Where have all the humans gone, long time passing . . .

Evolution constructed a species that took 300,000 years to evolve into a super smart, super perceptive and superbly protective creature. With these sensitivities, humans were able to unite their efforts to develop civilizations far beyond the imagination of their ancestors. In this new century, however, where have all the humans gone? What has taken their place are argumentative Capuchin monkeys and threats of species diminution by computers. Is it time to begin another evolution cycle?

In the midst of today’s confusion, destruction and kleptomania, the future cannot be discerned. But there may be ways to apply a healing salve. Will our inherent sensitivities be heard?

The tools are at hand – literally. The future is in the hands of our hands. Suppose two families with intensely different political views, or two socially prejudiced views live next door to one another. One morning one family brings the neighbor’s trash collection can from the curb back to the neighbor’s house without coming into contact with that family. What does this gesture using the hands imply? Is it a salve? Will it promote a different tone between the families?

Suppose one neighbor learns that another neighbor has had expensive medical bills or has become incapacitated in some way. What happens if the hands make a gift dinner or cut the lawn? Is that a salve? Even if it is, will it reduce confrontation?

Suppose you have a sweet corn field. You harvest the ears, clean them, then drive around town giving them all away free to neighbors. Is this a salve? Will salves work?

An excellent example of hand-produced salve is the reputation the Amish have for building barns. The entire community gets together to help one farmer build his barn. That is a handful of hands! But just as good an example is Habitat for Humanity. It has been proven that both these building efforts, using many freewill hands, calms the waters of life for both sides – those assisting and those receiving.

Mariner is a personal witness to all the above examples.

Instead of focusing on differences, try using the hands. It’s magic! Instead of yielding to fomenting headlines, look for simple hand gestures that apply a salve to those around you. Become sensitive to fellow humans who will appreciate a helping hand. Let’s not regress to being Capuchin monkeys.

Ancient Mariner.

 

 

Retired and alone

There comes a painful time to many in life when the spouse passes on, the children are grown and away, and many friends are in retirement institutions or passing on as well. Perhaps ‘painful’ is the wrong word; perhaps depressed, melancholy, lonely and mentally unfocused may apply. There may be a strong sense that one is in a different time zone than the rest of the world may be. This is not an accident. It is in our genes: primates prefer to be among their clan, their family and have a desire to be recognized as a peer. Being among their kind perhaps is the strongest defense mechanism, a means by which to stay alive.

Disease and physical maladies take their toll as well. Caring for others is a motivation found not only in primates but in most mammals, many birds and fish as well. Even community-based insects show signs of willing maintenance for the community’s wellbeing. Even so, many humans are left to go on their own – perhaps a cultural phenomenon among blended clans (e.g., large cities).

There are a few behaviors that may sustain the human spirit for those left in isolation. Most of them make sense but the challenge from within is the gumption to do them. What follows is a limited list of things to do to ward off those feelings of depression, melancholy, loneliness and mentally unfocused times:

⊕ When one arises in the morning and has dealt with bathroom issues, make the bed – neatly and every day. It is amazing how much this sets self-discipline for the rest of the day.

⊕ Have a specific morning routine, typically involving opening the house for the day and preparing a breakfast meal. The morning routine may include feeding pets, watering plants, etc. If you are fortunate, you have a daily newspaper to read. The trick is to perform the same tasks every morning; short term memory may benefit.

⊕ Check social media, including email, to see what friends and family are talking about; it would be highly beneficial if you could join in! Let’s face it, one of the great improvements in society is the internet. Every retired person should own an inexpensive computer tablet or (shudder) smartphone for no other reason than safety. If you have a tablet, a cell phone will suffice.

⊕ While it is still morning, walk outside for 20 minutes; do not stroll but take a healthy stride that will stir the circulation system. Inclement weather, except storms, is not an option. Taking on the weather will add to your gumption. Resist deciding to skip walking for any reason.

⊕ If you are fortunate, your walk may take you by one of the following: Visit a fellow loner – stop in a restaurant to meet a coffee group – pick up trash – on the way back home, stop by your next-door neighbor or good friend’s house. (This may feel awkward at first but quickly becomes a favorite part of your routine – it could include a short side trip with them to the store or some other diversion. Don’t forget to finish by walking home.)

⊕ Prepare lunch. Afterward, a nap may call your name; keep it under an hour and a half.

⊕ Pick an organization to attend regularly. Many will choose a religious institution; consider a wide variety of groups like reading club, garden club, VA meetings, exercise sessions offered by libraries, YMCA, etc., golf and bowling leagues, etc. It is important to attend faithfully.

⊕ Tidy one room so it looks clean and neat. On another day, tidy another room.

⊕ Prepare supper. If you can afford it, an occasional dinner in a restaurant is a nice break – especially if you can get a friend to go with you!

⊕ Develop a past time that makes you think, solve puzzles, or how to go about doing a complex task. Most common are crosswords, jigsaw puzzles, small shop projects or reorganizing a room. Mariner has a friend that had a career in an office then retired to be a contractor. A few folks may actually take an educational class just for the new knowledge and social activity. Another friend learned about investment and did fairly well. But here is a handy task: make your own sourdough bread or some other intriguing recipes.

⊕ This may be hard to establish: go to bed before midnight, maybe as early as ten.

* * * *

So there you have it – a full day’s example of how to avoid the doldrums. Mix and match any way you like to accommodate your circumstances. Note the theme throughout: talk to people as often as it is convenient; get daily exercise; do some chores; stay physically active; care for others.

Yes, it is damned hard to get started.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

 

The new world ain’t so bad

As many, many voters have done, mariner has shut down news in its entirety. Not only that, he has removed television in general from his options. He and his wife spend one evening each week on a ‘date’ to watch British mysteries together. Other than that, the television sits dark in its corner.

After a few days of dysfunction, one begins to fill in the space with other options – everything from talking more often with family members, to reading books, to crosswords, to reading magazines, even to stopping to talk to neighbors more frequently. Did the reader know they could still go to the movies?

Slowly, the brain turns to other things not thought of in a long time; there’s that attic door lock that has needed fixing for years; building a clear report of family assets, budget patterns and tax detail; tossing out one million four hundred pieces of 8½x11 paper that has been cordoned off for most of one’s life; gifted non-viewers may recall knitting, crocheting, painting and writing. Two friends of mariner make jewelry.

There is time to restart your attendance to community organizations and social events. If he wanted, mariner could go to a square-dancing club; even if he wanted to go, his knees and vertigo would make a mess of things.

How long has it been since the reader washed their dog? Does that trip to a lifelong friend nine states away seem more likely? The point one realizes is that an awful lot of life has been missed while opting for television to fill one’s day.

Brain scientists say an inactive brain goes south faster than an active brain – that is, if the brain has to learn new facts or skills on a daily basis, the brain may likely go southwest – a longer trip.

Speaking from his own experience, gearing up a daily to-do list and be willing to execute it is as difficult as gearing up a heavy 18-wheeler.

But the good side is a feeling of being an independent person, not attracted and seduced by television and, if one is committed to becoming a busy individual, one may lose track of the smartphone once in a while.

Remember: psychologists say that happiness comes automatically if one is active in the community, loves one’s family and graciously works at supporting the least of us.

Ancient Mariner

Bats, Beavers and Bears

Regular readers know that in his younger years mariner spent some time as a preacher. One sermon he wanted to preach but never did because it would be confusing to the congregation, was a sermon about the common relationship between bats, beavers, bears and humans. Without needing to sustain a congregation’s comprehension, he may try to deliver it in essay format.

* * *

This topic rests upon the definition of survival, behavior and faith. They all are identical, come from the same set of brain cells and are managed in the subconscious mind except when rituals are performed. This phenomenon is identical in bats, beavers, bears and humans – and virtually all creatures in the animal world. If one is a zoologist, the common term is survival; if one is a psychiatrist/sociologist, the common term is behavior; if one is a theologian, the common term is faith.

Some explanation of brain function may be helpful. As a machine, the brain performs the same functions for BBB&H and other warmblooded creatures as well. The mastermind that induced brain function is evolution, a very slow operator that takes many, many lifetimes to change genome reasoning gene by gene to keep pace as environmental reality shifts. If one could watch long enough, they would see the subtle similarity as bats behave as bats, beavers behave as beavers, etc.

In the human brain, evolution took a strange turn and added a frontal lobe to the pre-wired, automatic decision maker housed in the subconscious. The frontal lobe has a brand new function: humans can imagine stuff that doesn’t exist. This puts a strain on the subconscious engine that actually makes human decisions. Humans can easily imagine that a fantasy actually is real and live by it even though it has nothing to do with survival. The bats, beavers and bears are fortunate in this regard.

The term ‘ritual’ is simply a visible, three-dimensional act executed by the subconscious decision maker. It is an act to sustain survival. A bat decides to look for a cave, a beaver decides to build a dam, a bear looks for a den. Humans, with their artificially enhanced reality will look for shelter as well, but with distorted judgment. It is only the destitute and very poor who know that their decision is based solely on survival.

The second perspective, social behavior, is a montage of experiences among family, community and core personality. The core personality is found in the genome and provides the primary actions for survival but how a human behaves in public, under stress, confrontation, and accountability is a montage of ingrained behaviors externally induced to survive.

So the human frontal lobe, along with the fantasy that each human owns the planet and its natural processes, that community bonding isn’t as important as driving the interstates to new fantasies, that money measures surviveability, has led to a third category needed to describe the ethics of surviveability: faith.

Bats, beavers and bears don’t need nor can induce faith beyond a simple behavioral principal that allows them to take advantage of unusual situations. For example, a bear may depend on a human. Humans, however,  can  interpret reality many different ways. Humans often have the imagination to leverage reality beyond the rules of existence provided by evolution.

The subconscious decision maker, for all it’s sophistication, is swayed by the constant barrage of confrontations caused by wishes for glory, adventure and self-serving behavior. Reality has become a circus of convoluted survival values. Which value is a genuine risk to survival?

Enter faith. In addition to subconscious survival decisions, humans have a tool called ideology to help separate the wheat from the chaff. Ideology has many concentrations. For example, there is theological, political, communal, economic and whimsy. The advantage of faith is that it lays an organized value system over reality by which to measure decisions that are genuinely about survival. Unfortunately, the subconscious decision maker doesn’t accept these decisions; ideology is strictly a preoccupation of the frontal lobes. Unless a human convinces themselves that their ideology is the actual reality, humans tend to drift in and out of ideological allegiance depending on its convenience. Hence the need for divine forgiveness for habitual sinners.

Given all these machinations, the subconscious decision maker doesn’t wander far from it’s genome instructions. Survival, care for loved ones and concern for it’s tribe are the core reality. The extent to which the circus realities of the frontal lobe cause nuisance and disruption to our subconscious survival skill places great pressure on the true interpretation of reality. Just ask the bats, beavers and bears how much.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

God bless us, everyone

With political fireworks everywhere and wars in every direction, mariner thought he may need an update from his alter egos. He searched for Nosey Mole but he was nowhere to be found. Mariner hadn’t heard from Amos in quite a while so he called him.

“My readers have missed your skepticism, Amos. What’s happening?” Amos replied quietly that these are not times to agitate. “These are times to hold tight to what is dear, to what comforts, to what gives hope for the future.” Amos didn’t have much else to say. Clearly he was frightened by the American collapse of democracy, by the disappearing biosphere and the potential for a global war. He felt that resolution in the tiniest sense was nowhere to be found.

Mariner went to see Guru. “What’s your image, Guru? Where will this all end?”

“The end is far away.” Guru replied. He explained that the planet is rolling into a global warming that not only will have physical ramifications on economic stability but will promote global war – likely between US allies and the rest of the world. The underlying causes will be food shortage for an over populated planet – a profound shortage that challenges equality as a political virtue.

He mentioned that many countries, especially more liberal countries, will be hard pressed not to succumb to authoritative governments constrained by a strong plutocracy governed by giant corporations.

Mariner suggested that this may be a continuous process; how long will it take? Guru suggested that global warming will cause significant destruction by 2050 and that further, will put pressure on a capitalistic world – if survival is an objective.

The fact remains that this election, and its reconciliation, will determine how humans move forward in an unbalanced world.

As a famous fictional character once said: “God bless us, everyone.”

Ancient Mariner

 

It doesn’t take groups, even

A few of mariner’s recent posts have focused on that point in time when an individual must reinvent their identity, perhaps look for another income, and not lose their collaboration with their fellow humans. Those solutions ascribed to the social psychology of organizations and self sufficiency.

But it is easier than that. Mariner doesn’t get out very often, that is, to roam about in the rambunctious diversity of the public domain, but every once in a while he must visit the medical industry in a nearby small city.

Many folks are preoccupied with personal issues and aren’t prone to notice other public folks. Nevertheless, most citizens moving about in the public domain are willing to engage in ‘of the moment’ encounters.

While roaming about the halls and offices of the hospital, numerous interchanges occurred between mariner and others in the halls. When he first arrived, he met with a coordinator who checked credentials and scheduled his visit. She mentioned during the interview that she could smell the cookies baking in the souvenir shop; she lamented that she could not leave her post to buy some.

After that, while a guide led him to the right waiting room, she said that she recognized his face. That led to a short exchange of sharing geographical histories.

Visiting with the technician, mariner inquired about the kind of decisions that were promulgated because of his examination. The conversation led to a discussion about the complexity of decision making among many medical individuals.

While mariner was walking back to the front exit, two nurses at different moments asked if he needed a wheelchair or was lost. Finally, mariner met with his wife at the souvenir store where he bought cookies for the coordinator. When he delivered them, all the coordinators had a cheer that someone gave them a gift.

So collaboration is such an intrinsic human behavior that it almost ignites itself. Still, each individual must strike a match to engage. That’s all there is to it. Mariner realizes that certain personality types will find it hard to engage with random strangers and many suffer from depression and life stress. Nevertheless, engagement is always there – even if political differences may prohibit extended collaboration.

Mariner was well aware that he had roamed a public domain rich with fellow collaboration. Who needs an organization?

Ancient Mariner

 

The past and the present

Before moving on to the topic, readers had questions about mariner’s Great Grandmother, Lucy.

It would take 175,000 ‘greats’ to link mariner to Lucy. Mariner has 8 billion grandparents, uncles, aunts, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th cousins and many ‘removed’, and not least his family of readers. What a large family get together that would be for Thanksgiving!

He must confess that Grandmother Lucy may not be as fierce as she looks, though she certainly was a scrappy woman. She was only 3 ½ feet tall and weighed in at 65 pounds. Her kind existed for 1 million years; Neanderthal existed for 800,000 years, Homo sapiens have been around for 300,000 years. How long will sapiens exist before it evolves into something else? Perhaps living flesh robots whose behavior is controlled by Google.

* * * *

Mariner recommended checking ProPublica.com for serious news that never makes it to television. Here’s an excellent example from their newsletter:

When companies like Aetna or UnitedHealthcare want to rein in costs, they turn to EviCore, whose business model depends on turning down payments for care recommended by doctors for their patients.
ProPublica’s Daily Digest <newsletters@lists.propublica.net>
Ancient Mariner

 

 

Don’t mess with Mariner

Don’t mess with mariner because his genome comes from his great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother. Her name is Lucy.

Ancient Mariner

Photograph from Scientific American.

Keep it going – addendum

When mariner reviewed his post to correct grammar and spelling, he noticed that he had zeroed in on ways to continue productivity as part of continued collaboration. Actually, productivity is a minor issue. It is collaboration that really counts.

For example, mariner used to visit a poker club every Saturday. The players were of a common stripe, each dressed in scrubby clothes, needing a shave or wearing beards and having the typical old man belly (mariner must note that by this time he was slim  though his wife wished he would shave more often). These men came to play poker but that wasn’t the real reason – the poker was atrocious because of many ‘special’ rules that made typical odds irrelevant. They came to associate with fellow humans; they needed to collaborate. Every attendee brought a simple snack of some kind, a subconscious desire to provide sustenance for the occasion.

These collaborative gatherings are quite informal and frequently available in established communities – for example, small towns or traditional neighborhood settings. They can be found at restaurants, golf courses, bowling alleys, community events and even within more structured environments like churches, Lion’s Club and VA clubs. Mariner’s town has a special women’s gathering called “The Red Hatters”, aptly descriptive. The sustenance piece is that everyone must wear a red hat.

So remember that the central goal is collaboration. If the reader also can profit, more power to them!

Ancient Mariner