Author Archives: skipper

Past Forty-five

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Mariner reports from an electric recliner in his henhouse apartment:

This post primarily is for anyone over forty-five. Name five activities the reader hasn’t done for the last five years. For example, walk every, every day, rearrange furniture, sit on the floor cross-legged to watch television while completing a jigsaw puzzle, clean roof gutters, change a ceiling light bulb, weed all the gardens on time, paint a room, help someone else with labor, not money, etc.

When is the last time the reader took on a project that took more than a week to accomplish? How long has it been since the reader read anything longer than ten pages (newspapers and entertainment magazines not acceptable). All these activities are examples of vitality and joy of life.

To be rude, everyone lets themselves die. Mariner acknowledges that evolution has no use for humans after forty-five and has arranged for strength and chemical composition to begin decomposing more rapidly. Eventually, it is inevitable that humans will pass on; everyone does. Medical science has let humans live longer but only artificially. Keeping the old body breathing with twenty-seven prescriptions and supplements is not an example of vitality and joy of life. Yet, prescriptions aside, humans can defy evolution because evolution made the mistake of making humans too smart for their own good.

On a daily basis mariner sees old timers walking briskly, bicycling, even jogging. He sees small groups of folks walking as a group all over town. He knows many hobbyists engaged in everything from making very nice greeting cards to repairing lawnmower and tractor breakdowns as a small business – and that man is OLD. Mariner knows of a group that still goes to storefront movie houses; the ‘group’ part is as important as the storefront culture.

It is important to have at least one group activity. Options are infinite: book club, card or poker club, writing club, church activities, volunteer organizations, community maintenance, and on and on. If one is fortunate, there is a restaurant nearby where a bunch of regulars gather for morning coffee.

Here’s the test:

  • How much real, memorable fun has the reader had in the last two years?
  • What has the reader created that is a new personal accomplishment in the last two years?
  • With how many people has the reader had face-to-face conversations today (telephone, text and Wi-Fi Facetalk don’t count)?.
  • How long has it been since the reader went swimming or hiking or just going somewhere new?
  • Has the reader stepped forward to help another’s need in the last two years?
  • Over the last two years, has the reader regularly performed physical exercises?

Mariner acknowledges that evolution will have its way but go out fighting – the reader  actually will live longer and have a good time as well.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Where is the sheepdog?

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Remember that mariner writes from a one room apartment in Chicken Little’s hen house. Current news is forbidden here. So mariner writes about whatever drifts into consciousness.

It occurs to mariner that humans are every bit the herding animal that sheep are. Why, around the world, would there be cities with millions of humans in one pasture? (Fences are imaginary boundaries called ‘borders’). Capitalist human sheep would cite the draw of profit and stability. Don’t authentic sheep do the same, looking for better pasture? Just as sheep are maintained by a shepherd with dogs trained to move the sheep for various reasons, aren’t humans maintained by governments and corporations? Where are the sheepdogs? Might they be Governors and senators? Like sheep, don’t humans have to watch out for predators . . . in human’s clothing?

There are differences. A sheep requires the space of one sheep whereas a human requires 1600 square feet, a roof, a bathroom, heat and air conditioning. A sheep eats ground cover; a human eats sheep and other food sources found in oceans, mountains, fields, corn silos and restaurants.  Another significant difference is that there are 1 billion sheep in the world whereas there are 8.1 billion humans in the world.

Has the reader noticed that humans are fond of a sheep’s outerwear? Emulating a sheep by wearing sheep’s wool clothing is quite popular.

Lastly, sheep and humans speak the same language: BAA.

Ancient Mariner

Oh Dear

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A few days ago mariner was visiting the local establishment with a relative. A point was made that saying ‘dear’ to a woman is a mild form of sexual assault, an assumption that there is more to the relationship than simple conversation. Oh dear. It is true that he likely would not address a man using ‘dear’ but the use of the word in conversation, depending on the tone of course, implies appreciation and respect – at a minimum a word of acknowledgement. Mariner asked the woman behind the counter if she objected to being called ‘dear’. She said, “No honey, you can call me dear anytime”.

Oh dear. Will ‘dear’ go the way of ‘gay’?

It seems the American language is undergoing truncation. Mariner read that the Z generation has cut the word ‘charisma’ to ‘rizz’. Everyone already knows about ‘woke’, the word describing educated democrats – what happened to ‘elite’? Before we know it, we’ll all sound like we’re from Philadelphia.

On the other hand, Donald uses vitriol in his speech to extreme, punitive ends. While his use of these words may not imply sexual assault (at least mariner doesn’t think so), he abuses the courtesy expected in any conversation. It is no wonder Donald has been ordered to cease and desist by the courts. Donald should learn how to say ‘dear’.

Ancient Mariner

The Plastic Christmas

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Mariner is just old enough to remember when an important holiday event included acknowledging the religious significance of the season. Church services and the rituals of Hanukkah and even of Kwanzaa were a not-to-be-missed event during the holidays.

Except in the most ecclesiastical circles, this is no longer the case. Why? The cultures of the entire planet seem to be melting away but nothing seems to be taking their place.

It is his speculation that participation in spiritual rituals is a personal, perhaps private experience. Rituals are for restoring order and allegiance to ‘absolute’ reality, for realigning faith in self through unity in universal holiness. He suspects that the importance of survival and continuity in daily life may be the provocation for realigning one’s life with spiritual guidelines. Each of the religions mentioned has a common thread that says “faith will make you whole”.

Yet the human experience over the decades has been one of disbursement, of dissemination, and of decreasing need for societal relationships, even with the Holy spirits; diversity has diminished the intimacy that one has with universal faith. Without spiritual judgment, the dissolution of unity has made faith less important. Metaphorically, it is as though the beans of spirituality have been run through a grinder, leaving a formless, powdered society.

Much of this feeling may be attributed to those in the Silent Generation, a generation from a culture that disappeared long ago. Still, where is the new faith? Where is the spiritual bond with the Universe that makes one whole? Is modern society a ship without a compass?

Ancient Mariner

Communal life survives

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The holiday season has begun and the town is enjoying itself with many appropriately focused activities. The willingness to volunteer is widespread. The churches, of course, are providing special dinners and services; the town has a day called “Merry on Main Street” where many commercial businesses are providing space and resources. There are locations where children can buy presents for their parents; a soup supper at the fire station; the library has Santa and Mrs. Claus; the local bank has a treat stop with cookies and other treats; there is a dance performance, and a truck and trailer that tours the streets, replete with Christmas lights and loud speakers, and a band playing Christmas carols. All volunteer.

Mariner visited a nearby town to hear a volunteer choir. The event is to support the continued survival of an old church whose architecture is historical. Those who participate provide many hours of practice and perform two shows and provide an open meal on the shore of the Mississippi River. All volunteer.

How wonderful is this reality compared to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, smart phones and Alexa, and 24 hours per day of horrific news broadcasts.

The magic comes from an honest desire from each individual to share themselves with the community. The motives are intensely apolitical and not commercial. Sharing is the spirit; a chance for individuals to share and identify with their community and its citizens.

These events are an excellent chance to get out of the house and the work rut to meet citizens in an informal and nonthreatening environment. Mariner’s use of the Cheers theme song rings true: “Every one is glad you came and everyone knows your name!

At a library sponsored Christmas dinner for its staff, Mariner met a probation officer! Mariner once was a probation officer, too (1970s). The two of us shared war stories. Now, how often does one meet a probation officer?

This communal world is really what a supposedly democratic philosophy is all about. It is locally managed, innocent, non-money-making, non-self aggrandizement that our government should be protecting. Dictatorships won’t do it; the current scary republican party won’t do it; a dysfunctional, weaponized Congress won’t do it.

Vote on behalf of your local community’s well being. The reader has an especially serious responsibility to get it right on voting day.

Ancient Mariner

Who should Sue sue?

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When Sue’s lung operation doesn’t come out right, who will she sue? The doctor? The surgeon? chatGPT? Amazon? TikTok? Maybe all of them. It’s a new issue, that of seeking damages. Doctors can blame chatGPT; surgeons can blame the AI interpretation of the MRI; Amazon can say, “we only own the hospitals – what do we know about medicine? TikTok can say 没关系  méi guānxi (it doesn’t matter), we’re Chinese. Of course chatGPT and AI tech companies will claim they were doing only what they were told to do by humans.

It is even worse in show business. Can a writer sue a deepfake movie? Humans were not involved in the process once they turned on the computer – a computer who learned to write by absorbing the writer’s style.

Then there is the public. Can a couple preparing to be married sue Google or facebook because they sold the information to wedding marketing firms and shady spammers that besieged the couple?

Should a person sue the accountant or the AI tech company whose AI robot did their taxes?

Mariner has always wondered why priests aren’t liable for marriages they consent to after consultation. Now robots can perform the service.

Who does a man sue when his sex robot dumps him?

Ancient Mariner

Do you see what I see?

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The reader should know mariner has returned to his rented one-room apartment in Chicken Little’s henhouse. News? What news? A poc of lips? What’s that? So the reader must endure whatever subject pops into mariner’s head.

What pops today is that mariner wonders what the really, really real world looks like. One of his annoying habits is to ask young children questions they must ponder but cannot answer. For example:

We have two eyes and a snail has two eyes. Do you think a snail can see television? Can they see birds flying? Did you know dogs don’t see color? Only black and white like an old photograph. Do you think the world really is black and white but our brains add colors just like when we color a coloring book? (Surprisingly the answer is yes; people’s brains add color. Let’s not go there, though, the brain and spectrum analysis is a very detailed subject).

To provide some perspective, the famous author Bill Bryson, who writes entertaining books that take the reader into a world of great detail about mundane subjects, wrote a book about the human body. He lists all the chemicals needed to create a living body. He marvels that a couple dozen chemicals can create life. If the time ever comes that you want to do something besides watch television or scroll a phone, check out “The Body – a Guide for Occupants” by Bill Bryson, 2019, Doubleday.

Bryson’s point is that a human cell isn’t really ‘alive’. It is a collection of about one million atoms that react with one another as if to simulate being alive. An analogy is watching a cartoon on television – they sure look like they’re alive.

Mariner’s focus is on what existence really looks like. Sure, the snail, the dog and humans will claim their world is the real one but perhaps not. Try to imagine the world as a collection of what atoms, protons, neutrons and electrons would look like. The measures of the five senses are a highly tailored complexity that is irrelevant to atoms and their proximity to other atoms. (Let’s not go there, though, nuclear physics can  be dreadfully boring and has no end).

The answer, certainly qualified, is reality looks like a cloud of atoms buzzing all over the place – whatever that looks like. Human dimensions don’t exist; perception doesn’t exist; .touching doesn’t play by creature rules. The real world looks like a heavy fog – a heavy fog that can bump into itself here and there making something that may be a lump of some kind or a nuclear explosion.

So, what’s news with the reader?

Ancient Mariner

 

 

More on systemic adaptation

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In the last post, mariner used the transition from cash to online as an example of how humans shift behavior because that is how everyone else does it and there is some benefit attached. Money, credit cards and online shopping are obvious systemic adaptations – even the first telephone was a systemic adaptation. However, systemic adaptation is more complex when it is political, emotional or behavioral conditioning.

For example, is the MAGA movement an example of systemic adaptation? Why has a significant portion of the citizenry modified their behavior in a very similar fashion? What happened in our society that provoked this unified behavior?

Even more subtle is the shift in attitude within the democratic party. Why did the party become elitist and forget its roots in labor? Was it because everyone was behaving that way, aka systemic adaptation?

Why is it that rural folks typically are conservative while city folks tend to be liberal? The common behavior is too precise to be an individually determined mindset. Why is there a distinct difference in assumptions when comparing a rural town, a suburb and a slum?

It turns out that systemic adaptation is the same awareness that explains how a flock of thousands of birds can swirl through the air without breaking formation. It is a common subconscious ability in any species that requires social awareness – birds, mammals and even some fish.

Giving the frontal lobes their due, conscious manipulation of the environment is a survival skill that requires conscious focus and abstract reasoning – just like beavers, mice, magpies, monkeys and apes.

But most of our survival is managed by a deeply complex subconscious machine which requires an approval before anything is decided – frontal lobes included. It is the subconscious that allows humans to behave as they do – good or bad; the subconscious mind can be flawed like anything else.

Given a rare and extremely unusual reasoning power, humans are capable of complex uses of systemic adaptation. Hence, humans, clearly a social creature, adjust their behavior in many ways (MAGA or democrat? bowling league or flower club? college graduate or service worker? engineer or poet? parent or single?) adjusting social behavior accordingly.

What has motivated mariner to ponder systemic adaptability is the paradox in the last post: Do politicians, economists, and corporations control our systemic behavior or do we as citizens allow them to do so because of our indifference – in itself a systemic adaptation?

In any case, the trope is true: birds of a feather . . . .

Ancient Mariner

 

Cash

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Right this moment, how much cash does the reader have in their pockets, wallet, etc.? Is there enough to buy supper at a fast food restaurant? Can the reader pay cash for a nice looking sweater? Ever use the cash slot at the car wash? Has the reader ever gone shopping only to discover the store is vacant but one can order online? Mariner once went to a store that had a sign: “cashless – credit card only”.

How about the grocery store that has self-checkout? Does the reader pay cash or card or wait to check out with a cashier? What would happen to our society if there were no cash? What would the reader’s net worth be if retailers held the amount of ‘cash value’ you could use instead of the government printing (creating) money? Big credit card corporations try hard to play that role today as new card features include ‘checkbook’ functions. Mariner pays cash as much as possible so that Google doesn’t know it was him; pay cash – who me? never go to that store!

Even as far back as the 1770s, Adam Smith pondered the issue of cash in governments and society. It is Adam who set the playing field for today’s rules about capitalism in several economic books including The Wealth of Nations (1776).

Brett Scott, writing in Aeon magazine, posed this question: “Do bad things like climate change, conflict and corporate greed happen because powerful politicians and CEOs construct it like that, or do they emerge in the vacuum of human agency, in the fact that nobody’s actually in control?” Mariner found the question intriguing; it is a genuine paradox. Is the world’s roiling capitalism a deliberate abuse or is it benign neglect by society?

This paradox can be applied to the cash question – Is the disappearance of cash the result of greedy politicians and corporate profit or is the disappearance of cash because folks don’t care enough to manage cash to benefit society?

Mariner has written in previous posts about the Anabaptist religions whose philosophy about money is more communal; ‘cash is shared within the community and does not belong to an individual’. That attitude certainly is the opposite of the general population’s laissez-faire about how cash is used and permits giant conglomerates to manage their personal financial value.

Mariner has a good feeling about the fact that his income is in cash and belongs to him personally.  The use is between him and his wallet, knowing that the local bank will convert his balance to cash whenever he needs it. Don’t need MasterCard, Amazon and Google telling him what to do with his cash – and keeping some of it for themselves.

Ancient Mariner

Catch up

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Greetings, Readers

Real life distractions have drawn him away from the blog. Perhaps a few catch up thoughts should be offered.

Guru passed along some thoughts. Electing Biden for the first term was the right move; his personality, leadership style and long experience in Federal Government were the right move to heal Donald’s abrasions to government operations and establish momentum in national politics. Joe has done that despite COVID, inflation, the border wars and a prejudiced Congress. He moved policy toward dealing with global warming and several discretionary programs that were important to the citizenry.

Guru believes Biden made a serious mistake when he kept Kamala Harris as Vice President. Joe has a lot of dissatisfied democrats for several reasons, the most important being what democrat will take the lead in 2024. Joe was supposed to heal and leave. In 2024, he is facing rebellion among the state parties and progressives; he is suffering generally from public opinion about his age. Further, a slowly growing rebellion is showing up in Latino citizens, who, like the MAGAs, were never made welcome in the elitist democratic party. It was Biden’s duty to create a new democratic leader for national politics. Guru believes that if Biden had made his Vice President a strong leader personality three years ago, especially if that leader had good relations with Latinos, the 2024 election would be a landslide for the democrats. Imagine if the next democratic candidate for President took the stage and said, “Hablo Español!

Amos complained most about the Federal Government being grossly incompetent when dealing with artificial intelligence, health and welfare, corporate monopolies, all global warming issues from drought in the west, flooding in the south, reduction of oil dependency, etc., and wonders why Marjorie Taylor Greene has so much influence in Republican issues.

Has anyone seen Chicken Little? Please don’t say the word ‘apocalypse’.

Ancient Mariner