand to the chin or side of the face.  These motions signal those following the speaker's comments to expect a pause while he tries to recollect the name of that guy who raises collies or whatever.  The more agile heads quickly create a usable substitute for the missing name or term: "You know, that guy in the town south of us who is a dog breeder."  Since everyone in the group is familiar with recall failure, especially names and nouns, we wait, sometimes patiently, for the name to come to the speaker.  At times of high speech traffic, another topic may spring up but we won't be surprised if a minute or five minutes later, the speaker says "Klovsky!".  Maybe someone else will say,"Oh, yeah, that Klovsky has good dogs for sale."

Sometimes, younger, more persistent speakers seem more irritated by a "senior moment" and try to keep the group's attention with a series of "you know" 's and coughs and lower level verbalizations hoping their recall mechanisms kick in quickly.  A look of fear mixed with frustration may pass across the face signaling the hope that recall failure won't get worse. 

Some books I recommended to a book group

Some books I recommended to a book group:

1. Starry Messenger by Neil DeGrasse Tyson - written by an active author and astronomer.  Views of our lives today

2. Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell - a novel about the life of Shakespeare

3. Incognito by David Eagleman - a mind is limited and the conscious brain is only one part

4. Seven and a Half Lessons About Your Brain by Lisa Feldman Barret - your brain does far more than allow you to think

5. Beloved by Toni Morrison - a novel about slavery in the American South

6. Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris - a murder mystery about life in Arab lands, especially women's lives

7. Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach - Brach is a teacher and philosopher of acceptance of life's gifts and challenges

8. A Place for Everything by Judith Flanders - a history of alphabetical order.  How can alphabetical order have a history?

9. Breath by Breath by Larry Rosenberg - breath can take you to joy, calm and acceptance of what comes

10. Dead Frenzy by Victoria Houston - Houston is a Wisconsin author who has written novels about a small Wisconsin town

11. All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum - one view of the basics.

Too much oxygen

Out any of our windows is a tree or a bush that is a new color.  The leaves have been green for months but now they are red or orange or a vibrant yellow.  We have had many sunny days lately and the sun makes the colors strong, arresting.  I have read of salutes to autumn as a time of freedom from bugs.  The first time I stood in the Wisconsin woods gathering kindling in June, I experienced the sort of onslaught that hungry mosquitos can deliver.  So, several weeks of below freezing nighttime temperatures are welcome eliminators of those bloodsuckers and related forms of life.  However, mosquitos, ladybugs and spiders have all been sensing cold and trying to use our house as a heated refuge.

Sometimes, the breeze is just right to set leaves vibrating but not moving tree branches.  When several trees are vibrating all at once, it is magical, hypnotizing. I like to try to picture the electric lines and the ladder work that would be needed to produce the same effect with small motors with each leaf.  I like to look at the trees with sliding colors, both on single leaves and in batches and think how long a crew of painters would need to make the same arrangement by hand.

The blue sky, the cool, fresh air can be intoxicating.  Sho if I sheem a little unsteady of hand and lip, blame the air, the breeze, the sights, not me.

Creeping danger

I have heard of 'replacement theory', which I think is the worry that people who don't look like me, especially those with a different colored skin, will take all the jobs and leave me with nothing.  I looked it up in Google search and read that the language and the worry can be said to stem from a French writer reacting to Algerians who kept showing up in France.  

I think some people in my country think it is time to take up similar worries and try to do something about what they think is a danger to them.  I am writing to alert people to danger from a different direction.  I was rather surprised when a student handed me the first paper I ever saw that asked "Why do we need males?"  I think it was a woman student but I am not sure.  I am confident that I received that paper years before I read about a Chinese scientist who altered the genome of some baby girls.  His action was taken, I think, on his own without conferring with others.  I read that he made a change he believed would make it impossible for those humans to ever contract HIV.  

The student wrote that humanity often suffers from male aggression and pride and that a little work in the right lab might produce a substitute for the 15 minutes we need males to keep the species going.  Why not develop a test-tube substitute for the unruly critters?

My alert comes from observations that the group that males are likely to be replaced by is the group called females.  It is clear that the f-group already has a lock on the production of people.  Then, take a look at law, military forces, wrestling, boxing or any other activity that is often considered male territory.  You will find calls of all kinds, from thoughtful quiet essays to mobs in the streets, have crept into previously male groups and activities - calls for more women.

The book by the scholar Walter J. Ong called "Fighting for Life" includes various sayings and proverbs from societies around the world.  One from China says "The female always wins because of her greater quiet."  As a professor of education, an area already containing a great portion of women, I have witnessed many occasions where women candidates for a position far outshone the few male applicants in experience and ability.

I think in many cases, virile, active, energetic men can simply not attain the level of patience, acceptance and geniality women can demonstrate every hour.  Just be alert, guys, and do your best.  Better still, do better than your best!

Too much mindfulness?

Sometimes, I try to use a website and immediately run into a demand to put in my username and password.  At times, that obstacle can be irritating.  As a kid, I had the impression that my grandfather was slow and deliberate, sometimes too slow and deliberate.  I have had a somewhat impulsive personality my whole life so it has seemed an improvement for me to stop and think before taking action.  However, I have had the feeling that advising myself to be aware of my thoughts and aware of my feelings can be overdone.

Whenever I have a question or interest in a subject, I like to put the question in a compact but complete form into a search engine like Google search.  I have my main browser, Firefox, set to use Duckduckgo as my default search but in a flash, I can use Google.  

My somewhat impetuous personality plus my skepticism plus my impatience combine to aim me away from too much discipline.  Most things I know about can be overdone.  For instance, I read about a Boston marathon runner who overdid hydration and died as a result.  

As I have aged, I feel that I can see more deeply into any question or issue.  My mind rapidly considers possibilities and implications.  Sometimes, I don't want to consider, ponder, notice, be aware, think more deeply, be sensitive to feelings, etc.  So, for kicks and some judgment, I put "too much mindfulness" in Google and into Duckduckgo.  I met the name Prof. Willoughby Britton again.  I have met her before.  She is one of the only names I know looking at downsides of meditation.  Prof. Britton is a psychology professor at Brown University and researches contraindications of meditative practice.  I think she has mostly found that people suffering from post traumatic troubles can experience upset from typical meditative practice.  

For me, short, sometimes very short, meditation sessions work best.  I seem to be like the former Google software engineer Chade-Meng Tan.  He writes that one deep, conscious breath can help him with his mindfulness.  He wrote that he and his little daughter sometimes meditate for two timed minutes, that is "as long as a software engineer can stand."

A daily moment with yourself

I think the most valuable thing I have done for myself in the last 50 years is learning and practicing meditation.  I suspect that some people get the benefit of meditation without realizing it.  The sort of meditation I mean leads to the development of increased mindfulness, that is, awareness of what comes to mind, including feelings and impulses.  There are plenty of books about meditation for children but it seems that it is an activity that is easier for adults.  

Many people of the West, roughly Europeans and Americans, associate being still with praying.  I think most people think of praying as sending a message, a request or gratitude TO someone or something.  So, when, decades ago, my friend gave a talk explaining Buddhism as a religious practice without God, the idea got my attention.  Some writers have said that Westerners like me may find it easier and more comfortable to think of Buddishim as a kind of psychology or counseling.  I think humans all over have an impulse to ask for help at times from some power greater than themselves.  

The book by Christmas Humphries (look him up, a British barrister, that is, lawyer and at one time, famous in Britain as a practitioner of Buddha's advice) called "Concentration and Meditation" in may be helpful in thinking about what a person can do with her or his mind.  The book "Buddhist Practice on Western Ground" by Harvey Aronson may be helpful in separating some basic Buddhist ideas from Eastern practices and worldviews.

Some thinkers have come from Japan and India or Korea or Thailand and other South Asian countries to explain helpful practices to Americans.  The names of Jack Kornfield, Elisha Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg are a well-known trio of "Ju-Bu"s (Jewish Buddhists) who traveled to South Asian countries as young people and related to Buddhism for the rest of their lives.  

For me, it all boils down to sitting comfortably in a chair or on the floor in the famous "lotus" position and fixing my attention on a single spot.  When my ever-active mind brings up bills to pay or doctors' appointments, dismiss that thought until the timer rings.  Five or ten minutes a day is enough to make a difference but try to do that daily for a couple of weeks.  It is very common to decide after two or three days, that you are "doing it wrong."  You aren't.  Just wait calmly and watch over yourself. You and your body are complex equipment and you need to confer with it all a little bit.

Which is best?

Ok, there are five books that you have read.  Which do you like best?

Five sandwiches, five casseroles, invitations to five parties.  It might be more than five or fewer.  It is the best-ness that I am thinking about.

For media, essays, ads, marketing, for excitement and sales and followers, we can ask about favorites and tout the results that our eggs, our cars, our products have been cited as best, the favorites.  It may be a sign of sophistication when people move away from what's best to what is most fitting for this person, this particular event, this use.  I might enjoy slamming things with a hammer but I still want a screwdriver and not a hammer at times.  

When a teacher works in a system that assigns grades to students, the teacher usually has a limited set of grades that can be used.  Say, A,B,C,D and F.  In many schools, the teacher might assign the grades depending on the fraction of questions answered with what he considers "correct".  So, 90% or more gets a grade of A.  Some teachers prefer to give the top grade to the 10% of the class that gets the most correct answers, the next 20% get a B, the next 40% get a C, the next 20% of the class gets D and the last 10% get an F.  

Here is a link to the text I wrote for the course on grading and testing:

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Today's blog post

I simply must not skip yet another day.  What about my precious blog?  What about my legion of fans?

So, what do I have to say?

It was a fine day.  Then, a downpour.  It has been a good autumn, leaves just the right colors and progressing just right from green to color to bare tree with leaves scattered all around. By the way, we believe in leaves.  Well, my wife does.  I haven't actually given it much thought.  You can tell how high the subject rates with me when you read my confessional words that I haven't read anything about the health of lawns, the politics of collecting the leaves and related subjects.  My friends, the master gardeners, collect leaves and put them on their garden.  

I taught a course to undergraduates and a few graduate students that was called "Tests and Measurements."  There is something in mathematics called measure theory but that is not what I am focusing on.  I read today that more men than women in a survey said that winter was their favorite of the four seasons. I also taught a fun course to only graduate, experienced, seasoned teachers called Personal Reading for Professional Development.  That course taught me that asking for a person's favorite, or number one, can be quite misleading.

I advise taking a step back and asking how a person feels about winter.  I would not be surprised if any season gets more votes as "popular" or "good" just before it begins than it does after ⅔ of that season has passed.  I think a researcher can get more valuable data with a slight change in approach.  Ask a reasonable sized group: "How do you feel about winter coming?"  Another sample can be asked "Do you like winter?"  The data I read this morning emphatically rated winter as the least cited of the four seasons as a person's favorite.  

I say develop a more sophisticated approach.  Look out the window or step outside.  How does what you see or feel strike you?  Pretty or not?

Too busy

I am going to be out of town much of the day.  This is a good time to watch TED talks, download a book of interest, take a walk or a bike ride, or read some of the blog posts already posted. Start your own blog.

Opera with blowhards

There are many fine operas but I have one that I tend to listen to repeatedly.  It is "The Elixir of Love" by Donizetti, which premiered in 1832. There are tunes and arias in it that are fine but I started listening repeatedly for the blowhards.  I imagine we can find blowhard, braggards in many forms and flavors but the two featured in this opera are military blowhard and medical scientist blowhard.

I have a recording of the opera being sung in English.  First, we have Belcore, who states that as village women eye him, he can "feel your passion growing stronger." He introduces himself, advising the women to "place your heart in my protection".  Then, he throws in kicker: "and what's more, I'm a sargeant!"  Even I can feel the dazzlement tsunami.

Before we have recovered from the transfixment of the sergeant, we hear trumpets and drums, attention-getting sounds used in 1832 before TV announcements and microphones.  This hullabaloo announces the arrival of Dr. Dulcamara.  This is a man of knowledge and science, known throughout the universe and "other places" (insert welcoming, understanding, humanizing laugh here).

Various shenanigans, flirtations, rebuffs and strategies are attempted here and there but guess what? It all works out in the end!!

Unremembered history, locations

This morning I knew I wanted to go to that store that has an especially good selection of nuts.  I knew the store and I have been there many times.  But I couldn't remember clearly how to get there or what street leads to that store.  I know I have tools and people who can direct me but I consider my mental difficulties to be indicative of aging and the problems one can have with an elderly head.  

I am thankful for the paper and electronic and social tools for reminding myself of the location of my goal but I also want to take note of my difficulties in using my head to imagine the location.  If I have even more difficulties using stored memories to remember, I will be disappointed and probably irritated with my brain cells but I won't be surprised.  I think, like the wife of Stephen Mitchell, the woman called Byron Katie, I can take a somewhat relaxed view in observing difficulties I didn't used to have but that seem to be creeping up on me.  It is actually an interesting process.  

A similar experience comes to one of a pair of people who have been married partners and biological parents of the same children but who find that one of the pair remembers very few parts of a trip or other experience that the other partner describes in detail.  Different experiences, thoughts and action, even different goals form a giant amount of information that is not the same as another person who went to the same places, was always in the presence of the partner but was looking in a different direction, has different thoughts, points of pride and of fear, not to mention different subconscious motivations to remember or forget. 

Superlative stress

I ran into the problem, again, when teaching my most fun course.  It was the one titled "Personal Reading for Professional Development".  You know that reading is a major tool in the higher grades, in high school, in college and graduate school.  It is the fundamental skill in schooling.  But in order for more school systems to approve this course for experienced teachers to get salary and related credits, I mentioned "professional development" in the title.  It was indeed a fun course since it was a course for experienced teachers to take.  Experienced teachers are fun people.  They usually have rich insights and memories of themselves and their students and the students' parents.  They are also people who have been read to and have read themselves widely. 

The course had one basic assignment during its five days a week for four weeks: make a list of the books you have read, ever.  It is ok if you only read part of the book: list it.  As these middle-aged adults thought, searched attics, basements, library shelves at home and in the town library, they recalled reading That Really, Really GREAT Book.  As they mentioned it and talked about it and what it did for them, they radiated enthusiasm.  Enter: Superlative Stress.  Yes, they did tell us about another book yesterday and that one was really, really, really GREAT but this one today was GREATER!  

I credit Howard Cosell, the sports announcer, with emphasizing the word "Awesome".  My experience of AWE is stun, tears, inability to speak.  But these days, my waitress tells me that the dessert is awesome.  She means that it is delicious and it does turn out to be.  I am glad I tried it but I didn't see the face of God in the swirls.  

I taught grading and ranking and testing for more than 30 years.  I realize that it can be impossibly difficult to express how stunning that one-handed catch was, how grateful you are to Nature and your wife for the new baby, how that goal bringing victory over the very best team in the state - how such moments inspire genuine awe, gratitude, chest-bursting love.  We are in need of more superlatives, better adjectives for events happening these days.

Equal, schmeequal

Let's face it: I am not your equal.  You can sew way better than me, cook much better than I can, sympathize quickly with nearly anyone having nearly any problem.  When something goes "wrong", I look around for someone to blame but you start with the idea that it is your fault.  We often take different approaches and yours don't equal mine since they tend (Damnit!) to work better.

True, I have more experience wrestling in front of spectators than you do, I have more experience taking a part in a play than you.  But, you have sung in many choirs while my music teachers told me to just mouth the words so I look like I am singing.  I don't make pottery but you make money at it.  I read more than you do and I can probably remember more book titles and their authors than you.  After searching, I can find middle C on a standard piano keyboard.  Without searching, you can play Mozart and other types of music.  

Ok, the usual story on being politically equal focuses on your having the same rights as I do.  We can both vote and we have done so.  In many ways, we do have the same rights.  If you find a right that I have but you don't, let me know.  We can both stand in the street and yell about the problem with others, raising our fists and grimacing.

Hampered by a husband

Lynn is knitting a sweater.  She is part of a group of women knitters, some of whom are quite advanced and knowledgeable about knitting.  Her current project is more challenging than she is used to.  She knew that at the start and she felt she was up to the task of something more complex than usual.  She finds that she can knit and pay attention to a tv show at the same time.  It helps if the show has audio and if the audio is in English.  She has managed to get something out of a show where the speech is in a foreign language and the translations appear in subtitles.

However, she draws the line at knitting, having a tv show on and me talking.  It doesn't matter how witty and fun my comments are.  My voice, my vocabulary and my insights into the characters and the life predicaments they experience are too much of a distraction.  It is understandable.  Knitting instructions can be complex.  For instance, 

Then work to the turning gap and wrap the next st after the gap at each side 7 (7,8, 9,9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 12) times.

She may not find that she has made a mistake, usually in counting, until the next evening or the one after that.  But if she does make a mistake, it is very depressing and upsetting.  It usually means that quite a bit of her knitting needs to be pulled out and re-done.  She doesn't like that.

She told all this to her knitting circle friends and they realized that they too make errors in following the complex directions in their own projects when I talk.  Turns out I am the source of many exasperations and difficulties, near and far.  I need to check with them all before I talk, wherever I am.

Notes on today

It is a windy day, not too windy but cloudy and threatening enough that both walking buddies considered "wimping out."  One declined being out and one decided it might be ok.  It is 37° now and it has been a gray day with strong bursts of coldish wind. Actually, once I got outside in a knit hat and leather lined gloves, it was fine.  Not bad at all but not welcoming either. Definitely looked worse than it was.

There have been professional opinions that this area may experience more snow than usual this winter and it did snow today.  That is, snowflakes fell but sparsely and not very densely.  

Lynn wants some Sharpie felt-tipped pens but in a medium point, not a fine nor extra-fine version.  I looked through four stores and everything was the points she doesn't want.  By the time I finished Sharpie shopping, it was past lunchtime.  I finished a giant chicken and greens salad left over from yesterday's family dinner in a restaurant.  

 I like my iPad but I read "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson and I read and have experienced the Apple tightness against accepting much from rival companies.  So, I wanted to try a Samsung Galaxy tablet and they were available in various models at our local Best Buy store.  I do a bit of emailing daily and the iPad refuses to recognize my Google mailing lists.  The more I explore Google apps, the more I respect the whole set and their ability to cooperate with each other and enhance operations.  

Can you breathe with your eyes closed?

Most people have no trouble breathing with their eyes closed.  If you take a look at "Conscious Breathing" by Dr. Gay Hendricks, "Breath by Breath" by Prof. Larry Rosenberg or "Breath" by James Nestory, you can see that breathing has a special place in addition to its essential role in keeping us alive.  When people meditate, they often increase their awareness of what comes to their mind by keeping their attention on a handy anchor and trying to notice when it moves to some topic to think about, such as bills to pay, movies to watch and the experience of their favorite football team.  If they catch themselves off thinking about a problem or an experience, they stop that thinking and return to the anchor for their attention.

Since vision is usually our primary sense, the attention anchor may be a spot on the wall or elsewhere.  However, eyes can get dry and irritated so the ancients recommended using one's breath as one's attention anchor.  Sure, it is easy to breathe consciously and deliberately with closed eyes.  Doing that usually has the advantage of increasing one's ability to breathe slowly and fully.   Even 3-5 minutes of practice of mindfulness meditating can noticeably increase one's awareness of feelings, ideas and intentions that matter but haven't been getting attention from the boss.

That's not the way to do it

I have read that Walter Ong, a Jesuit and a professor of literature, tracked the change in human life that resulted from the introduction of writing.  Speech came first and I guess by eons but writing is indeed a different game.  If you stay alert for comments like "Can I get that in writing?", you can see that writing tends to freeze language in a way that speech often can't.  If you want, track down the book How We Got to Now by Steven Johnson and look at the chapter on sound.  Yes, now we can record voices but that is a fairly recent possibility.  

For many activities, it helps people to have a written version of what is said, even if it is available in a sound recording.  It helps in comprehension, in examination and criticism and we can often read at twice the speed that we can listen and understand speech.

I read in Walter Ong somewhere that the tool of the index took a while to develop.  Somebody got the idea to list important words in a document and the page number where those words were found.  Ong reports that the invention was not always understood and that in the days of handwritten copies of handwritten documents, there is a case or two of the scribe copying the index while disregarding the fact that the copy he was creating had different page numbers owing to more compact or less compact handwriting.  Coping the index as written made little sense.

Today, with search windows, it may be unnecessary to make an index although I think Microsoft Word can make one if you want it.  

I admire the book "A Place for Everything" by Judith Flanders.  It is subtitled "A History of Alphabetical Order".   What the heck does that mean?  I envisioned arguments that urged we start with some other letter than A and arguments against that idea.  But no, the book is about using alphabetical order for shelved books and filed folders.  Flanders explains that at one time, in some places, books were to be shelved in order of their importance to God.  She writes that a librarian who placed angels before God simply failed to grasp the order of the universe.

She explains that it took a long while before anyone got the idea of arranging books all written by the authors whose name begins with M according to the second letter of their name.

Libby books and snow now

We are getting our first snowfall of the season.  I have put two links on the blog page

https://fearfunandfiloz.blogspot.com/

that show the snow falling.   There isn't white on the ground since everything is too warm and melts the downfall immediately.

When I borrow ebooks using the app Libby, I come across books I would otherwise not know about.  I recently borrowed "The Lives They Left Behind" by Darby Penney and others.  It is about the discovery of suitcases left in an attic of a building that was part of a mental institution.  The building was scheduled for destruction and the suitcases attracted professional attention from historians and medical people and some museum curators.  We read some of it.

I also found "The Impossible Presidency" by Jeremi Suri.  It is about the contradictory and incessant demands and problems that pop up for the president of the US.  Just from the language and events of the buildup to an election, a person can see that the executive in power, mayor, governor, president and others, will face complicated decisions and pressures that cannot be simultaneously satisfied.  

The app Libby allows for up to ten ebooks to be borrowed for 14 days at a time.  With my habits and aims and duties, I certainly will not get 10 books read in two weeks.  But I will get a chance to taste the book and examine the table of contents.  Being far more interested in non-fiction than in fiction, I set Libby to show me what is immediately available in books that are non-fiction.  The app then has about 500 pages of available books, available at no change immediately.  If needed, I may buy the book in e-form for Amazon, depending on the price and the likelihood that I will read it.  Often the book is available in a used paper copy at a much cheaper price. 

Snow 2.0 today

https://photos.app.goo.gl/xJ2zagjfdVAfsStA9

Our first snow this season

The ground and surroundings are too warm to allow accumulation.    https://photos.app.goo.gl/WTnLMvuSg1V7m3Fj7

Collections

Lynn was a school librarian on both Elementary and Secondary levels and taught school librarian at a university.  I got to thinking about collections and their maintenance.  You may have more and different collections.  How do you store the collected items?  Do you have an inventory of the items?  Are any collections to be sold?  Expanded?  Shrunk?  Are your collections a burden?  A pleasure?  Both?

1. Ebooks

2. Audiobooks

3. Pocket articles

4. Clothes

5. Shoes

6. Photos

7. Stored foods

8. Dishes and bowls

9. Pots and pans

10. Books borrowed from libraries

11. Ebooks borrowed from libraries

12. Paper books

13. Courses from Great Courses

"You can't add this ebook since you already have a copy." I think only Amazon ebooks have this policy and the means to enforce it.  Both my friend and I appreciate the value of the policy and we like it.  We are pleased when we find that a book we want is one we already have.

Amazon gives me access to a list of all my ebooks. I have more than 3200.  But I  can only see the list on their web pages, not on paper or my computer.  

Two irritants

I was just drinking my coffee when suddenly the house darkened and various devices blinked, squealed in protest.  A sudden power loss!  True it was raining but in a gentle civilized way.  One time that happened, someone had driven into an important telephone pole and the crash snapped some lines.  I don't know what happened today.

I used my phone to get a number for electricity loss and dialed.  [I write ]"dial" but there is no dial, of course.] I am not sure that I help our electricity loss by being the umpty-umpth caller, waiting impatiently thru helpful statements that repeatedly tell me I can connect to this or join that.  I guess around ten minutes later I heard a human voice that immediately asked what my address was.  I asked if the agent had information on the cause of the power loss but she didn't.   She did say that the expected time for resumption was about 10:30, about 90 minutes later.  

Secondly, I am aware that I am sloppy about "subscriptions".  That is the word used to describe an arrangement where I tell Netflix or other service or organization a credit card number and they charge my account monthly for continuing to let me into something.  Not knowing my way around a mammoth web site for the company, I thought I would get an agent to tell me the best way to find an organized list of the subscriptions I pay and the amounts of each.  I swear I had to listen to at least six statements, all perky and upbeat (and in my view, misleading on purpose) about various additional charges I could pay for things I would be ever so glad I bought.  It is true that it is stimulating for an old guy to be aroused and angered by irrelevant and intrusive messages.  I am expecting an additional charge to the service of awakening my cells and avoiding my nodding off.

Good tv

I have limited time, attention and memory.  So, just about anything I think or recommend or write is definitely open to question, revision and/or rejection.  

My personal experience with streaming tv has been so rich, so captivating that it seems to me that everyone ought to at least try streaming.  All of my tv streaming has been done with a Roku streamer but I realize that these days, "smart tv sets" are pre-set to easily get Roku or streaming some other way using some other service.  We aren't always pleased with something we watch but in general we are.  We never get around to watching broadcast tv even though our local cable company surprised the heck out of me by informing me that they have an app for what I used to consider "normal" or "everyday" or typical tv programming.  I was impressed to find their app and I am confident I could download it to my phone or my computer and my iPad but I didn't.  The Roku streamer, which we make use of just about every night, accepted the local company's app and so we have it as one choice for watching.

We typically watch Netflix, Amazon, PBS and Acorn.  All of them cost money to get but not too much.  Netflix and Acorn cost with a subscription, PBS requires a steady stream of contributions but not too much and not too often and Amazon charges by the use.  A movie or something costs this much and charge that if we want to watch it now.  

We do also have a Roku channel that we added recently that allows us to watch visual courses or listen to only-audio courses from Great Courses.  Over the years, we have accumulated 58 courses, the most recent included a course on the geological wonders of this planet.  I didn't think I would like it much but I turned out to be quite wrong.

Aging

You may be aware of aging. Not just people but things, too.  Important things like the road you use and the buildings you live and work in.  When I came to the local campus, it did not have a free-standing library but soon after, a full-sized library was built.  It was centrally located on the campus and got lots of use.  

Recently, building inspectors said it was getting unsafe and needed to be replaced.  A modern college library is a complex operation, housing books and periodicals, to be sure, but other items and activities, too.  The whole building is going to be replaced and the first steps of re-locating various services and operations to other near-by places has been accomplished.  But wait!  Some of the relocations have to be relocated again.  See there are buildings that need their roofs repaired or replaced.  Sorry, that we had you re-locate to that building but for your own safety and sanity, you have to be re-located again.

You can see what is happening.  In addition to covid, sickness, vaccinations, a truly gorgeous autumn, necessary re-locations and re-re-locations are complicating lives, educations, teaching and learning. Naturally, while campus re-locations are being carried out, other effects of aging are on-going.  Friends age and in some cases, the aging has brought serious physical limitations or death.  Roads need repairing and are getting some important work done on them but meanwhile, the northbound lane will be closed just when you forget about that repair.  Don't worry, you will be reminded when you are forced to drive to the next town to find a way to turn around. 

Look at that!

So, who is that woman out at dawn in her bathrobe?  She is a trouper.  Not a trooper, as in the state police or the boy scouts.   Although it is well known that at certain times in her long and colorful life, she has been quite aware of boys.  You would be, too, if they were always noticing you. No, this person is a "trouper", as in a member of a troupe.  If you are an actor or performer and a trouper, you are a member of the troupe.  You are called on to travel here and there and to perform.

This woman, this morning, was urged while reading in a cozy spot in the warm house, to step outside and enjoy the view her husband had just seen.  So, durn if she didn't go and get her excellent slippers and put on her robe.  Her husband got the impression that she wasn't especially impressed by the view outside, the light, the quiet or the gorgeous autumn colors sported by the front yard oak.  She didn't complain that she had been interrupted in her reading for what she found.  Still, her husband is grateful for her willing spirit and her favorable attitude toward exploration and experimentation

Both kinds

There have been times when I read that researchers have concluded that there really isn't much basic difference between men and women.  My experience said that was a bunch of hooey.  Then, this past February, I found books by Louann Brizendine MD.  We read three: The Female Brain, The Male Brain and The Upgrade.  The most helpful one, by far, for me, was The Female Brain.  She makes it clear that from menarche to menopause, the female brain gets somewhat opposite drives from hormonal baths each month.  One part drives the recipient toward motherhood but the opposite impulse comes up as the system empties, rebuilds and refreshes.  Brizendine founded a center for women's health and hormones and her third book, The Upgrade, is about the refreshing time after menopause when hormonal baths cease and the brain can settle down to its own business.

I have been a male all my life.  I am now way past the age when I am set to create a family but I am surprised at how long-lasting, subtle, steady and powerful awareness of females continues to work in me.  When a young nubile waitress serves food at our table, I am very aware of the texture of skin on her arms.  I don't compliment her on the attractiveness of her arms since I don't want to scare her or be repulsive. I want to come across as civil and friendly and grandfatherly.  I don't ask if she would allow me to suck her gorgeous teeth or admit how pleasing her voice is.

Dr. Brizendine does discuss her son and his hormonal drives but I don't recall much about the difference experiencing male hormones and female hormones. I read this to my wife and she said, "Yuck".

Eagleman and Barrett

When I think of books that have meant much to me, I think first of "Incognito" and "Seven and a Half Lessons About Your Brain".  I usually name them in that order since the first one is more dramatic and may paint a more memorable picture but the second one is more informative, in my opinion.

Why do they matter?  They make clearer the parts of us that mystify and yet effect us: emotions, drives, feelings and the effects of hormones and stages of life.

Here are my skimpy highlights from Barrett's "Seven and A Half Lessons About Your Brain"".  Her chapter titles are helpful, too.  The first is "Your Brain is not for thinking".

YOUR KINDLE NOTES FOR: 

Seven And A Half Lessons About The Brain 

by Lisa Feldman Barrett 

Free Kindle instant preview: https://a.co/gI057lp 

5 Highlights 

Highlight (Yellow) | Location 234 

Yes, to the best of our scientific knowledge, you have the same brain plan as a bloodsucking lamprey. 

Highlight (Yellow) | Location 444 

We call this process remembering but it's really assembling 

Highlight (Yellow) | Location 445 

And each time you have the same memory, your brain may have assembled it with a different collection of  neurons. 

Highlight (Yellow) | Location 1132 

Social reality can alter dramatically, in moments, if people simply change their minds. In 1776, for example, a  collection of thirteen British colonies vanished and was replaced by the United States of America. 

Highlight (Yellow) | Location 1260 

We have more control over reality than we might think. We also have more responsibility for reality than we  might realize.

Reread a favorite book

I just gave a talk using Zoom to members of UWSP's L.I.F.E. organization on books and reading for fun.  I basically covered the points listed on the post in this blog for Sunday, Oct. 2.

It can be fun to jot down the titles of 3-5 books you can remember enjoying.  Maybe you know a book or two that changed your life.  Find a copy of a book you liked and give it another read.  If you find you don't like reading it now, that's ok.  Just stop and find something else.

Communication in modern times

I woke up this morning to my usual activities but I soon discovered that my Google account had been disabled.  According to the web pages that came up, it wasn't disabled because of anything I did but because unusual activity had been detected.  While learning of this situation, I saw indicators on my monitor that updates for the operating system were waiting to be installed.  Since the operating system is basic, I clicked here and there to get the updates installed.  It took a while but now I am fully updated.  I imagine having read this far, you could see a confidence and a brightness to the typing and the diction that shines from appropriately updated guys, huh?

After updating, I began work on the disabling.  I had to enter and re-enter my password 91 times and since it includes 91 characters each time, that is a lot of typing, every stroke of which is an invitation to strike the wrong key.  I never actually received a message that all was restored and cleared but it seems to be.  

The other day, I needed to talk to a knowledgeable person but so did many other people.  After several hours of waiting and noting and trying, I was just getting a usable connection when the phone battery died.  That happenstance, and it was a pure accident and not the result of Maritan agents, I went through procedures and processes again and succeeded.  I thought of phone, computer and obstacles to goals when I read of my friend being invited to travel abroad to talk with specific academic counterparts while their government put them in jail:

WHEN I ARRIVED, MY SABBATICAL SPRING, THE PRIME MINISTER HAD JUST DECLARED A "STATE OF EMERGENCY" AND HAD FILLED THE  STREETS WITH ARMED MEN AND HAD IMPRISONED THE. ENTIRE PHILOSOPHY FACULTY, MEN AND WOMEN WHO WERE MY FRIENDS AND WHOM I HAD COME EXPLICITLY TO SEE. MY PAPER TO THE PLENARY GATHERING OF INTERNATIONAL SCHOLARS AND PROFESSORS WAS A PARADOX....THE GOVT THAT HAD PAID MY WAY AND GIVEN ME FUNDS TO TRAVEL TO SIX UNIVERSITIES TO LECTURE ON THE PURPOSE OF PHILOSOPHY, HAD ALSO LOCKED UP MY PHILOSOPHER FRIENDS, AT AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE TO CELEBRATE THEIR GREATEST PHILOSOPHER AND WHICH NOW WELCOMED PHILOSOPHERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD IN THE VENUE OF  A SUPPOSEDLY FREE SOCIETY..FOR MYSELF, I WAS LECTURING IN A POLICE STATE.

Busy again

Lunch out with men friends got interesting and suddenly I was late.  I was supposed to be on Zoom as part of the Life Play Reading Company.  Thankfully, as the male romantic interest (80+ years old!), I had no lines for quite a while.  When I was up, I was there.  Whew!

I got a covid booster and a flu shot afterwards.

I am putting dinner together real soon.

Everything all the time

I think giving myself a commitment to write daily has been a good idea.  I appreciate the effect of knowing that each day needs to be examined for some seed of a comment. So, writers like Seth Godin who send out a comment daily are of interest.   Some days, Godin hits an especially good note. Here is his post today:

"What's on tonight?"

This common question no longer means anything.

Every TV show is on. All the time.

Our record collection streams every record ever recorded.

And our readers can find and display just about any book we can name.

We haven't thought about the impacts of this abundance nearly as much as it deserves. Live matters less, scarcity is not really a factor, and ubiquity of access can easily lead to boredom, lack of status and a search for real-time connection.

Success used to be based on gatekeepers and access to access. What are the new rules?

I enjoy trying to keep an eye out for what seems like basic change.  I am interested in the internet and widespread communication and availability of documents and items of many kinds.